Getting the Memo

After janni talked about finding your own process, I piled on, mostly talking about fighting my own foolish faith that everyone else got the memo, the instruction manual, the one true faith. The only thing I know for sure is that writing is like being a shark: swim or die.

It Was Thirty Years Ago Today

Well, not today, exactly, but: thirty years ago I sat with my roomie Elaine, who has a fear of spiders, watching Alfred Molina and Harrison Ford work their way through a cave in search of a golden idol. It didn't turn out so well for Molina's character (he wound up perforated), but Harrison Ford's character became something of a household word. Elaine closed her eyes and hid her face in my shoulder during the spider scene; I, with my fear of snakes, had recourse to Elaine's shoulder during the scene in the Well of Souls. So the last couple of days Lucas has been having multiple screenings of Raiders of the Lost Ark, and of course Avocado and the Spouse and I had to go. It's still, thirty years on, a terrific film. And some of the people who worked on it then are still working at Skywalker Ranch, which is very cool indeed.

Also thirty years ago: I was working at Harvard running a summer program at the GSD (Graduate School of Design), which I quit in order to attend a summer program in East Lansing Michigan. Which means I've known my fellow Clarionoids for thirty years. It was a really good bunch, with some very very talented people. I was glad to know them then, and I'm thrilled to still be in touch with so many of them.

Thirty years. Damn, remember when that seemed like an impossible stretch of time?