And....I'm back. Baseball fans already figured out what happened the past two weeks - the Royals made the World Series. With games each of the past two Wednesdays, and all the ones in between, and several days of travel, and not quite enough writing, something had to give, and it was updating the blog. Sure, I could have tried to put something together last week after the final game...but really, who wants to read whatever it would have been after the final loss, with the tying run stranded at third?
For those who might, there's always my twitter feed. Apologies for those who came for Star Wars and got ambushed by baseball. Now, I'm starting to sound like two thirds of Jason Fry. Time to get back on track...
Force and Destiny Beta continues, though no rules update this week. FFG did reveal more about X-wing's Scum and Villainy faction, meaning more ship previews.
Star Wars Rebels is in full swing now. With news that a second season has already been ordered, it looks like it will get time to develop. I'm enjoying it so far, though I am surprised at the rate of reveals. Not so much the rate of reveal character secrets to the audience, but the rate of revealing those secrets to the Empire. Thought they'd stretch that out quite a bit more, maybe through half of the first season or beyond.
As with The Clone Wars, starwars.com is running additional material on the site each week. Rebels Recon is sort of preview meets Q&A. It's good and well worth watching, though I'd wait till after you watch the given episode since there tends to be spoilers.
Speaking of The Clone Wars, they've announced that the soundtrack for Seasons 1-6 is coming, and there are preorders on itunes and amazon, possibly elsewhere. More Star Wars music is always good.
Since I'm on a speaking of roll here, speaking of Star Wars music, if you haven't checked out Star Wars Oxygen which talks about the John Williams music in detail, you should. This is the link to the first two. There are 10, but they stopped tagging it separately for some reason.
Changing the subject a bit, this will sort of sound like the final third of Jason Fry if he were an architect instead of a journalist. Today saw the release of the George Lucas Museum of Narrative Art renderings. This gives the public the first view of the design concept, though how much makes it into reality depends on a ton of factors. It will be interesting to watch this develop. Still not sure how its not in San Francisco or somewhere in California. There is more information on the architect's website (MAD).
Warning, the description includes unvarnished architectural phrases such as:
- "The Lucas museum is both futuristic and timeless."
- "...blurs the line between the structure and landscape."
and my favorite:
- "Its uninterrupted stone surfaces are as primitive as it is futuristic, evoking the great achievements of architectural history."
So...I guess if it's primitive and futuristic it is therefore timeless?
Apologies. The wording triggers painful memories of architecture students trying to make their design concepts sound grand and believable while presenting their weeks-long projects to skeptical professors and guest jurors. It could be worse, though. Juxtaposition is nowhere to be found, and there aren't any made up words desperately failing to capture the essence of the idea. I'm still not sure where it is going with "evoking the great achievements of architectural history," but it's going to be in architecturally significant* Chicago, so why not?
As an architect, I'm bound by generations of past architects to express vast skepticism in the proposed design until the actual thing is built. Once finished, it will be judged brilliant, acceptable, AND a blight on the historic Chicago architecture landscape, by architects everywhere. Exactly which judgement is determined by each architect's amount of criticism displayed prior to the building opening, the success if the final building, and how jealous the architect is about failing to get the design commission in the first place. Note, Chicago architects are obligated to loathe it no matter what, since it's being designed by an out-of-town architecture firm.
Really, though, I do look forward to seeing it completed. I bet the interior spaces will be very interesting. I do actually like what I see so far...still not sure about the context between a stadium and a....ok never mind.
*The prase "architecturally significant" is used here entirely for the amusement of my wife and a few friends who, it turns out, weren't all that interested in seeing my slides from a trip to Europe years ago. To them I say, we still have the second half to go. You're only saved by the fact that I have no idea where to find a slide projector...for now.