Mindy Newell: IDIC*

“Oh, my. The simplest would be to say, ‘Languh yoren osta lebn.’ It’s a typical Yiddish expression. Parents say it to their kids. It means, ‘You should live many years’.” • On the Jewish roots of “live long and prosper”

“There was a very small crowd – miniscule compared to the crowd that he gathered later – at a private home in Los Angeles. And we were standing on the back patio, waiting for him. And he came through the house, saw me and immediately put his hand up in the Vulcan gesture. He said, ‘They told me you were here.’ We had a wonderful, brief conversation and I said, ‘It would be logical if you would become president.’“ • On meeting Senator Barak Obama during his first Presidential campaign

“I have been, and shall always be, your friend.” Star Trek: The Wrath of Khan

On the wall to the right of the corner in my bedroom where my computer is set up is a plaque given to me for my birthday by daughter Alixandra when she was in high school. It reads, in emboldened and etched script:

STAR TREK: TO BOLDLY GO WHERE NO MAN HAS GONE BEFORE

It’s a picture of Commander Spock of the U.S.S. Enterprise, NCC-1701.

It’s a totally fangirl-geek-nerd piece of cheap convention claptrap, for which she probably overpaid and with no monetary value whatsoever in the collectibles market…

And I love it.

I love it because it’s from my daughter.

I love it because it tells me every day that my daughter gets me, that she got me then and always will.

And I love it because it’s a marker that some things do cross-generational barriers, that, to paraphrase John Ostrander’s eloquent words from his column here yesterday, it helps me to remember the past, to appreciate the present, and anticipate the future.

Languh yoren osta lebn, Mr. Spock.

And may your katra be with God, Mr. Nimoy.

*Infinite Diversity in Infinite Combinations