Currently browsing 'star wars'
Washington D.C. as the Alien Landing Site
DC is a nice place to see… Royal looking buildings that convey power, order and authority, museums that are testament to national identity, and long stretches of land with ancient Egyptian-looking monuments that give me the haunting feeling that really, the place is one elaborate landing site for aliens. On a recent Urban Odyssey there, I could not shake that so much of the air waves were probably soaked with chitter-chatter of messages from this branch of the government to that… How much scrambling of info must go on, how many spies must be lurking around? Would my DNA be altered by a stay there? DC is truly a great place to visit for those with a great imagination, sense of history and appetite for power.
The Galactic Senate in NYC
Any of you been to the Rose Theater at the new Jazz in Lincoln Center at the 59th Street Columbus Circle complex? It is amazing. It is straight out of Star Wars: The Phantom Menace, a replica of the Galactic Senate! Not only is this an architectural beauty, the acoustics are amazing and the lights of the entire auditorium change along with the music. Music becomes not just something you listen to, but experience.
Doesn’t matter if the concert isn’t your thing… Let your imagination soar while in those comfy seats. Pretend you’re a delegate from earth, trying to catch the eye of cougar Queen Amidala or a young, muscular Jedi just as he’s exploring his dark side.
War of the Worlds
So here’s the apocalyptic side to “a festival of lights”. So it’s fine and dandy to witness the glories of the cosmos (like the recent Geminids meteor shower) and have near religious experiences in the process. Here’s what f*cks with your head either as a series of coincidences accompanying the shower, or the government trying to subtly tell you something:
- The Syfy (Scifi) channel or some channel was showing back to back movies about alien invasions. I couldn’t help but watch “War of the Worlds” which turned out to be a very, very bad idea. The remake of War of the Worlds plays on pretty much every fear you could have: alien ship attacks, alien robot attacks, air planes going down, drowning in cars, Titanic-like boat going down, aliens that incinerate you indiscriminately, aliens that capture you and put you in a metal farmers’ market basket until they are ready to thrust their tentacle through you and suck out all of your blood, human kind’s extermination, mob hysteria, loosing your child, apocalypse. For those who didn’t see the new War of the Worlds: the aliens arrive in a stream of lightening bolts from the sky. So I couldn’t help but have a lump in my throat while watching the Geminids meteor shower.
- Also, for some reason, the powers that be seem to be testing the “Emergency Alert System” out. A lot. You know, that horrible nuclear bomb alert sound followed by, “This is a test of the Emergency Broadcast system. If this had been an actual emergency…” Those who saw War of the Worlds will know that this same message was being broadcasted during the alien invasion, saying “this is a TEST of the emergency broadcast system”–a test– even though it was sure damn well past an emergency. This test was playing on my TV upon my return of watching the Geminids meteor shower. These series of events are a great way to become an insomniac, but I don’t know if I was scared or more annoyed by the fact that the announcement said “this is a test of New Jersey’s emergency broadcast system”. New Jersey? I’m not in New Jersey! Are you telling me that in the event of an emergency Inwoodites are screwed because Manhattan forgets we exist and New Jersey is calling us theirs even though there is a freakin river between us? Inwoodites better start building rafts and canoes because it looks like we will be screwed.
- The Hadron seems to be up and running again.
The broadcast alerts are still going on… Just when War of the Worlds was receding from my mind a day later, as I dozed off with a smile on my face listening to Craig Furgeson, suddenly, in the middle of one of his jokes, the horrible nuclear bomb alert sound blasted like a siren with a “test” message. Success in finding a sound that will jerk anyone out of a soundful sleep.
So take it as fiction and believe what you will. The arts are a great way to send mass messages to people: either to have us buy something, to act a certain way, to serve as a mirror for our fears and desires, or to subtly prepare us for an alien invasion.
Mission: Space
Wannabe Astronauts, Trekkies, and Nova-sympathizers, listen up: If you want the thrill of your life and don’t have millions of dollars or the balls for the real thing, Mission: Space should be your pilgrimage in life. It might very well be the closest thing you’ll have to a real space odyssey. A spiritually uplifting moment (to make up from the tears of joy shed on the Silver Golf Ball, to be blogged about soon) that I can only describe as a mind-f*ck if it wasn’t real and I didn’t really go to Mars. Mission: Space – continue reading …
where I won’t be tomorrow
photo by Luc Viatour
Nova is gearing up for some new odysseys, but she’ll tell you one place she aint going to be. That would be the moon, given looney-tunes NASA has decided it needed to shoot the equivalent of a missile into it “to see what happens”. Sounds very much like a bunch of little boys detonating fireworks in places they really shouldn’t be, though talking about it in a language appropriate for their ages and nerdiness : “LCROSS Centaur Separation… Mission operations is initiating the breaking maneuver. This will create the 4 minute, 373 mile (600 km) separation planned for optimal data of the Centaur Impact Flash and debris plume. The breaking burn is 4 min 5 sec. in duration.”
Break out the apocalypse kits! Women will simultaneously get their periods across the globe, massive tidal waves will engulf our coasts, and the alien base hidden in the moon’s core will become activated and aim their cannons at earth. All because we wanted to see what happened.
No following NASA missions for me this time around! I’ll be home with my duct tape.
Obi-Wan-On-2
JPLogan decided to up Nova’s salsa training by taking her to Jimmy Anton’s. That place gets too hot for me right now, but it was good to get a taste of the on-2 performed in its glory scene. There are some amazing dancers there. And some teachers cloaked as dancers. I had a Star Wars Matrix moment on the dance floor. Does it get better than that? I met a real Obi-Wan-On-2. Odysseus had Athena, right?
I warn guys I’m a beginner when I’m offered a dance. Obi-Wan-On-2 wasn’t hearing it. “I didn’t ask you what level you are. I asked you to dance.” (points for confidence, check).
He wasn’t taking apologies for mistakes. “Don’t be sorry”.
He also said the equivalent of, “You’re are not following the force.” What he said was “You’re not feeling the music. Forget the numbers. Feel the music.” Neo, hear the matrix? It calls you.
Obi-Wan-On-2 then noticed that my moves were based on something treacherous: eyesight. Silly girl, every Jedi and Neo knows that the world of sight is a horrible illusion. So Obi-Wan-On-2 asked me to dance with my eyes closed. “Follow my lead by how I move my arm and hand. That is where our dance should originate: touch”. And because I really knew this was a Obi-Wan-Kanobe I agreed to do it…
Do I recommend doing this was just anyone? No. You have to be sure it’s really Obi-Wan. It did make me realize that in all these numbers and instructions and angst about following them, I need to remind myself to tap into what really beckons me to the dance floor.
Does the story change the act?
I was watching “Star Wars: Episode II: Attack of the Clones” (again) a few nights ago on Spike TV, blogging between the uninteresting fight scenes, eyes glued when the screen flashed with the evolving love story of Anakin and Padmé and warring rage of young man Anakin. By the end of the Star Wars prequels I was left with a haunting dilemma that I want to ask you readers about. We were introduced to Darth Vader as a full blown Sith, destroyer of planets, merciless killer, the Jungian shadow of the omnipotent patriarch. Darth Vader was a dark mystery. Human? Barely if at all, with his respirator and dark side powers. But in the prequels there is no Darth Vader yet (until the last scene). There is a story of a young man of impoverished background, fatherless, then motherless, and at one with a deep, soul-felt love that he soon looses too. The story of Vader is Anakin, a man who loved so deeply and so troubled by an intense connection to the force, he became an Angel of Death. Does the story change the act? – continue reading …
