Richard Brodie, the erstwile Harvard undergradute and former
high-ranking Microserf, computer programer, consultant,
meme-guru, mediocre little league baseball umpire, prophet
of the comming revolution and all around hip West-coaster
(as only a former stuffy East coaster can be!) has
[drum roll]
found God.
Dude, like, far out!
Define "God".
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Two things come to mind:
1) Marshall McLuhan spontaneously converted to Catholicism about
a decade prior to the publication of _Understanding Media,
The Extensions of Man_. Never explained it to anybody; quite
an enigma to his agnostic biographers.
2) Didn't Larry Flint, Publisher of "Hustler" and subject of that recent
movie convert for a while? He was "born again", as I remember.
It really fucked up the company, though.
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>From _Star Wars_ (George Lucas, 1977):
HAN: Kid, I've flown from one side of this galaxy to the other. I've
seen a lot of strange stuff, but I've never seen anything to make me
believe there's one all-powerful force controlling everything. There's
no mystical energy field that controls my destiny.
Ben smiles quietly
HAN: It's all a lot of simple tricks and nonsense.
BEN: I suggest you try it again, Luke.
Ben places a large helmet on Luke's head which covers his
eyes.
BEN: This time, let go your conscious self and act on instinct.
LUKE: (laughing) With the blast shield down, I can't even see. How am
I supposed to fight?
BEN: Your eyes can deceive you. Don't trust them.
Han skeptically shakes his head as Ben throws the seeker
into the air. The ball shoots straight up in the air, then
drops like a rock. Luke swings the lightsaber around blindly
missing the seeker, which fires off a laserbolt which hits
Luke square on the seat of the pants. He lets out a painful
yell and attempts to hit the seeker.
BEN: Stretch out with your feelings.
Luke stands in one place, seemingly frozen. The seeker
makes a dive at Luke and, incredibly, he managed to deflect
the bolt. The ball ceases fire and moves back to its original
position.
BEN: You see, you can do it.
HAN: I call it luck.
BEN: In my experience, there's no such thing as luck.
HAN: Look, going good against remotes is one thing. Going good against
the living? That's something else.
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Reed
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Reed Konsler konsler@ascat.harvard.edu
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