October 1, 2007

• Advanced Study:

  Bright as Magnesium
  
  “Definitive”

  – The New York Times,  
  Sept. 30, 2007, on
  Blade Runner:
  The Final Cut

  Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton, N.J.–

  “The
  art historian Kirk Varnedoe died on August 14, 2003, after a long and
  valiant battle with cancer. He was 57. He was a faculty member in the
  Institute for Advanced Study’s School of Historical Studies, where he
  was the fourth art historian to hold this prestigious position, first
  held by the German Renaissance scholar Erwin Panofsky in the 1930s.”

  Hal Crowther–

  “His final lecture was an eloquent, prophetic flight of free association….

  Varnedoe
  chose to introduce his final lecture with the less-quoted last words of
  the android Roy Batty (Rutger Hauer) in Ridley Scott’s film Blade Runner:
  ‘I’ve seen things you people wouldn’t believe– attack ships on fire
  off the shoulder of Orion, bright as magnesium; I rode on the back
  decks of a blinker and watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the
  Tannhauser Gate. All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in
  the rain. Time to die.’”
  

  
  Related material: 
  tears in the rain–
  
  Game Over
  (Nov. 5, 2003):
  
  

  

  

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