star wars

Hello, readers.

Star Wars. Two words, inside of which a great deal of my imagination unfolded, through various super, old-bit adventures, space-based dogfights, card games, movie poop shoots*, and fan-fiction**. It also led me to this interview, The Power of Myth, between Bill Moyer and Joseph Campbell, which led me to deeper love and appreciation for the enduring power of stories (especially involving snakes and pretty ladies and not dying), and played a large part in me deciding to travel around India for 6 weeks after teaching in Korea.

Once, in 9th grade, in shop class, someone interrupted a game of Magic: The Gathering, to express their wonder as to whether or not I masturbated to one particular image of a buxom female (possibly a faerie with sharp, blue hair) and they were sure I did, that I probably could only get a cartoon girl to pay attention to me, and I remember the smell of sawdust and being so angry I could cry. I remember later Yoda saying that fear leads to anger, and anger to hate, and hate leads to suffering. I wonder if being so angry you could cry is the suffering he meant.

I don’t remember, as many do, a great deal of bullying or taunting because of Star Wars. I imagine it’s much different now. I wonder what people are taunted for playing at in shop class. I wonder if any of them have a story they will love and hold onto and remember later when life makes them so angry they could cry.

The stories you love become a part of your story.

For the entirety of my life, when I looked up at the stars, some part of me saw a fairy tale of heroes and princesses and the possibility of redemption.

On December 13th, the British Film Insititute, as part of their Science Fiction season, Days of Fear and Wonder, will be holding a STAR WARS day, in which–along with special guests, special cocktails, and special DJs–they will screen all three films of the original trilogy. And I will be there, along with a new friend and my fellow geeks, old and new, collecting a few more stories to squeeze in between the words star and wars.

*

As Jay and Silent Bob so lovingly referenced as a sort of almagamation of movie news websites that sprung up with the web and, perhaps not coincidentally, the pre-production days of The Phantom Menace, the most famous/notorious being Ain’t it Cool News–a site I spent a great deal of time on during my late teens and early twenties, witnessing the evolution of ‘first’ and the supposed power of the internet to crush opening box office results.

**

At one point in my life, I wrote a great deal of Star Wars fan-fiction (not slash) at a site called wattos junkard, which much to my sadness and the inevitability of time, no longer exists. Though, I believe, if one were to search for the words Domus Prime, one might find where Sailor Coruscant transported our imagination, somewhere safe and sound and lit with dark sparkles, I’m sure.