At Least Space is Cold

It’s hot.

It’s really hot.  Especially in my house.  If you look at today’s Somerville weather report (and it’s Tuesday, by the way, for those of you playing along at home—I don’t write these posts day of if I can help it!), you will find a number.  That number is irrelevant.  Humidity and lack of air conditioning and post-fencing heat exhaustion mean I don’t have to care what the weather service says.  This is the actual forecast.

Fortunately I spent some of the day in SPACE.

My friend Kendric’s in town.  (And, may I take a moment to say—this season, no well-appointed young gentleman would dare be seen around town without a Kendric Tonn original oil painting.  So there.)  In his perpetual quest to separate your humble correspondent from his already nonexistent free time and discretionary budget, Kendric brought a tackle box full of X-Wing Miniatures.  So far, we’re two dogfights into the week, and my internal polls show a distinct amplification of enthusiasm.

I’m not going to say anything here that the folks on Shut Up & Sit Down didn’t say in their review of the game, but there’s an odd chance that some of you may not be reading Shut Up & Sit Down, so I’ll have to shoulder the burden.  The X-Wing miniatures game is a lightweight yet robust game of dogfighting around an asteroid field.   You assemble a squadron of pre-painted plastic miniatures, gather your friends, and zoom around your dining room table executing barrel rolls and Immelmans, activating (or switching off, if you’re insane) your targeting computer, and generally having a hell of a time.

Now: I’ve played this game on a computer.  I played it back when it was Rebel Assault, and Rebel Assault II.  I played it when it was TIE Fighter.  I played it on my Performa 6100/60, I played it on my friend Ian’s Sega CD, I played it on the tank-sized ThinkPad my high school rented me for a year.  I played this game on the GameCube once or twice.  And yet…

This afternoon, when the temperature was Oh God and the humidity was Why Would You Build Your City in a Swamp, my two TIE fighters and my Interceptor (piloted by Baron Soontir Hand-Me-My-Wallet-It’s-The-One-That-Says-Bad-Mothafucka-On-It Fel, natch) barreled through an asteroid field pursuing Kendric’s sole remaining Y-wing; his desperate pilot played asteroid slalom to deny me firing arcs while snagging corner shots with his ion turret.  We weren’t even playing the theme music, and we were both there.

We’re wired to project ourselves into objects: give a woman a hammer and her brain’s model of her body expands to include the hammer.  And when given a small, beautiful, high-quality TIE fighter of molded plastic, with a little heft to it, and simple rules that let me translate  desires through that model into strategic action, adventure, tension, story—I slide into the cockpit, and I’m in space.

Which is a pretty cool place to be.

And “cool” is exactly what I need right about now.