The Second Shooter

This is a random little sketch I wrote awhile back, upon learning a new vocabulary word and determining that Aaron Sorkin could probably milk that moment for a solid minute of airtime. I decided to do the job for him. I'm pretty sure I'll never have reason to use this sketch in anything, so I'll share it here.

ONE: So I was reading this book about the genealogy of pygmies in the Pacific Northwest –

TWO: You were reading a book about the genealogy of pygmies in the Pacific Northwest?

ONE: Yes.

THREE: There are pygmies in the Pacific Northwest?

TWO: Genealogically.

THREE: Ah.

ONE: Don’t you want to ask me why I was reading about pygmies in the Pacific Northwest?

THREE: I rather assumed you were attending a midget convention in Seattle.

TWO: They prefer “little people.”

THREE: I prefer supermodels, but we can’t have everything.

ONE: Well the library sent me the wrong book from the thing.

TWO: You meant to read about the genealogy of slightly larger people, then?

ONE: No, I wanted the biography of the man who invented paperclips.

THREE: I can see the confusion.

TWO: Why does the library even have books about the genealogy of pygmy paperclip inventors? Who reads that?

THREE: He does.

ONE: No one does, that’s why they’re in the book thing.

TWO: The book thing.

ONE: The book depository.

TWO: Are they all planning to assassinate John Kennedy?

THREE: That’s repository.

ONE: What?

THREE: Texas Book Repository. The word’s repository, not depository.

ONE: No, I think it’s depository.

THREE: No.

ONE: No, it’s depository. It’s where you deposit books.

THREE: No, it’s where you reposit… Well okay that doesn’t make sense, but that’s still the word.

TWO: Actually, it’s both.

ONE: What?

TWO: I just looked it up. Depository and repository are synonyms.

THREE: Who thought that was a good idea?

TWO: Probably somebody got it wrong once and was too embarrassed to correct it.

THREE: So he declared the other word a synonym?

TWO: Yup.

THREE: I didn’t know you can do that.

TWO: You can’t. This guy had enough books that he needed a freaking deposit-reposit-thing, though, so he was probably pretty important.

THREE: You know what I’d like?

TWO: What?

THREE: A book suppository.

ONE: …ew.

TWO: Well, you could more literally tell someone to shove a book up their ass.

THREE: And it would certainly make it easier to cram for a literature exam.

ONE: Frankly I prefer the old-fashioned method.

TWO: Studying?

ONE: Osmosis. Now excuse me – I need to go take a nap on top of my copy of Pygmies Of The Pacific Northwest.

THREE: Okay, but if you try my way? Don’t return it to the library.

Thoughts on 45 years in Time and Space

Had my second piece in io9 today - a news story on the recently released BBC documents detailing the creation of Doctor Who, 45 years ago. You can check it out here: The BBC Tried To Ruin Doctor Who - Before It Even Began.

45 years ago this Sunday, the first episode of Doctor Who was transmitted in Great Britain. This was the day after the Kennedy assassination - which is to say, by some measures, the first day of modernity. The beginning of The Present Day. Death of innocence and all that jazz - and no doubt the tendency of public school editions of history textbooks to cut off right around the Kennedy assassination has something to do with this as well.

For me, though, the dividing line is not about the socio-political implications of 1963. It's just the dividing line, that's how it is. Before 1963 is the past. After 1963 is the real world. And Doctor Who, fittingly enough, straddles that hazy line between yesterday and today.

Watching "An Unearthly Child" for the first time as strictly a 2005 revival fan, it's not immediately apparent that this is the same show we love and obsess over now. Sure, there's a police box in a junkyard, and a young girl is calling an older white dude "Doctor." But the control room is unrecognizably groovy, and William Hartnell bears little resemblance to our modern Doctors in both appearance and performance.

And more importantly, it just feels different - the pacing, the direction, the slightly horrifying moment when you realize that this Doctor prefers to kidnap his companions, rather than politely ask them aboard. It's old and creaky and dreadfully British. It is, essentially, alien.

But then this man called the Doctor hits the dematerialization circuit. And the moment you hear that unmistakable, unchanged groan of ancient engines - the familiar and fantastic thrill of the TARDIS, our TARDIS, in this program broadcast half a century ago - it feels just a little bit like time travel.