episode vi

Released in cinemas in the US on this day in 1983, the date coinciding with the 1977 premiere of the original Star Wars, the epic space opera, which was thought to be the conclusion of the franchise, the saga continues a year after the abduction of Han Solo at the conclusion of The Empire Strikes Back and the Rebel Alliance discover that the Emperor has ordered the construction of a new Death Star, intend on finally exterminating any nonaligned elements. Thirteen days before it was screened in theatres, the novelisation by James Kahn was published—I’m sure with a lot of spoilers. I remember not being very good about keeping the plot twists to myself at the time. Watching the reactions (see also) of first time viewers to revelations about the Skywalker family from the previous instalment is pretty delightful. “So what I told you was true—from a certain point of view.”

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from juno to jupiter: famed composer who championed the synthesizer Vangelis passed away, aged 79  

of angel and puppet: an exploration of innocence through the finger puppets of Paul Klee—see previously

the púca of ennistymon: a sculpture of a mythological chimera almost gets cancelled  

fern gully: spelunkers in China discover a massive ancient forest in a sinkhole  

capable of completing the kessel run in less than twelve parsecs: the Millennium Falcon was the last ship build at the Royal Pembroke Dockyard  

v’ger: Voyager 1 beaming back usual telemetry to mission control—via Boing Boing

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saved: Diane Keaton’s coffee table book of quirky photography  

broadacre city: Frank Lloyd Wright’s experimental community of the future—via Nag on the Lake  

23 skidoo: enhanced footage of flappers from 1929 

senator palpatine needs to flip just five seats to take back power: a fund-raising solicitation from the galactic majority leader (previously)

spelunking: surveyors discover the largest cave system in North America 

 they’ve got an awful lot of coffee in brazil: the novelty song as performed by Frank Sinatra  

homage to the squares: a rhythmic revisiting of the art of Josef Albers via Pasa Bon!  

vacansopapurosophobia: an assortment of very cromulent vocabulary

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un robot quadrupede al servizio dell’archeologia: SPOT to patrol ruins of Pompeii and protect the site from looters—also raising a quandary for future archaeologists 

satanic panic: the full 1993 (!) cult awareness pamphlet (see previously)—via Weird Universe  

dans l’ombre du star wars kid: the National Film Board of Canada’s documentary on the internet phenomenon  

entrée: a family-run Tbilisi-based artisanal bakery expands into East London 

the atlantean: after Dallas (debuting on this day in 1978), Patrick Duffy appeared as a merfolk-hybrid hero

intonarumori: Luigi Russolo’s experimental sound machines

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stacy’s dad has got me down bad: a Fountains of Wayne cover from a different perspective  

imperial trans-antarctic expedition: the shipwreck of Ernest Shackleton’s 1914 exploratory mission discovered  

beachcomber: eighteenth-century seaweed pressings speak to fecklessness and romance 

ithaca: an new AI model is helping scholars decipher and date ancient inscriptions  

x-wing: Star Wars space craft size comparison  

snowmen: David Lynch’s haunting images—evocative of Eraserhead from Boise, Idaho in the early ‘90s  

there’s a doll, inside of doll, inside a doll, inside a dolly: Robbie Williams’ 2016 Party Like a Russian was inspired by an encounter with the inner-circle of oligarchs when asked to perform at a New Year’s Eve party

iwows

Via Slashdot, astronomers are forwarding the conjecture that like the other Saturnine satellites Titan and Enceladus, the mysterious and icy Mimas—heretofore most well known for being an actual moon despite its resemblance to the Death Star (formally ♄ I and named after the Giant, at the suggestion of William Hershel's son John like the others in this complex system after the Giant born of the blood of castrated Uranus and killed by Hephaestus during the Gigantomachy) may possibly harbour a vast liquid ocean several kilometres beneath its frozen crust. Going by the above initialism “interior water ocean worlds.” More at the links above.

alien exile

Two Star Wars alumni appear in a pair of early 90s, particularly ill-received action, sci-fi films both set in the year 2022. First Billy Dee Williams appears with Tracy Scoggins in the 1993 convicts-in-space vehicle Alien Intruder, wherein several inmates are impressed on a excursion into uncharted deep space on a salvage mission with the promises that if they succeed then their sentences will be commuted. During the long voyage, the crew have free use of a holodeck of sorts to act out their sexual fantasies, however their programmes are invaded by a manipulative presence that dispatches with the virtual reality playmates presenting as an ideal companion then escapes into their fraught reality. Second Mark Hamil with Rae Dawn Chong star in the 1993 Michael Mazo directed Time Runner (also released under the title In Exile), who ducks into a worm hole to escape an alien invasion that sends Hamil thirty years into the past. Continuity and movie time travel rules break down within minutes, involving the saving and sacrificing of parents and ones future selves.

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the audience effect: fellow blogger and internet caretaker Duck Soup passes a million page-views

графички дизајн: celebrating the works of three pioneering Serbian graphic designers and topographers

mountain view: a prop gravesite used for film and television, interred and disinterred thousands of times, in a very real cemetery 

subject matter expert: the street photography of Eric Kogan—via the morning news  

utter rubbish: traumatising photographs of the garbage, sometimes neatly knolled, that humans produce  

the briefing: a definitive guide to COP 26  

greased falcon: a fan-channel dedicated to Star Wars! The Musical (2008)  

time in a bottle: hackers are amassing encrypted data in the hopes that within a few years, quantum computers will be able to unlock it—via Slashdot 

return to comfort town: more on brilliant housing development in Kyiv inspired by building blocks—see previously

typically tropical

Best remembered for the 1975 Song of the Summer “Barbados,” reaching its pinnacle of popularity on this day those decades hence, the duo comprised of recording engineers Jess Calvert and Max West, the track was covered by the Vengaboys in 1999 as “We’re Going to Ibiza.” Typically Tropical performed the song on Top of the Pops, rounding out an album called Barbados Sky, and three years later received a song writing credit for the Hot Gossip disco number “I Lost My Heart to a Starship Trooper,” inspired by the Star Wars craze. “…Or are you like a droid—devoid of emotion?”

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roll for perception: the official video for the 1987 Rick Astley hit (previously) surpasses one billion views   

until proven safe: EURIDICE, the eponym from the mythological Eurydice who Orpheus failed to retrieve from the Underworld, is the acronym for European Underground Research Infrastructure for the Disposal of Nuclear Waste in a Clay Environment  

a clokey production: a bot scours Gumbasia for random screen-grabs

pelagic waters: exploring the oceans’ midnight zone beyond the reach of the sun’s rays

portrait of a teenage alcoholic: a 1975 after school special starring The Exorcist’s Linda Blair and Star Wars’ Mark Hamill  

an eternal golden braid: some crib-notes and a course on the 1987 classic Gödel, Escher, Bach

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into the bantaverse: a bot ghost-writes a Star Wars story—see also  

green guerrillas: the role that radical gardeners play in fostering community out of urban blight  

earth, wind and fire: combine basic elements and create new substancesas an alchemist—via Waxy  

fourth world: celebrating the life and career of trumpeter and electronic music pioneer Jon Hassell (*1937)

in frame: see the untrimmed, original version of Rembrandt’s Night Watch (previously) thanks to the help of a curating algorithm   

homo longi: recently discovered ‘dragon man’ skull may be a transitional species from Neanderthal to modern humans  

ine bay: hidden, historic boathouses (伊根の舟屋, funaya) in Kyoto—via Nag on the Lake’s always excellent Sunday Links 

the skeleton crew: our friendly artificial intelligencer (previously) trains a neural network to write a horror story

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here fishy, fishy, fishy: a tale of a talking fishing lure and sixty counts of mail fraud  

goldenrod: behind-the-scenes footage of droids C3PO and R2-D2 trying on their costumes  

plastic tracker: monitor the likely course of one’s discarded waste to the seas—see also—via Maps Mania 

discothek: a commercial photographer captured the golden age of nightclubs with all their eccentricities and exuberance  

juneteenth: America gets a new federal holiday to commemorate the end of chattel enslavement in the United States  

downfall: dégringolade n. a rapidly deterioration of circumstance or position, from the French to take a sudden tumble 

foreign exchange: a beautiful animated short of grains of sand and fiat currency explores the tenuous, specious agreements that underpin capitalism and the global economy  

the most compact, neatest, cheapest, and durable reel on the market: advertising niche that distresses and antiques modern sundries

nitrate divas

Via friend of the blog Nag on the Lake, we quite enjoyed this short montage from Fabrice Mathieu of pristine looping animations (see also) sourced from scenes of classic (past and more contemporary) movies arranged together for visual similarities, energies and synchronicities. If the name of the filmmaker strikes as familiar, we’ve referenced his work at least once in the past with a cleverly edited mash-up between directors Alfred Hitchcock and George Lucas. We were reminded of the image, not featured below and far less artfully timed, of the shot-for-shot comparison of The Phantom Carriage and The Shining or the post-credit parody of Deadpool in homage to Ferris Bueller’s Day Off.

revenge of the sixth

A bit deflating like learning a super hero’s catch-phrase was derived from a Ted Cruz joke or some other detestable tool, we were a little disheartened to learn the albeit non-canonical, not endorsed Star Wars holiday is sourced and cited to a celebratory message that the Conservative Party took out in the London Evening News just after exit polls declared Margaret Thatcher Prime Minister on this day in 1979:“Congratulations Maggie, May the Fourth be with you!” The advertisement caused some consternation among the Tories—thinking bringing in such a pop culture reference, though two years old by then, out of place, though calling Reagan’s his missile shield, the Strategic Defence Initiative after the space opera made the pun socially acceptable, and made the phrase, trope an enduring relic of the Reagan-Thatcher era.

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being vaccinated does NOT mean you can gyre and gimble in the wabe: COVID-19 safety protocols in the Jabberwocky 

i’ve hidden the plans in an r2 unit: watch Carrie Fisher’s screen-test for the role of Princess Leia—see also 

murder offsets: a fine is a price, paying for the right to do wrong, like papal indulgences 

page left blank intentionally: the missing portion of the CIA report on astral projection (previously)—via Things Magazine  

man tanna: the kastom tribe of Vanuatu mourn the passing of Prince Phillip  

nature’s palette: an anniversary re-print of Patrick Syme’s expansion on Werner’s Nomenclature of Colour—previously  

see my poncey boots—teach myself to cook: Mick Jagger and Dave Grohl sing about lockdown and conspiracy theorists

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topsy-turvy: the architecture of the upside-down  

forever blowing bubbles: the symbols of Wall Street, capitalism protest art  

hashtag hastings: remix your own Bayeux Tapestry (previously)—via Kottke 

sit, ubu, sit: Pablo Picasso called the injured owl he discovered and nursed back to health by that name partly out of assonance with ‘hibou,’ French for hoot, and the obnoxious Alfred Jarry character  

voyager station: orbiting cruise ship set to open as early as 2027—via the always excellent Nag on the Lake 

0 bby or star wars retrofitted: remastering the franchise with references to what’s been revealed in the past four decades  

tailpipe: visualising carbon dioxide emissions through a driving game—via Waxy  

bright and airy: an inside-out concept residential project with lots of ventilation

they ride single-file to hide their numbers

Back in 2013, Star Wars: A New Hope (Sq’Tah Anaa’) was dubbed in Diné, making it among the first major motion picture screened in the language of the Navajo people, though only released shown to a limited audience at the time with its Washington, DC premiere at the Native American Museum and only available in translation by purchasing a speciality DVD edition. Now, however, it is available for streaming for anyone and becomes another in-road (see also) for making the endangered language accessible and revitalised. Especially intriguing is the choice to have C3PO voiced by a woman and the transformative effect that had for the character.

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penne, named for the nib of a quill: a trilingual exploration of past etymology—see also 

i’m live—i’m not a cat: kitten-filter mishap for attorney’s teleconference is could become this era’s poster image 

so this is how liberty dies… with thunderous applause: the honourable senator from Naboo was the deciding vote that allowed the Palpatine to become Emperor as explored scene-by-scene by a group of screenwriters constructing the finest Star Wars story that will be never made
 

opmerkelijke zaken: mushroom bricks, bricks reinforced with plastic waste plus more from the peripatetic Pasa Bon!  

pelagic zone: winners of the 2021 Underwater Photography contest announced 

cosy web: the Multiverse Diary project, a collaboration that celebrates the old school blog and wiki aesthetic for branching out  

pov: Ancient China on Rome, the Islamic world on India and other historical perspectives narrative on Voices of the Past 

uunifetapasta: where the phenomenon of TikTok Pasta came from and where it might lead

memory alpha or first recorded use

Our thanks to the always outstanding Everlasting Blört for referring us to the Historical Dictionary of Science Fiction that gives the etymology of words and phrases in the genre and expounds on their earliest citations (see also for general use). Unobtanium, for instance, predates Avatar by a half a century, first in print as a bit of industry jargon that researchers working on the noses of intercontinental ballistic missiles sought after in 1956. Warping space-time as a means of travel dates back to 1936 J. Williamson’s short story Cometeers. Before Chewbacca, in Lucas’ dystopian directorial debut THX 1138 there was the line: “I think I ran over a wookiee back there on the expressway.”

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ruminant digestive process: whilst bovine flatulence makes the headlines, burps are the chief source of methane and could be neutralised with a special mouth guard—via the New Shelton Wet/Dry  

caporegime: via ibīdem, the Organised Crime and Corruption Reporting Project names Jair Bolsonaro Corrupt Person of the Year, trouncing with a narrow margin Trump, Erdoğan and Netanyahu  

commander-in-cheat: First Minister Nicola Sturgeon won’t allow Trump to visit his golf course in Scotland during the pandemic lockdown to bow out of attending the inauguration in Washington, DC 

georgia on my mind: Reverend Warnock declared winner in Senate race and Democrats poised to take control of the Upper House  

grogu pains: The Mandalorian reimaged as 1990s sitcom  

die abenteur des prizen achmed: the incredible silhouette animation technique of Lotte Reiniger—more here  

population density: housing ten billion humans in one mega city could help vastly reduce our footprint, freeing up the remaining land mass for rewilding and argiculture 

all the trimmings: for this traditional day of ceremonially discarding the tree, ways to transform it into garnish and a tasty treat