Don't You Forget About Him: John Hughes Dies During His Second Saturn Return

The legendary director John Hughes has died of a heart attack in the midst of his second Saturn Return today. Death during the Saturn Return is rather rare -- there are usually other transits involved. For Hughes, Wednesday's full moon lunar eclipse played a major role -- it hit his sun and opposed his Pluto. With Michael Jackson and now John Hughes gone, the eighties feel ancient, and for a generation of puellas and puers, fully and finally dead.

Just a smattering of the movies he either wrote or directed:

The Breakfast Club
Weird Science
Ferris Bueller's Day Off
Sixteen Candles
Pretty In Pink

His Neptune (ruler of film) was in artistic Libra, trining his Jupiter in forward-thinking Aquarius. He put the words in our mouths before we knew we wanted to say them. John Hughes defined a generation of awkward, geek-loving, Atari-playing, Depeche-Mode-loving soon-to-be Gen X'ers. He will be missed.

Dear Mr. Vernon: We accept the fact that we had to sacrifice a whole Saturday in detention for whatever it is we did wrong, but we think you're crazy for making us write an essay telling you who we think we are. You see us as you want to see us: in the simplest terms, in the most convenient definitions. But what we found out is that each one of us is a brain, and an athlete, and a basket case, a princess, and a criminal. Does that answer your question? Sincerely yours, The Breakfast Club

Open Water, released today, reminds us once again that Saturn is still firmly ensconced in Cancer. This film offers an extremely apt metaphor for our current collective crisis. Until Saturn leaves Cancer in the summer of 2005, we're all at sea, dodging scary Saturnian sharks.

Water, water, everywhere

Last night Fox ran a ten minute trailer from the terror-inducing new movie The Day After Tomorrow, arriving in theaters on May 28th. The most striking images are of walls of water cascading over New York City. It is the ultimate Saturn in Cancer vehicle, and a warning that will likely go unheeded by the powers that be. It opens on Memorial Day, Cancer's favorite holiday.

House of Sand and Fog is the perfect archetypal representation of Saturn in Cancer: Our universal quest for home, for a piece of land to call our own.

It really pulls on that part of our psyches that's longing for a place where we truly feel we belong. What does it mean to have our home taken away from us? Being homeless, losing our roots, wandering aimlessly...where is Auntie Em?!