Books bought on a whim that turned out to be treasures

I've been sitting on writing this particular post for a few reasons:

It was mostly inspired by an article in The Guardian written by David Mitchell about collecting in which he declares the Internet has ruined what one might call "the thrill of the hunt" for whatever object a collector likes collecting. I don't believe this is true for everyone and every thing. I think the Internet has made it easier for the collector who knows what they're looking for and,

I needed in order to show exactly what I mean to spend some time with my own library and think of my own book shopping, finding, and hunting habits. I buy books everywhere. I buy them in shops, on street corners, on the Internet, in flea markets - and I've even dug a few out of the garbage. In London a copy of Henry Miller's "Black Spring" and "Crazy Cock" was pulled out of a box of junk on the Portobello Road and bought for 50p. I found a beautifully illustrated children's book on top of the garbage bins while walking around Montmartre early one morning that is now a favourite. I have a tradition if I'm in Amsterdam on a Friday of eating pancakes and strolling towards the Spui, stopping along the way at every bookshop I see and then strolling past the Spui for Thai food on Zeedijkstraat and wandering down to the bookshops near the university. And yes, I also stalk used book websites for bargains on first editions, Borges books, and books that are out-of-print.

But like I said, the Internet is for the collector that knows what they're looking for and the more exact you can be the more likely you are to find it. I tend to shop through eBay, ABEBooks, and similar sites when I've collected bits of information on a book and have wanted it for awhile only to not find it elsewhere. This sort of collecting is by far my least favourite (that is to say enjoyable) way of getting my hands on books and the one I use least often.

I bought the sixteen volume collection of Captain Sir Richard Francis Burton's "Thousand and One Nights". I got a real bargain at $400 including shipping from the US for an edition that is limited to 1,001 and normally sells for three times as much. I ordered Dante's "Paradiso" to complete a Dent & Sons 3 volume set of "The Purgatorio of Dante Aligheri" that was bought one volume at a time and the 3rd volume just seemed to never turn up. Like I mentioned previously I collect the works of Jorge Luis Borges, and have bought some great rare Borges hardcovers and first editions for less than $1.

The pleasure I get from using the Internet is fairly straightforward. It gives me what I want at a price that is usually reasonable (or I don't buy) and thus allows me to save my money for the things I don't know I want.

My real passion isn't just about amassing a library. It's about discovering books no one has ever told me about or I've never heard about and then having that moment where I need some entertainment, nugget of knowledge, or enlightenment and as the smart phone generation wouldn't say "I have a book for that".

Here are 8 books that I bought because the only significance they had at the time was I liked the title or some other odd details that caught my attention, and they were cheap, so I bought them on a whim not knowing they'd turn out to be treasures.


1. "The Treasures of Time" - Leo Deuel

Explained on the cover as "firsthand accounts by famous archaeologists of their work in the Near East" with accounts by Belzoni, Exploring the Valley of the Kings; Rawlinson, "Climbing After Cuneiform"; and Schliemann, "Unearthing Troy"; which I bought because I liked the map on the inside cover...

Why did it turn out to be a gem? While it may seem to be a simple firsthand account of archaeologists unearthing things, it's more than that. It's a book full of fascinating characters.  Take Giovanni Battista Belzoni for example, he was better known on the London streets as "The Great Belzoni, the circus strongman who along with 130 other men dragged the 7 ton bust of Ramesses II to the Nile over the course of 17 days.

Oh and Belzoni was also used as archetype for the character of Indiana Jones.

Henrich Schliemann was a rich amateur who retired and became obsessed with discovering the location of Troy because he was equally obsessed with the works of Homer. As a young boy he was given a copy of The Odyssey and The Iliad by his father and he decided at the age of 8 he would find Troy. Though he did not find it in his lifetime (and perhaps ruined parts of the city), before Schliemann not many believed in Troy at all, it was in many ways like Atlantis.

You can find your own copy here: 

2. The Play of Musement - Thomas A. Sebeok

Okay so I will admit straight off that I bought this book because the inside jacket cover mentioned "Star Wars Empire Strikes Back".

I wasn't particularly knowledgeable or interested in semiotics when I found the book, but for any one interested in language this book is a fascinating read. Not only does it deal with semiotics which is is the study of signs and sign processes (semiosis), indication, designation, likeness, analogy, metaphor, symbolism, signification, and communication. Semiotics is closely related to the field of linguistics, which, for its part, studies the structure and meaning of language more specifically. Semiotics is often divided into three branches:

Semantics: Relation between signs and the things to which they refer; their denotata, or meaning

Syntactics: Relations among signs in formal structures

Pragmatics: Relation between signs and the effects they have on the people who use them


It's not the minor reference to Star Wars that makes this book a treasure (though this little passage is delightful: "I returned home from having acted as companion and guide to a young lady, who had just barely pushed past the age of four, at a tense viewing of The Empire Strikes Back. The precocious lass is a fervent admirer of Darth Vader's martial skills and stunning weaponry, although his wheezing metonymic malevolence and one breathtaking glimpse of his phallic pars pro toto head, caught in the act of sheathing, will cunningly continue to feed on her (and my) fancy as the rest of the epic unfolds and maybe beyond.  (The Empire Strikes Back is not, as I had, in my innocence, assumed, Episode II of Star Wars, but Episode V, following hot upon what had retrospectively become Episode IV!)

(So yes, even back when the original trilogy was coming out, Lucas was already fucking with it.)

Seboek goes on to talk more about the mythic overtones that "encumber" the second installment including this jab at the Jedis: "You recognize Jedi Masters mainly by virtue of the fact that they often speak in an elaborated  code...Yoda talks backwards and in Timestyle, "No good is this....what know you of ready?...Tried have you? Always with you it can't be done. Hear you nothing what I say?...Try not. Do, do. Or do not. There is no try.""

Beyond the short two page reference to Star Wars, there is a wealth of information on the speech of animals and an analysis of Arthur Conan Doyle's windows as eyes compared to Captain Nemo's portholes from Jules Verne's "20,000 Leagues Under the Sea" that is perhaps the best part of the book. There's plenty of illustrations and examples as well as a chapter titled "Close Encounters with Canid Communication of the Third Kind" if only for the references to dogs in literature, folklore, and legend which makes for great reading for any dog lover (like me who also believes my dog can sort of talk though mostly to complain about things).

You can find your own copy here:

Ponto from Dickens' "Pitwick Papers" was a  particularly sagacious pointer.

Other books I pulled out include:

3. "Still More About Dolls" - Janet Pagter Johl

It's a book that is slightly creepy (as old dolls can be to some) but full of information, diagrams, and history about doll making. It's the third in a series that started with a book called "Your Dolls and Mine", followed by "More On Dolls".

This diagram for example is included as part of a patent for a "Walking Doll" and a "Singing Doll".

You can find books by Janet Pagter Johl here.

4. "The Yachtsman's Week-End Book" - John Irving (not the New England author) and Douglas Service

This is literally a sort of funny, quirky, seafarer's handbook as its aimed primarily at the week-end leisure sailor. There are poems, diagrams of knots, and other valuable information including a chapter on "Drinks Soft & Hard". Obviously essential for any yachtsman.

5. "The Art of the Faker - Three Thousand Years of Deception" - Frank Arnau

This book is a veritable history of fakes, frauds, and phonies in art: oils, coins, sculpture, semi-precious stones, paperweights, furniture, some thing called handles (no mention of what this is exactly in the book, but I think it might refer either to door handles or handles of knives, swords, and other objet d'art) and so on. It will not only help you to identify forgeries but even perhaps how to fake some stuff of your own.

According to this book the most lucrative field for forgeries is furniture, which somehow makes me think of IKEA...

6. "The Foxfire Books: Volumes 1-3"

The Foxfire Books (there are 7 total) started off as the Foxfire Magazine in 1966 and is devoted to subjects surrounding Appalachian culture (known as Appalachia it extends from southern New York down the east coast through parts of Pennsylvania, Ohio, Maryland, West Virginia, Virginia, Kentucky, Tennessee, the Carolinas, Georgia, Alabama, and Mississippi.

It includes articles on topics such as hog dressing, faith healing, how to build a log cabin, how to make a banjo, and blacksmithing along with oral histories of the people.

The Foxfire books also include a wealth of folklore with its roots in Celtic paganism, home remedies, how to make apple butter, examples of hoo doo (black magic), and snake healers.

All in all, it's one of the greatest treasures I've ever found and it cost me 2 euros.

7. "Bakunin An Invention" - Horst Bienek

This book is not included on Bienek's bibliography on Wikipedia. If you're familiar at all with anarchy, you'll recognise Mikhail Bakunin as the nemesis of Karl Marx, but this isn't a biography on Bakunin. It's also "not just a documentary, not research, nor is it a novel". It is however stylistically speaking sort of glimpses into the thoughts of someone who wants to write a biography of Bakunin, but can't seem to. It's peppered with excerpts from other works and quotations and even a mention of Jimi Hendrix.

The best part of the book however is the reference guide to the quotations, which would make for a rather interesting list of books to read in the future such as: Max Nettlau's "Michail Bakunin, A Biographical Sketch" (which is an actual biography of Bakunin); Walter Benjamin's "On Surrealism"; and Vera Figner's "Night Over Russia" to name a few.

Also Bienek appeared to be a massive fan of Samuel Beckett. He references Beckett's works and biographies more than any other besides Bakunin himself.

8. "All Silver and No Brass An Irish Christmas Mumming" - Henry Glassie

This book has particular meaning in the library and it wasn't found by me, but rather by Monsieur Redacteur who remembered "The Mummers" from his boyhood days growing up in County Tyrone, Northern Ireland, which was already a far cry for the more historically accurate description of "Mumming" in this book.

The book jacket reads, "At Christmastime in Ulster, not so long ago, young men wearing colored tunics and tall pointed hats that covered their faces used to go from house to house presenting a play for their neighbors.  They enacted a short rhymed drama in which Saint Patrick was killed and miraculously resurrected, collected money for the Mummers' Ball - hoping for all silver and no brass - and departed to the sound of flute or tin whistle."

Part I of the book talks about the haunting and poetic recollections of four old people of the hamlet of Ballymenone who recall the mumming from their youth. While social and economic changes have upset mumming in certain parts of Northern Ireland, mumming has existed in Great Britain, France, Germany, and other European countries since medieval times - though little to no documentation survives from that period.

This book is a unique study on a very particular aspect of Irish folklore, history, and tradition which even Monsieur Redacteur had forgotten about, all come back to life between the covers of this book.

8. "Sea Shanty Men & Sea Shanty Boys Songs of the Sailor and Lumberman" - William Main Doerflinger

This book besides being a treasure in its own right came to my hands after a long history of being treasured. It bears a stamp as being once in the library of the Services des Relations Cuturelles at the American Embassy before it was donated to the American Library of Paris where I bought it during one of their book sales.

This is, of all the books on this particular list by far one of my favourites and since a picture is worth a thousand words, I'm going to let you see why when flipping through this I simply had to have it.

Here's the first paragraph of the Preface: "This is a collection of songs that sailormen sang aboard deep-water windjammers, in the fishing schooners of the western North Atlantic, and in the West Indies trade; and of ballads of American and Canadian lumbermen.  In the running text I have attempted to set the songs against their natural backgrounds of life under sail or in the lumber woods and to explore their interesting history."

And maybe it wasn't a treasure when I bought it, but when I needed a feel for what it was like to be a sailor hard at work on the sea, working trade routes, and maybe even dealing with pirates - this was the book that came to mind and as you can see from the photos that picture with the detailed description of every part of a ship that got me to buy it in the first place was rather helpful too.

Like any bibliphile I'm naturally proud of the rare books in my collection or that I have every book by such-and-such an author, but what really makes me proud are books like the eight above. To me these often overlooked , forgotten, or even books that have become less relevant because of further discovery since their printing are the bones of my library. These are the books I'm really looking for and as gifted as I've become at scouring eBay, ABEBooks, Bookfinder, and similar sites the pleasure is lessened by finding them in the digital marketplace.

When books arrive in the post I know what they are already. When I discover books during my hunts they are still undiscovered territory. I haul them to a café, order something to drink, and spend a little time pouring over them for a hint of what lies within their pages.

And it's not just because books are heavy and I need a little break before lugging them home, although I usually do as I've been known to buy 40 books at a time - it's also to extend the pleasure and to celebrate. A sort of feast after the hunt.

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The Literature Behind Star Wars

1. Oedipus, Sophocles

Oedipus was a mythical Greek king that fulfilled a prophecy that said he would kill his father and marry his mother. Since Luke's mother was already dead and Lucas didn't want to go full incest, Luke ends up simply kissing his sister and then posing arrogantly about it afterwards. Laugh it up fuzzy Nerfherder. Oh wait, she really loves Han anyway. Still the fact that Luke and Leia didn't exchange "oh no we didn't glances" after he finds out Leia is not only his sister, but his twin sister was still fairly oooh gross.

No wonder why Anakin fell in love. Look at that blass-ter.

As Luke travels to Alderon he encounters Vader on an Imperial battleship. Then he journeys some more. Again he encounters Vader, who is his father. He searches his heart and knows it to be true. He ends up not killing him, but Vader dies anyways. Too bad Luke didn't make his way to Holland during his travels considering"vader" actually means father in greatest country in the world in Dutch. Vader's offspring don't kill each other now that he's gone. Instead they dance triumphantly with Ewoks on Endor. The End.

Later on Lucas provides further evidence that he suffers from what Freud called the Oedipus complex when we see Luke's mother and her bare midriff (apparently in the universe of Star Wars fashion sense is genetic, let's blame Midi-Chlorians, the Sith sure did). I bet if Luke had known his mom was so hot he wouldn't have kissed his sister and would have probably dispatched Vader out of envy long before Return of the Jedi.


2. The Greek Myths

When it comes to the Greek Myths, three books come to mind. Edith Hamilton's Mythology, Bullfinch's Mythology and The Greek Myths by Robert Graves. Unless you're intending to become a scholar of the Greek myths, I don't recommend Graves version. Start with Edith Hamilton's Mythology and if you're not sated then continue on to Bullfinch's, which is probably the most popular as it was intended for the general reader.

If you do chose Hamilton over Bullfinch (as I did), be sure to read another book of hers called The Greek Way.

Also, read one or all of these books before you read Campbell's book, which is number 3 on this list.

3. The Hero with a Thousand Faces, Joseph Campbell

This books is Campbell's opus to the myth, specifically the monomyth (the word is borrowed from Joyce's book Finnegans Wake to which he wrote A Skeleton Key). The monomyth is based on the concept that every narrative regardless of the culture that it originated from display a basic pattern. There are 17 stages to this pattern with the first being the "Call to Adventure" - as Luke is called to adventure by discovering Leia's message in R2 while trying to clean him up and ends with "The Freedom to Live" - which not only Luke, the obvious hero in Star Wars secures for himself by beating the Dark Side, but also for everyone in that galaxy far, far away by defeating the Galatic Empire.

"The hero is the champion of things becoming, not of things become, because he is. 'Before Abraham was, I AM.' He does not mistake apparent changelessness in time for the permanence of Being, nor is he fearful of the next moment (or of the 'other thing'), as destroying the permanent with its change. 'Nothing retains its own form; but Nature, the greater renewer, ever makes up forms from forms. Be sure tnothing perishes in the whole universe; it does but vary and renew its form.' Thus the next moment is permitted to come to pass."

And if you've read this and raised an eyebrow, after I read the book and rewatched Star Wars I did too. Nothing about Luke convinced me that he would even comprehend what Campbell was saying and chances are if you tried to explain it to him he'd probably cut his hand off with his lightsaber and throw himself down a shaft except this time when he screamed like a bitch it would actually make sense.

Lucas and Campbell became friends after Star Wars came out because Campbell realised he just got the best publicity ever Lucas revived interest in his book. If you don't feel like reading the whole book, you can find a copy of the famous Memo written by Christopher Vogler here as well as the story behind it.

4. A Princess of Mars, Edgar Rice Burroughs

Before Burroughs gave us Tarzan, he gave us Dejah Thoris, the Martian Princess of Helium, who is courageous, resolute, and frequently in both mortal danger and the threat of being dishonored by the lustful designs of villains. Her main squeeze is a Virginian prospector/cowboy who is believed dead and entombed in a crypt only to be found alive later on in the story. Before he actually dies and gives the manuscript to Burroughs in the story, he relentlessly pursues Leia who can't seem to admit she loves him until its too late.



5. The Secret Doctrine; the Synthesis of Science, Religion and Philosophy, Helena Blavatsky

Blavatsky's "Secret Doctrine" is an influential example of the revival of interest in esoteric and occult ideas in the modern age, in particular because of its claim to reconcile ancient eastern wisdom with modern science. I seriously doubt that Lucas read this two volume magnus opus, but even Blavatsky herself gave this wise advice regarding The Secret Doctrine:

"Reading the S.D. page by page as one reads any other book (she says) will only end us in confusion. The first thing to do, even if it takes years, is to get some grasp of the 'Three Fundamental Principles' given in the Proem. Follow that up by study of the Recapitulation - the numbered items in the Summing Up to Vol. I (Part 1.) Then take the Preliminary Notes (Vol. II) and the Conclusion (Vol. II)."  

So perhaps Lucas took her advice and read the book according to her instructions (which sounds more painful than trying to read Cortazar's Hopscotch) or someone said, "Hey Mr. Lucas you should read this great book that tries to reconcile eastern wisdom with modern science." Shortly after Mr. Lucas strangled the intern for making the suggestion while wearing an motorcycle helmet and some riding gloves. Never one to waste experience for the sake of his art, Lucas promptly edited his screenplay "The Journal of the Whills". Eventually this title would bring about the demise of other interns and be changed to Star Wars. When Reagan would later steal the name for his just as imaginary space program, Lucas would discover that Reagan had a force all his own that could not be defeated called "trickle down economics".

6. The Time Machine, HG Wells

Now those of us who have seen Star Wars know that the Millenium Falcon was the fastest thing in the universe, but even Han's baby (Imagine how badly you need to feel about your penis to hold such a grudge about losing your ship in a poker game. Yeah Lando, I mean you.) couldn't travel through time. What makes Wells' contribution to science fiction perhaps the greatest contribution of all time is that it was the first instance where a machine allowed its operator to travel purposely and selectively. Like the Falcon could do after Chewie would set the coordinates and Han goes down into a pit stupidly leaving tools on the edge of said pit while they're being blasted by TIE-Fighters and Imperial battleships trying to escape and finally R2 saves the day by fixing the coupling that had been sabotaged by jumping via lightspeed.

So yes, The Time Machine, though there is no time travel in Star Wars, made the Millenium Falcon possible and what would Star Wars and Han been without that bucket of bolts?

7. Memories, Dreams, Reflections, Carl Jung

Carl Jung was really into archetypes and by "really into" I actually mean obsessed.

"The archetype is a tendency to form such representations of a motif - representations that can vary a great deal in detail without losing their basic pattern ... They are indeed an instinctive trend".Thus for example "the archetype of initiation is strongly activated to provide a meaningful transition ... with a 'rite of passage' from one stage of life to the next such stages may include being parented, initiation, courtship, marriage and preparation for death."

According to Jung archetypes form a dynamic substratum common to all humanity, upon the foundation of which each individual builds his own experience of life, developing a unique array of psychological characteristics. Jung did not believe that people were born a blank slate, but instead possessed individual predestinies. Luke inherits Anakin's flying abilities, his Midi-Chlorians, and apparently his moodiness.

The idea of archetypes dates back to Plato, but Jung being obsessed and all had to go further. He went further to define the archetypes: hero, goddess, mother; but most importantly to Star Wars Jung proposed that:

"the archetype had a dual nature it exists both in the psyche and in the world at large. He called this non-psychic aspect of the archetype the "psychoid" archetype. He illustrated this by drawing on the analogy of the electromagnetic spectrum. The part of the spectrum which is visible to us corresponds to the conscious aspects of the archetype. The invisible infra-red end of the spectrum corresponds to the unconscious biological aspects of the archetype that merges with its chemical and physical conditions. He suggested that not only do the archetypal structures govern the behavior of all living organisms, but that they were contiguous with structures controlling the behavior of organic matter as well. The archetype was not merely a psychic entity, but more fundamentally, a bridge to matter in general. Jung used the ancient term of unus mundus; to describe the unitary reality which he believed underlay all manifest phenomena. He conceived archetypes to be the mediators of the unus mundus, organizing not only ideas in the psyche, but also the fundamental principles of matter and energy in the physical world."

Like Midi-Chlorians, light sabers, telekinesis, projecting yourself as a hologram from the realm of the dead, sending things, feeling the force, not feeling the force enough, and being able to telepathically communicate with someone because you need a ride and you no longer have a thumb to stick out.

Kidding aside, Jung's Collected Works in 20 volumes has some mind-boggling things within their numerous pages. Though it didn't seem to help Lucas much when it came time to create the psychology of young Vader.

8. The Golden Bough, Sir James George Frazer

This is not a book you read in a weekend. Considering it is a 12 volume study on mythology and religion, it's more like an encyclopaedia. In fact a case could be made that it is so extensive up to its 2nd printing when Frazer expanded it from 2 volumes to 12 that one could find anything they wanted to know about mythology and religion (specifically pagan, and Frazer did scandalise people by including the story of Jesus, implying Christianity was also a pagan religion). But if you're not a fan of books simply for reference sake, you might find Robert Graves The White Goddess an interesting read.
9. Mythologiques, Claude-Lévi Strauss

         Volume One: The Raw and The Cooked (Le cru et le cuit)
          Volume Two: From Honey to Ashes (Du miel aux cendres)
            Volume Three: The Origin of Table Manners (L'Origine des manières de table)
              Volume  Four: The Naked Man (L'homme nu)

I don't own all the volumes either in French or English of Strauss' Mythologiques, but I do own The Raw and the Cooked, widely considered the best of the four. The Raw and The Cooked contains almost 200 myths from South America, North America, and Europe. Strauss succeeded in presenting myths in a new light based on the idea that myths could not be understood in isolation, but rather had to be examined only as parts of a myth system. 

It's rather entertaining. Even more so if you read it, then watch Star Wars and realise that Lucas missed the point because when he set out to create his "myth" of the Jedis instead of presenting the myth system so that we could understand what was going on, he actually confused us more and more with every new Star Wars film.
10. Phantastes, George MacDonald

The story centers on the character Anodos (pathless or ascent in Greek) who is pulled into a dreamlike world. Anodos lives through many adventures and temptations (women in place of the Dark Side of the Force) while in this other world, until he is finally ready to give up his ideals.

I might be stretching it with this one, but it's worth a read anyway. If you don't believe me, then believe C.S. Lewis who said after reading Phantastes at the age of 16 that:

"That night my imagination was, in a certain sense, baptized; the rest of me not unnaturally, took longer. I had not the faintest notion what I had let myself in for by buying Phantastes."

Perhaps Mr. Lucas was visited by the same phantom menace (get it?) that possessed C.S. Lewis because we all know he didn't have the faintest idea what he was doing when he made The Phantom Menace and well we all hadn't the faintest notion what we had let ourselves in for by standing in line for eighteen hours to buy tickets to the midnight screening only to have the joy that Star Wars left in our childish hearts chased out by the grating voice of Jar Jar.

11. The Lord of the Rings, J.R.R. Tolkien

Of all the books on this list #11 and #12 are by far the most influential, but the LOTR triology was the best fantasy novel of all time that inspired the best science fiction novel of all time.

Just read it, Lucas be damned.

12. Dune, Frank Herbert

The best science fiction novel of all time. I cannot say this enough. I might type it again later on down the page just because every time I write it my fingers rejoice in the ring of truth they have just typed. More so when I explain to them that these words will be on the Internet and perhaps read by others who might also know this to be true. At one point the original screenplay for Star Wars was pretty much Dune with a few names changed, while ironically Dune is sort of LOTR with a lot of names barely changed at all.

But read it because it is the best science fiction novel of all time. Sorry, my hands got carried away a little there.

13. Sha-seki su (Zen Flesh, Zen Bones), Muju

#17 Stingy in Teaching

A young physician in Tokyo named Kusuda met a college friend who had been studying Zen. The young doctor asked him what Zen was.

"I cannot tell you what it is," the friend replied, "but one thing is certain. If you understand Zen, you will not be afraid to die..."

Now I've added this book to the list because Lucas himself has admitted that Buddhism and Zen in particular was a big influence on how he came up with the concept for "The Force". This particular koan continues when the physician decides to seek out a master and be completely humbled by him, similar to Luke being humbled by Yoda; but also if you notice the Jedis, Yoda and Obi-Wan specifically show no fear of death because they believe in The Force and apparently being a Jedi master not only makes you less afraid of death than Jesus, but it also makes you able to reincarnate yourself in case your buddies who aren't dead yet are stranded in the freezing temperatures of the Hoth system.

14. Tao te Tching, Laozi

Knowing others is wisdom;

Knowing the self is enlightenment.

Mastering others requires force;

Mastering the self requires strength;

He who knows he has enough is rich.

Perseverance is a sign of will power.

He who stays where he is endures.

To die but not to perish is to be eternally present.

On Knowledge and Humility

Try not read those lines without hearing Yoda's wise words to Luke. Oh wait - Do or do not. There is no try.

But no seriously, imagine the Tao te Ching translated from Chinese by someone who speaks broken English and voila! But no seriously, read it. You too might become as wise as Yoda. And ever present you will be.



15. The Wizard of Oz, Frank Baum

This book makes the list for two reasons: one because it is [somewhat] universally acknowledged that the film was a big influence on Lucas, but I argue that the book had some influence on Lucas as well.

Dorothy, much like Luke is living on a farm with her aunt and uncle at the start of The Wizard of Oz. She has a faithful companion (Toto). She encounters a metal man, a lion, and a scarecrow with no brains. Likewise Luke has his faithful companion, R2 (though he does wander off, doesn't he?), C3PO, Chewbacca, and well, you know who the scarecrow is, but he was rather handsome one. Incidentally both "scarecows" get a little lip action, if we, and we should, assume that Luke and Leia being twins are basically the same person, i.e. different aspects of Dorothy.

Where Lucas diverged, and thankfully so is that unlike both Luke and Leia Dorothy didn't rescue the scarecrow from a carbonite slab that was hanging in a really fat alien's fortress. Good thing too because I don't know if those pigtails and ruby slippers would have gone so well with Leia's metal bikini outfit*.

* I stand corrected. Apparently anything goes with Leia's metal bikini outfit. Merci Monsieur Redacteur! I forget most men's fantasies don't have any fashion sense.

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10 Things I Want Right Now

  Not just things mind you, but things. Welcome to the world of New Consumerism. Resistance is futile.

1. The Death Star Cookie Jar - $49.99

As a big fan and one time possessor of an original piece of the Death Star used in TESB (I sold it on the boards when my dog's eating chocolate cost a Mini Cooper in vet bills), the idea of eating homemade chocolate chip oatmeal cookies from a Death Star packs a massive amount of appeal (and calories because until the novelty of getting said fattening cookie out of said Death Star wore off, I'd probably eat them non-stop). It's also an officially licensed Lucasfilms collectible, made of ceramic, and very detailed. Plus if worse came to worse I could theoretically simply miniaturise myself, get into an X-wing, and blow the thing up.

2. Star Wars MP3 Alarm Clock Lamps - $49.99

Wake up with Bobba Fett and Darth Vader in a way that won't make you feel like you have to do the Imperial Death March of Shame. I honestly can't decide which one I'd want more, which means I probably want the Bobba Fett because even after over a decade since his tragic and pathetic death in ROTJ and his subsequent presence in the "prequels" that raped my childhood I am still a massive fan of Bobba and wouldn't mind having him wake me up, play my MP3 player, or provide me with a source of light for some late night reading. Plus the possibility of having someone say, "Hey turn Bobba Fett off already and go to bed" is a prospect I find highly amusing.

3. Kinetic Magnetic Suspension Sculpture by Bruce Gray - $7000

If you're like Pepper Potts and into kinetic sculptures, this one is a real beauty. Made by L.A. area artist Bruce Gray of  super high powered industrial rare earth (NdFeB) neodymium iron boron magnets on the ends of the cords that hold the magnets in place by magnetic force alone. While it doesn't have the visual display of the kinetic sculpture that made its cameo in Iron Man 2, this one did appear in Austin Power's The Spy Who Shagged Me, which was if only by a small margin, a much funnier film. It's also $6770 cheaper.

4. Astronaut Ice Cream - $3.99

NASA has apparently made one giant leap for mankind in the field of ice cream. Back when I was a kid and astronaut ice cream was all the rage we only had Neopolitan flavoured. Now there's mint chocolate chip and chocolate chocolate chip to chose from. Not sure if they've made any progress on making it feel less like you're eating styrofoam, but considering the amount of research that went into astronaut ice cream and the likely cost of this research - the fact that it's still cheaper than a pint of Ben & Jerry's Chocolate Fudge Brownie Sundae and has been to space makes it really, really cool. Even if it isn't temperature-wise.

5. An Ant Megapolis - Cost Uncertain

Why settle for an ant farm when you can have an ant megapolis? This bad boy is 50 square meters big and goes 8 meters into the earth. Sort of kills the enthusiasm I once had for simply trying to capture a queen and a few workers to chuck into a fish tank. Now I'm thinking bigger. I'm thinking I want the Dubai of ant hills. Then I want to fill it with 10 tons of concrete and just stare at it like a sculpture. Sure millions of ants would die in the process, but fuck 'em. They invaded a few weeks back and they abandoned their takeover in the time it took to run to the grocery store and stock up on ant traps. They deserve to die for my amusement.

6. For people to stop writing Big Bang Theory (as in the TV show) related fanfiction - Priceless

I understand. We all love The Big Bang Theory. It is without a doubt the best show currently on television, but sometimes love can be bad. Really bad. Please stop because I keep accidentally finding BBT fanfiction whenever I try to look up where to buy Sheldon's awesome t-shirts. You are crossing a line. There's extemely geeky and funny and then there's extremely geeky where you reference sewing your own ComicCon costume while your tears of joy asborb into the rather absorbent fabric you bought to make your Hobbit costume. In the words of Dr. Sheldon Cooper Ph.D. himself, "Bazinga, I don't care."

But no seriously. Howard and Raj are never going to have sex. Just cut it out.

7. X-Men #1 signed by Stan Lee - $101,000

A 9.4 (comic book rating for condition) X-Men #1 sold at auction a few years back for $101,000. It was not signed by Stan Lee, but this is my wish list and on my wish list my 9.0 or higher X-Men #1 would be. I've not only been a long time fan of X-Men (and still am despite the movies mucking things up), but also of Stan Lee. I loved his little column where we answered questions and talked about his art in his comic books.

I would accept should Stan Lee should not deem me worthy a 9.0 rated All-American Comics #16 because while the X-Men are my favourite comic books of all time, The Green Lantern is still my favourite superhero. GL might have ousted all the X-Men from my affections, except I never really liked the idea of GL joining the JLA and well, let's face it Jean Grey as the Dark Phoenix was just too awesome.

8. 2 Tickets on Virgin Galatic - $400,000*

*Once it's been thoroughly tested and the chances of my dying painfully in space with a guest are as minute as dying (knock on wood) in a plane crash.

I'm not sure if every kid wanted to be an astronaut, but I sure did. Now every former kid with $200,000 can soon be launched into space courtesy of Richard Branson's Virgin Galatic. While the website isn't clear how long you hover in space before you come floating back down to earth like a shuttlecock (the plane's landing system is based off of that little net-ball thing you hit in badminton) and you apparently have to don some kind of helmet that looks more appropriate for riding a Kawasaki Ninja motorcycle than for keeping you from suffocating in the vacuum of space - I say why not?**

** Once again let me state only after it's been thoroughly tested and the chances of me and my guest dying painfully in space is no longer an issue.

9. To spend 3 months sailing from Thailand to New Zealand - Cost unknown, but pretty expensive.

Ideally the trip's itinerary would be: Start in Bangkok, stock on cheap stuff, rent a sailboat with a small crew and sail to Indonesia. (Yes I can sail.) After a few days break in Indonedia to stock up, make a brief stop in Papua New Guinea (to see my friend who is collecting rare orchids or something), then one more quick sail over the Coral Sea to Australia. Then presumably the last two months would be spent sailing the coast of Australia and sailing to Tasmania and New Zealand.

Of course I'd have to brush up on just about everything from sailing to how to get provisions to water depths, which isn't normally on a pre-vacation checklist, but whenever I think of adventure I think of Australia. I'm pretty sure it's because of having seen Crocodile Dundee I, II, and III as a kid. No wonder why Paul Hogan was awarded "Australian of the Year".

10. Betsy Lerner as my literary agent - 10% of everything I make for as long as I make it

I don't know why I want Betsy Lerner as my literary agent, not really. It's partially because I read her blog religiously (including the archives) and because of other writers she has represented (through the agency Dunow, Carlson, & Lerner as well as prior to her forming an agency with her partners). I have a gut feeling about her. I don't know her, have never met her, and yet somehow I think we'd get on well.

The problem is that the real cost of acquiring such a literary agent as Betsy Lerner is that I must sit down and write an amazing book. I must write a smash debut novel and several others and several more to keep such an agent as Betsy Lerner. But first and foremost I must write my debut novel which costs time, energy, patience, and of course a little bit of money for the bills, food, and the cigarettes I smoke obsessively whilst writing.

They say women never know what they want, but I do. I want my life to be full of the whimsy that a Bobba Fett MP3 Alarm Clock would bring me in the morning. The adventure of sailing in shark (and saltwater crocodile) infested waters. The fulfillment of a lifelong dream to go into outer space. I want to be amused constantly and enchanted and to achieve my goals and dreams.

At the end of the day the answer to the age old question of what women want is very simple. We want what we want when we want it, which is usually right now if not sooner.

I think Freddie Mercury said it best. "I want it all...and I want it now".

What do you want?

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