The Battle for Endor: in stereo on New York radio circa 1985

A friend of mine wrote my a nice e-mail yesterday congratulating me on my book and shared this story about Ewoks: The Battle For Endor:

Your book brought back many fond memories of my own boyhood. I was born in 1976 and, like you, I was hooked on the Star Wars toys -- more so than the movies. There is an iconic family photograph of a young Tony opening a present to find the Millennium Falcon. I was the happiest kid in the world. 

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Another memory that came rushing back was the hype surrounding the Ewoks: The Battle for Endor. It must have been promoted for a month before its premier. But the big news was the film’s audio track. Now Gib, as you no doubt recall, in 1985 TVs were simple things with none of the bells and whistles we have today. A typical TV’s “sound system” was a single small speaker. It certainly was on our little TV in [our] household. And, because of this technological limitation, audio tracks for TV shows and movies were broadcast in mono. But, because Battle for Endor was such a big deal, one of the New York top 40 radio stations suspended their programming and simulcast the film’s audio track so everyone in the New York, New Jersey area could watch the movie on their TV but listen to it IN STEREO! Unprecedented! This had never happened before and, as far as I know, never since.

Thanks Tony! Do any of you remember this?

Star Wars toothbrush launch party with mom bloggers

One of the many great things about New York City is the fabulous social scene (or so I'm told). Take for instance the MomTrends/G.U.M Star Wars™Toothbrush Launch Party last Thursday. From MomTrends: 

Daughter to mum: WTF?Momtrends joined forces with Star Wars™/Sunstar G.U.M for an out-of-this world evening. Jedi Knights and their masters in training (mom bloggers) attacked Ripley’s Believe It Or Not in NYC to learn more about the new Star Wars™ toothbrushes and oral health for their young troops.

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Kiddos enjoyed a host of activities including the the Laser Race- a maze of red laser beams, the black hole [?], Star Wars™ arts and crafts and a museum scavenger hunt.

While the [Jedi, presumably] knights played, the bloggers joined Dr. Ignelzi, DDS, PhD, a pediatric dentist and orthodontist in Greensboro, NC for vital information on oral health care for children.

New York City. I bet there's a toothbrush launch party there every night.

MomTrends: G.U.M Star Wars™Toothbrush Launch Party 

Jedi training in New York City

From the New York Times:

“They come in geeks and go out Jedi warriors,” said Mr. Michael, a founder of the group and a self-ordained Jedi grandmaster.

A sound engineer who lives in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn, and a self-proclaimed “sci-fi, heavy-metal, over-the-top geek,” he was born Michael Brown and grew up in Rhode Island, where, he said he watched the first “Star Wars” film 32 times in 1977, the year it was released. He recalls first seeing Luke Skywalker learn about the force from Obi-Wan Kenobi and saying to the screen, “I want to do that.”

“I realized that George Lucas made the ideal archetype from all the best disciplines we have,” he said. “I was beat up a lot as a kid, and the lightsaber brings out that strong hero inside of you, so you can stand up for yourself.”

Mr. Michael, 41, says he teaches his charges how to use the Force to navigate living in New York City, whether in a pressurized workplace, a crowded subway or a rowdy bar.

He said he had fashioned a spiritual discipline for the modern urban Jedi, drawing upon his experience with dance, martial arts, sword-fighting and Tibetan Buddhism.

New York Times: Training New Jedis in the Force

See also the related slideshow

John Powers: Star Wars and the rhetoric of power

This is why it would be more fun to live in New York City. Tomorrow afternoon Brooklyn sculptor John Powers will be giving a talk at Performa 11 entitled "Star Wars and the rhetoric of power". From the web site:

John Powers presents the original 1977 Star Wars movie, not as literary fantasy but as an real object; an object made at a particular time and place, by a particular group of people. 

George Lucas said that after he realized he would not be able find funding for his Vietnam War, he took the ideas he had been working on for Apocolypse Now and reworked them s a space adventure - recasting the North Vietnamese as a rebellion against a corrupt industrialized Empire run by "Nixonian gangsters". Star Wars will be presented as As an artifact of post-Vietnam, post Watergate, Cold War America - an America rebelling against the massive Modernist urban development and mute abstract art they associated with the racist and sexist paternalism of their own Empire.

Also check out John's blog, Star Wars Modern.

Performa 11: Event: John Powers