Friday, February 2, 2007

Because There's No Such Thing as Too Much Star Wars Blogging

Yesterday afternoon I finally finished the draft of the talk that I told you all about awhile back. This is something of a record for me, as I'm usually printing out a talk the morning that I have to give it. I still managed to go over deadline, though, so at least I stayed true to form (I had earlier promised a draft to the translator by 10 January, then 24 January, then...). I did find out that there's no web access in the lecture room, so unless I can find the right DVD from The Simpsons here, the YouTube clip Oaktown Girl pointed me towards is out, but otherwise I'm pretty happy with how things stand so far.

So the talk is now an 18-page monstrosity that I'll be tinkering with on and off over the next three weeks (in between grading, finishing a 15-pager due in a couple of weeks, and playing with the girls' cousins, who will be bringing their mom and dad to Chiba to coincide with our visit to baba and gigi). I meet Monday with the Secretary-General of the Japan-America Association of Fukuoka--he who not only invited me to give the talk but who also crafted the awesome invitation poster that I decided to run with in it--and possibly with the translator I'll be working with, so I'll get some early feedback from them then. If any among this "insignificant microbe" of a blog's readers (or authors) want to offer me some feedback of their own, I'd be happy to email you the current draft. Over the next few weeks, I'll post some outtakes from it here when the spirit moves me.

Here's one that Star Wars fans may get into. The decision to cast Al Gore as Jabba the Hutt in the invitation poster is hilarious, particularly when you recall that Leia is Hillary Clinton in it. The Secretary-General assured me this was just a design decision--sounds like plausible deniability to me....

OK, here's another: the Bush-Calrissian casting decision also lends itself to much fun, especially if you see Vader as Cheney.

So let's get those one-liners flowing--I promise to steal and use them in the Q&A if the opportunity arises.

Oh, and thanks to Quiet Bubble and Wax Banks, I've just found out there's going to be a Star Wars blog-a-thon on the 30th anniversary of Episode IV's release. Occasion for another WAAGNFNP event?

3 comments:

JP Stormcrow said...

"insignificant microbe" of a blog
Well yes, certainly a microbe - but "insignificant"? I prefer "prematurely underappreciated". You know, like Alfred Wegener and Continental Drift. Years after we die suitably apocalyptic deaths, (Alfred bought it on the Greenland icecap.) we get redemption. I mean it's not like this is some derivative movement living off of some else's ideas. We're very "original"!

David: So we became The Originals.
Nigel: Right.
David: And we had to change our name actually....
Nigel: Well there was, there was another group in the East End called The Originals and we had to rename ourselves.
David: The New Originals.
Nigel: The New Originals and then, uh, they became....
David: The Regulars, they changed their name back to The Regulars and we thought well, we could go back to The Originals but what's the point?

And let me mention another song of the apocalypse. Willie Nile's Cell Phones Ringing (In The Pockets Of The Dead). Could not find the lyrics but you can here an MP3 here. (And it would be one hell of a choice for your cellphone ringtone.)

The rights of man don't mean a thing, here in the Age of Style.

The Constructivist said...

I'm not one to stick up for the TTLB ecosystem, but here I have to give them credit. Microbes have the best chance of surviving the GNF, and "significance" is so pre-new nihilism.... I hope they never get around to upgrading our niche.

The Constructivist said...

Oh, and the grammar police in me love the "a insignificant microbe" thing--I don't think you can get that anywhere else in the ecosystem.