I still can't get those last two fingers together ... the ring finger and the pinkie.
No problem with the index and middle finger. But try as I might, the other two fingers have never cooperated and allowed me to properly give the salute that goes with the Vulcan equivalent of Have a nice day: Live long and prosper.
I find myself still trying to perfect the gesture, now with a degree of sadness. Actor Leonard Nimoy, best known as Mr. Spock in the 1966-1969 science-fiction TV series Star Trek, died Feb. 27.
Any real-life Mr. Spocks would have probably pooh-poohed Star Trek, whose plot and execution must seem downright silly to many. But pointy-eared, slanty-eyebrowed, green-tinged Mr. Spock -- First Officer of the Starship Enterprise -- was a pillar of common sense in the midst of the hokeyness.
For my non-Trekkie readers: Spock was from the planet Vulcan, whose members were known for their stoic, non-emotional nature and devotion to logic. Spock was half-human, but managed to keep that half under tight control ... for the most part. Spock personified coolness before Fonzie came along on the sitcom Happy Days. Spock was the perfect foil for hotheaded, fight-happy, woman-loving James T. Kirk, the Enterprise's captain. Spock's need to be precise on everything sometimes irritated Kirk. But the best back-and-forths were between Spock and the equally hotheaded Dr. McCoy, the ship's medical officer, whom Spock pretty much drove crazy.
In honor of Nimoy's departure, here are a few of my favorite Mr. Spock moments -- usually moments in which his human side spilled out.
• Spock gets hit by strange spores on planet Omicron Ceti III and falls in love with Jill Ireland's character in the episode "This Side of Paradise." I also enjoy the lesser-mentioned episode in which Spock gets a love jones: "All Our Yesterdays." Holded up in a cave back in time when Vulcans were more barbaric, he starts to act like Vulcans did then and falls for Mariette Hartley's character Zarabeth, who'd rescued Spock and McCoy from the Ice-Age cold they found themselves in after going through a time portal.
• Two special moments in the "Amok Time" episode set on Vulcan, where T'Pring, the wife-apparent who was "bonded" to Spock at age 7, pits him in a fight to the death against Kirk in a maneuver to be free to hook up with a third dude, Stonn: Spock, who thinks he's killed Kirk, tells Stonn to take T'Pring and predicts that "after a time, you may find that having is not so pleasing a thing after all as wanting. It is not logical, but it is often true." Then there's the priceless moment at episode's end, when Spock realizes Kirk is still in the land of the living.
• The moment in the feature film Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home when -- having gone back in time with Kirk and the crew to 1986 -- Spock uses the Vulcan Death Grip on an obnoxious young punk rocker on a city bus and is applauded. (Spock trying to cuss in the same film ... priceless.)
• The "Mirror, Mirror" episode with the bearded, "parallel universe" Spock, who was, well, kinda hot.
• And, yes, that heart-wrenching moment when Spock "dies" in the feature film Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan.
I know I'm not the only one who felt a bit relieved when, in the first Star Trek feature film, he failed to achieve Kolinahr, the mark for Vulcans who'd managed to achieve a state of perfect logic. There was a lesson there, one of many taught by Mr. Spock: No matter how logical you try to be, there are going to be some things, and you're going to find yourself in some moments, that defy logic. Nimoy reportedly went through some struggles being associated with the Spock character, but later reconciled with it. That in itself was a lesson: Sometimes the very thing we try to run from, we later realize is the very thing we were meant not only to be, but to inspire others by being.
As Spock, Nimoy urged us to "Live long and prosper." Because of you, Leonard, we already have ... whether or not we could get that salute down. Thank you for meeting the needs -- rather, capturing the imaginations -- of the many. You have been, and always shall be, our friend.
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hwilliams@arkansasonline.com
Style on 03/08/2015