4 54 The Grand Allusion
4 54 The Grand Allusion The 1980 arcade game Star Castle, produced by Cinematronics Screen Burn November 12, 1982 Water rushed across metal brackets and pullies, ran along spouts and into buckets, through gears and over bells, eventually splashing against four large pendulums, one to each side of the towering clock. Woodgrove Center had opened only a few months earlier, and The Water Clock was both impressive and bizarre. I glanced over the glass enclosure, towards the pool at its base. Beneath the surface, along the tops of the submerged blue tiles, hundreds of pennies came in and out of focus, while the clock churned on -- water filling up buckets, overflowing then dumping into the moat, forever maintaining motion. Plenty of pennies...but no quarters. The clock kept my attention for all of five seconds. "Can I?" Grandma gave me a nod and a smile. I was gone. Speeding towards the food court, I craved no Orange Julius, hungered for no Taco Time. I ran past the the families in...