A Long Time Ago... with Lydia Kang
Hello there.
Welcome to A Long Time Ago… the fortnightly series where I ask a different guest to share with us a favourite Star Wars story and historical site. This started as a tie-in to my first piece of published writing, the article ART WARS for Star Wars Insider #226. The whole archive of my exploration of fourteen ancient art sites and every Star Wars story on my shelves can be found here.
Today, I hand over to Lydia Kang!
Lydia is an associate professor of internal medicine and an award-winning and bestselling author of adult fiction, young adult fiction, and science non-fiction, including Opium and Absinthe, Star Wars: Cataclysm, The November Girl, and Quackery: A Brief History of the Worst Ways to Cure Everything. She is currently writing serialized fiction set in The High Republic in Star Wars Insider magazine, and has two upcoming books in 2025: Pseudoscience: An Amusing History of Crackpot Ideas and Why We Love Them (Feb 2025, Workman Publishing) and K-Jane (October 2025, from Quill Tree Books/HarperCollins.)
Her book A Beautiful Poison is of special relevance to today’s post, which you can read about here on her website, as well as checking out her other works and signing up to her newsletter! And she can be found here on Bluesky. Lydia’s also provided some great extra links from a site called Ephemeral New York for you to peruse later in this post.
In A Galaxy Far, Far Away…
There is one story that I reflect upon quite often, whether I’m watching the original trilogy, or watching new content like Skeleton Crew, or writing stories for The High Republic. It’s from Rebels, which I watched two summers ago. I know, I know, I was so late to it. But I knew Ahsoka was about to be released, and wanted to be fully ready. I had watched bits and bobs of Rebels but not the entirety, so I dug in.
I thoroughly enjoyed watching Ezra, Sabine, Kanan, Hera, Agent Kallus grow and change over the course of the many seasons. But one favorite particular story-within-the-story that I wanted to mention involves Kanan Jarrus and Bendu. THE Bendu, as I find myself referring to him.
Being introduced to not just a new character, but a new and entirely novel creature in the Star Wars universe, is always a revelation for me. Humans have such short lifespans, so meeting someone (even fictional) who is so ancient always makes me sit up and notice. Will they be jaded about the wickedness in the galaxy? Will they have wisdom to impart that goes beyond the obvious platitudes we hear every day? Will we see exactly how powerful they truly are, especially in the face of such a vicious, calculating person such as Grand Admiral Thrawn? Yes, yes, and yes. Also, he had the best lines. His vision of Thrawn’s fate, with “many arms surrounding him in a cold embrace” was spine chilling.
Kanan Jarrus had no other Jedi around to mentor him and reach beyond the painful events he’d experienced. His blindness made him feel powerless, which was all the more difficult for a person whose power and leadership meant so much to their band of rebels. So watching Bendu guide him was pretty awesome to watch. Also, he’s just really cool.
A musk-ox/turtle/mushroom/storm being? What?
I love the Bendu.
In New York City, New York, United States…
The historical site I’d like to share with you is one that was a significant part of my life, and has been a part of my writing life, as well. It’s the famous (and infamous) Bellevue Hospital in New York City. [You can read a bit more about the sign (and site) here.]
It started out as an almshouse on the island of Manhattan in 1736, later named after the Belle Vue farm where it had moved in 1798. It has been the site for training medical students and residents from Columbia University and New York University in the last century, and has seen its way through yellow fever, cholera, influenza, HIV, tuberculosis, and COVID pandemics. Bellevue cared for John Lennon’s murderer and Norman Mailer, after the author stabbed his wife. Famous for its medical and psychiatric care, the hospital became synonymous with psychiatric institutions, and not in a good way. Getting “locked up at Bellevue” was an extremely outdated but commonly touted, derogatory phrase.
My time working in Bellevue began in 1994, when I started medical school at NYU School of Medicine. From there, I completed my residency and chief residency in internal medicine, followed by my first job as an attending physician. I cared for Rikers Island inmates on the medical prison wards (which is where I learned what a “shiv” was). I rounded on patients on the Chest Service (which cared for patients with tuberculosis, including those who were legally held for months because they failed to take their medications on their own.) I watched the twin towers fall on 9/11 from the windows of Bellevue. I learned medical Spanish to get by (to this day, I can tell you that you need a prescription medication for your lung infection in Spanish, but I can’t read a Spanish menu). I rotated through the Virology ward, which cared for those with HIV and AIDs (and where I had my first freak out due to a needlestick injury.) I used the secret stairwell that was locked but could be jimmied open using a broken tuberculin syringe, which I always carried in my pocket. There were rumors of secret tunnels that still held an iron lung in repose. The outside of the famed McKim, Mead, and White buildings still have the metal balconies used to keep the patients with tuberculosis outside for fresh air, where they might watch the Barnum Circus perform in the courtyard, back in the early 1900s.
[Read about that with some amazing old photos here.]
Bellevue showed up in my first novel, A Beautiful Poison, because it had left an indelible mark on the world, and my life. Today, the people within those walls still care for countless patients in New York City. Landmark innovations happened there–the first maternity ward in the country, the first Office of the Chief Medical Examiner in the Pathology building, the first kidney transplant, the development of the triple-medication cocktail that changed the course of HIV history. And so much more.
Bellevue will always be near and dear to my heart. I’ll never forget it.
Thank you so much Lydia!
These posts come out every other Sunday so subscribe today to discover the next guest and their picks!
Cheers,
Harvey