Jawsfest

It seemed appropriate to post about Jawsfest over at
Divester given that in one of the Jaws films (I forget which…not the first one)
several divers were gobbled up by the now-famous great white. But I’ve read a few other stories since I posted at
Divester and I have to say I think the event would be damn fun to attend. There will be members of the cast in
attendance and all sorts of Jaws-related activities. Peter Benchley,
the author of Jaws, will actually be there.

Jaws was such a formative emotional experience for many of us. It was the first very vivid, cinema-based exposure to
horror that many of us had. And it was SO REAL. For good or for ill, that was very impactful. For me, having grown up
by the beach, it affected my swimming habits for a while, but didn’t cause any long-term psychological damage, thank
goodness. But it did expose me really for the first time to the power of movie-making…something that would be triply
emphasized two years later with the release of Star Wars.

To be honest, I think the most amazing thing about Jaws is that it is thirty years old. I mean…was it THAT long ago? I
was but a wee lad, but three decades later, when I’m in the water, I do sometimes hear that song in my head: da
dum. Da dum da dum.