Abrams did it to me again . . . for the FIRST time!

 Didn't George Lucas say something about how stories, like poetry, rhyme? (Meaning it as a justification that the repetition in his stories and what some might perceive as a weakness in story telling was actually a feature and not a bug.)

checking . . .

According to this source, he said "Again, it's like poetry, so that they rhyme. Every stanza kind of rhymes with the last one."

Well . . . he is definitely not the only one.

Because tonight I'm minding my own business and watching a rerun of an Alias episode. ("Almost Thirty Years" which aired May 21, 2002.) And at the end of the episode, Sydney blows up a big Rambaldi device that collapses a sphere of red water being suspended in anti-gravity whatsis. This begins a flood within the building. And so Sydney and Vaughn run to escape the rushing wall of liquid. Sydney safely gets on one side of a bulkhead door (which has a window). And Vaughn is trapped on the water side and so Sydney gets to watch as he is surrounded by the water.

DOES THIS SOUND FAMILIAR TO YOU?!

DOES IT RHYME?!!!!!

Maybe it would help if I shared a clip of this episode of LOST ("Through the Looking Glass--season 3, episodes 22 and 23, which aired May 23, 2007)

So . . . as you can see . . . Mr. Abrams's creative partners Lindelof and Cuse were happy to take a bit of Alias lore and hit me with it again almost exactly five years later. 

And I didn't make the connection until over seventeen years after that.

It shocked me, let me tell you.

 via GIPHY

(Yes, Will. It shocked me almost as much as that.)

#HatofSummer 2024 Revealed

 Look. I'm sorry that the #HatofSummer has been official for weeks and I forgot to cross post this video from my other social media feeds over here.

Fifteen-years-ago me would be severely disappointed.

But current me is who he is. And that's just how it goes. I encourage you to get over your disappointment and surf back through the WWYG?! archives and feel better about when this was more vibrant and vital and we all had more pep in our step.

None of that, however, takes away from the very satisfying fact that #OfficialHat2024 is out there and the #HatofSummer project continues--even after all this time.

So not everything slowly withers on the vine.

As much as the hat's simple existence, I am happy with the new style and video elements I added this year. No, I didn't experiment as much as I thought I would. But it gives me confidence that I might make another step next Spring when #OfficialHat2025 approaches.

#HatofSummer (2024) Voting Update Number 3

When I started this project in 2012 I didn't know where it would go. And all these years later, it seems evident by the tone of this video that I still don't.

Such are the defining characteristics of the #HatofSummer.

 

#HatofSummer (2024) Voting Update Number 2

Memorial Day weekend is now only two weeks away, so the time you have left to vote for the #HatofSummer is slipping away!

Perhaps this is surprising to you? If so, that might be because I have not done a great job of reminding everyone about the voting progress this year. Regardless #OfficialHat2024 will be chosen very soon and then no more new hats for me until Labor Day weekend!

Voting is open and ready to accept your choices now!

 

Total Eclipse 2024

I'm putting my memory eggs into an unpredictable basket by headlining this post with a Facebook video. No telling what the state of social media will be a year from now, much less twenty years from now. (As if anyone will be eagerly seeking out WWYG?! in 2044.) But nevertheless, this encapsulates the experience in my time, in my "backyard." And, if nothing else--I am hopeful that this significant event will be recorded for posterity in some retrievable fashion for the benefit of the future.

(So . . . let's double down I guess . . .)

But . . . for me . . . this was a truly memorable event. As others have noted today, reflecting on yesterday--it exceeded my imagination. I know the theory of an eclipse. I've experienced partial eclipses. But seeing a totality occur was something that felt awe inspiring.

To have the reality of something match up so well with the description (huh . . . science KNEW what it was talking about!) was remarkable. The diminishment of the light. The coming of twilight. The reveal of stars (probably planets) at 3 pm. The complete blockage of the sun and the exposure of the so-real-it-seemed-fake image of the sun's corona and its electric umbra dominating the black blue of the sky. Seeing the street lights turn on. And through it all, listening to the excited crowd around me as people reacted in wonder to what was happening. I laughed in astonishment and excitement. It took me by surprise how remarkable it actually was.

I wasn't in a spot that was directly in the middle of totality. So our moment of totality was maybe a minute or so in length. What it must have been like to see that blockage, that midnight blue, that electric light for almost four minutes? 

But I'm so happy that something this remarkable occurred in my backyard. (Though Lynda, Jay, and I drove down the road to the soccer fields on Cleveland Avenue--across from the Westerville Community Center.) 

Part of me wishes that I had tried to take better pictures of the totality. But I'm glad that in the moment, I was more focused on the world around me and less on my technology. And I hope that these words can help me remember this moment for years afterward.

There have only been a few times in my adult life were I was unexpectedly caught off guard by the impact of an event. The other that comes immediately to mind is standing at the Wailing Wall in Jerusalem in 2012. The moment of awe and the realization that something so much bigger than me was happening . . . really something.