Archives

Mar032006

Jack Wild

Everyone once in a while, something makes me realize how very grateful I am to have grown up in the 1970s. People who were adults during that period may remember it as a hellish time of political scandal, long gas lines, runaway inflation, and impractically wide lapels — I believe Jimmy Carter described all of the above as “malaise,” which sums up the historical circumstances of that decade about as well as any other single word — but it was a great time to be a kid. It was before everyone got so paranoid, before anyone coined the term “play date,” before you had to armor up just to go ride your bike. We had real sugar in our Coke, Slurpees came in flavors that weren’t made by Coke, and candy cigarettes were actually called candy cigarettes and not candy sticks or whatever they’re called these days (can you even still get those things?). And to top it off, we had the live-action kid-vid television shows of Sid and Marty Krofft.

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Mar022006

Evaporation

Lileks articulates my greatest frustration… and fear:

I have a large project that needs to be done. It’s the novel…. Part of me wants to give in to the Elves of Self-Doubt, who show up by the score and bang me over the head with small hammers until I realize there’s no point to writing the damn thing, but I really like the idea. It’s a matter of finding the time. This is where “not winning the lottery” is a major impediment, because I cannot stroll back to the Writing Hut at the edge of the Manor and type uninterrupted. Everything else I can do with constant interruption, both external and internal — but it’s hard to get into the groove when something else is always nipping at my heels. No matter how good the idea is, enthusiasm is evanescent, and I worry that this one will just evaporate with time.

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Mar012006

Space Station Photo

Here’s something cool for you all to look at, courtesy of The Planetary Society’s Weblog: it’s a photo taken by a guy named Ed Morana of the International Space Station transiting (i.e., crossing in front of) the Moon on February 13th.

ISS lunar transit

According to the blog entry I nabbed this from, the image is composed of eight exposures from a video camera taken as the Station moved from right to left. Morana’s site features movies, if you’re into that whole motion thing…

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Feb222006

My Take on the Port Controversy

As much as I hate to admit it, I think President Bush made a good point yesterday when he suggested that there’s something wrong with opposing an Arab-owned company operating U.S. shipping ports when a British-owned company has been doing the job for years. He’s right, there is a double standard at play in this debate, and it is tinged with an uncomfortable hint of racism, or at least of playing favorites with our allies and business partners.

But the president, in his usual zeal to support corporations and big business deals above any other concern, misses the very important question at the heart of this matter. It isn’t, “Why is it okay for a European company to operate our ports but not a Middle Eastern one?” The actual question is (or ought to be), “Why in the hell are we allowing any foreign company to operate our ports?”

Now, I don’t believe that I’m especially xenophobic or isolationist, but, at risk of sounding like one of them totalitarian, anti-capitalist types, I do believe that certain industries and activities are so intimately connected to our national security that we should restrict them to home-grown companies only, if not outright nationalize them. Transportation is the obvious (and pertinent) example. Communication is probably another. How is it that a president who has built his entire reputation on the rubric keeping the nation safe from outside danger doesn’t seem to see this?

(I’ll give you a hint: the answer is in the second paragraph…)

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Feb212006

Crimson Tide

As far as I’m concerned, there are few things as sad-looking as a book that has been under water. The pages swell but the more rigid binding does not, so the book fans itself open and loses its nice, compact form-factor. Sometimes, especially in older paperbacks, the ink will run or bleed through from one side of the page to the other. The cover boards turn queasily flexible, transforming hardcovers into softcovers. Then, as the pages dry, they get crisp and wavy, taking on the texture of autumn leaves instead of actual paper.

Ordinary printed volumes, novels and such, at least remain readable, if no longer pleasing to look at or handle. But what happens to expensive coffee-table books is downright tragic: the glossy coating that makes photographs and art reproduce so wonderfully gets sticky when it’s exposed to moisture, and it effectively glues the pages together into a solid, useless lump.

I’ve just learned these things the hard way, through first-hand experience. The legendary Bennion Archives, which have been referenced often on this blog and which reside in the basement of my ancient farm house, flooded four days ago. I’ve spent the whole weekend and this Presidents’ Day holiday on damage-control and clean-up duty. And I have to tell you folks, it’s been a rough handful of days for a sentimental old pack-rat like me.

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Feb162006

William Hootkins, Too?

Ah, man, it just keeps getting worse. I was following some links related to Phil Brown’s death and stumbled across a little blurb that mentioned that William Hootkins — a.k.a. Red Six, a.k.a. Porkins, a.k.a., “the fat X-wing pilot” in the original Star Wars — died way back in October of last year. Another cancer victim, he was 58. At this point, I’m wondering how many cast members from the original trilogy are gone. I know Shelagh Fraser (Aunt Beru) passed on awhile ago, and of course Peter Cushing (Grand Moff Tarkin) and Sir Alec Guiness (the original Obi-Wan, a.k.a. “Old Ben,” Kenobi) have both been gone for several years. I may have to do some research on this subject…

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