I was in there last year looking for a couple parts, and the sales clerk (an attractive young woman, I might add) asked if I wanted any help. I declined, but mentioned how thrilled I was to see them in the same space, as compared to the previous tenants. She smiled and said, "We hear that a lot."
And the best thing about the Smithsonian museums & galleries is that they're all free! Just the kind of entertainment a shoestring-budget, hostel-staying geek needs. Honestly, the free museums spoiled me, having grown up in the area; I grumble when I have to break out my wallet to enter the Field (Chicago) or the Met (NYC).
I'm the IT dept. at one of the Cathedral schools. Funny... the IT guys at the Cathedral itself aren't answering their phones. We outsourced our website, maybe my buddies over there will be thinking of doing the same, heh.
Anyways: gargoyles on cathedrals, besides serving the essential function of spouting wainwater off the roof, are meant to embody the culture's fears, like bogeymen. Darth is up there (on the North side, very high up) in part because he was kinda a bogeyman circa 1980. There are a couple other "gargoyles" of people wearing gasmasks, etc., reflecting more modern anxieties.
In a related story, one of the stonecarvers about the same time wanted to immortalize his just-deceased wife in a sculpture, nowhere prominent, just out of the way somewhere. The higher-ups vetoed the idea, stating a policy of not having private memorials in a public building (or something along those lines). So the stonecarver took her ashes and mixed them into some mortar, making her remains part of the building itself. Or so I heard, anyway....
But come back later in the week for your Darth-as-gargoyle fix. I wonder what architectural historians a few centuries from now will think of it.
One of the reviews of TTT made exactly the same point, saying:
"George Lucas should see this film and hang his head in shame."
Too lazy to google for it right now, but amen.
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I was in there last year looking for a couple parts, and the sales clerk (an attractive young woman, I might add) asked if I wanted any help. I declined, but mentioned how thrilled I was to see them in the same space, as compared to the previous tenants. She smiled and said, "We hear that a lot."
Behold! the iBuzz!
And the best thing about the Smithsonian museums & galleries is that they're all free! Just the kind of entertainment a shoestring-budget, hostel-staying geek needs. Honestly, the free museums spoiled me, having grown up in the area; I grumble when I have to break out my wallet to enter the Field (Chicago) or the Met (NYC).
One already exists ... or haven't you seen the black helicopters?
Anyways: gargoyles on cathedrals, besides serving the essential function of spouting wainwater off the roof, are meant to embody the culture's fears, like bogeymen. Darth is up there (on the North side, very high up) in part because he was kinda a bogeyman circa 1980. There are a couple other "gargoyles" of people wearing gasmasks, etc., reflecting more modern anxieties.
In a related story, one of the stonecarvers about the same time wanted to immortalize his just-deceased wife in a sculpture, nowhere prominent, just out of the way somewhere. The higher-ups vetoed the idea, stating a policy of not having private memorials in a public building (or something along those lines). So the stonecarver took her ashes and mixed them into some mortar, making her remains part of the building itself. Or so I heard, anyway....
But come back later in the week for your Darth-as-gargoyle fix. I wonder what architectural historians a few centuries from now will think of it.
One of the reviews of TTT made exactly the same point, saying: "George Lucas should see this film and hang his head in shame." Too lazy to google for it right now, but amen.