VLVL(12) pgs 7, 248-261

[Robin Landseadel]

On Mar 4, 2009, at 0:00? [does anybody really care?] PM, Bekah  wrote:

>>>> (pg 253)   She sneaks by a guard who is reading - DL is using  
>>>> Kasumi
>> Mist techniques including wiggling her fingers in his face. She then
>> jimmied the lock with a long thin Sensei needle . . .

On Mar 4, 2009, at 2:16 PM, rich wrote:

> doesn't obi-won kenobe exhibit many of these traits of the "force"
> (well, except for the erotic encounter, natch)

Yes, and "Return of the Jedi" (1983) is the very first film cited in  
Vineland—first off on account of the fact that it was filmed up in  
"those parts". "Vineland" pretty much sets the scene for George Lucas'  
instillation of "Skywalker Ranch" deep into the woods of Vineland. The  
Ranch features a state-of-the-art postproduction facility including a  
very high-tech scoring stage, a favorite spot to record classical fare  
in the general San Francisco Bay Area on account of adjustable  
acoustics and some under-the-counter deal where jets don't fly over  
the Ranch. There's an agreement where the U.S. Military gets to call  
their annual budget overeach "Star Wars" for at least a couple of  
Presidental Administrations and other support from the periodically  
Riefenstahl-ish Herr Lucas, who appears kinda keen on the neo-con  
flavor of fascism they're dealing him anyway, leastaways in his  
esthetics.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UxvYpfWJn1o

One of my favorite passages in Vineland:

	"See you did some redecorating."

	"If you would've come around last month, you 'n' 'at little saw,
	could've helped us gut the place."

One-camera set-up for this episode of "Just Dudes", two local hippies  
hammering it out like something out of "Cheers" or maybe something  
more low-rent, like "Rosanne."

	"Sorry, Buster, guess I did come to the wrong bar, I sure can't
	saw any of this stuff, not with the money you must've put in ...
	only reason I'm up here is is 'at the gentrification of South
	Spooner, Two Street, and other more familiar hellraisin' locales
	has upped the ante way outa my bracket, these are all folks
	now who like to sue, and for big bucks, with hotshot PI lawyers
	up from the City, I so much as blot my nose on one of their
	designer napkins I'm in deep shit anymore."

All that's missing is the laugh-track.

Gearshifting here, whether you want to call this here establishment a  
fern lounge or a bear-bar or maybe some really crypto-occult-new-age  
haunt, Zoyd finds himself out of his element and well out of his  
comfort zone. Everybody in the novel seems to be most comfortable  
imagining themselves living the life and speaking the dialog of some  
television character.

	"Well, we're no longer as low-rent as people remember us here
	either Zoyd, in fact since George Lucas and all his crew came
	and went there's been a real change of consciousness."

	"Yep, I noticed ... say, you want to draw me a, just a lady's size
	beer there ... you know I still haven't even got around to that
	picture?"

	They were talking about Return of the Jedi (1983), parts of
	which had been filmed in the area and in Buster's view
	changed life there forever. . .

I happened to be in that neck of the woods, up in Novato. The  
Renaisance Faire's Northern California site had lots of residents  
working for Lucas, and of course the influence of George Lucas also  
included the popularization of Joseph Campbell via talks & lectures  
produced by George Lucas. A lot of what emerged as the "New Age" got a  
booster shot from "The Power of Myth."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ciu_5Bsftws

	Lucas invited Campbell to see all three of the Star Wars movies
	then made, and Joe agreed to see all three in one day in a
	screening room at Lucas' Skywalker Ranch near San
	Francisco. Campbell was amazed at how well mythological
	themes had been incorporated into the films, and described it
	later, saying: "I tell you, I was really ... thrilled. Here the man
	understands the metaphor. What I saw was things that had
	been in my books but rendered in terms of the modern problem,
	which is man and machine ... That young man opened a vista
	and knew how to follow it and it was totally fresh."
	(The Hero's Journey [San Francisco, 1990], p. 181-182)

http://www.online.pacifica.edu/cgl/lucas

	He put his massive elbows on about
	the only thing in here that hadn't been replaced, the original
	bar, carved back at the turn of the century from one giant
	redwood log. "But underneath, we're still just country fellas."

	"From the looks of your parking lot, the country must be
	Germany."

Badda-boom and yet another reminder of the locale in which the  
previous novel by this author was set, as we walk bass-ackwards once  
more into the lovely subject of fascism and it's continuing hold on  
the U.S.A.

	"You and me Zoyd, we're like Bigfoot. Times go on, we never
	change, now, you're no bar fighter, I can see the thirst for new
	experiences, but a man's better off sticking to a specialty, your
	own basically being transfenestration."

	"Mm yes, I could tell," commented another logger, his voice
	almost inaudible, sidling in and laying a hand on Zoyd's leg.

. . . reinforcing my "Bear Bar" meme.