Living History in the Star Wars Galaxy

Image Analysis: Taxi Ride

This will be a short post, as there’s not a lot in this vignette (from page 109 of Wizards of the Coasts’ Galactic Campaign Guide) to talk about, just some buildings, a lot of ships, and a few non-humans (a Duros taxi driver, two Cereans, and an unknown). However, one of those speeders is very familiar:
lavaskim2 Don’t recognize it? How about now?
Boba's_airspeeder_model

That’s right, we finally have an appearance of Boba Fett’s toy airspeeder in situ – it’s no longer just a prop made up for a Visual Dictionary, it’s a legitimate vehicle!

Event debrief: May the Fourth 2018

Location: local indoor Astroturf park

: This gives a pretty good sense of the event.

Event type: ‘Star Wars Day’: kids activities, Chewbacca contest, costume contests, dodgeball, lightsaber ‘academy’; etc.
Although the event wasn’t really a good fit, if I had thought ahead of time, I could have reserved a table and laid out a display of survival gear. Ah, hindsight!
A few local organizations that did have tables:
Continue reading “Event debrief: May the Fourth 2018”

Event Debrief: 17 March 2018

As a borderline hermit, meeting and conversing with celebrities isn’t something I have a lot of experience with. So when I learned that the prodigal Dr. David West Reynolds was going to be returning to his hometown library for a screening of his film-archeology documentary “Journey to Tatouine’ and that the event was being advertised as ‘Star Wars Day’, I knew I was going to have to make an appearance.
31718 This would be my second ‘Stars Wars at the library’ event, and since the first, I’ve had several other events with the public to help me focus and refine my approach. This time, I knew what to expect and was somewhat prepared with a rudimentary engagement hook—a thick stack of facsimiles of the Declaration of Rebellion to distribute.
Continue reading “Event Debrief: 17 March 2018”

Event debrief: 14 July 2017

When I wasn’t working at the zipline, getting merchandise and materials ready for an earthskills festival, and taking a three-day Middle-earth trek in Wisconsin, every spare minute of the first half of July 2017 was spent finishing gear for a second survival presentation at the Frazier Museum’s summer camp—after the first session, I had told my facilitator that I had a Rebel militia persona in the works, and couldn’t go back on my word!
Therefore, I spent the entire two full days (July 12&13) before the camp finishing my Pepakura RFT helmet (which, as discussed earlier, came out looking surprisingly decent considering it was my first attempt with fiberglass), converting the last of my green army dress shirts to bib-front RFT-style, and getting my DH-17 retool in mostly-presentable condition.

After staying up til 0100 for multiple nights in a row, I managed to get everything done and was finally ready to debut my Rebel partisan impression, ‘Citizen Olis’, to a group of 10-13 younglings in grades 3 through 6!
reb assemble DSC05059 Continue reading “Event debrief: 14 July 2017”

Event Debrief: 29 June 2017

In 2017, I was very glad to be invited back to the Frazier International History Museum for a second set of summer camp presentations.

Like last year, I would give a short talk on survival needs in the Galaxy, teach cordage with raffia, and then have Q&A time. This time around, however, I would present on different days to smaller groups. For this first session, my audience were 8-10 younglings in 4^th-6^th grade.
A year’s worth of research and refinements meant that I had a more detailed persona (Silo the on-the-run Jedi washout), and the event was highly successful thanks largely to my commitment to the First Person approach.
Continue reading “Event Debrief: 29 June 2017”

Event debrief: 21 January 2017

Venue: Louisville, KY – The Rally to Move Forward
This was a ‘sister event’ for the Women’s March in Washington, held on post-Trump’s-inauguration day. 12117above
Myself and 3,000 other attendees braved the early morning chill to hear some inspiring speeches and music from local activists, groups, and politicians, and hobnob with other like-minded folks. Continue reading “Event debrief: 21 January 2017”

Event Debrief: 20 July 2016

As they (probably) say on Kamino, when it rains it pours! That’s right, my first two public GFFA reenacting events were back-to-back!

Venue: Frazier International History Museum‘s ‘Jedi, Wizards, and Time Lords!’ summer camp
72016
Compared to the day before, this event was Much more to my liking. I debuted my basic (then-unnamed) Agricultural Corps persona, and presented (in First Person!) to two groups of about 15 campers each. I gave a 15-20 minute talk on contents of a basic survival kit (i.e. Dave Canterbury’s ‘10 Cs’, translated into GFFA terms), taught the reverse-ply cordage-making technique with raffia palm fibers, and then had a few minutes for Q&A.
Continue reading “Event Debrief: 20 July 2016”

Event debrief: 19 July 2016

This is another feature that will be rolling out this year, which I’ve termed ‘debriefs’. These will be ‘after-action reports’ in which I break down public events I’ve attended in the name of ‘GFFA reenacting’. The first several will require a bit of backtracking, but we’ll get caught up quickly.

Venue: MCPL:
71916-1 Continue reading “Event debrief: 19 July 2016”

Artifact ID: blue milk cups

This is another one of those on-screen artifacts I had a really easy time identifying, because I grew up seeing identical cups in my mom’s kitchen drawer of plastic cups and bowls—except hers were a sort of seafoam-ish green:
640-8green
The cup that Luke drinks from is an actual vintage Tupperware cup, known as a “Sweet Saver” (product #640-8) meant for storing and pouring liquids like maple syrup or salad dressing.
These are often available and relatively inexpensive on eBay, or you may get lucky by combing your local thrift shop for vintage Tupperware.
Continue reading “Artifact ID: blue milk cups”

Image Analysis: Clone Wars Playtime

One feature I’ve been wanting to implement here is a series in which I take a close look at individual images, something along the lines of Townsend’s Sifting the Past blog. And here, I think, is the perfect example to start with!

This picture comes from Wizards of the Coast’s Galactic Campaign Guide (2003), p. 113. The book is a great source for our purposes, as it includes (among many other juicy details) an excellent section on species-specific naming conventions, and many similar world-building vignette scenes.

Looking at this image with an anthropologist’s discerning eye, several details leap out at me.
Continue reading “Image Analysis: Clone Wars Playtime”