slicing the darkness

slicing-the-darknessTwo weekends ago, I had one of the most surreal experiences I've ever had while flying . . . and given how much time I've spent on airplanes in my life, that's no small statement.

On the way back home from New Mexico, the sight of small high desert towns and cities set against the inky blackness of an entirely contourless new-moon landscape caught my eyes and held them captive nearly the entire way to my stopover in Las Vegas.

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Unfortunately, that inky blackness surrounding Sin City was experienced in a whole different context the following weekend . . . READ ON

the dark side of . . .

vaderThe Force. Well, apart from the quaint metaphor, and the whole midi-chlorian debac – um . . . decision – George Lucas wasn’t really all that far off the mark.

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Having grown up as Princess Leia – or as literally as I could make it given that we practically shared a name (just for the record, I did come first) – the Dark Side was always the enemy, the interloper, the usurper, the “other.” Good was where it was at; I knew this instinctively way before I ever became a Christian. Luke and Leia and Han and Chewy and Obi-Wan were the heroes; Vader the archetypal villain.

The Star Wars mythos became the cultural icon of my young life . . . READ ON