With all the brouhaha over Disney buying the Star Wars franchise from George Lucas I thought this would be as good a time as any to relate my Star Wars memories.

I first saw Star Wars when I was on a short, oh-boy-we’re-skipping-a-few-days-of-school springtime vacation in Berkeley CA with my dad and sibs. One day, no doubt desperately trying to think of a way to entertain three bored teenagers, Dad saw an ad in the local paper for a sneak preview of some movie called Star Wars.

“Must be a science-fiction movie,” he said. “Sounds interesting. Let’s go!” Whereupon I started an obnoxious and ongoing whine: Don’t wanna go because I hate, hate, HATE boring science fiction movies!!¹ Of course I was outvoted by my more reasonable siblings, so I was dragged kicking and screaming to the movie theatre.

The theatre was one of those grand old movie palaces, with a huge, sweeping balcony and loges. Counting rows, I estimated that there were probably close to a thousand people there, and it was packed to the gills. It was a true sneak peek: The entire audience was completely clueless as to what the movie was about.

I don’t have anything particularly original to say about the movie itself, but it was the movie-watching experience that hit me like a bombshell. Right from the “A long time ago…” crawl the audience sensed that this was something different. The excitement started to build. People got completely caught up in the fun – to the point of actually hissing the villains like in old-timey melodramas. By the climactic Death Star chase, people were literally stamping their feet, gesticulating, cheering like maniacs and all but hanging off the balconies. It felt as though the theatre would collapse under the tumult. There was a noisy standing ovation during the credits – for a movie! – and while streaming out of the theatre everyone was pumped and exhilarated. It truly opened my eyes to what a film could do to people’s emotions, and it was all us kids could talk about for the next couple of days.

Back at school I chattered excitedly to my classmates about how I just saw this GREAT movie that’s coming called STAR WARS!! isn’t that COOL? and you gotta see it, and it’s the BEST THING EVER… but I couldn’t convey the enormity of the experience and they just looked at me blankly.

“Yeah, sure. Star Wars? Uh, whatever….”

After Star Wars finished its nearly-year-long run at one theatre (remember those days?) it eventually made it to our local second-run movie house. I cajoled my mom to see it with me so she could see what all the fuss was about. The film was in terrible shape, with multiple dodgy splices; halfway through the movie, the sound cut out for nearly a minute. And what sound there was in that poky little theatre was dreadful. Without the enthusiastic crowds and glorious projection quality the movie seemed flatter, sillier, less interesting. We went home; me deflated, Mom still not seeing what all the fuss was about.

I’ve seen Star Wars since on video, and have been appalled by what a bad movie it is: awful acting, clunky writing (including really lame stabs at humour), all slathered over by a pretty thick layer of B-movie cheese. (And don’t get me started on any of the next five sequels.) But I’ll always have a soft spot in my heart for an incredible film experience that I will most likely never see the like of again.

1. The reason I “hated” SF movies was that the only SF movie I had actually ever seen up to that point was 2001: A Space Odyssey, which I was too immature to appreciate, and which I was completely bored by. (I have to admit that even now I respect 2001 a lot more than I actually like it.)

   As a kid I had an embarrassingly bad record of seeing movies before I was ready for them. My first rated M (for “Mature”) movie was The Sting, a wonderful film, which I hated in 1973 because as a 9-year old I didn’t really “get” the con men’s machinations. My first political comedy was 1977’s Nasty Habits, where the Watergate satire went sailing completely over my head. (Not that it stopped me from noisily complaining about how BORING and STUPID it was, when we got home.) Was I slow on the uptake movie-wise, or was it just due to a lack of available babysitters? ↩

The Obama family visits a confident Abe on Tuesday (Gerald Herbert/Reuters)

I had a laugh at the photos of Obama when he was speaking at the pre-inaugural concert at the Lincoln Memorial yesterday: it looks more than a tad surprised, unlike just a few days before when he visited with his family.

But by Sunday, Abe seems kinda surprised. (Jason Reed/Reuters)

What happened? What did he say? Why the sudden split between the Illinois boys? Lighting of the sculpture. This is a known effect. From one of our art books:

The “startled statue” is an accidental effect of light and shadow. The sculptor of the Lincoln Memorial, Daniel Chester French, was so concerned about the potential of light to alter Lincoln’s expression that he sent the commission responsible for the memorial a photo showing: (A) how it should be lit, and (B) how it should under no circumstances be lit.

…In correct lighting, eyebrows [give the] impression of lowered, thoughtful brows. Incorrect lighting from below cast shadows…which appear like raised, arched eyebrows;…Eyelids repeat [the] pattern…[making the] upper lid appear enormously high above iris;

The Artist’s Complete Guide to Facial Expression, pg. 266
Gary Faigin

This isn’t the first time the instructions have been ignored, Bush Sr. and Quayle were at a pre-inaugural ceremony and the same thing was done.

Uh, guys? The artist usually has a decent idea about what he’s talking about…Oh, well, it’s an amusing lesson in how easy it is to draw a cartoon.

Wow. The final part of the The Boy in the Moon is up, and once again Ian Brown sums it up with grace. This time he touches on the future for his boy, and frankly, maybe our boy too. Get out the Kleenex, but read it.

I’ve been wondering about Jon’s adulthood for his entire life; Laura has too. We’ve never discussed it directly, but have occasionally touched—just grazingly—on it. When I’ve alluded to it in converstation with friends and colleagues, without fully broaching the topic, there’s often a knee-jerk response: “Every parents worries about their kid.” I don’t know how to respond. Is this an attempt to soothe my fears, or do they genuinely not understand the situation? Or not want to, perhaps.

Brown even touches on the Latimer case with very similar thoughts to ours—so much of the analysis I’ve seen over the years strips the case of the context, and the context is the key.

A superb series. Thanks for this, Ian. Give Walker a hug for us.

Guess I haven’t had a toothpaste rant for a while now, so it’s time for another one! Am I the only one who gets annoyed that half the time my particular type of toothpaste isn’t stocked in stores? It’s not that I use some weird, off-brand toothpaste or anything; it’s just that most of the toothpaste shelf space these days is devoted to whitening formulas, rather than the plain old, not-quite-original formula. Same goes for trying to find liquid hand soaps that aren’t antibacterial (maybe one or two out of ten).

Interestingly—and we finally get to the real point of this post—a major ingredient of both antibacterial soaps and whitening toothpaste is the antibacterial chemical triclosan. There are a couple of problems with the burgeoning use of triclosan in these types of products, one environmental; one sociological:

Triclosan causes problems in health and the environment. There is some evidence that triclosan can react with chlorinated tap water and UV to form other compounds, particularly dioxins. Remember, we are talking about minute amounts, but dioxins accumulate in the body over time, and if a chemical’s not absolutely necessary, why use it? Environmentally, traces of many man-made chemicals including triclosan have leached out into water tables, with serious effects on wildlife. Low doses of triclosan can cause endocrine problems in bullfrogs. (Poor old frogs are always the first to get hammered with whatever idiocies humans have rained on the environment.) Whitening toothpaste also adds unnecessary levels of hydrogen peroxide (the same stuff as in hair bleaching kits) into our waterways.

People are getting brainwashed to think that these products are good and necessary. Antibacterial soaps are only of use to the lazy: Normal soaps work just as well in removing bacteria, as long as you scrub for a few seconds. Triclosan just works for a longer period of time, coating your skin even after the soap’s been washed off (ewww). And don’t get me started on the silliness of the whole concept of tooth whiteners!