(2000, the offices of Lucasfilm. George Lucas, Lynn Hale, and Rick McCallum are meeting to discuss the script and details for Episode II)

George Lucas: Okay, so I want this one to be called "Jar Jar saves the Universe." Now don't freak out, I know the fans wanna see Annie, too, so we'll throw him in, along with that short guy, whasshisname?

Rick McCallum: Yoda?

Lucas: Yeah, Yoda! The kids'll love it!

McCallum: I don't think this is the angle we want to go with…

Lucas: And why not?!? People love Jar Jar! You told …

When I was eight years old, I sat in a movie theater while the closing credits for The Empire Strikes Back scrolled up on the screen, and I was pissed. Pissed that Han had been sold down the river, pissed that Luke had gotten the snot beaten out of him, and most of all, pissed that George Lucas expected me to wait three years to learn whether or not Vader was really Luke's father. Back in 1980, that was one heck of a cliffhanger.

As Episode II ends, we're left with no such anticipation, but more a sense of resignation, a …

When I was in high school, we once had a debate about the future of warfare. This was way back when they called it "arpanet" and people like me couldn't use it. "Alternative" music was the Pixies, MTV still showed music videos, and the idea of somebody like me actually getting my hands on a Unix system was pretty much nil.

Anyhow, I argued that the quickest way to bring your opponent's country to its proverbial knees was to somehow disable his power grid. In this day and age, we're all so ridiculously dependent on electricity, that without …

I've always been a big fan of Sasha's work. As a remixer and DJ he's an absolute genius. Given his talent for manipulating the work of others, I was really looking forward to seeing what he did with some original material.

On the first Northern Exposure comp with John Digweed, he took a wide variety of source material and turned it into a hypnotic, seamless whole, climaxing with the brilliant Rabbit in the Moon take on Tori Amos' "Precious Things." Samples were cut and edited deftly across tracks, and it was obvious that Sasha was truly a singular phenomenon. The ketamine-blasted …