bironic

Hm. My equinox_exchange assignment is technically a match, but we're interested in completely different characters for our large, shared source. Am instead exploring a couple of other sources among their requests. Oh, well.

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I went to a small gallery opening last night at Harvard Divinity School in which a recent graduate, a self-taught artist, painted a series of icons in the Byzantine tradition that depict Star Wars characters. So instead of Mary and baby Jesus, there's C-3PO cradling R2D2, radiant against a gold background, with their names transliterated into Greek.

The collection is called "Saints of Star Wars" and it is a super fun exploration of the intersection of fannishness and worship.

The artist, Alex Ramos (artist bio | academic bio), spoke for a few minutes and made himself very available for discussions with the few dozen attendees. Two faculty members also introduced the exhibit. As someone with only a cursory education in Christianity and art history and medium-level knowledge of Star Wars, I appreciated the context they provided and the framing questions they posed, such as:

- What is for us today an icon?

- Some contemporary SF/F properties convene religious communities. Ex. Harry Potter and the Sacred Text, Jedi-ism as a self-entered minority religion on official census documents.

- Explanations of the inspirations behind individual paintings. Chewbacca after John the Baptist with fur cloak and curly hair. Luke after St. George and the Dragon. Anakin as an icon of redemption.

And as a Renaissance finale, a version of the Last Supper featuring Jabba the Hutt, which, if I heard correctly, the Divinity School commissioned. Ramos told a few of us about the decisionmaking behind placement of certain characters, notably Leia in the position of betrayer. In the second version he painted, she doesn't have a halo.

With bonus filk! Topping off the event, a local family choir performed two original Star Wars songs, one detailing Jabba's excuses for why he can't be nice and the other sung by Anakin Skywalker about the benefits of turning to the Dark Side. It was amusing in the sometimes cringey way of amateur performances.

On a personal level, I enjoyed chatting with not only Ramos but also a visiting scholar from Tuskegee University who studies at the confluence of bioethics, faith and gender; a young woman priest from Boston's Trinity Church; a biologist; and a faculty member at the design school.

Never has there been a more appropriate venue to overhear the exchange: "May the Force be with you." "And also with you."

ETA: The internet reveals a similar, digital series, Imperial Saints, designed by Patrick King.

Apparently this has been making the rounds for a while, but I hadn't seen it and maybe you haven't either: a gorgeous piece of House/Wilson / Holmes/Watson fanart. Someone in the comments made a good point about Vicodin/cocaine too. I think quality-wise it's right up there with this other painting of the TNG crew in Arthurian roles that Henry Jenkins put on the cover of Textual Poachers.

catilinarian is flying in tomorrow for what will doubtless be a weekend of good conversation and media gluttony, plus "Lestat" on Saturday and -- isn't she lucky? -- our dance competition Sunday at me ol' stomping grounds. It's odd; after and despite that initial string of dreams about the play, and even though we're seeing it on what is now opening night, I haven't been very excited about "Lestat." Mayhap it's protection against disappointment.

For instance, I'm much more excited about "House" lately, especially an upcoming ep in which ( spoiler, obviously ) The show is FINALLY back next week, with Samantha Mathis guest-starring to boot, and then 7 more non-stop eps to follow which are sure to completely contradict whatever I come up with for my ficathon assignment. (I've already seen on the Fox website that ( another spoiler, if you count something posted on the official website ) It's been a while since I've been excited over upcoming episodes of a show, and even longer since I've gone in search of spoilers. It's nice.

In other random fangirl news, Thomas Kretschmann has just started filming a new movie in St. Petersburg called "In Transit" with Daniel Brühl, John Malkovich and Vera Farmiga. Kretschmann! Brühl! Farmiga (Sebastian Roché's wife)! It's worth braving Malkovich! It seems TK is the main character in the movie, which is about German POWs (what a novel role for him) from the siege of Leningrad in a Russian camp guarded by women. His soldier/professor is in love with Farmiga's female prison guard. It's a dream match I never would have thought up, and so very nearly TK and Sebastian... who have probably met on set... *Less than a day after her first migraine aura, she drifts off into her first RPS daydream.*