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VERTIGO'S ON THE LEDGE:�
MARCH COVER/JANUARY SHIP with DEVIN KALILE GRAYSON
Dammit! It WAS Star Wars!
���������� For years, I have been denying that Star Wars had any significant impact on my life.� I was seven when it came out,� saw and enjoyed it, but it didn�t capture my imagination the way that Frances Hodgson Burnett, or Harriet the Spy, or even Battle of the Planets did.� Yet in thinking about how I got from Sarah Crew and Harriet and Princess to USER�s Guilliame de la Couer, I realize that I�m completely wrong about Star Wars. Star Wars changed everything.
1977:� I�m playing outside with two friends, Zachary and Jacob. We�re at Zach�s house,� so Zach is Luke - that�s understood. I have ideas about the rest of it.�

�But I don�t WANT to be Princess Leah!��� Jacob wails.�

I brandish a small, plastic sheriff�s pistol and gleefully mimic a Harrison Ford-like sneer.� �Well, I sure as hell ain�t gonna do it,� sweetheart.��

Jacob turns to Zach, desperate to impute my femininity.� �But SHE�S the GIRL!��

Zach stands behind us, arms folded, nodding thoughtfully. �She�s kinda more Han though,� he admits, and from that moment on I know. I know that there�s no point in huffing around with a bad attitude and buns on either side of your head when you can drink heartily, pilot badass spaceships,� and get away with calling starry-eyed do-gooders �kid.�� I know that for every beauty locked up in a cell,� there�s a sweaty,� dashing swashbuckler running around cracking jokes between kills.� And I know that although boys will frequently mistake me for a princess, in my heart of hearts, I will always be pure rouge.�

��������� For as long as I can remember, I�ve had no sincere interest in being myself. �Self� always seemed like a pretty dodgy concept anyway - was that who I was at Mom�s,� at Dad�s,� at school,� with friends�?� What made sense to me - what delighted me - was make believe. Later called �theater,� and �drama club.� Later still called �gaming.�� As a self-professed realist and aspiring Buddhist, I try to stay rooted in the here and now. But I have to admit that I�ve always understood Truth best as conveyed by fiction.�

���������� I share this now because I have long had the impression that this is a theme relevant to much of my generation.� The issue asserts itself over and over again in anxious Gen X relationships,� in exploratory but also indolent abandonment of everything from organized religion to work ethic, and even in pop culture (Meredith Brookes� �B*tch,� Fight Club, Being John Malkovich,� � �Nowhere Man,�).� We don�t know who we are.� We�re ambiguous.

��������� USER is about that ambiguity.� It�s the story of a young woman who has to abandon her understanding of who she is in order� to move forward.� It is a story, I like to say,� about the power of stories.�

��������� There�s a school of psychology that suggest that when analyzing your own dreams, you should assume that every character is actually you.� Fiction is our dreams.� It�s a map of the human psyche;� an opportunity to encounter our inner princess,� our inner demon,� our inner rouge.�
��������� You are the hero of your own narrative. And also the villain,� and the one in need of saving. You are the USER.�

May the force be with you.�


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