Holiday Rocket:
3:30 p.m.

  Judah is a lion’s whelp;
On prey, my son, have you grown.
He crouches, lies down like a lion,
Like the king of beasts—who dare rouse him? 		 

—Genesis 49:9

Current and previous cheat sheets. By Marc Taylor. Inspired by Allen Steele’s short story Zwarte Piet’s Tale. Runs 43 minutes. Don’t stint on the sound volume. Stars off whenever videophone appears. 3D effects created with Blender; astronomical effects with Celestia. Come see Glenn in his acclaimed role of a bewildered outsourced phone lackey as he crushes the holiday dreams of an eleven-year-old.

The 2006 HOLIDAYR.CUE file has the same name as 2005’s, but different content.

Setup

  1. To get brighter video from the DVD, unplug the iMicro (the “COMPUTER” cable) from the input line 1 jack in back of the video projector. Remember to plug it back in when the show is over.

  2. Video projector: monitor select line 1, input select line 1 for show (left) DVD. Brightness and contrast up.

  3. VCR: not needed.

  4. DVD: HOLIDAY ROCKET, November 2005. (The old DVD is under the Zeiss.) You’ll see the menu for the DVD, which has only one selection. Then (optionally) turn the video projector brightness and contrast down. The menu has stirring background music.

  5. CD: holiday music.

  6. Sound board: volume up for output, DVD, and CD; down for all others.

  7. Zeiss: early December 2005, shortly after sunset. Mars in east, in Aries ♈ at April 25; Venus in southwest, between Sagittarius ♐ and Capricornus ♑ at January 18; young crescent Moon near Venus. Phases:

  8. Widows XP computer, orrery, audio cassette: not used.

  9. Spice computer: HOLIDAYR.CUE. (The show uses a DVD, but the name of the .CUE files does not start with DVD-.) Setup slide projectors according to comment lines in that file. Wait for audience to enter when 93 Time 15.00 is highlighted.

  10. Audience entry sequence.

Show

  1. To launch the show, press ENTER in the middle of the arrow keys on the DVD remote, not PLAY. This will cut off the menu background music abruptly and replace it with “We Wish You a Merry Christmas”, so slide the DVD volume down and up around this transition. Turn up the brightness and contrast on the video projector. The clock will start running on the Spice computer. Show starts with snow, no stars. (All DVDs begin with a menu. The menu on this DVD has only one item. Pressing ENTER will select the item, causing the show to start. If you hit the PLAY button on the front of the DVD player, nothing will happen.)

  2. When tinkly theatrical music plays, after noisy rocket launch and clouds and blue sky fades,
    STARS ON,
    ROTATE LATITUDE DOWN (counterclockwise). as in Our Place in Space. This will be undone when “KWANZAA” title appears.

  3. When ship appears in orbit (“And we have MECO! Main Engine Cutoff, that is.”)
    SLOW LATITUDE ROTATION OF STARS.

  4. When video rocket appears again: (“Tilda, give me bearing 314 on radian 159.”)
    SPEED UP LATITUDE ROTATION OF STARS

  5. When rocket has sped away:
    SLOW LATITUDE ROTATION OF STARS

  6. At moon arrival: (“Heads up! We’re almost to our first stop—the Moon!”)
    ZEISS LUNAR HORIZON PANORAMA (HP) ON;
    STOP MOTION OF STARS

  7. When Desmond appears on the videophone (“Hello? That you, Stan?”)
    ZEISS PANORAMA OFF

  8. When “KWANZAA” title appears:
    STARS OFF
    Bring Moon and Mars into visible position. If you’ve only been spinning in latitude, then all you’ll need to do is get “north in back,” i.e. the north starball, the one with the little projector sticking out of its top like a snout, should eventually point towards the back of the dome.

  9. When Desmond says bye (“Hope to see you again soon.”)
    STARS ON;
    SLOW LATITUDE MOTION (not so much that you mess up your previous setup);
    PLANETS ON

  10. When they talk about Mars (Tilda: “How do you know where we’re going?” Stan: “Oh, Mars is easy… see? That’s it right there.”)
    POINT OUT MARS; STOP MOTION

  11. When Stan says “Mars and the other planets always appear in a certain part of the sky…”
    TURN ON ZODIAC

  12. When Stan says “We navigate using starcharts and instruments”
    ZODIAC OFF; ME, EQ, EC, VE/P1 (vertical elevation) ON;
    MOVE VE

  13. When Stan says “No need for that this time around.”
    ZEISS COÖRDINATE LINES OFF

  14. When Videophone appears
    TURN OFF STARS

  15. When moon orbit diagram appears (“Earth has one large moon, which takes 28 days…”)
    TURN ON STARS

  16. When Maali talks about the moon (“If the moon is nearly between us and the Sun…”)
    TURN ON MOON

  17. As Maali talks about the Moon (“It goes from crescent to quarter… and from quarter… gibbous…”
    MOVE ZEISS MOON;
    TURN OFF MOON WHEN IT IS BACK TO CRESCENT

  18. When Maali and videophone reappear
    TURN OFF STARS

  19. When Maali and videophone fade
    TURN ON STARS, W/MOTION

  20. When videophone reappears
    TURN OFF STARS

  21. When tilt of earth is discussed,
    TURN ON STARS

  22. When wreath/Sun appears (“For centuries, people have made wreaths…”)

  23. When “Christmas” title appears
    STARS ON

  24. When Johanna talks about planets (“…they move around in the sky”)
    MOVE PLANETS SLOWLY (ANNUAL motion, orrery if Zeiss board not fixed)

  25. When she mentions Zodiac and Leo ♌ (“Venus and Jupiter appeared by Regulus…”)
    ZEISS CONSTELLATIONS ON;
    POINT OUT LEO AND REGULUS

  26. When Johanna reappears on videophone: (“No one really knows.”)
    STARS AND ZODIAC OFF

  27. When videophone disappears:
    STARS ON; ZEISS MOTION (the stars are just background from here on)

  28. When Ya’akov appears on videophone:
    STARS OFF

  29. When videophone disappears:
    STARS BACK ON

  30. When “Hanukkah” title appears:
    STARS OFF;
    SLEW TO MANUAL.

  31. When Menorah fades:
    STARS BACK ON;

  32. When they leave Jupiter (“food to eat”):
    ZEISS STARS MOTION

  33. When Tombaugh Station on Pluto appears:
    STOP STAR MOTION

  34. When interior of Tombaugh Station appears:
    STARS OFF

  35. When Xmas tree, LED date, and lights fade:
    STARS ON

  36. Zeiss blue and white lights up at the end.
    Plug the iMicro back into input line 1 of the video_projector.

I asked Marc, in the *long* repetitious section of HOLIDAYR.CUE, lines 214–357, “video spaceship”, was there any reason you couldn’t have used RepStart and Repeat? Ditto for the lift-off in lines 420–483.

I actually found it easier to write that way. With Repeat, you have to know what fraction of the total time your cycle will take, and then plug any temporal gaps at the ends. Also, if somewhere in this part you need to have something else happen, you can insert it where it is needed. Perhaps not the most efficient coding, but it works.