The new movie is out. To celebrate (OK, this is a stretch) I offer this post, featuring a t-shirt I encountered when I went to see a lecture by George Takei – aka Mr. Sulu, of the original version of the series, and the subsequent movies – at the California Institute of Technology last month. The organizer wore an awesome banana-themed shirt.
Backstory on the shirt: the organizer told me that a couple of years ago, a banana scavenger hunt was held on campus. Students were required to steal as many different variations on the fruit as they could – pictures, books, or actual edible product. The garment was home-designed as a symbol of the merry adventure.
(Also: the speech was amazing. Takei is a gay-rights activist, and he told the story of how, as a boy, he was among those Japanese-Americans forcibly removed to internment camps during World War II, and how the loss of civil rights for his family was no different than it is today for gays denied the right – among others – to marriage. Somehow, Takei managed to credibly link this to the vision of the future that Star Trek – and especially Star Trek creator Gene Rodenberry – first brought to the screen in the 1960s. I completely bought it, but of course, I’m already on board, as my secret past indicates.)
And – not unbelievably, if you’re a fan – Memory Alpha, the online ST compendium of everything, actually includes TWO banana-related entries in its official encyclopedia of the nearly fifty-year-old cultural phenomenon. Here and here and here.
And yes, the film opened today. I’ve timed this post to appear literally as I’m sitting down to see it in Hollywood’s fabulous Cinerama Dome!
Nobel Prize winner Paul Krugman 
