Starball

This delightful object is the decommissioned star projector from the planetarium in San Diego. To give you sense of scale, its diameter is about five feet. It now lives in the basement, where it is, sadly, collecting dust. This projector was innovative in that it could represent the cosmos in a more dynamic way than the traditional "dumbell" projectors because it has three axes of rotation, as opposed to the regular two. Thus, you could feel like you were flying through the sky, and not just looking up at it. They showed me the new projector, which is digital and can of course do lots of fancy things, but it has none of the romance of this terrifying spiky sphere.

San Diego

I'm in California for Spring Break, which for me means archival research, a conference, and hanging out with other film nerds. I went down to San Diego a couple of times to do some research on the world's first OMNIMAX theatre, a combination planetarium/IMAX dome that was built in 1973. I interviewed one of the theatre's founders, who showed me his old photographs of the architectural plans. I established my credibility by identifying Michael Collins, the Apollo 11 astronaut, examining a theatre model in one of the photos. Collins is known to be an IMAX fan, which causes me no end of delight. I was offered a tour of the projection room - I always find IMAX projectors charming, almost as charming as the projectionist, who got very chatty once I revealed the depth of my technical knowledge. We had a swell time talking about 3D formats, and he showed me the welding device they use for splicing IMAX film together.

Just before I left, I was introduced to the museum's director, who invited me to that evening's premiere of the new Hubble Telescope movie. The very jolly (and German) administrator put me on the list and promised there would be food, so I was there with bells on. They put on a great spread, and one could eat fancy cheese while playing with the museum's tornado simulator, the optical illusion machines, and the interactive display explaining the properties of transverse waves. I spotted the jolly German walking around in an authentic NASA spacesuit (circa 1980s). She was very excited about this part of her job, and I happily accepted her offer of astronaut ice cream. I had never tasted this delicacy, and to be honest, it's not very good, but it probably tastes better in space.

Just before the screening, I overheard a woman who was telling her friends that she has donated her body to the UC San Diego medical school, so on the event of her death, they will come to retrieve her, and she is not to have an autopsy. She then joked that this means her husband could poison her, and nobody would ever know. Everyone laughed. I wish her well, but I am waiting for the lurid made-for-tv movie about her case.

Dallas

I visited Dallas a couple of weekends ago to attend a festival of horror films by women directors. It was good fun and I won a t-shirt, but the highlight of my journey was the trip to South Fork Ranch, site of the original location shooting for the epic soap opera, Dallas. Here I am with JR's portrait, and he appears to be making a rude gesture behind my head.

To my surprise, only the exteriors were shot at the ranch, and yet, one can tour the interior of the house. The interior has been lavishly decorated, but not to look like the sets of the show. Rather, they have just designed it with Dallas in mind. It's really more of a Dallas-based art installation than anything else. It was an excellent example of a simulacrum - a copy without an original - which was one of the "big ideas" in my science fiction class last semester. I suspect I was the only person on the tour thinking about it in this particular way.

I particularly enjoyed JR's bedroom, what with the chandelier over the bed.

Stranger still was JR's master bath, with the telephone installed beside the toilet. This seems a questionable design choice.

As the tour guide was telling us about the history of the house, he mentioned that the original owner's name was JR Duncan. I asked if that was the origin of the character's name, but it turns out it wasn't - the script had already been written before the location was chosen. I was pleased to hear this because I have a pet theory about the origin of JR Ewing's name. In the movie Giant, which is the master narrative of West Texas, James Dean plays a character named Jett Rink who gets rich when he strikes oil. There's a wonderful scene where he's sitting at a banquet table, and his initials, "JR" are plastered in huge letters on the wall behind him. When I saw this, I thought, "that must be where they got the name for Dallas." I haven't made the effort to actually find out, but I floated this theory to the tour guide, and he found it intriguing. Then a lady on the tour jumped in to explain that JR Ewing is called that because his father's name is John Ross and he's named after him. I restrained myself from telling her that they are fictional characters, so that's not actually an explanation. Instead, I went back to thinking about simulacra.

Santa Fe

I played hooky from my Albuquerque conference a few weekends ago so I could visit Santa Fe. When I was a graduate student and I was exhausted and stressed out, I would read about Santa Fe on the internet and imagine what it would be like to go there. Here are some highlights of my now-realized dreams.

I went for lunch at a vegetarian-friendly place that had mole on the menu (if you've not experienced it, mole is a particularly delicious, and often hard-to-find Mexican sauce). I sat at the "community" table - a big table in the middle of the room where you get to meet fellow diners. I chatted with a nice couple who quizzed me on my favorite movies. We spent a lot of time discussing No Country For Old Men, which was appropriate given the surrounding landscape, and the fact that Cormac McCarthy lives just up the road. I splurged on a nine-dollar espresso milkshake, pictured below. It kept me going for the rest of the day, such that I skipped dinner.

Santa Fe is a very liberal place, especially compared with dear old Lubbock. After my milkshake I wandered about, and found the local hemp store, which carried an array of left-leaning bumper stickers and ethically-produced t-shirts. The poster selection says it all: