Blog – Raiders of the Last Era

I distinctly remember when we first got a Betamax video player and headed to the only video store, a 20 minute drive from home, to rent our first video. I was around 6 or 7 years old. I can still remember my mum showing me the cover of The Dark Crystal and telling me she thought my sister and I might enjoy it. I wasn’t so sure. My sister was older than me and wanted to rent Teen Wolf and I agreed because I wanted to be just like her.

Both of those videos came home with us that day. And so began a life long passion.

Within a year, I entered a colouring competition in the flagship Dymocks bookstore in the big city and won my choice of 5 beta video cassettes. One of the choices was easy. The Dark Crystal came home again with me that day, this time for good and got played more times than I can remember!

My passion for Thra and all its inhabitants grew over the years and has always given me the warmest feelings of nostalgia, along with many of Jim Henson’s other creations (but they’ll get their own posts!)

When I moved to Vancouver in 2008, I purchased Brian Froud’s World of the Dark Crystal. It was one of my few possessions over the next few years as I stayed away from home travelling. I spent many a rainy day pouring over it’s pages. I always knew that one day I would get a tattoo that would remind me of my love for this world and something that would make my heart fill with nostalgia whenever I looked at it. Many years and many tattoos later, I found myself sitting with a gin and tonic on the weekend, chatting with some of my favourite people and having the symbol for the great conjunction tattooed on my arm.

Although at the moment it feels sore and tender, I keep looking at it with a smile and a heart full of happiness.

When I was 11 years old, I fell in love with the movies.

While my older sister was taping her favourite songs from the top 40 onto her mixed tapes, I was writing down scripts from over-played beta video cassettes in a bedroom plastered with film posters and lobby cards I’d bought from the Collector’s Fair. Going to my local video store was the highlight of my week and I loved looking up titles on the computer and then hunting the rows of shelves filled with VHS videos to find the ones I would take home for the week. When I turned 13, the owner of my favourite video store asked if I would like a part time job there.. and I jumped at the chance! I kept that job and immersed myself with movies all throughout high school and university, only leaving when I headed out into the ‘real world’ at age 21.

Fast forward to last week…

The owner of the beautiful old worldly cinema, and the gem of our town, called to ask if I would be interested in working their box office for the week to help out with school holidays. Talk about a job I was made for! What a wonderful week, learning the intricacies of running a picture theatre. I had a ball.

While films were running, I walked quietly behind the silver screen on the creaky floorboards of a stage and wondered what stories this old public hall, now transformed into its current form, could tell me if it could. I made dozens and dozens of hand dipped choc tops and bagged up a load of lolly bags filled with Jaffas and Fantails in the snack bar, and loved every minute of it all!

There is such a thrill sending people into the darkness to be lost in another world for a couple of hours. I hope they ask me to help out again one day.

Raiders of the Last Era

My Love Affair with the Dark Crystal

Video Store to Box Office