A NOD TO GEORGE LUCAS, RALPH McQUARRIE, DENNIS MUREN, PHIL TIPPETT, ET AL –

It is difficult now, 40-plus years after the fact, to recall the precise cultural context in which the first "Star Wars" appeared. But to a futureless teen, flailing amidst the harvest gold smog of failed post-war ideals that was late '70s Los Angeles, it arrived itself like a ship from a galaxy far, far away.... strange, yet familiar - a wondrously plausible, kitbashed bricolage of novel contrasts, that I would argue constituted one of the first great works of the postmodern era. The revelations of that first film have continued to inform my work ever since. For that initial inspiration - and the countless joys that have followed in its wake - I will forever be grateful.