Some months ago I made note of what I considered a startlingly oversight in the geek community - the lack of a day specifically devoted to the enjoyment and honouring of Firefly. I proposed that we (the geek community) appoint a specific day as "Shiny Day", whereby we proudly display our Browncoat roots and sing merry renditions of "The Hero of Canton". So today, the tenth anniversary of Firefly first being aired in the United States, is my inaugural Shiny Day. All Browncoats are welcome to join in this celebration.
To honour this day, I'm wearing my Browncoats t-shirt that I obtained from Quantum Mechanix, one of my first purchases from that website, along with the River Tam maquette (alas, sold out now. Sorry Browncoats). Later on, I intend to sit down with my dinner and watch Serenity, the film that kick-started my journey into the world of Firefly and by far still my favourite movie of all time.
But right now, it's time for a list. To honour the inaugural Shiny Day, here are my top ten Firefly/Serenity moments.
10. "Yeah...that went well." (Firefly, 1x11 "Trash")
For the ladies, this may have been the best way to open an episode - Nathan Fillion sitting naked on a rock in the middle of the desert. As we learn later in the episode, our dashing Captain Tightpants has lost the aforementioned pants as a result of his double-crossing snake of a "wife", Saffron. But in the immediacy of the opening of the episode...it's a brilliant hook. For me, however, it's his opening line of dialogue. "Yeah...that went well." I myself have used it on many an occasion when things have gone distinctly less than well. By far, one of the best opening moments of Firefly.
9. Too Much Hair! (Firefly, 1x07 "Jaynestown")
Firefly is full of brilliant, gigglesome moments and Shepherd Book's frizzy Einstein haircut definitely ranks among the best. While it doesn't steal the episode, it definitely steals the scenes it's in, especially our first glimpse - which was enough to make River run for a smuggling hold! According to her babbling, "his brains are in terrible danger". His brains aren't in terrible danger. Not from the hair anyway...
8. "Wash, tell me I'm pretty." (Firefly, 1x13 "Heart of Gold")
It's a brief moment but nonetheless one of my favourite lines of dialogue. Alan Tudyk and Jewel Staite's exchange is just...well...I just love it. Mostly Alan Tudyk's delivery of "Were I unwed, I would take you in a manly fashion". Wash was a wonderful character and had many, many opportunities to showcase his brilliance and shoot-off some great one-liners and for me, this is one of them. Even though it wasn't necessarily a one-liner moment.
7. The Wash-Mal Torture Argument (Firefly, 1x10 "War Stories")
Conventional logic generally holds that there's a time and a place for everything. When in the midst of being tortured by a sadistic mob boss aboard his space station, it's clearly time to discuss why your Captain ordered his first mate not to marry the pilot. An order she disobeyed, naturally. While a little harrowing, seeing our beloved characters tortured, their argument over Mal's positions on shipboard romances provide genuine humour and much-needed levity to this slightly disconcerting moment.
6. The Hero of Canton (Firefly, 1x07 "Jaynestown")
"Jaynestown" makes another appearance on our list, but this time it's the Hero of Canton. The concept of Jayne Cobb being a hero and...well...the song. The Hero of Canton, the Man They Call Jayne. The episode takes an incredible, surreal turn when the crew, happily minding their own business in a bar in Canton, discover through the medium of song that Jayne Cobb, the selfish, brutish and questionably loyal "public relations" man is Robin Hood-style hero. The subtext the episode has about the truth behind heroics is great and all, but it's the song that steals the show.
5. "Also, I can kill you with my brain." (Firefly, 1x11 "Trash")
Our second entry for "Trash" is one of my favourite River Tam moments ever. After Jayne has gave his spine a bit of a thrashing, he's treated by Simon, who learned through River's mind-reading that Jayne sold them out to the Alliance two episodes before, on the planet Ariel. Simon proceeds to give Jayne a speech on how he (Simon) will never harm him as long as he's a patient, then leaves. River lingers a moment, then utters her line in a way that approaches cute...if the threat weren't pretty damn real and mildly terrifying. Especially after what we saw her do in "War Stories" with one pistol and her eyes closed...
4. "If you take sexual advantage of her..." (Firefly, 1x06 "Our Mrs Reynolds")
Partly, it's the speech Shepherd Book gives Mal, but mostly it's what's in the picture. That lingering moment with Book poking out of the passageway, giving Mal one final reminder of "the Special Hell", before promptly disappearing again. It makes me giggle no end. But we can't forget the speech that started it all, where Book warns him of the special level of Hell he will be going to if he sleeps with his "wife", Saffron. One of Shepherd Book's finest moments.
3. "What was that?" (Serenity - Big Damn Movie)
The movie has drawn to a close. A patched up Serenity flies off through storm clouds and into space amidst wonderfully uplifting music. It hurtles off into the Black to continue its adventures with a new lease of life, a fresh lick of paint, all fixed and ready to...oh wait, something falls off! It flies towards the screen, we fade to black and Mal's voice asks "What was that?" A perfect echo of his first line of the movie (where, again, something flies unceremoniously off the ship) and...just the best end to the movie. Pure Joss Whedon brilliance. One of the reasons I loved this movie so much - this final moment, for me, seems to epitomise everything about Firefly: no matter what, there's always a catch, something's always falling apart, but Serenity never stops flying.
2. "Curse your sudden but inevitable betrayal!" (Firefly, 1x01 "Serenity")
It may cause some controversy that this moment isn't number one, but...well, I'll explain later. But nonetheless, it was a close race as Wash's introductory scene is pure genius. Nothing sums up Hoban Washburne better than this scene. I want to make a descent paragraph out of this but...well, it speaks for itself. Pure, solid gold genius.
1. The First Rule of Flying (Serenity - Big Damn Movie)
I'm a hopelessly sappy, sentimental romantic. I hold my hand up and admit this proudly. For this reason, my favourite ever Firefly/Serenity moment is Mal's final speech, delivered to River Tam. And I hold to the belief that Mal has it right. "Love. You can learn all the math in the 'Verse, you take a boat in the air you don't love she'll shake you off just as sure as the turn of the worlds. Love keeps her in the air when she oughta fall down, tells you she's hurting before she keens. Makes her home." I can deliver this line with far, far too much heartfelt conviction. And soon, I shall have an awesome print with that quotation on it. Thank you, QMx!
So there you have it for my inaugural Shiny Day. I'm off to cook then watch Serenity. I aim to misbehave :)
"What's so unpleasant about being drunk?"
"Ask a glass of water."
These words are spoken between Ford Prefect and Arthur Dent, while about to travel into hyperspace onboard a ship of the Vogon constructor fleet that has just demolished the Earth. It is one of many, many genius quotations from a book I have a great fondness for and could quite happily quote all day long. And it would be quite fitting to do so today. For today...
...is Towel Day!
I've mentioned it before, during my assertion that we should have a Shiny Day in honour of Firefly. It is a day to honour Douglas Adams, author of The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency as well as their many, many sequels. Two weeks after his tragic passing in 2001, fans of Hitch Hiker's decided that every 25th May from then on should be Towel Day, a day to pay tribute to the brilliance of Douglas Adams. Traditional fashion dictates that Towel Day be marked by the wearing of one's towel all day.
Hence why mine is on my hip, dangling like a gun in a holster, where it will remain for the rest of the day.
This is the essence of Towel Day.
That and I have the 1980 TV series of The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy playing in the background.
I will quoting along with it all day.
But I thought I would also talk about The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy. Much like my journey through the world of tea, there's been something of a journey for me here, with The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy. Rather fitting, given its title.
My journey began somewhere in 2005. I say somewhere. It was around May, in fact. This was when my GCSE exams were happening. I'm pretty sure this was the first time I had encountered Hitch Hiker's, though I may have come across it before. My mother had come across a long time before and she had the "Trilogy in Four Parts" version of the books (I have the hardcover Trilogy in Five Parts). Anyway, it was on BBC2, quite late at night and back in the day, I was a really nocturnal creature. Still am mostly, but work tends to mean I go to bed early.
Anyway, GCSEs, BBC2 and Hitch Hiker's. A combination of things that most of my teachers probably wouldn't approved of. Especially since my earliest and clearest memory of watching Hitch Hiker's was the day before my English Literature exam - an exam I had completely failed at during my mock exams the previous year. I say completely failed. I was given an E. My teacher had the distinct impression that this wasn't the grade I should've received. With that in mind, I probably shouldn't have been up late, having cram revised that day, watching TV.
But watch it I did. And thoroughly enjoy it I did. It was one of those things that I kept catching on TV now and again for the next few years. I even borrowed my mother's copy of the book. It is one of the only books that has ever made me laugh out loud. I mean, there are points in books that make me giggle, those that make me gasp at their twists, then there's The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy. No other book has made me laugh so much. jPod (Douglas Coupland) came close, but it couldn't match the hysterics Hitch Hiker's reduced me to.
The hysterics I was reduced to wasn't the only effect Hitch Hiker's had on me. Around 2006/2007, well...there was this girl. It's a story my friends have heard a thousand times. But this particular incident led to an intriguing story being written. It goes something like this. Back in the day, I had codenames for girls I liked. Around 2006/2007, I had discovered James Cameron's Dark Angel and used X5 barcode designations as codes for these girls...this is not entirely a good story the more I say it, but oh well, it's in the past now.
Anyway...
It had reached the point where I'd explained the X5 thing to so many people that it wasn't so much of a secret code anymore. So, to preserve the secrecy of my crush on X5-718 (my school friends, if any of them are reading, should remember who this was), I wrote a completely random paragraph that contained within it all the elements that constituted the girl's name. Anyone who read it would just think it was something completely random. It was perfect. And somehow, it became the basis for a story I called "A Series of Universally Random Events" - essentially my version of Hitch Hiker's. Nowhere near as epic in length or funny in content, but oh well. It was something and people did find it funny, which was another something.
In 2008, I acquired the Trilogy in Five Parts of Hitch Hiker's. And it was probably around May that year that I was reading it, sitting in the window of my first year room, legs dangling out (I was on the first floor), vaguely enjoying the sunshine while laughing incessantly. Around the same time I bought the 1980 TV series on DVD (the same DVDs I'm half-watching now).
It wasn't until 2010 that I first observed Towel Day. I was working at TGI Friday's at the time. It was quite a quiet Tuesday. I had my towel hooked on my apron, on the side, gunslinger-style - the very same style I wear it today. The presence of the towel caused much, much confusion but after a quick explanation, everyone pretty much just accepted it and I went about my work. The next year, I had long since left TGI Friday's and was solely working at Boston Tea Party. I had checked and triple-checked that no one would have an issue with me wearing a towel to work, so all but one of my colleagues knew I was going to be wearing a towel. And no customers really questioned it.
No one tends to question the towel.
So this has been my random babble about Towel Day and The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy. I hope it's made sense and that everyone has a wonderful Towel Day, Glorious 25th May or Geek Pride Day, depending which geek holiday you're observing today.
We return here to the wonders of Joss Whedon quotation after the discovery of a quite astonishing fact. Through conversation and conspiracy with Thief, it was discovered that there is no such event as Shiny Day. Now, I don't know entirely what to make of this. I imagine if I delved into the deep underworld of the Internet I would find some kind of Firefly/Serenity commemorating day, but...I mean...no Shiny Day? What madness is this?
I'm going to postulate some things here for a minute. First, Firefly isn't really, truly gone. Here I refer to another day event, Towel Day, that commemorates the awesome of the late Douglas Adams. Every May 25th since his tragic passing in 2001, fans of Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy and Adams' other works take a towel with them everywhere they go. I have done this two years in a row, both times taking the aforementioned item of bathroom-wear into my place of work and causing much amusement amongst my colleagues who hadn't a clue why I had a brightly coloured towel tucked in with my apron. I very much plan on doing it this forthcoming May 25th, too. Might even ensure that photographic evidence on hand as well.
So yes, Firefly isn't gone. Joss is still most definitely Boss, the impending release of The Avengers (or, for some reason in the UK, Avengers Assemble) will go and prove that. The cast are still around - Alan Tudyk being AWESOME at every he does and Nathan Fillion being ever so ruggedly handsome in Castle. So in that vain, there's really no reason to be commemorating something that isn't lost, not in the eyes of fans anyway.
Now as I said earlier, I may be overlooking the fact that there is an alternatively named day that commemorates Firefly and Serenity, but...it's not called Shiny Day. And I think that's just a little bit wrong...here's my case.
Shiny. It's a beautiful, versatile(ish) word. It has many, many real world applications and has such pleasant connotations that instead of saying of "okay" or "great", an expression of "Shiny!" can brighten someone's whole day. There's also phrases such as "Shiny, let's be bad guys" and "Everything's shiny, Captain" (particularly useful when pieces of your ship are breaking off).
The gist of this is, if no one's guessed already, "shiny" is an awesome word and one cannot honour it or its many uses without of course honouring its origin, the beautiful and wonderful show Firefly and the Big Damn Movie, Serenity. So I propose that, for 2012, we, the loyal Browncoats, establish Shiny Day - a day to wear our long coats of a brownish colour that we bought on sale, to say "Everything's shiny, not to fret" when things are blowing up around you and "Shiny, let's be bad guys" when shenanigans and capers are afoot. My suggestions for the precise date for Shiny Day are as follows:
- September 22 - In 2005, this was the date of Serenity's premiere in the United States.
- October 7 - Same year, only this time it was the UK premiere of Serenity.
- September 20 - In 2002, the original US airdate of Firefly.
- June 23 - birthday of Firefly creator Joss Whedon.
- March 27 - birthday of Nathan Fillion, everyone's favourite loveable rogue starship captain, Malcolm Reynolds.
- June 2 - birthday of Jewel Staite, the most loveable damn mechanic in the whole 'Verse and most frequent user of the term "shiny".
So there you have it, fellow Browncoats - Shiny Day. Who else is up for it?
