Patrick Stewart's Love Shack

Presented on eBay...

eBay item 2397756436 (Ends 28-Jul-04 16:39:42 BST) - STAR TREK APARTMENT

...and so that we are very clear, I do not lurk through eBay, scrounging for Star Trek memorabilia, I was directed there by my news crawler from The Register. Star Trek Apartment $1M crawled across the top of my screen, buried between Bush to Sign Anti-Phishing Bill and Toshiba to Unveil TV-Capable Laptop.

Of course, my immediate reaction was, Wha' canna' this be, cap'n? I read the article, mildly amused. The article went on for a few hundred words, describing the details of the apartment in as newsworthy-terms as possible. I paused at the phrase convicted science fiction fan to consider the penal implications. Slow day at The Register, I thought. Then, idly I clicked the embedded link to eBay.

I stared at the screen, stunned. A Conradian voice in my mind began to murmur, "The horror. The horror."

My lips pursed. I glanced at the calendar to see if it was, in fact, April Fool's Day. Nope, Bastille Day, and the French, as far as I know, are not big on practical jokes, nor - if they were big on practical jokes - would they seem prone to execute elaborate ones in Leicestershire. As far as I know, the French prefer to pretend that Leicestershire doesn't exist at all. This is not to say that the French have anything against Leicestershire personally or that Leicestershire has, accidently or on purpose, offended the French in the past. It's just that the French prefer to pretend that anyplace outside of France doesn't exist. It's nothing personal.

Once the little Joseph Conrad stopped murmuring, or at least decided to wander off to the mental teapot for a refreshing jolt of really hot tea, the other parts of my brain began scrambling up to my eyes to take a peek.

The lower brain functions, who are quite small and scaly, had to continuously hop up and down to peep outside. They began to wonder if any crew would come with the flat. The hungrier parts of the brain, much larger than the others, nudged the lower functions out of the way. They began to wonder about the kitchen and if the tea would be really hot. Finally, some of the imaginary neurons kicked in, standing as is their wont at the back of the mind and shouting their comments forward. They began to amuse themselves, and anyone else who was within earshot, which, inside a skull is really just about everyone anyway, with the idea of what it would be like to have this flat on Changing Rooms. "This transporter pad has got to go.", they minced speculatively.

Finally, Little Joseph returned with cognitive portions of my brain and his cup of really hot tea. He shooed the other thoughts and processes back to their places, pulled up a very comfortable chair, and stared out the windows of my eyes for a long moment.

Yup, we thought to ourselves, seeing is believing.

I began to wonder who would actually buy it. First, the person must be able, obviously, to afford it. At $1M, this easily removed the majority of prospective buyers from the market. Second, they would have to really like Star Trek. No, strike that, they might be very rich with a obsessive, destructive hatred of all things Trek. Such a person might desire to buy it and destroy it, piece by piece, inch by inch, as if exorcising the very existence of Star Trek from his own and our collective racial memory. Someone like Wil Wheaton, for example. Or maybe Patrick Stewart.

An interesting thing about this whole subject is that I, despite all appearances to the contrary, I am deeply ambivalent about Star Trek and all things Star Trek-y. True, as a young boy, I spent an inordinate amount of time watching original the Star Trek series. True, William Shatner comes to me in visions. True, I have been taken to one Star Trek convention, but I did that out of pure curiosity, the same curiosity that drives one to visit the zoo. And, true, when I was in Las Vegas with a large group of friends and family, I visited the Star Trek Experience, where I seriously debated the purchase of an orignal show communicator prop used (and signed) by William Shatner. I did so not because of the Trek-ness of the thing, but because of my deep and abiding love of theater props. So, despite such evidence to the contrary, I do not, have not, and will not ever consider myself a trekkie, trekker, or whatever such devotees call themselves.

But the truly fascinating thing is the Brain and his trick. Though he has some fondness for the campiness of the original series, the Brain despises all Star Trek after that. He loathes the Next Generation and its Love Boat in Space themes. Captain Janeway renders him comatose and Captain Archer sends him into apoplexy. Still the Brain, despite all of his well-tuned disrelish of all modern Trekdom, can, unerringly and before the opening credits roll, describe the entire plot on any Next Generation episode.

The fact that he can do this bewilders and deeply disturbs the Brain. He is not sure how he gained the ability, as he has never willingly sought to view Next Generation episodes himself. But, during the late eighties, the Brain and I, along with other friends, gathered each Sunday night for dinner and a little television or movie watching. I generally cooked for the group, which placed me in the kitchen from the hours of 6-8 P.M. While I cooked, the rest of the gathering would watch whatever was on TV at that moment. This was almost always, as you probably have now guessed, the Next Generation. As we met every Sunday night for years, the Brain managed to capture through osmosis every episode of the series while I, busy and distracted with preparing dinner, merely snatched a minute or two here and there from the shows.

After considering this, I decided I'd never tell the Brain about the Star Trek apartment on eBay. He couldn't afford it and I'd hate to disappoint him.