It was 39 years ago today...

In the USA, anyway. I've read that Star Trek premiered a day or two earlier in Canada, but it's an American show, we can go with the American premiere as the official anniversary.

It's been strangely interesting watching a couple of threads on the TrekBBS. I'm used to clueless people who have no interest in or understanding of the original Star Trek but consider themselves Star Trek fans. But clueless people who are interested in the original Star Trek only and don't want any sign of any other Trek series tainting their original series novels? People who refuse to acknowledge that Paramount, not Pocket, owns Star Trek and decides what can be done in the tie-ins? People who've read one recent book going on about how much the recent books all suck? People ignoring the existence of New Frontier, SCE, Vanguard, Gorkon, Articles of the Federation, etc, so they can go on about the lack of diversity in the current Trek novels -- because the only diversity that matters is TOS novels that pretend the other series never happened?

It's not 1987 any more. I thought the diehard "There is no Star Trek but Star Trek, and James T. Kirk is its captain" purists had mostly gafiated or died off by now. Maybe someone should call an anthropologist to study this microsubculture before it dies of collective apoplexy.

(Now playing: Colin Newman, "Image," A - Z.)