Welcome to the Melrose Place Update. This week you get two Updates for the price of one! That's right, two steaming Updates with your choice of toppings delivered fresh to your mailbox; absolutely free! Think of it as a social commentary family aid package. And for a limited time, get additional commentary for a buck; that's right, commentary for a buck! The Melrose Place Update: how do we think of such things!
It is high school, and I sit at the home of my advisor; a trusted confidante and friend, if it is possible to truly befriend a teacher. A teacher is a god, creating new worlds for the student and glasses for the blind. An advisor is a leader, guiding and interpreting for those who cannot see. We discuss technology and life, the past and the distant future. The conversation swerves toward a certain person and I smile, cryptically, and continue scratching the dog. I never understood the warning in the words.
Three months after crossing the Rubicon, Caesar ruled all of Italy, portions of Spain, and began to set his sights on distant lands. His bold manoeuvre skilfully read contemporary political and social pressures, but now Caesar worried that someone was reading his mail. First Century Rome did not have the luxury of satellite communications, high-speed digital networks or even a telephone. Communications relied on raw physical transportation; someone had to take the information from sender to receiver and that someone better be loyal.
Initially, messages were verbal and the messenger needed only fleet feet, a good memory and the sender's trust. When security and message size became a factor, Caesar resorted to written missives. Unfortunately, Rome was not China where only a few understood written language; the possibility of an enemy intercepting a critical message still kept Rome's military machine awake at night.
To circumvent this, Caesar shifted the letters in his messages three to the right; "A" became "D", "B" became "E" and so on. To a casual observer, the message was garbled, yet the receiver just had to shift the letters back to read the text. If the message was pilfered, its content remained secure (so long as no one deduced the shift.) While not the first historical example of cryptography, Caesar gave birth to contemporary Western cryptography.
The history of cryptography is as fascinating as the methods contrived to secure information. Cryptography is far more than a word coming before cryptorchidism in the dictionary, it is a vast industry filled with colourful, and often paranoid characters. And it is an industry that promises to shape the next evolution of computer technology.
Cryptography drove computer development in the years following World War II. In 1946, James Pendergrass reported to the U.S. military on a new calculating machine called "ENIAC" designed at the University of Pennsylvania by Eckert and Mauchly. Computing machines, Pendergrass wrote, could lead new advances in encrypting sensitive government communications, as well as decrypting foreign messages. Portions of the Pendergrass report are still classified.
The National Security Administration (NSA or "No Such Agency") manages the government cryptography mechanism; widely-accepted estimates place the NSA as the largest employer of mathematicians in the United States as well as the largest single purchaser of computer equipment with a budget greater than the Central Intelligence Agency. As keeper of the cryptographic keys, this agency faces the delicate task of defending American security while deciphering foreign communications.
Our electric environment generates and records obscene amounts of information, yet it also provides tools to sift and manage that information far beyond our abilities a short generation ago. As Professor McLuhan reports, "When information is brushed against information, the results are startling and effective", [The Medium is the Massage, p76- 78]. It is the commingling of information that defines, or reveals, the individual; facts that by themselves are worthless yet together are invaluable. The possibilities are alluring yet frightening. It is the high school dance floor once again and I gaze across the room, wondering with dread and anticipation.
Over a few days, someone can sift through your household garbage and extract bank account numbers, charge card slips, receipts and personal identification information; the essence of a modern individual. Your social security number, used for proof-of-identity by banks, is a common account number for video rental stores, insurance agencies and utility companies. Your Visa card leaves an audit trail metres long, with personal purchase records, balances and transaction histories. Cellular phones track their position relative to cell receivers; rudimentary triangulation with this data can verify your location, in real-time, to within a few hundred feet in the city, a mile or two in the country. In the electric world, someone can track your movements, your purchases, your activities and your personal information. Just ask Tonya Harding.
Palmer Woodward sits in jail, thanks to a concerted law- enforcement effort tracking his financial actions and business dealings. Last season Billy was found by a credit reporting agency looking for an old debt. Michael tried to launder personal assets away from Jane to no avail. In these cases, the information network was fairly shallow and served noble legal purposes; in a few years, the labyrinth will go deeper and farther.
Just how deep and how far individuals, corporations and government agencies should be allowed to go raises many interesting moral dilemmas over information access and control. But as information moves from paper to electron, these dilemmas must be addressed. In the next Update, we'll take a closer look at one arena of the privacy debate: digital cash. The current proposals offer tempting control over personal finances as well as ultimate convenience. Yet they also present grave dangers to personal freedom.
Caesar's simple cipher camouflaged his military intentions. As a result, he maintained the element of surprise and won battles through superior strategy and planning. Two thousand years later we face a similar conflict. The message is our battle plan for life, how we approach and react and exist in the world. And at the core lie obscure mathematical theories and cryptic algorithms designed to shroud information within confusion, sights within sounds, a smell within a touch. How opaque we make the shroud remains to be seen.
The music fades and the lights dim. Trust is an empty chalice, a sacred elegy of hollow words to a past that is long passed. Ex cathedra.
- ian
Yum, yum, a week full of delectable dialogue and palatable plots! Robert gets nailed, figuratively and literally, Amanda trips and Jo falls. All in all, another wild week at Melrose Place.
The fun starts when Michael blackmails Sidney to send one of her hooking chums down to San Diego for the Last Temptation of Robby the Wonder Lawyer. Her mission: get the lad in bed, and get it on tape. No problem for a seasoned professional, right?
"Diane" shows up at Robert's hotel, and plays the lonely woman looking for some innocent dinner conversation. Unfortunately, faster than you can say "How about them Padres!", she steps up to the plate and belts a line drive right at Robert's groin. Home run! Robert is toasted beyond belief, thanks to an ample helping of wine, and sheepishly follows this un-virtuous vixen as a lamb to the slaughter. Of course Michael gets the tape, Diane gets her money, Jane gets a package in the mail, and Robert gets crucified by a very- cross Jane.
Amanda and Allison swap personalities when the FBI starts harassing Amanda at work; guess who's the harried harebrain now? Bruce, the Boss O' Bosses suggests Amanda take a vacation, so she heads off to Hawaii with Supreme Surfer Dude Jake caught in her undertow. All hell breaks loose when Amanda calls the office and learns Allison is nosing into her "Mountain Togs" account. This Cannot Be, so Amanda flies back to L.A. and delivers a stinging dressing down to Allison, only to find herself castigated by her boss. Turnabout is fair play at Melrose Place.
Allison, "Psycho-Sensitive Wimp", bags out of bagging Amanda's butt, and calls a truce. Amanda backs off on taking the account back, [no doubt realising the political implications with the Higher-Ups], but assures Allison that she is an Old Testament God: There Will Be No Forgiveness If Allison Screws Up This Account. Anyone taking bets on Allison screwing up?
Jo continued her "slow" relationship with Reid, bedding him before the third commercial break. [A long time in Melrose Place Relationship years.] Reid continues his random behaviour; pointing "empty" guns at Jo and weirding out at a marina. On the marina trip, he schmoozes over all the rough spots by surprising Jo with a romantic dinner on the boat he now captains. Jo, still searching for a good definition of "dunderhead", falls into this sexual snare and wakes up the next morning tucked between the sheets of a new co- dependence. Where's Stuart Smalley when you need a sense of self worth?
Speaking of which, Matt is still stumbling around looking for a plot...
This week I delve back into the Pandora's Box of Melrose Place Update reader mail and discover this fascinating question from Liz, who writes to us from Palo Alto, California. Her letter reads:
"Dear Dr. Ferreud: Doesn't Billy look like some person who got stuck while morphing Andrew Shue into a horse? I always expect him to whinny and shake that awful mane of his.
Sincerely, Liz."
Dear Liz: After examining the recent episodes, I can only concur with your observation: Andrew Shue is indeed a man-horse. His tousled mane certainly resembles that of a horse and his grossly exaggerated head movements suggest he studied acting technique under Mr. Ed. Of course, Mr. Shue's equine similarities pale when compared next to those of Tori Spelling from "Beverly Hills 90210".
The horse analogy is an interesting one, the horse being a prominent symbol throughout Western cultural history. From eschatological theology we find the four horsemen of the apocalypse; the red horse, white horse, dark horse, and pale horse. The dark horse, certainly most representative of Mr. Shue's general colouring, indicates hunger within its Biblical context. Billy does exhibit a propensity for constant eating, and his sexual appetite is only eclipsed by Michael's. His soul also hungers for true peace, although that goal seems unattainable so long as he remains with Allison. Despite this evidence, Spelling's lack of previous Christian apocalyptic imagery would suggest Billy is not to be interpreted as one of the four horsemen.
I feel Billy is more of a centaur. The centaurs were half-man and half-horse, known for violence [perhaps throwing computers against walls], drunkenness [wild parties with Jake at Shooters] and lust [sexual conquests like Amanda, Allison, Marcy, Dawn, etc.] Centaurs also held a traditional allegiance to Dionysus, the Greek god of wine and wild debauchery. Mythological symbolism has been used before at Melrose Place, and certainly would not be out of place here.
Your expectation of Billy's imminent "whinny" is disturbing. A horse's whinny is a prolonged neigh, or cry, typically indicating some level of anguish or excitement. Now Dionysus inspired several female cults, commonly called the "Bacchantes" who threw wild spring celebrations. These parties, or "Bacchanalia", were often accompanied by loud crying and shrieking, not unlike the equine cries you refer to. Thus, your inadvertent slip leaves me with no other conclusion than you are an agent of the Bacchantes and submitted this letter in a brazen attempt to win publicity for that group. For shame!
As such, I am overwhelmed and dismayed that a reader would attempt to use the pristine pages of the Update with such mercenary intent. Fortunately, your motives were glaringly-obvious...
1) Amanda needs to visit the hair salon; FAST. Aside from her terribly dark roots, those bangs bounce around more than Billy. In her first confrontation scene with Allison, one shot shows her hair tied up while in the next scene her hair is down. We all know Amanda is a quick change artist, but this fast?!
2) In one scene, Jo wanders out of the bathroom darkroom holding some fresh pictures and wearing a silk robe. Uh-huh; only Cary Grant develops film in a silk bathrobe.
3) Robert's sex video was timestamped "January 12, 1994 - 11:28 p.m." Unfortunately, the episode broadcast at 9:00 p.m. on January 12, 1994. One reader wrote in, chagrined: "If I had got there fast enough, I could have stopped it from happening!" I was waiting for the Evil Leaper to arrive...
4) Jane and Sidney have the same television / VCR combination, which also looks suspiciously similar to the rig in Billy and Allison's apartment. I always knew Melrose Place was a Communist collective...
5) Billy walks up to his apartment and the living room window is open. In the next scene, you can barely see the edge of the window and it's closed.
6) When Allison tells Billy about her run in with Amanda, she says "you should have seen her face when Bruce told her..." Too bad Allison wasn't in the office to witness Amanda's reaction. [Kudos to several readers who saw this.]
When Jake and Amanda fly to Hawaii for their "vacation" the stock footage shows an American Airlines DC-10. Amazingly- enough, the two American flights from LAX to Hawaii are on DC-10s. Even more shocking? The plane interior shots with Jake and Amanda have a 2-5-2 seating arrangement, just like the DC-10. Is it possible someone at Spelling Entertainment *really* screwed up this time and did their homework?
Jake's belly tumour first appeared in the November 11, 1992 episode, "The New Resident" where Jo joins the cast. Near the end of the episode, Jake tramps up the stairs to bitch Jo out about running water while he's in the shower. [Gratuitous cheesecake op.] Nestled snugly under his ribs on the right side is a lump about the size of a pregnant walnut. At first I thought it was a hernia, but it's damn high for a hernia!
What Really Happened: Jake used to work for NASA as a xenogeneticist. The Mars probe was not really lost; it showed up one morning on NASA's doorstep with a weird egg strapped on the side. As Rocket Scientist Jake analysed the toasted satellite, the egg opens and a facehugger attacked him. When the facehugger disconnected, Jake had this bizarre organism inside him, (picture Howard Stern and Don Knotts as one person), and NASA (together with the CIA, ATF and IRS for good measure) decided to plant Jake back into "normal" society to study him.
Jake entered an FBI Witness Protection Plan where he was inserted into a seemingly-innocuous apartment complex with a guardian (Sandy) to keep an eye on him.
- This explains Jo's sudden appearance (Sandy was supposed to watch over Jake but couldn't handle the L.A. culture or the fake Southern accent).
- This explains Jake's stupidity and random acts of violence (mind-altering drugs and the trauma of having a Baby Alien living inside you).
- This explains Jake's ability to make his $400 rent every month even though he's always out of work (government's footing the bill).
- This explains Katya's sudden appearance and even quicker exit (she was a deep cover Soviet agent spying on Jake but after Communism's dissolution, her job became moot). - This explains Palmer Woodward (the FBI needed an operative to expose Palmer, and Jake just needed a little reprogramming).
- This explains Keith's "death" (he stumbled across Jake's secret while analysing the Melrose Place pool water for algae: the Alien secretes a foreign chemical compound that irritates Jake's skin, which explains why he's always in the pool or the shower and never wears a shirt. Keith's suicide was faked by the Government, and he was reprogrammed to study the Borneo Yodelling Frog's mating habits with a generous government grant. Remember, Keith started weirding out *after* we see Jake with the Bulge...)
- This explains the Pool Boy (he's a CIA operative on the scene to back up Jo if another major problem, like Keith, drops by. The pool skimmer contains a chemical neutralising the Alien's secretion).
Melrose Place is mind-numbingly-clear, provided you examine the show from the correct angle.
"Wow! It's great you letting me crash on your couch for a while, while I look for a job." - Reid clues the audience in, in case anyone slept through his story line last week...
"My boat looked like that, only longer and sleeker." - Reid day dreams; I'm not a believer.
"One minute you want to evict me, the next minute..." "...I practically rape you..." - Exchange between Jake and Amanda. All it needs is a disco beat...
"Well this is a surprise!" - Jane catches Michael in the kitchen, half naked and alone...
"You've accused me of a lot of things..." - Michael slips into Bob Packwood's character for a scene.
"Allison can cover for you while you are gone." - Bruce to Amanda as Allison walks in holding a body bag.
"Keep Amanda in the loop." - Bruce spots Allison skulking by with a hangman's noose...
"Just give me a little more time." - Michael Mancini wakes up in the body of Montgomery "Scotty" Scott, chief engineer of the U.S.S. Enterprise.
"I hope you understand the gravity of the situation." - Mr. FBI Agent introduces Amanda to Newtonian mechanics. In this case, however, her problem is relative, so the numbers don't add up. Damn Einstein!
"How 'bout a night-cap?" - Diane hits on Robert. Robert definitely, er, came out on top in this exchange...
"I felt really vulnerable." - Amanda.
"I've been through some tough times recently." - Amanda recycles Allison's worst dialogue.
"I'm sorry." - Allison to Amanda.
"You're married..." - Lawyer Robert Wilson, seconds before he is sucked into the hotel room. Oddly enough, Bowman's trip ends in a hotel room and Lawyer Bob ends up in a Monolith...
"You're amazing!" - Jake to Amanda.
"It's just the two of us." - Diane hints to Robert that she's gonna try to make it...
"Oh come on! You know that's not true!" - Reid abandons an indefensible position.
"Please believe me!" - Michael cries wolf.
"So tell me about your trip!" - Jane whispers in Robert's ear to drown out the sound of the VCR rewinding.
"What were you really doing in San Diego Robert? Working on your legal briefs or making tapes for the Playboy channel!?" - Jane discovers how Robert affords that Hyundai.
"And the Lord God called unto Adam and said unto him Where art thou?" - Genesis 3:9, King James Version.
"Where were you last night?" - Jane to Michael.
"What the hell are you doing here!?" - Michael to Robert. At Melrose Place, you're cursed to always be in the wrong place at the wrong time.
"I've never stopped loving you." - Michael joins in with the chorus...
"What's up?" - Billy wanders onscreen, munching on a carrot.
"I'm all ears." - Amanda, deciding to play along, pretends she is Ross Perot.
"It's too late." - Jo to Reid. Look at him running, he has so far to go...
"Sometimes it takes a brush with death to get your priorities straight." - Michael comes to grips with an issue that every human encounters during life: baking soda, fluoride paste or fresh-mint gel?
(c) 1994 Ian Ferrell. The Melrose Place Update is published weekly and distributed via electronic mail and the Graces of Internet. Each article contains a summary of that week's Melrose Place episode with analysis and commentary.
Melrose Place Update is an all-digital production. There is no hiss. Analogue copies of previous Melrose Place Updates are available.
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