Shadow Over America: Monuments and Madness

On the surface, at the gas stations and hotels and souvenir shops, we can almost believe this isn't a nation deeply troubled by the contradictions of its noble aspirations and bloodstained history. Everything is so much bigger here, and faster. Its monuments, even the natural ones, are so grandiose as to beggar belief, and they arrogantly seize our breath. We try, on this trip, to escape the world's terrible stories, especially those unfolding here; but it is impossible, of course. So many gun stores and fireworks shops; one gun store in Sturgis features a giant, van-sized revolver in its parking lot, aimed at passers-by. I can't bring myself to stop for an ironic selfie.

But the sights! Magnificent. The stone visages of Mount Rushmore, the lush and ancient forests of the Black Hills, the sanitized, raucous fun of Deadwood, the looming stone pedestal that is Devil's Tower.

Before this trip, these were merely images on film: North by Northwest, Close Encounters of the Third Kind. Our journey has made them real.

Close Encounters of the Ghostwritten Kind

Here I am sometime back in the late 1970s reading Steven Spielberg's novelization of his screenplay for Close Encounters of the Third Kind. A lot of folks assume that this novelization was actually written by one of the world's most famous SF ghostwriters, Alan Dean Foster, the man who really wrote the Star Wars novelization (credited to George Lucas), among others.

I honestly don't remember Close Encounters well enough to say if Foster wrote it, and I no longer own a copy of the book to check the style. I am certain, though, that Foster did not novelize Star Trek: The Motion Picture, attributed to Gene Roddenberry. That book is just too loopy to be Foster and just loopy enough to be genuine Roddenberry.

With my book, bowl of cereal and collection of Lego bricks close at hand, I imagine this must have been a happy moment. It appears as though one of the Lego trays contains some kind of silvery, robotic action figure as well as the bricks you'd expect. It's too bad the photo isn't quite sharp enough to identify the figure.