Some years later, a professor at Syracuse University named Douglas Brode asked if he could include the essay in a reader that he was putting together for a course on Star Wars. Naturally, I agreed.

Some time after that, the course having been a big success, he asked whether the essay might be included, in revised form, in an anthology based on the course reader that would be published by Scarecrow Press. Once again, I agreed.

Cut to the chase: “Star Wars and the Technophobic Imagination” will be appearing this June in the first of what has turned out to be two volumes about Star Wars. Both are edited by Brode and Leah Dyneka.

Here are the tables of contents for each volume.

Volume 1: Myth, Media, and Culture in Star Wars: An Anthology

1. Douglas Brode, “Cowboys in Space“: Star Wars and the Western Film”
2. Arthur Berger, “Is Star Wars a Modernized Fairy Tale?”
3. Craig Svonkin, “From Disneyland to Modesto: George Lucas and Walt Disney”
4. Leah Deyneka, “May the Myth Be with You, Always: Archetypes, Mythic
Elements and Aspects of Joseph Campbell’s Heroic Monomyth in the Original Star Wars Trilogy”
5. Dan Rubey, “Not so long ago, not so far away: New Variations on Old Themes;
Questioning Star Wars’ Revival of Heroic Archetypes”
6. John C. McDowell, “From Sky-Walking to Dark Knight of the Soul: George Lucas’
Star Wars Turns to Tragic Drama”
7. Michael Kaminski, “Under the Influence of Akira Kurosawa: The Visual Style of George Lucas”
8. Crystal Renee White, “Balancing the Force: How Media Created by Star Wars
Now Defines the Franchise”
9. Jon Hogan, “A Long Time Ago on a Newsstand Far, Far Away: The Mythic Comic Book Hero in Marvel Comics’ Star Wars”
10.  Eric Charles, “The Jedi Network: Star Wars’ Portrayal and Inspirations
on the Small Screen”
11. Seth Sommerfeld, “Gaming in a Galaxy Far, Far Away: The History of the Expanded Worlds, Canon Conflicts, and Simplified Morality of Star Wars Video Games”
12. Henry Jenkins,”Quentin Tarantino’s Star Wars?: Digital Cinema, Media
Convergence, and Participatory Culture”
13. Cyrus R. K. Patell, “Star Wars and the Technophobic VoluImagination”

Volume 2: Sex, Politics, and Religion in Star Wars: An Anthology

1. Douglas Brode, “A Rocky Road to Star Wars: The Early Life and Career of George Lucas”
2. Andrew Howe, “Star Wars in Black & White:  Race and Racism in a Galaxy
Not So Far Away”
3. Julien Fielding, “Beyond Judeo-Christianity: Star Wars and the Great Eastern Religions”
4. Andrew Bank, “May the Force Be with JEW: The Jedi-Hebraic Connection”
5. Nick Desloge, “Star Wars: An Exhibition in Cold War Politics”
6. Peter Krämer, “Fighting the Evil Empire: Star Wars, the Strategic Defense
Initiative and the Politics of Science-Fiction”
7. Ray Merlock and Kathy Merlock Jackson, “Light Sabers, Political Arenas, and Marriages for Princess Leia and Queen Amidala”
8. Anne M. Boyd, “The Over-Soul of the Force: Emersonian Transcendentalism
in the Star Wars Saga”
9. Lucy Place, “George Lucas and Freud’s Anal Stage Manifestations of Excretory and Vaginal Fear in THX 1138 and Star Wars”
10. Roger Kaufman, “Homosexual Romance & Self-Realization in Star Wars”
11. Matt Singer, “The War for Star Wars”
12. Nick Jamilla, “Defining the Jedi Order: Star Wars’ Narrative and the Real World”
13. Andrew Gordon, “The Empire Strikes Back: Deeper and Darker”

Meanwhile, the Star Wars universe is very much a destination in my household. My two sons are addicted to the new MMO game Star Wars: The Old Republic and continue to watch new episodes of Star Wars: The Clone Wars. Their dad might be doing a little playing and watching too (though not nearly as much as he’d like to).

I missed National Day last year, but arrived later in December to find the streets still lit up with celebratory decorations in the colors of the UAE flag — red, white, and green (the fourth color, black, doesn’t figure much in the illuminations except as background). Driving in from the airport and seeing all the bright decorations reminded me of New York, lit up at the time with Christmas lights.

Because 40 is a nice round number, this year’s celebration is an even bigger deal.There have been activities all week throughout the Emirates, including a military plane display yesterday in which smoke was released in the colors of the UAE flag, a splendid fireworks display tonight over the Corniche, and a massive Olympic-opening-ceremonies-style extravaganza over at the Zayed Sports City tomorrow.

It puts me in mind of New York again — in particular, the festivities on the annual Puerto Rican day with T-shirts, flags, and gaudily decorated cars. Except on a much more massive scale. The building shown above is the Etisalat Tower across the street from us, which has been sparkling each night for the past two weeks. All around town, public buildings and private houses are covered in bright lights; we’ve seen a few houses wrapped in massive UAE flags.

And the cars: everywhere you look you see cars, large and small, covered in large decals celebrating the anniversary, featuring UAE flags, hearts, the number 40, and likenesses of Sheikh Zayed and of the country’s present rulers. Here are some samples, mostly massive SUVs, but also the first Smart Car we’ve seen here:

Tomorrow, there will be a parade of decorated cars over at Yas Island, with prizes to the three judged best; there will also be an unofficial parade of cars, I’m told, over at the Corniche. And, in addition to horns blaring, there will be the sounds of cars being made to backfire intentionally.

Meanwhile, we’re doing our bit and getting into the holiday spirit:

Here’s what it looks like out our windows this morning. To the northwest:

And to the southwest:

By noontime, I expect it will be mostly sunny.

UPDATE: Actually, my older son had a fire drill at his school around noontime, and he tells me that it drizzled.

Meanwhile, my friend and former doctoral student Robert Gunn (a member of the English Department at the University of Texas, El Paso) recently sent me this reminiscence prompted by his reading of the book:

I really enjoyed your reading of the album in the context of your personal experience of NYC as a kid.  As an ill-reformed rock and roll guitar player myself, I must say I also delighted in your discussion of the technical side of the Stones’ sound, including Keef’s infatuation with open G tuning on five strings.  As it happens, Some Girls was the first full Stones album I bought, in high school (I, too, began with Hot Rocks, and wore it out before bothering to venture deeper into the canon).  Nowadays, Beggars Banquet through Exile remain steady in the rotation (love the country blues stuff), but Some Girls has enduring appeal.

As I was reading, I felt wistful reflection back on my own unselfconscious identification with Jagger’s lyrics.  It was kind of comical, actually—I mean, I knew he was talking about New York in “Miss You” and “Shattered,” but somehow that place didn’t seem real to me; I was sure he was talking, instead,  about that somewhere else I always wanted to be, in a mystical zone of cool and where everyone had that jaded, faded, rocknroll strut.  And even if no one else knew what it was about, that’s where I belonged (and often felt I was, in my own mind).  And so I’d walk down the rainy streets of Eugene, Oregon, humming riffs to myself, thinking you needed to be tough tough tough tough tough tough to live in this town(!), and keeping an eye out for all of those Puerto Rican girls who (I dearly and earnestly hoped) were just dying to meet me.

But the best part was the sound—my best friend and I were in rival bands, and I was extremely envious of his old MXR Phase 90, which produced the “Shattered” sound perfectly; my band played that song for a while, too, but I dropped it because, ultimately, it sounded like shit approximated on my Peavey digital flanger (a truly worthless relic of 80s hair metal; I don’t think I ever, even once, produced a cool sound off of that thing).