01 August 2011

Pop Culture Esoterica

Monopoly has an official rule that almost nobody actually uses (I knew that and have actually used said rule but can't say I that prefer doing so) (h/t to Enik Rising).

The Star Wars saga owes less of its literary inspiration to mythic universals of Joseph Campbell, and more to its pulp fiction antecedents in the genre, particular the Lensman series by E.E. "Doc" Smith which is now out of copyright (the first episode of the series, at least, is available for a legal free download), than is commonly recognized (h/t to Razib at Gene Expression).

FWIW, Smith's prose is just about as dreadful as the dialog in Star Wars, if not worse, as it has the corny smaltz of self-mockery popular in the 1930s and 1940s when it was written that Star Wars, which generally takes itself much more seriously, lacks.

1 comment:

Jude said...

The Monopoly rule is irrelevant if you purchase every piece of property you possibly can. That's the only way *I've* ever played Monopoly. Why give anyone else a chance to purchase a piece of property that they can eventually use against you?