Look carefully at the right edge of this still frame from
TRON. Can you see what Mr Red Antenna sees? Here's a hint: he's yellow and lives on a steady diet of ghosts.
I've always thought this is one of the more unique cameos in film history. In 1982, when
TRON came out, it was definitely not cool to be a geek, not like it is now, what with the booming popularity of
The Big Bang Theory and so on. Little inserts of geek culture like this were few, if they occurred at all. Part of the abiding charm of that year for a science fiction fan. It was the year that every month brought a new classic of the genre.
Blade Runner, the second
Star Trek movie,
E.T.,
Poltergeist,
The Road Warrior,
The Thing... a seminal year for geekdom, without a doubt.
We're watching an odd double bill today, TRON and
Die Hard. Originally just intending to watch the one, when word got out that one of the gal's friends has never seen the greatest christmas action movie of them all, we decided to double down. Should be fun. We'll watch
40 Stories of Sheer Adventure (Die Hard's tagline), break for an intermission supper and then fire up TRON himself, which nobody present will have seen before; or if they did, it was long ago and is now a distant, barely perceptible memory.
That's why I'm here: to create good memories.
Six good years at Zoo Station, home longer than any other but the California house where I grew up. Moving out next month won't be easy. I'll miss the camaraderie and the memorable mixers we've thrown, and after I'm gone I'll pine for long walks through the park, located with the zoo right across the street.
My day starts with a walk, rousting myself in the wee hours to trudge through the park for a nice warm dose of caffeine. There's a dirt path that winds past the eastern border of the zoo that during the rainy season turns into Gravy Lane. Splorching your way up the muddy incline, it leads to a footbridge that after traversing Aurora Avenue debouches into the park proper. Lovely spot. I've had some of my best walks there, at times developing into a full trot when the ideas are flowing so freely that I can't wait to get home and write them down: most if not all primary plotting of my novel occurred during walks in Lower Woodland Park. I'll miss it a lot.
