>Unfortunately you've mentioned a couple of bands I don't have much use
>for, but I think I get what you mean all the same. Two unusual
>bassists I can think of offhand are Stuart Hamm (who plays bass for
>Joe Satriani when Joe's on tour, and has a solo career too)

Yeah, Stu Hamm is another one. I'm equally impressed by his solo work as his work with Satch; given that I was trained as a funk bassist, rock bassist, and a jazz bassist (in that order), I tend to identify more with Flea and Jeff Ament than Stu Hamm or the late, great Jaco Pastorius (if you're not familiar with him, imagine Jimi Hendrix as an electric jazz bassist and you've got a pretty good start). There's also Billy Sheehan, but since I got over my hair band infatuation some time ago, I don't idolize him as much as I used to. (I'm a child of the "grunge" generation, not the 80's, although having two sisters who are over 30 means that I'm rather familiar with the music, enough that I could still sing "Living on a Prayer" with Jon Bon Blo... er, Jovi on that America thing the other night. And it was listening to and watching Flea play that made me want to pick up the bass in the first place.)

There's also Victor Wooten, bassist for Bela Fleck and the Flecktones, a bluegrass fusion band. I was in love with his style even before I saw them live; when Wooten started playing two basses at the same time I resolved to either woodshed or just give it up altogether. (I wound up woodshedding for three days, except for classes.)

> and Peter
>Hook (bassist for New Order, who flagrantly abuses his bass by playing
>as if he were a lead guitarist instead :).

The name rings a bell, but I can't say I've ever heard him play.

>I'm not entirely sure this is true - our Detian friends seem to forget
>things entirely too often for it to be the case - but there does seem
>still to be a residual linguistic aptitude lurking in the condition
>for at least some of its recipients. (Kaitlyn has it too - at 16,
>she's fluent in four languages and has a smattering of three others.)

It was mentioned that Detians have perfect recall; I imagine that it still sometimes takes something to trigger it, though. After all, that's a lot to remember, especially after 400+ years. Memory is a funny thing; I can often quote conversations verbatim, and remember a phone number after only dialing it once, yet it's easy for something to slip my mind, and my brain is very efficient of ridding itself of phone numbers and addresses once I no longer need to know them.

>I like it a lot, but don't watch it often - it has a similar problem
>to Babylon 5, in that it has an ongoing arc and the occasional
>major change happens, so if you miss chunks, you end up with that
>"what the fuck is going on?" syndrome. :)

For me, it's more like "So when did *this* happen" or "Who's that?" kind of responses. I can still sit down and watch an episode without being lost, and I read enough online to know where things are in the season, more or less. (Unfortunately, I've missed actually watching most of this season, so while I know most of the plot points, there's some details I'm missing.) And the ongoing arc is one of its strengths, because it's used as well as I gather it was in B5, allowing for character moments and single lines that are incredibly strong. You can see this even in early episodes, but it gets stronger as the show goes along.

And I would watch Farscape even discounting that, just because the show looks like nothing else, ever. It's a brilliantly original and fun series; even somewhat cliche story ideas often get turned on their head. (See the time travel episode from this season, which, in fact, was the last episode I saw.)

-- Sean --

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