Saturday, July 26 2008
Wichita, KS to Dallas, TX
I’ve recently seen some online examples of people attempting to write short stories with the fewest words possible. Here’s my attempt at the story of today’s driving experience:
Got lost. Righted myself.
Friday, July 25 2008
Denver, CO to Wichita, KS
Today a large part of my driving took me through Kansas, which exists in most peoples’ minds primarily for references to the Wizard of Oz. How fitting then, that as I drove towards Wichita, I saw one of the most dazzling rainbows I’ve ever seen in my life. I stopped the car to take a picture, but I don’t think my small digital camera does justice to the brilliant colors that arced before me in the sky:
Less than 10 minutes later, the sky turned completely gloomy and I saw a gigantic bolt of lightning reach from the sky to the ground out on the horizon! It was probably the brightest and thickest lightning I’d ever seen. It was one of those things that makes you say “If that was in a movie, I’d say it was a poorly done special effect and not very realistic.” Just goes to show you what we’ve come to expect from our world based on movies and television, and how it can still surprise us so very easily.
I grabbed my video camera and hoped there might be some more demonstrations of this amazing phenomenon. Here’s a little of what I caught in a four-minute period: (don’t worry, I’ve edited it so you don’t have to sit through the non-lightning parts) 
Believe it or not, these were the babies that came before the real storm began, reaching down in fingers of lightning for the next forty-five minutes! I would have caught it all on the video, except that I’m pretty sure I would have crashed the car if I’d tried to hold the camera in one hand and steer with the other too much longer.
Thursday, July 24 2008
Denver, CO
Today’s adventure found me at the famous Red Rocks Amphitheater outside of Dallas. Actually, I’d never heard of it before this trip, but that probably says more about how out of touch I am than how famous Red Rocks is.
For those as out of touch as I am, here’s a quick rundown: Red Rocks is a natural amphitheatre in the middle of the Colorado Rocky Mountains. The man-made stage and seating area are surrounded by gigantic rock formations (seriously, they’re huge!) and sky. Just beautiful rocks and beautiful sky. It’s a great setting, and many famous concerts have been held there, including a 1983 concert credited with transforming U2 from “interesting band that some people have heard of” into “how can you not have heard of U2???”
In the summer, there is a weekly series called Film On the Rocks, during which a movie is shown before a crowd of 6000 at Red Rocks. The night that I was there, the film was The Breakfast Club, which, conveniently, is the next movie I am set to review in my Quick Movie Reviews on the regular Catty Wampus site. (so look for that sometime soon!)
I arrived early, and had a wide selection of open seats to choose from. I wandered around a bit as people slowly filtered into the stadium and chose their seats, setting down towels and beach chairs and pillows. I saw a woman holding up a hand-made sign that read “Meetin’ Denver!” Not having anything else to do, I wandered on down and asked what that was all about. It turns out that they are a group of people who organize activities for socializing and meeting new friends with similar interests. Many cities have a Meetin group (go to meetin.org to find one in your own town), and Meetin events have been taking place for over five years. Everyone I met was friendly, although the average age of the community seemed to be a little older than me. Still, it was a nice opportunity to meet people I would otherwise not have met.
The event itself was much more than just a movie, which is to say it was much more than I had expected. The movie didn’t start until around 9:30pm, when the sky was mostly dark. The two and a half hours before the movie was filled with a live band rocking out songs from the 1980’s (Owner of a Lonely Heart, Private Eyes, Money For Nothing, etc.) local comedian, and a dance troupe with suitably ’80s fitnesswear to get everyone in the right mood for the movie.
It’s been a long long time since I’d seen a movie in an atmosphere like this: where every character’s introduction is met with rousing applause, lines are quoted (shouted) along with the actors onscreen, and the general feeling of all 6000 people is that of “Hey, it’s great to all be together seeing this movie we all love!” It definitely wasn’t the place to be to see the movie for the first time, but if you were already familiar with it, I can’t think of a more celebratory way to get into The Breakfast Club than to sit with everyone there laughing and cheering as the movie played against a darkening sky that filled up with stars. A beautiful night. 
Wednesday, July 23 2008
Las Vegas, NV to Denver, CO
I stopped in the small town of Salina, Utah for lunch. The main drag in town seemed to be only a few blocks long, and it was right out of a movie–the dusty street, the old 5-and-10, a barber shop with an old man and an old woman sitting inside reading a newspaper, a few empty storefronts, and place called Mom’s Cafe. That’s where I decided to have lunch. It turns out that Mom’s is famous to anyone driving down the I-70, particularly truckers. The wait staff (both are women) wear teal and pink uniforms that call back to the 1970’s (think of the tv show “Alice”), and are absolutely friendly. I loved the charm of the place, and I wish I were driving back in the same direction so I could visit again. If nothing else, it has fed my hunger for eating at more of these small-town places on days when I have a long drive.
Side note: I find it odd that saying that something has “fed your hunger” means that your hunger grows, as opposed to “fed myself” means that your hunger diminishes. That is, the way to satisfy your hunger is not to feed it, but to feed yourself.
Anyway.
On my walk back to the car, I decided to check in on the old man and woman in the aforementioned barber shop. The shop itself was comprised of two barber chairs in front of tow mirrors. On the opposite wall hung a map of the United States from National Geographic, a 1950’s J&L poster of the 8 major haircuts for men, and an article from the local paper detailing the life The man was Zane Hatch. He is 85, and has been cutting hair for nearly sixty years. He wore a muted blue Hawaiian shirt and looked like Mr. Miyagi, if Mr. Miyagi had been born in Utah. Now, it’s a little strange for me to be in a place like this. I shave my own head, so there is usually very little reason to seek out a barber. Zane (and why don’t we have more people named Zane, by the way? it’s a great name!) picked up on this right away. He asked me why I didn’t have any hair:
I asked Zane if there were any haircuts in the past 60 years that stick out in his memory:
Zane and his wife are also fond of road trips. He showed me on his National Geographic map where they had driven for 6 weeks on their last trip, all around the country and even up into Alaska. He collected tree branches from many different types of trees up there and made beautiful walking sticks out of them. They were decorated with elaborate carvings Zane had done himself, and one was even covered with a beautiful speckle pattern that came from the mold which had been growing on the tree. He found that particular wood near the town of Chicken, Alaska. If you’ll kindly ignore whatever electronic device is signing in the background, this is Zane telling the story of how Chicken got its name:
Tuesday, July 22 2008
Las Vegas, NV
Keisha and I spent the day walking around Las Vegas, checking out the shops in the Bellagio and Caesar’s Palace. And even though I promised myself that I wasn’t going to gamble (I’ve been to Las Vegas a few times before, but haven’t gambled in ten years), I ended up giving in because of Keisha’s newfound enthusiasm for penny slots. She got me hooked, too, and over the course of the day, I lost all of the money I put into every single machine I played at. And I’ve decided that gambling isn’t so bad. Spending money gambling is just like paying for entertainment–you get a little thrill for your money, and that’s really the whole point of the thing, isn’t it?
Total Vegas Losses: $5.
Keisha also brought the trip’s Celebrity Sighting Count up to two when she noticed we walked past Mark Summers. I’m only familiar with Mr. Summers from his days on Nickelodeon’s Double Dare, but Keisha is aware of some of his more recent hosting and voice-over work. She seemed pretty excited when she saw him.
Current Celebrity Sighting Tally: 2
In the evening, we saw Ka, one of the new productions from Cirque du Soleil. I had read many reviews of the show, ranging from “It’s the most spectacular thing I’ve ever seen!” to “This is definitely Cirque’s worst effort. It was confusing and boring.” Now that I’ve seen it, I can confidently tell you this: Screw reading reviews. Go to see a show, or a play, or a movie, or a band, and then decide for yourself if you like it. Everyone will experience everything in their own way, and while it may be true that some reviews are able to capture the reaction of a large group of people, that doesn’t make your own opinion any less valid. I thought Ka was amazing, and I’m always blown away by the incredible feats that human beings can do when they focus their effort on developing their skill, bodies, and their minds.
Total Cirque du Soleil Shows Eric Has Seen: 2
Total Cirque du Soleil Shows That Totally Haven’t Let Eric Down: 2
P.S. Go see Ka.
Monday, July 21 2008
Los Angeles, CA to Las Vegas, NV
Today’s Rest Area Interview ™ features Mary and Tony, who are on a road trip to commemorate their 25th anniversary. They took the same road trip a quarter of a century ago after they got married in Alberta, Canada. Mary told me that she and Tony met in a television production club she was involved in outside of college. They worked together for months and months, but Tony was still a little uncomfortable asking her out for a first date. Mary tells it this way:
Don’t you just love her accent?? I swear, we do so much disservice to the rich texture of the many Canadian accents by reducing them all to “aboot” and adding “eh” to the end of every other sentence.
Speaking of accents, I also enjoyed listening to Tony’s explanation of the same event. Tony’s accent comes from being born and raised in Italy, but tempered by being surrounded by Albertans for the past three decades:
You can probably hear that they were in the middle of eating their packed lunch at the moment I approached them to ask for their time. Now that they had given me such an adorable story, I thanked them and left them alone to enjoy their lunch and each others’ company. As for me, I was off to Vegas to meet up with my friend, Keisha.
Sunday, July 20 2008
Los Angeles, CA
If I had a nickel for everyone who said to me “While you’re in LA, you have to interview people on Venice Beach! There’s some real characters there!”… I’d have, like, at least three or four nickels. So on Sunday morning I headed down to Venice Beach, which is just a ten minute walk from where I was staying (Erik and Lauren have a great location, practically right on the water!). I was walking with my headphones around my neck and my microphone at my side, poised for any potential interviews. I found myself walking almost step-for-step next to a tall man in a baseball cap with sunglasses and a trimmed gray beard. He looked to be about 50–a young 50. He asked “What are you, recording?” Boom–I had my first interview of the day.
The man’s name is Rod, and he’s been walking the beach for about 20 years. To be honest, talking with him really wasn’t that exciting and I’m learning that not every interview is going to be a solid gold winner. He did tell me that he was in a near-fatal car accident in the early 1970’s, and it really changed his outlook on life:
That’s nice and all, but I really feel like that kind of interview isn’t really what I’m after. If I told you to guess what a car accident victim would say about how their life was changed, this is probably pretty close to what you’d come up with. Every interview is a give-and-take, and I feel like maybe I’d have gotten something more interesting if I’d dug deeper.
Then again, sometimes you run into people where all you need to do is hold the microphone and let ‘em go! Down at the far end of the boardwalk, I met a tribe of post-hippies hanging out on blankets under an umbrella in a parking lot. The space belonged to a a lanky and grizzled man named Dreamcatcher. He had dirty blond hair (maybe dirty dirty blond?) hanging down in dreadlocks against his weather-worn face, and a half mustache/goatee thing (you know, the kind that doesn’t really connect at the sides? it’s like the mustache doesn’t talk to the goatee, and the goatee doesn’t talk to the mustache? they each just do their own thing). Dreamcatcher shared the space with Rebecca, who he referred to as “my first black lover.”
The moment I sat down with Dreamcatcher, I was caught in a bit of an awkward situation. We were approached by a large Mexican man, pointing and threatening “You stay away from me, Dreamcatcher! Don’t cross me, Dreamcatcher. It will be your downfall.” Dreamcatcher looked pretty confused about this, and after a few times insisting that he didn’t know what the man was so upset about, the Mexican said “You put too many fuckin’ people in jail, bro!” Apparently, the man believed that Dreamcatcher had been ratting out many of the Venice Beach regulars to the police. After the Mexican man left, Dreamcatcher was indignant:
I didn’t quite understand the bit about how Dreamcatcher smokes marijuana but doesn’t smoke pot. If any tokers out there care to enlighten me, I’m all ears. (do they still say ‘toker’ these days?)
We were soon joined by Jules (”Jules of the Nile,” she explained), a mousey woman with salt and pepper hair cut into a bob, sunken eyes and sunken cheeks. I was intrigued by her story because the common perception is that homelessness is something that happens to you, either because you have made poor decisions, or bad luck has looked down unfavorably on you. Jules found this lifestyle in another way:
The most interesting thing in all of this, aside from her gigantic decision to give up her entire former life, is how she says “I used to be a real person.” I’m not going to analyze that too much for you–but just let it sink in under that context.
I asked Jules what it was about Venice Beach that spoke to her the first time she saw it. This is what she said, along with a little history of the area:
A few minutes later I was introduced to the concept of Spiritual Tourette’s Syndrome, or STS. It’s an idea Rebecca had with a friend in Boston years ago. Jules and Dreamcatcher helped to explain. (note “the beeping” that Rebecca mentions refers to a car horn that honked a moment earlier)
Dreamcatcher often speaks in riddles and puns. This was his reaction to something as mundane as me talking about the weather, when I said I liked the atmosphere:
All in all, I really felt a lot of my own preconceptions and inhibitions being challenged while I sat with these folks. As straight-edge as I am, I bolted from the room the last time someone offered me a hit off of a marijuana pipe. So it was a big deal for me to even be able to hang in there while Dreamcatcher and Jules rolled and smoked a joint. Dreamcatcher even offered me a hit, and I didn’t feel any of the kind of judgement that I would have expected coming from him when I refused. I know I’m a square, and it was nice to have the feeling among these folks that it was okay.
A lot of this is all wrapped up in my own insecurities about who I am, and who I would like to be. I think about these things a lot, and when I come face to face with such a different way of living than I’m used to it can really send me off into a heap of questioning myself.
On the walk back to Erik and Lauren’s, I saw one of Venice Beach’s vendors with a sign that read:
It seemed to speak directly to what had been filling my mind at that moment. Maybe there’s something to this Spiritual Tourettes after all.
Sunday night was one of the biggest things I had been hoping to see on my trip: The Magic Castle.
The Magic Castle is a private club for magicians, with a restaurant, bars, and magical performances of all scales happening throughout the evening. In order to attend, you must either be a member of the Magic Castle (which is to say a professional magician who has passed a rigorous panel of your colleagues), or the guest of a member. Back in June, I placed an ad on craigslist to see if I could find any members who would be able to invite me as a guest. I was thrilled when I got a response from Phil Van Tee, a talented and unassuming man who was consistently described as “just the nicest, sweetest guy” by everyone who worked at the Magic Castle.
Erik and Lauren and I arrived as early as we could so that we could explore the Castle. Down in the basement, we found a small room with a man practicing some card tricks on a well-dressed couple. (everyone at the Magic Castle is well-dressed, incidentally–it’s one of the requirements for attending) The gentleman introduced himself as Brady and invited us in to watch him. The couple left after a a few more tricks, and me and my two friends were granted close-up seats around the small felt-topped table. Brady performed a card-telephathy trick with Lauren, a rope trick (my brain has always had a little trouble following along with rope tricks), and then a series of tricks with rubber bands that blew me away; these were ordinary rubber bands, but Brady made them appear to pass right through each other even when they appeared to be completely interlocked!
When Brady learned that this was our first visit to the Magic Castle, he offered to take us on a tour. He showed us just about every room in the building, taking time to point out some of the classic memorabilia along the way: W.C. Fields’ billiard table, an original Charlie McCarthy puppet, and the coin-operated Carnack psychic machine where Johnny Carson took the name of his own Carnac the Magnificent from.
Walking through one of the halls, we saw some posters commemorating “Magicians of the Year” for the past few years. Erik leaned close to the 2007 poster and pointed to one of the pictures. “Is that Jason Alexander?” he said. Sure enough, the tiny oval contained a picture of Jason Alexander, George Costanza himself, featured as one of the Magic Castle’s magicians of the year. Who knew!
We had just enough time to make it into line for one of the larger shows, so we sat down in the waiting area where we met Judy, John and Judy’s father, Ed. Judy and John had been to the Magic Castle years ago, but since her father (the retired head of the English department at Notre Dame, no less!) was visiting they thought it would be fun to come back. We all chatted for a bit about what we had all seen so far, and everyone was having a good time.
After the show (which, frankly, was a little underwhelming) it was time for dinner, which meant we had to make our way back through that small hallway with the Magicians of the Year posters. But there was a bit of a clog at the end of the hall, so none of us could move forward very quickly. As we slowly made our way to the end of the hall we saw what the hold up had been: a small, balding man in a beige sport coat was making his way down the stairs… it was Jason Alexander! People had been crowding around him, which probably happens to him a lot. Our new friend Judy was among the crowd, and when she saw us she said “I hugged him!!” Her face was entirely lit up and her eyes were wide open. “I told him that I loved Seinfeld! I even named my cat Kramer!!” “Wow. Did he say anything to you?” “He said ‘that wasn’t the character I played. But thank you very much.’ And then he hugged me! He was funny!”
After dinner we saw another big show. Again it was a little underwhelming, with the exception of one particular thing. A Japanese woman performed a piece with a bit of tissue paper twisted up into the shape of a butterfly. She used a folding fan to direct the air currents around the tissue paper to make it appear as though it were flying! It was really beautiful, and got even better when she produced another ‘butterfly’ and another fan, and made the two butterflies dance around each other. I had never seen or heard of this skill before, and it was mesmerizing.
The evening for Erik and Lauren and I finished up exploring the basement again where we saw Brady cede the felt-topped table to Zachary Strange who performed more mind-boggling close-up magic. He even did one a trick where he asked me to sign a card with a Sharpie and then proceeded to find my card over and over again, jumping it around to places in the deck and on the table where it had no business being. He ended his routine with the Cups and Balls, a routine Erik and I had earlier seen Ricky Jay perform on YouTube. It’s interesting to see how different performers work their act to perform the same effects, and Zachary’s version including an ending I never saw coming. I wish I could reveal it here, but it would ruin it if you ever saw it for yourself.
Finally, in the last room we visited we ran into none other than Phil Van Tee, my patron for the evening. I was so happy I was able to thank him in person for allowing us into this exclusive club for a wonderful evening. He was just as friendly as everyone said he was, and he seemed genuinely happy that we enjoyed ourselves. He then sat down at the felt-top table in front of him and performed a series of card, rope, coin, and ring tricks before our very eyes. There’s just something about close-up magic that fascinates me much more than larger stage illusions. I think it’s that there doesn’t appear to be any opportunity for trickery; the impossible really does seem to happen right in front of you, and even though the rational part of your brain tells you that there is some gadget, or sleight-of-hand, or other trickery involved, the rest of your brain just sits there dumbfounded and thinking “I just saw something I could not have possibly seen.” Phil also ended his act with the Cups and Balls, but his was the most elaborate we had seen so far, wrapped up in a story of con-men and childhood memory, including a lot of visual jokes along the way. The end of the trick–well, again I can’t give anything away, but I’ll just say that it was a perfect end to a wonderful evening of magic.
By the way, if you’re in the Los Angeles area and need a magician for an event, or if you know anyone who does, you should absolutely contact Phil Van Tee to see if he’s available. You will not be disappointed. His website again is www.philvantee.com.
Saturday, July 19 2008
Los Angeles, CA
Today’s adventure was the Museum of Jurrasic Technology. Haven’t heard of it? I’m not surprised. It’s buried among many of the other more flashy and stand-out markets and stores along Venice Boulevard in Culver City. But if you happen to chance by it, you should stop inside. There doesn’t seem to be a common theme that ties together all of the museum’s exhibits, except perhaps that they all seem to share a certain level of obscurity. More about that in a moment.
My hosts, Erik and Lauren, and I parked the car and began walking towards the museum. On the way, however, we saw a sign for a yard sale so we decided to stop and check it out. It was late in the day, so I’m guessing that most of what was there was the remainder of a larger selection in the morning. There was a rack of clothes, and a mirror, and a blanket on the grass containing a few toys, trinkets, and a young woman named Maggie, who was in charge of the sale. Maggie has been in LA since last month, working with various studios as a Production Coordinator and then as a costumer–including doing some commercial work for Jack In The Box and a spot where she and her team had to create some costumes for chimpanzees. I asked how you measure a chimpanzee for clothing, but it turns out it’s just the same as for people: you get the length of the arm, the size of the chest, neck, waist, etc. I have to admit, after I heard the answer, it was kind of a dumb question.
There was a question I have been meaning to ask more people, and perhaps I’ll work up the nerve very soon. The question is this: “Have you ever seen a UFO?” Most people haven’t, but for the one rare time that you find someone who has, you know you’re going to get a good story out of it, right? Maggie has never seen one, but she did have this to say:
The other voice you hear in the background is Maggie’s brother, Brandon. They live together, though Brandon has been in Los Angeles for a lot longer. He moved out from Ohio with his friend Mike. He and Mike have known each other since they were 15 years old, sort of. “Sort of,” because there’s a way of looking at things where you could say they’ve known each other a lot longer:
Erik and Lauren and I said goodbye to Maggie and Brandon and headed down the street to the Museum where we met up with our former classmate, Bill, and Kevin, an animator who has plates spinning in many parts of the industry.
I heard about the Museum of Jurassic Technology because of Ricky Jay, a world-class sleight of hand artist and magic historian, whose collection of deteriorating dice were on exhibit there. I had expected that the Dice exhibit was long gone, so I was pleasantly surprised to find it still there. The collection is composed primarily of dice from the days before plastics; these dice were made from celluloid, which has the habit of decomposing very quickly after not very long. (this is one of the reasons that a lot of early films have been lost, and archivists are hard at work to preserve every remaining scrap of celluloid film they can) These dice look as though they have been melted slightly, or deformed, or simply eroded. In any other context they would most likely appear to be junk, but the museum has found a way to display them elegantly so they can be appreciated as beautiful artifacts.
Other exhibits in the museum included a room dedicated to the dogs of the Russian space program from the 1950’s and 1960’s, an explanation of a “Logic Alphabet” developed by Shea Zellweger (a contemporary of Montessori) in order to help logicians further conceptualize their work, a collection of antiquated medical practices mixed in with superstitious beliefs about how to cure various ailments, and a large space dedicated to the work of Athanasius Kircher, a 17th century scholar who developed many theories on magnetism, music, and many other disciplines. This is a “bell wheel” of Kircher’s design, which hangs in the center of one of the rooms dedicated to him:
Kevin was very skeptical about a lot of the museum’s collection, particularly the extensive attention paid to Kircher. “It seems a bit like an elaborate joke,” he said. “There just doesn’t appear to be enough information here to convince me that this guy actually existed and had all of these theories. Plus a lot of the dates an information listed in the plaques on the walls don’t match up with what I know about certain scientific theories and timelines. It’s like it’s all a kind of performance art being perpetrated on us.” I’m not sure I agree with Kevin. Perhaps he’s being overly skeptical–but then again, I’ve been known to be overly naive.
Probably the most impressive exhibits, however, were those dedicated to the Micromosaics of Henry Dalton and the Microminiature Sculptures of Hagop Sandaldjian. You can probably find images of their work online (I hadn’t brought my still camera in with me), and in fact I remember receiving an e-mail that contained a link to Sandaldjian’s work about a year ago. I remember seeing the images online and being very impressed by the sculptures that actually fit within the eye of a needle, but that didn’t prepare me at all for seeing them up close. They are quite marvelous. They don’t have the detail you would be able to get in a larger sculpture, but believe it or not they have more detail than I would ever have thought possible for something so small and created by someone’s hands. There are currently only three sculptures on display (Napoleon, a Pope, and a golfer), and seeing those three one inspires a hunger to see more and more. Perhaps someday I’ll be fortunate enough to come across any other place that has some of Sandaldjian’s work.
Friday, July 18 2008
San Francisco, CA to Los Angeles, CA
After bidding Matt and Christine a fond farewell (and a quick farewell Ian and Zoe, who were excited to get out the door and on their way to camp), I headed downtown to meet up with Michelle and her husband Brian at a little breakfast place called Boogaloo. Michelle was an instructor at the school I went to, though I never had any of her classes. We’ve become correspondence buddies based on similar projects and shared interests. I wouldn’t say that we’re totally in the “friend” area, but she’s been a wonderful source of inspiration, feedback, and conversation and I hope that someday I’ll be able to provide at least a little of the same for her.
The rest of the day was mostly consumed with driving and getting a little lost and nearly running out of gas, until I finally arrived at the home of Lauren and Erik in Los Angeles. We stayed up for a few hours discussing the plans for my visit (including one particular stop I’m very excited about–details soon!). Perhaps I’ll get an interview with them today or tomorrow–they seem like they’ll be good storytellers.
Thursday, July 17 2008
San Francisco, CA
Today I got to spend a lot of time with some friends from school. I’m staying with my friend Matt, his wife Christine, and their two adorable children Ian and Zoe. In the morning, Matt and I walked Ian down to the Exploratorium where Ian is going to camp while Christine drove Zoe to Zoo Camp. After we dropped Ian off, we walked back to the Presidio, an area of San Francisco that was once a Spanish military base but is now a beautiful area of parks and homes, not to mention the location of Industrial Light and Magic and LucasArts (where Matt works).
At noon, after a brief respite back at Matt’s house, I walked back to the Presidio to meet up with Brian (who I had gone to school with), and his son Dakota (who I had not). Matt took us on a tour of ILM, which included more movie memorabilia than you could shake a light saber at. The halls of the studio are a veritable museum of priceless artifacts, ranging from matte paintings to sculptures to miniatures, to puppets from scores of films that ILM has provided effects for. Any wallspace that is not covered by work representing ILM’s history is instead decorated with classic film posters (mostly foreign posters of classic American films, it seems) from George Lucas’s personal collection.
After lunch, Brian and Dakota and I walked around the city and enjoyed each others’ company. We even found a stop sign to take a picture of for my collection. It will be a while before I premiere it on the regular Midnight Diaries blog, but I can give all of you readers a special preview sneak-peek:
Brian was astute in pointing out the flame for the dot over the “i” and the dollar sign in place of the “s”.
In the evening I hung out with Matt and Christine some more, introducing them to one of my favorite card games, Munchkin. If you’re into board games and card games, or really if you’re geeky in any way, I highly recommend this game. I think Matt and Christine really enjoyed it, and I hope they might even pick up a copy for themselves and some game-night friends in the near future. In return, they introduced me to Fluxx, a card game whose rules change with every turn. It was a lot of fun, and I’m looking forward to bringing it to the attention of my own group of game-night friends back in Portland.
After Christine went to bed, Matt and I stayed up way too late talking about animation, the Muppets, religion, school, and careers. I know we could have talked for hours more, but it was already approaching 2 in the morning and Matt had to work the following day, and I had a big drive ahead of me. So we said goodnight got what sleep we could for the next day ahead.