BettySoo is the ultimate "musician’s musician." She plays about a million instruments, sings like a bird, writes her pants off, and is both an accomplished studio musician and respected performer. A true Texan, and the child of first generation Korean immigrants, she grew up in Spring, just north of Houston and went to UT. At one point, she was going to be an English teacher. Instead, she became a touring musician and songwriter. (But she finds time for her lifelong love of books, working as an audiobook narrator on the side.) In that line of work, she's shared stages with Jimmy LaFave, Butch Hancock (of the Flatlanders), Michael Fracasso, Jaimee Harris, Jon Dee Graham, Bonnie Whitmore, James McMurtry, and Eliza Gilkyson, and many others. A founding member of both Charlie Faye and the Fayettes and Nobody’s Girl (along with yours truly and Rebecca Loebe), BettySoo is known first and foremost for her own work. As Acoustic Guitar put it, "BettySoo may well have the most gorgeous voice in Texas at the moment, if not in all contemporary folk." I may be biased, but I happen to agree.

We review Star Trek (the Original Series), Season 1, Episode 9, "Dagger of the Mind." Topics include: the importance of a piece of paper that says “I have a right to be here,” why BettySoo and Grace didn’t go to art school or music school, respectively, why BettySoo is loving this stage of her life, learning to be one’s own sound engineer and videographer, BettySoo’s and Grace's mom's crush on Patrick Stewart, why Worf was our favorite, the different female archetypes of Next Generation, Dr. Noel’s very, very short mini skirt, Macbeth, the accepted and common practice of lobotomizing (mainly minority groups) in the 60s, male-dominated scientific research, why it’s important that Kirk changes his mind, Tantalus, Lethe, and the River of Forgetfulness, Truth be Told (a wonderful Austin nonprofit), how not to talk to incarcerated people, this episode as social commentary on everything from consent to patients’ rights, to the prison system and the human dignity of incarcerated persons, the first appearance of the oddly sexual “mind meld,” Kirk's hotness factor vs Spock's hotness factor, the variety of television available these days, as compared to TV of the 60’s, and how that affects the conversations we’re all having in our living rooms, Ruby Falls and Rock City, the importance of taking a day of rest, and what would happen if everyone took a sabbatical.

(This episode was originally recorded Sep 2020).