And a few practical matters. Running down the day, reflections on an episode, and more.
I.
Somehow I was first awoken at 1:44 in the morning.
That’s what clocks are for: noticing such things. But I stayed asleep after that until around 5, and around the normal/usual/prescribed time I fed the cats and returned to bed.
But then somewhere around 7:30 I heard some meowing. To make a long story short, E was in the office window showing off and preening for local kids who were waiting for the school bus. It is an issue that they have no proper boundaries, that they feel that it’s okay to come right up to somebody’s windows, but that aside, it was all kind of cute, though a bit annoying. I returned to bed. A short while later, when I actually got up, I noticed that the two plants in the window had been knocked over … one on its side, the other off the sill and into the trash bin. Thanks, E.
Many many hours later I noticed one of the maintenance workers outside, but he bypassed us (we’ve had no problems since Kenny replaced the water heater that second time and, then, there were those leaks in the bathroom, but we’ve had no problems since). We assumed he went upstairs. Later I noticed the workers taking a water heater away, so it seems the one upstairs was replaced. Ms. S. and I were only wondering … did the people upstairs just move out (as in … yesterday? Today?), or was this something else. We haven’t seen our upstairs neighbor today … and she — they — thuds around loudly enough (think: pachyderm) that we would not miss her or our fears that she’s going to fall through her floor and our ceiling one day. When I took a bag of garbage to the dumpster this evening I noticed the lights off upstairs, but that means little, as many people around here to go bed early and tend to keep lights off.
Yesterday a truck was towed from the parking lot. A beige-tan affair that had been sitting there for, oh, perhaps the last year? I’m sure neither Ms. S. nor I recalls when it last moved of its own volition. It was the afternoon and we were sitting on the sofa when we heard noise outside. It did not distract us right away, but my curiosity was raised. I made some wisecrack, I then thought to myself that it sounded a bit like a vehicle being towed and wouldn’t it be funny if it was that truck, and finally I decided to get up and look out the window. And to my surprise it was that truck … already half way across the packing lot and being pulled up onto a trailer being hauled by a large pickup. That left us with a few questions. Did the apartment management finally realize that the truck hadn’t moved in a year? Or did the owner just recently move out? Did they or the owner have it towed? Was it sold? It wasn’t one of the main towing companies, as it was just a pickup with a trailer and there was no sign on it …
Last night Ms. S. came home around 11:30, though she officially got off at 11. Her similarly-named coworker comes in for the C-shift that evening and always wants to talk her ear off about … something. A complaint, a pain, whatever. Anyway, Ms. S. got home and to wind down for the evening we decided to take in (another) episode of ‘The X-Files,’ this time “Firewalker.”
She was wired when it began, and by the end her eyes were softly shutting of their own accord.
II.
“Firewalker” is an interesting episode for several reasons, one of which is how it provides a counterpart to season one’s “Ice,” also directed by David Nutter (but written by Morgan and Wong).
Treating them only as monster-of-the-week episodes, we might also want to draw in season one’s “Darkness Falls.” All three center around Mulder and Scully being drawn in to investigate situations in which people have gone missing and/or there is suspected unexpected violence. “Firewalker” and “Ice” feature scientists at research stations, “Darkness Falls” has loggers and ecoterrorists. All are set somewhat remotely, such as in the arctic, near a volcano, or deep in a forest. And in all three cases the real perpetrator, despite any human-on-human violence, is an ancient life form released into the modern world by way of our scientific curiosity or industrial meddling. The life form is tiny, there is a discussion as to whether it should be eradicated, it’s concluded that if it reached society at large it would spread rapidly and cause vast death and destruction, and in the end Mulder and Scully are the only two to leave, but only after they’ve spent time in a biohazard quarantine.
“Darkness Falls” is different in several regards. Both Mulder and Scully nearly die, and Scully is sick/injured for some time. The little bugs are a kind of mite, but are not invasive parasites. The decision seems clear to destroy them, and that failure to do so is not an option; they are already ‘loose,’ just merely contained to a small section of forest. It’s a story contemporary to the 90s and the conflicts between loggers and environmentalists. There’s a political side to it that the other episodes lack.
“Firewalker” and “Ice” are much more like straight up companion pieces, one in the cold, one in the heat. In each Mulder and Scully are given audio or video footage of violence or the results of violence involving researchers at a remote station that has gone silent. In each a parasite was found deep in the earth — in the ice, in a volcano — and its biochemistry is such that it cannot live unexposed in our environment. In “Ice” it is strongly ammonia based, in “Firewalker” silicon based. And in each the researchers and/or recovery team are infected and die, one by one. The parasite manages an indirect level of control over its victim; in, for example, “Ice” it is more direct and it also feeds off brain hormones in such a way as to increase violent tendencies. And in both it wants to spread; the infected want to leave the station and return to dense civilization.
“Ice” seems like an obvious homage to John Carpenter’s “The Thing” … there’s even an infected dog. “Firewalker” doesn’t seem to have such a clear filmic predecessor — though the fungal throat-burster channels ‘Alien’ –, but even though the two episodes are so similar that we hardly need both of them, as they present the same message and a similar plot, I’d hesitate to label “Firewalker” redundant, as in terms of character development “Ice” is a Scully episode and “Firewalker” is for Mulder. That is, the former presents Scully with her mirror image or clone, as “Firewalker” does for Mulder.
Each episode features a dominant scientific figure who is not one of the leads, played by Xander Berkley in “Ice” and Bradley Whitford in “Firewalker.” Berkeley’s Dr. Hodge is a skeptical physician and he and Scully split the lab work, but his version of skepticism leads to defensiveness and denial. In fact, there is little for Mulder to do in that episode; the intellectual legwork is Scully’s labwork. In “Firewalker” Whitford’s Trepkos is a Mulder-cognate of sorts: he is brilliant and he ‘believes’; he is Mulder driven to extremes, and Mulder attempts to piece together Trepkos’ research, even listening to a bit of recovered recording. He identifies with Trepkos, and in the end lets him wander off.
III.
This evening we had another opportunity to return to ‘The X-Files’. Earlier in the day we watched “Red Museum,” which features a weird vegetarian cult set in Wisconsin, and this is our second visit to the land of Cheese-heads in the series so far, though the mountains so clearly seen in the background establish the filming location as western Canada. Here we have a hint of mythology, as references are made to ‘Purity Control’ from the season one finale “The Erlenmeyer Flask,” and even the hit man from that episode who kills Deep Throat makes an appearance here. What it’s also similar to, though, is the third episode of this season, “Blood,” in which a secret group with an agenda conducts experiments on locals. There it was a hallucinagenic combined with subliminal messages, whereas here we have bovine growth hormone, ‘vitamins,’ and alien-derived antibodies and proteins. Both connect to agriculture and to our food supply, the former through orchards, here through cattle.
Then we had “Excelsis Dei,” which brought us Teryl Rothery as a guest actor, someone Ms. S. could recognize from “SG-1.” It’s a rather good episode with two significant issues: (1) it opens too many paths for exploration without actually investigating enough of them, and (2) its handling of the rape situation is not just laughable, it’s offensive. The former issue could be a virtue in many other situations, as what makes ‘The X-Files’ work so well frequently — like ‘LOST,’ which followed it — is that it withholds answers; it neither confirms nor comforts, and thus it leaves you feeling uneasy. But it has to at least follow the paths it presents, give a good-faith effort, but here, as evidenced by the concluding voiceover, it bit off more than it could chew, opts for telling over showing, and ends abruptly. But the actual *problem* here is how the rape that brings Mulder and Scully to the institution is handled in the first place. The task of defending and believing the rape victim is handed off to Scully, our resident skeptic who appears to get the job here because she’s a woman. Usually game Mulder instead not only is unwilling to really believe it happened — potentially credible since, as he points out, the X-Files are littered with similar phenomena that never seem to admit of physical evidence –, but he furthermore takes on Scully’s role as skeptic, attempting to poke holes in every theory she proposes, and, worse, sneers his way through the relevant scenes, almost as if it’s a joke. Only once there are other victims does he appear interested.
Tomorrow, I hope, we’ll get to “Aubrey,” which is also problematic, but which does give us Terry O’Quinn. Over breakfast today I inventoried the potatoes and potato-like things we had in the cupboard, and so Ms. S. got a big baked potato for dinner, while I took a couple of the sweet potatoes her mother gave me last month; I’ve not had to buy any since then! We also had string beans left, and so after blanching them briefly I drained and oiled them, and returned them to medium-high heat until they blistered and began to brown. A little balsamic provided some acid. Oven-roasted cauliflower rounded out the meal.
I discovered a relatively fresh lime in the refrigerator … and so I got a generous gin & tonic for ‘dessert.’
