I just launched a Substack called Rearview Mirror, which I will be using to post a monthly recap of everything I published online the previous month (articles, Notebook posts, Jedi Archives posts, Letterboxd reviews, etc.). The debut post can be viewed here. For a streamlined way to keep up with all my work across the web, or to show your support, please subscribe to Rearview Mirror.
I’m having a lot of fun contributing to Tim Lawrence’s Jedi Archives project. Here are links to my first eight posts:
Pieces of Junk: Escapes from desert planets in the first film of each trilogy.
So Uncivilized!: Escapes from desert planets in the third film of each trilogy.
Dangerous Idealists: Similarities and differences between Obi-Wan, Mace Windu, and Count Dooku.
Doing Her Duty: Parallels between Episodes II and VIII.
Bombs Away!: The significance of the Resistance bombers in Episode VIII.
Jabba the Hutt: An Oligarchic Soul: Jabba the Hutt matches Plato’s profile of the oligarch.
The Empire Strikes Back Against a New Hope: Episodes IV and V form a chiasm.
The Force Awakens from the Revenge of the Sith: Episodes III and VII also form a chiasm.
“One must choose a corner and cultivate that.” (Isabel Archer in The Portrait of a Lady by Henry James)
“Yesterday is history, tomorrow is a mystery, but today is a gift. That is why it is called the present.” (Master Oogway in Kung Fu Panda)
“[Time’s] present is God’s present, and you should be that: present.” (“Be Present (Live from Catalyst Atlanta)” by Propaganda)
When I created this website in January 2017, seven years ago now, I gave it the name, “Robert Brown Presents.” There were two reasons for this.
First, the name is a nod to the show Alfred Hitchcock Presents. (This is also why my picture on the home page is in black-and-white cameo.) Similar to how that show was a way for the great director to share his favorite kinds of stories, this website is a way for me to share the things I’ve made or the things I care about.
Second, ‘present’ is one of my favorite words in the English language, and I can summarize much of my life philosophy just by expounding its different senses. Senses 1 and 2: We present presents to others. I want to live my life as a gift to God and neighbor, and make things I can offer as gifts. Senses 3 and 4: When we use the phrase “be present,” we mean presence in place and in the present time. So much of my creative work and so many of my thought projects are attempts to answer the essential question, “How should I live, here and now?” More pointedly, as a Christian on this side of glory, “How should I live in the tension of the already-not-yet?” (If these questions resonate with you, you might enjoy my poems “Yet,” “Ground,” and “Borgesian.”)
Broadly speaking, this is what “Robert Brown Presents” exists to do: to present presents—articles, Notebook posts, poems, songs, podcast episodes—that might help others be present. They’ve certainly helped me.
For the past several years my friend Timothy Lawrence and I—but especially Tim—have been on a “damn fool idealistic crusade” to change the conversation about Star Wars, emphasizing its consistency and continuity across the decades and its moral-philosophical dimensions. The latest result of that endeavor is Tim's The Jedi Archives, launched on Substack today. Each post will be a short, thought-provoking blurb on some element in the films or shows. (For example, the debut post is on the significance of the monsters encountered in the third film of each Skywalker Saga trilogy.) Most of the posts will be Tim's, but I will also be contributing with some frequency. If you like Star Wars at all—or wonder what’s the big deal and would like to see it from a new angle—I highly recommend checking it out and subscribing.
If you are new to Tim’s work on Star Wars, a great place to start is to read the short appendices on “Star Wars Ring Theory” (an idea first popularized by Mike Klimo) and “Tripartite Soul Theory.” If you have an hour or so, another great entry-point is Tim’s talk on Star Wars for Emmaus Classical Academy.
Reading Klimo’s essay and then the explication essays that came out of Tim’s undergraduate thesis changed the way I view Star Wars. In particular, Tim’s focus on the morally-formative intentions of Lucas’s saga rekindled my childhood love for the franchise while also maturing it. My hope is that this blog will do the same for many more once-or-future fans—not just so that more people can appreciate more of Star Wars, but so that Star Wars helps them seek the good life of a balanced soul.