Hey folks, Harry here... This isn't a story with breaking news. There's a lot that I should be writing about, but I can't get to that stuff till I get to writing about this. So if you want news and you hate pieces that you consider to be "vanity" pieces... move along. This is one of those times where I'm gonna spew purple prose about the intangible wowness of something that just showed up on my doorstep today. Something Magic!

The story begins at FANTASTIC FEST. There's all sorts of cool stuff that went down at Fantastic Fest and each day I was meeting cool people. Not just the famous types, but just regular joes and janes that live here in Austin or that flew in to just see the movies and bask in the greater glory that is an 8 day orgy of Genre flicks.

On or about the third or fourth day of the Fest, I was greeted by a pair of geeks. They had met at the festival. One was from Austin, the other flew in from San Francisco and had apparently worked in the Industrial Lights and Magic model & miniatures department. "Worked" as in past tense, since ILM sold off it's model department to become a separate industry unto itself. Feeling that Digital is the be all, end all of Special Effects Filmmaking. We wrote an "obit" of sorts for the fabled land of scaled down filmmaking here at AICN because... well... Moriarty, Quint, Merrick, Herc and I all feel that ILM cutting loose that department is kinda akin to jacking off into a beaker, then cutting off your penis cuz... if you want to make a kid... just thaw it out and inject.

Don't get me wrong. I love computers and the magic that computers give us... but they're not always the most convincing way to bring about "magic". Now, this geek tells me that when it got sold off - the old "lighting equipment" from the miniature and stop-motion department was set to just be thrown away and he asked if he could have the stuff because to him... these lights were what lit Hoth and the Imperial Walkers. The Minecart chase in TEMPLE OF DOOM, the Speeder Bikes, countless sets and monsters.

Anyways, this guy tells me he has these things and asks if I'd like to have one of the lights that lit the Walkers from EMPIRE. I love stuff like this... but I'm not sure what I was expecting. He said there were stencils on it and what not. But I remember that I felt like I was rushing the conversation, cuz I had to take a piss - and I never saw the guy again at the festival. Hmmm, a light. That's cool, I guess.

I think I figured it'd be some funky looking thing, broken. Unusable, and what would I fucking use it for?

It's been two weeks since the conversation and frankly - I wasn't thinking about it anymore. I honestly don't give a lot of thought to stuff that could be very cool, cuz often times - free stuff that is offered, just never shows up. Having said that, this fella really seemed insistent that this stuff be in the hands of people that truly understand the awesomeness of what he was offering. Having read me geeking out over stuff for the last 10 years, he figured I'd be one of them.

But for like a day and a half I was excited about it. Then just figured, it'd be nice if it happened, but who knows... right?

Well, this Columbus Day - I was off watching Eastwood's FLAGS OF OUR FATHERS - damn fine film. After lunch, Yoko and I were driving home and we noticed a massive amount of packages on my front porch of the house my dad lives in, next door to our house - and since most of my mail still gets delivered there - we decide to see if it's my stuff or his, so the ol Father Geek won't have to haul it all over.

There was one huge box, busting out of the bottom, barely holding together... and then lots of other little Fed Ex boxes. A hawaiian shirt, I'd ordered. A hard back of THE FOUNTAIN comic adaptation. Screeners for SciFi Channel things. And then the big box.

The big box had FRAGILE scribbled all over it. Upon opening it... there were 3 or 4 Fed Ex bubble packs atop whatever it was. Foam wrapping paper. Newspapers, big bubble things. And At first I didn't know what I was looking at. I knew it was a light... but Why?

Then I picked it up and realized... OH MY GOD - this is an INDUSTRIAL LIGHT that made MAGIC!!! And Yoko was like, "What's that thing?" AND - I kept saying, "It's an INDUSTRIAL LIGHT that made MAGIC!!!"

Admittedly - it doesn't look like much. It is An Industrial Light for Film work. As a geek for fetishistic items of film production. You have to be a specific type of film geek to get into this sort of thing. Then again, I'm that that geek that bought GEORGE PAL's director's chair. One of Lon Chaney and Bud Westmore's Make-up kits. I love things like that. Where you pick up the item... and imagine. It's like that scene in STAR TREK: FIRST CONTACT - where Picard touches the first ship to achieve WARP capacity - that initiated First Contact and Earth's invitation to meet with the peoples of the universe, in this case, the Vulcans. There's a charge one gets - a charge of pure geek energy. Like my Kong Smoke Bomb from the original KING KONG 1933. "This knocked Kong Out" goes through my head and a 8 year old's smile crawls across my face.

I called DAD to tell him, "I have an INDUSTRIAL LIGHT that made MAGIC!" Then I noticed... I could plug it in. The idea that it would generate, could still generate THE LIGHT... that would be MAGIC. So I raced over to the nearest barrier strip.... and I plugged it in. Picked up the bulky machined light switch thing... And BOOM!

There was INDUSTRIAL LIGHT... and it was MAGIC, as the first thing it happened to light was... my autographed EMPIRE STRIKES BACK one sheet with 10 sigs thus far. A tear lept from both eyes. The smell... the burning of dust. The traces of smoke coming out of the vents... The way the light transformed the curtains... MAGIC. MAGIC. This light made for the magic of all our childhoods. Balanced the scene, made it moody, pretty... Imagine what it lit. It lit ghosts, asteroids, spaceships and the dreams of millions of childhoods. This is the INDUSTRIAL LIGHT. MAGIC is something that only those that believe can see. This Lantern, lamp, light... This light is magic. And it's my magic. I'm going to display it next to my MODERN TIMES one-sheet. Chaplin's gears and Lucas' too. Magic from the silent days of cinema - and the bombastic days of my youth. I love being a geek. And I hope you do too. It's stuff like this light that reminds me of all the work that goes to making the magic of films. Film is nothing but a mixture of light and shadow, and when I look at this nearly thrown away light, I think of the images it burned with its light into celluloid that were then projected for all of us to awe and wonder at. That's magic. A magic I love and cherish above all.