by Nic Turiciano

It’s been ten years since its end, but “The X-Files” still remains enchanting for a few reasons: Awful clay animation, silly one-liners, absurd jumps in logic (Exhibit A: Mulder), and availability on your August pal, the Netflix Instant queue. Watching Mulder and Scully’s relationship evolve and complicate over the years gives the show its core, but the reliance on two-dimensional characters who can be easily killed off by monsters and/or the government keeps the whole thing exciting. Adding a little frisson to the question of who-will-live-or-die is that sometimes these extras (and probable casualties) are played by people who went on to become well-known performers in their own right. So here’s a look at some of the more noteworthy one-episode characters from the show’s nine-season run.

SETH GREEN

Appeared: Season 1, Episode 2, as Emil

Character profile: Green plays a super 90s grunge teen who likes to get stoned and sneak onto the secret military base in his small Idaho town. He says “dude” and “what” a lot and rides a small black moped. His plaid is plentiful and his red hair long.

Mulder and Scully discover Green and his girlfriend on the base one night while scouting for UFOs. After hiding from a top-secret-looking helicopter, the four eat at an all-night diner where Green tells Mulder of the rumored UFO tests on the base.

Did he live or die? A survivor. Mulder and Scully leave Green healthy and happy at his home in southwest Idaho.

FELICITY HUFFMAN

Appeared: Season 1, Episode 8, as Dr. Nancy Da Silva

Character Profile: Huffman plays a toxicologist sent, along with Mulder, Scully and two other doctors, to a remote Alaskan outpost where scientist inhabitants lost contact after sending out one last distressed video signal. She’s frank, honest and appears to have the hots for another team member. She becomes distressed and aggressive after it’s discovered that an ancient (and possibly alien) parasite has decimated the lost scientific team. Essentially it’s the plot for “The Thing” adapted for a 40-minute program.

Did she live or die? Status unknown. It’s revealed that she has been exposed to the parasite after attempting to kill both Mulder and Scully. The ending gets super intense as Mulder and Scully force the last parasite they have into Huffman’s ear. Highly territorial animals, the new parasite and the old parasite kill one another in a turf war for Huffman’s body, leaving her pretty much as she was before the whole ordeal. The episode closes, however, on an uncertain note as Huffman is carried, clothed in a hazmat suit, into a military helicopter.

JACK BLACK

Appeared: Season 3, Episode 3, as Bart ’Zero’ Liquori

Character profile: Black plays Zero, a dimwitted teen who works at the local arcade in the small town of Connerville, Oklahoma. His character is similar to Seth Green’s in that he says “huh,” “what” and “um yeah” a lot. His best friend Darren has recently gained powers that allow him to conjure lightning on command, which translates into Darren killing a bunch of people for silly reasons such as stealing his Street Fighter game while he was in the bathroom. The writers insinuate that Black’s character drinks (to get drunk) a lot because in one scene he’s chugging a beer, and as far as “The X-Files” goes, that’s all the character development a viewer deserves.

Did he live or die? Casualty of the truth. Darren convinces himself, incorrectly, that Black has been helping Mulder and Scully with their investigation. He proceeds to kill Black outside the arcade as a really great and angsty song, “Hey Man, Nice Shot” by the band Filter, plays in the background.

R. LEE ERMEY

Appeared: Season 3, Episode 11, as Reverend Patrick Findley

Character profile: A break from our up-and-comers, Ermey was already a well-established character actor by the time he made his single appearance on the show. Preaching fraudulently as one of the 12 stigmatics, Ermey’s character travels and gives pop-up sermons in which he exhibits the same wounds on his hands that Christ did on the crucifix. These sermons eventually attract the attention of Farao, one of the Devil’s disciples and a respected businessman.

Did he live or die? Casualty of the truth. Farao strangles and burns Ermey to death in his dressing room following his performance.

RYAN REYNOLDS

Appeared: Season 3, Episode 13 as Jay ‘Boom’ Deboom

Character profile: Reynolds plays a letterman-jacket-wearing athlete who delivers an uninspired eulogy after his friend and teammate, Bruno, is murdered. The occult is suspected, and Reynold’s chosen tactic of retaliation is to “kick some butt.” He doesn’t provide any advice as to how the butt-kicking should begin or end.

Did he live or die? Casualty of the truth. Brenda Summerfield and Terri Roberts, two fellow students of Reynolds’, lure him down a dirt road after floating the idea of a threesome — a threesome necessary to ensure that all three teens are no longer virgins and, therefore, won’t be hunted by the occult. Summerfield and Roberts, however, turn on Reynolds due to the effects had on them by an extremely rare planetary alignment. They strangle him over the edge of a cliff, but his death is labeled a suicide.

LUCY LIU

Appeared: Season 3, Episode 19, as Kim Hsin

Character Profile: Liu plays a recent Chinese immigrant who has been diagnosed with leukemia. She doesn’t have many lines, and it’s hard to gather any insight into her character other than the fact that she’s sick. Though her cancer is treatable, her father is too poor to pay for medical expenses. He enters a game that seems similar to Russian roulette if it were shrouded in TV-brand Chinese mysticism. The prospect of winning means he will have enough money to treat his sick daughter, but to lose means to sacrifice one of his organs to the black market.

Did she live or die? A survivor. Liu makes it, presumably well into the future after she is put on the organ donor list by the episode’s end. Her father also survives, but only after losing an eyeball and nearly having his heart cut out and sold.

LUKE WILSON

Appeared: Season 5, Episode 12, as Sheriff Hartwell

Character Profile: Post-Bottle Rocket, pre-Rushmore, Wilson plays Sheriff Hartwell of Chaney, Texas, a small town with a population of 361. The first half of the episode is told twice, first through the unreliable lens of Scully and then that of Mulder. Wilson, according to Scully’s memory, is a charming, smart, agreeable and extremely attractive small-town sheriff. Mulder’s recollection displays Wilson as a buck-toothed, sloppy dullard (most likely out of pure jealousy). Both are incorrect as, in the end, Wilson turns out to be a vampire.

Did he live or die? A survivor. Wilson drugs Scully and leaves her to sleep in the town cemetery, though he’s nice enough to leave her his coat for the chilly night. He packs up and leaves town along with the other 360 residents before Mulder or Scully wake from their slumbers.

BRYAN CRANSTON

Appeared: Season 6, Episode 2, as Patrick Crump

Character profile: In a precursor to his Breaking Bad character, Walter White, Cranston plays a homicidal strong head with a terminal disease. He and his wife are exposed to a deadly, experimental radio wave by the U.S. Navy, after which constant movement West is necessary or their heads will explode. Cranston’s hard nosed and bullish, but also unwilling to listen to Mulder’s wisdom. His anti-semitism leads to many terse conversations between the two men.

Did he live or die? Casualty of the truth. Despite Mulder’s most sincere efforts, Cranston’s disease cannot forever be outrun. His head explodes when he reaches the California coast.

SHIA LABEOUF

Appeared: Season 7, Episode 6, as Richie Lupone

Character Profile: LaBeouf plays a young boy in Chicago with a bad case of hepatitis and a rare blood type. It’s lucky for him that his landlord, Mr. Henry Weems, became the luckiest man on earth after he survived a commercial airplane crash in 1989. Weems decides to use his luck to procure $100,000 for the experimental treatment that is LaBeouf’s last hope, but there’s a catch. Weems’ luck comes at the cost of someone else’s misfortune.

Did he live or die? A survivor. Similar to the episode involving Lucy Liu, LaBeouf survives thanks to the last-minute death of a prominent Chicago gangster — a death that comes as a result of Weems’ luck. The gangster also happens to be a perfect match for LaBeouf’s rare blood type; B Negative.

Nic Turiciano is an Awl summer reporter. You can follow him on Twitter.

Happy 30th birthday to the compact disc, hundreds of which sit in my living room, taking up space and staring resentfully at my iPod. Oh, CDs! When I think of how much money I spent on you back when we all actually paid for music I sometimes wonder how different my life would have been otherwise, but then I figure that I probably would have blown all that cash on something else, like books, which are even more bulky. So I guess I’m okay with it. Thank you for all the hours of recorded enjoyment. Hey, do you remember the longbox? If you are in your twenties you almost certainly do not, so ask an older friend to tell you (but get set to be bored). Anyway, many happy returns, you dying piece of history.

Under the current regime, the most effective means of sticking it to the proverbial man would in theory be for all students to simply pay off all their debts at once. But even if they could scrounge together a trillion dollars out of their collective couches just like that, there is little doubt in my mind that Sallie Mae and its student-loan-sharking brethren would simply see it as an opportunity to levy a massive prepayment penalty. The Internet is a rich trove of surreal personal accounts of being penalized for overpaying student loan bills. But no one notices, because student borrowers are so utterly powerless. They can borrow a trillion dollars and still pose no threat to the immediate solvency of the financial system.

— Destroy your student loans.

Some people like to go on about how New York City is “anti-development,” due to zoning and slow change, and that that’s what’s making the housing market bonkers this year. That’s not really true, though I appreciate the frustrations of trying to develop in the City, which are endless. What made New York real estate crazy in the last year, and along the way shoved the rental vacancy rate well below 1%, was a combination of basically negligible interest rates for residential buyers (who then bought up literally everything in Brooklyn) and a bunch of development plans that went bust or at least stalled during the recession, because buildings are built by massive, complicated loan-taking, with tight margins, and when things go wrong, blammo, you’re toast. It’s a very bold business! But that’s all going to change! Sort of. For a while. Right now, “at least nine residential towers are slated to rise within the next few years in Downtown Brooklyn,” which is kind of intense but also, of course, necessary. Meanwhile, it’s up, up and away for residential development: Frank Gehry’s One Spruce will not be the tallest residential building for long, as apparently a bunch of folks are getting their loans and tax breaks in order to build really tall: 90-plus floors, with one building potentially topping out at 1400 terrifying, swaying feet. (The 76-story Gehry building is only 870 feet tall, and when you’re up there, man it is high.) That all this is happening around the same time as the City is talking about reducing minimum apartment size — the rise of the “micro-apartment” — is pretty telling. The bad news: none of this building preserves or creates affordable housing. The good news: when the revolution comes, we’ll have all the oligarchs isolated and vulnerable — or, at best, trapped.

“There are now two female staffers writing for Gizmodo, myself and Leslie Horn, and neither of us blew anyone for our job.”

GHOSTBUSTERS. (iTunes)

by Leandro Oliva

There are things in this world that need to be nurtured, cared for, and protected. Floating crates of mewing kittens, hatchling turtles disoriented by artificial lighting, baby seagulls ensnared by fishing nets. Likewise, we must nurture and care for Ketan Vora, the internet’s newest multinational rising star. Ketan is quickly gaining a following on Tumblr for his disarmingly friendly interactions, and his straightforward style of gifting tagged images of flower bouquets and sweets to his female (and, sometimes, male) fans.

Take, for example, this recent Facebook chat Ketan conducted with Lola Gupta.

Little is known about Ketan Vora at this point. We know that he currently resides in India, and is evidently “a dancer.” His posted telephone number appears to be serviced by an Indian wireless company. He is also a dedicated fan of such things as Dell personal computers…

horses…

… and deserts.

Would you like to interact with Ketan? That may indeed be one of the best decisions of your inane life. Be mindful, however, that Ketan is a highly sensitive individual.

Also, be mindful that this may all be some highly sophisticated viral campaign, because earnestness this pure seems all too good to be true. So gather, all ye rabid, feckless masses roving for cheap thrills. Let us elevate Ketan to the highest altar of viral fandom, beyond the clutches of ill-intentioned tweens.

Leandro Oliva is a carbon-based freelance writer. He can be reached here.

• “Notification issued 4/11/12 at 3:58 PM. Due to a large brush fire in New Jersey, along with the current wind direction, residents in Manhattan and Brooklyn may see and smell smoke.”

• “Notification issued 4/19/12 at 12:00 PM. A fireworks display is scheduled for 10:30 PM tomorrow, 4/20/12, in New York Harbor near Liberty Island.”

• “Notification issued 5/11/12 at 12:00 PM. There will be a fireworks display near Liberty Island tomorrow, 5/12/12, at approximately 11:30 PM. In case of inclement weather, the display will take place on 5/13/12.”

• “Notification issued 5/21/12 at 7:00 PM. Fleet Week 2012 events are scheduled for Tuesday, 5/22/12 through Wednesday, 5/30/12. Events will include military aircraft flyovers, aerial demonstrations, and static/stationary exhibitions throughout the NYC area.”

• “Notification issued 5/23/12 at 9:40 AM. Weather permitting, multiple aircraft will execute flyovers of the Parade of Ships along the Hudson River from 11:00 AM to 12:00 PM, in support of Fleet Week. Following the flyovers, the aircraft will return to their airports of origin. During the Parade of Ships, please note that there may be multiple gun salutes (ships and shore) along the Hudson River corridor.”

• “Notification issued 5/24/12 at 8:05 AM. Weather permitting, there will be a low-altitude flyover of the Hudson River Corridor today from 9:30 AM to 10:00 AM involving two F-22 Raptors. Additionally, there will be a helicopter demonstration at Sheepshead Bay High School (Brooklyn) today from 1:00 PM and 3:30 PM.”

• “Notification issued 5/28/12 at 9:00 AM. In association with the citywide Memorial Day Ceremony, a flyover with four FA-18 jets is scheduled to fly over the USS Intrepid and continue to Citi Field between 12:00 PM and 1:00 PM. Also at the USS Intrepid, a US Coast Guard helicopter will conduct a Search & Rescue demonstration today at 1PM.”

• “Notification issued 7/2/12 at 8:30 AM. FDNY will be conducting training exercises on Governors Island today. Residents in Manhattan and Brooklyn may see smoke in the area beginning at 8:45 AM.”

• “Notification issued 7/31/12 at 4:00 PM. There will be a fireworks display tonight near Pier 54 and West 13th Street in Manhattan, at approximately 9:10 PM.”

• “Notification issued 8/14/12 at 11:00 AM. A military flyover involving a KC-10 will depart JFK at approximately 12:30 PM today, and will return to JFK at approximately 2:00 PM.”

• “Notification issued on 08/16/2012 at 1:40 PM. Tonight, a movie filming will simulate an explosion near Commercial Street and Franklin Street in Brooklyn. This stunt will occur once between the hours of 10:00 PM and 11:00 PM. FDNY and NYPD will be on site.”

Register here for Notify NYC, “the City of New York’s official source for information about emergency events and important City services. Registration is free.”

Photo by Beraldo Leal, via Flickr

In Defense Of August

by Andrew Moseman

It came on like “God Bless America” during the seventh-inning stretch of a Yankees game: Tolerated, but surviving solely on inertia. True to form, and for the eleventh consecutive year, Slate republished its 2001 article “August: Let’s Get Rid Of It,” on the first of the month.

If you’ve managed to avoid this warmed-over smug blanket, I will summarize. “August” is a decade-old half-joke rant by Slate’s chief editor, David Plotz, who declares the eighth month on the calendar to be useless and dismal, not to mention hot and muggy, and recommends giving roughly a third of its days to July and a third to September, leaving a ten-day August. He goes on at some length weaving together legitimate criticisms (bad TV), pointless disheartening coincidences (unloveable people who were born and lovable people who died), and bad jokes (“Sonny and Cher” debuted). “August” is the ultimate in cherry-picking, carpet-bombing the reader with factoids of doom offset by a token admission of the month’s few endearing qualities — more birthdays — just to reassure you that the author is being honest. Which he isn’t. Which is fine. Because it’s a joke.

The Plotz plan to chop up August and allow July and September to annex its endparts is a fine thought exercise, even if wound up by a winking opening statement. My concern is the burgeoning August hate industry, which has even gained a toehold here. Consider the recent Sports Illustrated column by Steve Rushin, an athletically themed takeoff on the Slate stalwart. Despite the drama of the London games (actually, amid the drama of the London games), smiling Steve declared August a month void of meaning, a pause between the NBA playoffs and MLB All-Star Game of midsummer and the resumption of tackle football in the autumn. Even February, once the dog of the calendar, now has the Super Bowl. August, the dog days of the calendar, has Royals-Indians Games.

Rushin is not wrong; nor is Plotz. But no candidate should run unopposed. I hereby offer this defense of August.

IT’S HOT

Remember all those damp, blustery afternoons of March, when you daydreamed of sipping pastel boozy concoctions at sun-dappled sidewalk cafes, possibly overseas? Well, you can’t afford international airfare. But you don’t need month full of cultural self-importance and paid holidays to become your own fantasy. Sweat, and drink. Do it in sexy clothes. August won’t care. Unlike holiday times of year, it’s not guilting you into spending your vacation eating fowl and making small talk with your family. So go ahead and use a personal day to get that 2 p.m. brunch and lose a few hours to mimosas and remembrances of drunks past. In August, nothing planned is nothing to escape.

After today, 15 full days of August remain. So eat overpriced ice cream. Have a mint julep and say something polite. Acquire an extravagant fan. Fan yourself. Imagine everything you’ll be longing to do during the short days of January and do it, preemptively.

Afternoon project: Make your own Abercrombie and Fitch advertisement. Pair your plaid shorts to a blue long-sleeved Oxford shirt, even though it’s 87 degrees outside, and have a friend photograph you in come-hither repose. Wear a hat, maybe. Send the photographs to up-and-coming local talents scouts, along with a basket of scented oils and a handwritten postcard that reads, “Suck it, June.”

Evening Project: Get married. Really twist the knife in June’s wound.

I’M BORED

What’s that, kid? August TV is lame, the movies are summer blockbuster also-rans, and the live sports are pointless? I hate to be the bearer of good news, but we’re living in an era of unprecedented media options, in which paying a few bucks monthly for Hulu Plus and a few bucks more for Netflix yields an impossibly large video catalog. The completist’s nightmare shall be your salvation.

Additionally, the cash-hemorrhaging media giants may soon decide they don’t want you to have such easy access to their quality programming and either destroy such services or refuse to grant you access unless you’re already paying for an outrageous cable package. The good time may not last. Get in your binge now, before all those culturally significant events on your September calendar.

Or, get off your ass and go places. Places are still around, just waiting for your going. Your going is really the lifeblood of their being. Plus you could really move around a little and get some fresh, humid air. You’re not looking so good.

NOTHING GOOD EVER HAPPENED IN AUGUST

Plotz offers up a progression of uninspiring August birthdays as evidence of the month’s deficiency. Big-namers like Bill Clinton and Barack Obama, but small-timers like Herbert Hoover and Benjamin Harrison.

Frankly, name-days are among the worst ways to judge a month. It’s downright anti-scientific, giving credence to horoscopic ideal that birthdays guide not only your destiny, but also the month’s. It’s time to put down this sickly notion and focus on the real record: What actually happened in August, according to this homeschooling website I found during a lazy Google search.

The good:
• Charles Wheeler patented the escalator
• First U.S. milk inspectors appointed!
• Lunar Orbiter 1 took the first photographs of Earth

The bad:
• Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans
• Anne Frank captured
• Woodstock Music and Art Festival began

The mixed:
• Mt. Vesuvius exploded (consider the archaeological record, folks)

Final tally:
Push. Time to make your own August history.

I HAVE TO GO BACK TO SCHOOL

Sorry, not a legitimate gripe. If you’re under 18, we’re all going to use your different legal status to justify not having to care about what you think. (We’re not ageists; it’s the law.) If you’re over 18, you’re either paying to attend school or somebody is paying for you. So shut up. And if you’re in graduate school, I’d like to take this moment to apologize to you on behalf of your horrible lapse in judgment.

For those of you anticipating the resumption of seriousness after summer’s endless laxness, right on. Get an early start. For the rest of you, August provides an excuse to lie to yourself about why you’re buying that new MacBook Air. You need it for school.

THE NAME SUCKS

No, it doesn’t. Like your precious July, August was named for a Roman ruler. Yet instead of being named for a ruler who ignited civil war through sheer hubris and somehow met his end through a stab in the back (our pal Julius Caesar), August is named after a ruler, Augustus, who knew what the fuck he was doing: consolidating power, becoming an emperor, presiding over the dawn of the Pax Romana, and living for three-quarters of a century in an era when people dropped dead left and right from diseases you’ve already forgotten about.

THERE ARE NO GOOD HOLIDAYS

July gets Independence Day, though just barely. September get Labor Day, though just barely. August offers no federal holidays, only a checklist of those pretend celebrations such as Lazy Day and National Underwear Day that exist mainly to set up opening gags on “Pardon The Interruption” or get David Letterman through yet another monologue. (Still, let’s not rush to judgment on International Beer Day).

I feel the need to reiterate here that the legal holidays you pine for are often terrible. Founded on abstractions or anniversaries, coming to you fettered with family problems, and forcing you into begrudging gift-buying. If you take a random day off in the middle of August, nobody has to know about it outside your office, so nobody has to pressure you into coming over for dinner and strained conversation. Don’t ask, don’t tell, don’t make pot roast.

WE ARE ALL AUGUST

July is the month we wish we were: traditional, festive, patriotic, family-friendly. August is the month we really are: hot, stupid, and devoid of meaning. July is baseball and burgers; August is Arby’s roast beef & cheddar and “Toddlers & Tiaras.”

Enjoy it! Ignore your relatives. Don’t take the kids to the ballpark — and afterward, tell ’em you’re glad they’ll be back in school soon. Shower their piano playing with listless, half-hearted praise. No kids? Sneak hooch into a public pool and make a scene during adult swim. Get your special person to forgive you for whatever it is you’ve done by bringing home a summer bouquet unexpectedly. Slack off at work and read interesting articles, because everybody has an excuse to be lazy. It’s August, for goodness’ sake.

So much to do. And here you are, complaining.

Andrew Moseman is the online editor of Popular Mechanics. He may or may not be the one who has to listen to John Wenz’s dumb questions about science. Photo by DSB NOla.

★★★★ Difficult but rewarding. Things seemed foul and aimless right through noon — clouds chasing sun chasing clouds; drizzle coming and going on the gummy air. Condensation dripped from the ceiling of the subway car. But as the afternoon wore on, no matter what distracting reversals the sky was going through, the air kept getting cooler and less stifling. A dirty brown mass of clouds gathered over downtown, then power-washed itself clean, into sunshine. Brooklyn was reportedly underwater. Clouds gathered again. In the mouth of the Columbus Circle station, dismayed commuters clogged the space between the turnstiles and the foot of the stairs, hiding from a new downpour. Water streamed through the grate into the litter-filled trackbed of the uptown 1. Up by Lincoln Center, the gutters and crosswalks of Broadway were overflowing. A shop clerk stood, hands clasped, watching drenched pedestrians hurry past his store’s plate glass, his professional greeting posture unavoidably tinged with superiority. Then, at last, the rain passed for good. A gorgeous amber glow gathered over the Hudson, then spread upward, turning pinker and pinker as it ascended.