Alan Catlin- Three Poems

Venus Fly Traps

Remember that original Star Trek episode

where the Enterprise has rescued a tribe

of inter-stellar hippies. Not sure where

they came from, or what the thinking was

behind this truly insipid idea, or what

made someone think it would be a good plan

to transport these folks to some Eden place,

being hawked by the incredibly obnoxious

charismatic leader.  When the hippie tribe got

to their destination it was supposed to be all

peace, love, and fornication, the latter being

what Kirk was all about, so off they go

searching for the planet. Maybe there were Di-lithium

crystals involved, there always were, somehow.

(and what were Di-lithium crystals anyway?)

It must have been the last season when everyone

knew the series was going to be cancelled:

scripts and idea were getting pretty thin

(remember “Trouble with Tribbles”?) Let’s face it,

there was just so many times Spock could raise

that eyebrow and look skeptical and he was clearly

straining facial muscles during some of those episodes.

What was absolutely clear was: Mr. Roddenberry’s

opinion of the youth culture and social upheavals

of the 60’s, which was neither here nor there,

really, and ultimately, maybe he was right. 

Naturally, when the hippies find their planet

and everyone is beamed down, it doesn’t

take but a minute to find out that Eden is

actually a snake pit.  First an apple poisons the

eater, one bite is all it takes, then the inviting,

sparkling stream, turns out to be acidic, burning

all who touch it, and all that lush vegetation conceals

huge Venus Fly traps, and, maybe, worst of all,

there are no electrical outlets to plug in all their

musical instruments for impromptu Woodstock

Music Festivals. Everyone is complete bummed

and then they die, just like in real life.

                        Robots

Back in the golden age of science fiction as put

(Not Asimov, I Robot….) forth by the World’s Fairs

in 1964 /65, when we were supposed  to be embarking

into an age of great new labor saving devices  and fantastic                                                                        

technology. And look what we got: Computers.

Still, back then, Dow Chemical could proclaim,

with a straight face, that this was a time of, “Better living

through chemistry.” Actually it was a boon

time for the making of napalm, but we’re not

supposed to remember that. Hey, we would believe

just about anything.  How else can you explain

the popularity of such TV shows as: The Jetsons

and, the Godawful, Lost in Space, featuring the robot

with no name. It is not to difficult to connect the robot

with exact contemporary:  the Man with No Name,

Clint Eastwood trilogy. You‘d think Robot with No Name,

should have been called Robbie, right? “You know nothing,

Will Robinson.” might be appropriate dialogue here,

followed by, “Danger, Danger, Danger” (always repeated three                                                      

times) which happened something like every five minutes in 

each episode due to that evil twerp Dr Smith.

Oh, that Dr. Smith, words cannot describe how much

we loathed him. But we loved that Robot, despite his

being, laughably simple, sort of like Lassie in tin foil, two

legs instead of four, and pincers he could use to pick stuff up

with. Otherwise, well, kids in high school these days build

more interesting robots that do ten times as much as that

state of the Art piece of rubber and tin. Plus he had no

personality like say, R2 D2. Now, It is almost impossible to                                                            

believe that “Lost in Space” and “2001 A Space Odyssey”

are exact contemporaries. Hal or The Robot with No Name,

which would you prefer  on an intellectual scale of 1 to 10?

It boggles the mind  that this series has been remade as a movie                                                      

and again as a  series and that there is a rumor of yet another

series in production.  And another  movie. Are we really that                                                          

stupid? We must be.  After all, we’re all on board with cameras                                                      

everywhere, as a good thing, and instead of living in the age of                                                      

Marx and Coca Cola, as Godard asserted was what the 60’s

were all about, we are living in the age of Facebook,

NSA constant surveillance, and marketing profiles that make

us into personalized ad targets rather than human beings.

And what’s crazier yet, we willingly give up vital information

without even being asked. Orwell was right but he was

off by a few years.

            Time Machines

Begin and end with H.G. Wells, though most

people these days only know the novel through

that cheesy movie made way back in the 60’s.

There is one aspect of that movie that cannot be

denied: it set the low bar standard for devices. 

That particular machine looked like one of those

take your picture machines that used to be everywhere

before everyone had a cell phone with a camera, sans

the curtain.  Given what selfies have become, it makes

one long for those machines, but that’s another story. 

The hero of the movie, Rod Taylor, didn’t have much

to work with, but he did keep finding himself propelled

through a blurry time warps into the past where he had

many, so-called adventures.  Still, the machine he had

at his disposal wasn’t nearly as flimsy as the cardboard

control room Flash Gordon had! Between that, and

the sad excuses for ray guns old Flash had, it’s a wonder

Buster Crabbe could keep a straight face while working

on the set. And those early state of the art TV

monitors.  Brings you back. Makes you think of those

early K-Pro Computers with their double sided,

double density floppy disks, post card seized monitors,

incredibly hard-on-the-eyes green lettering, and

that heart beat cursor that could give an epileptic

actual fits. But it had like 400 something k memory

and easy to remember commands that make you long

for the good old days every time a new version of

Windows is released. Still, the Time Machine movie

wasn’t nearly as bad as the sleazy, maybe even,

daft “Island of Doctor Moreau” movie with Marlon Brando

clearly under the influence of, well, something.

And then there was “Slaughterhouse Five”  which shows

the perils of mucking about in time could bring:

you could end up in a disaster film with every aging,

has been star on the decline, or worse, a young

Joan Collins.  Better to imagine an area where Wells,

Conrad, Henry James and Stephen Crane were virtual

neighbors.  What they could have done if they had

worked together. What Crane might have done of he

lived another ten years to the ripe old age of say, 40.