Several months ago I wrote a post with the title “All sci-fi movies are bad sci-fi movies” — but I never hit the publish button because, I dunno… my conclusion just didn’t feel quite right. I guess what I really meant was “Most modern blockbuster special effects extravaganza movies with spaceships are bad sci-fi movies.” Then a couple of days ago we took the kids to see what turned out to be a REALLY GOOD science fiction movie, and it inspired me to take another crack at that dusty old draft.
Category Archives: Science
The scientist and the romantic
Wow!
Is this not the most stunning thing you’ve ever seen?
As you may have heard, archaeologists recently discovered this late Neolithic double-burial. According to the news reports, double-burials from that time period were rare. Huggers, non-existent. Archaeologists are removing them all in one piece to preserve their position, and hope to learn something new about Stone Age society in the process.
Does my idol have feet of clay???
Sigh. I think I might have discovered an anachronism in a Patrick O’Brian novel. From The Surgeon’s Mate, page 195:
‘Mr Rowbotham,’ he called to a midshipman on the leeward side, ‘jump up to the foretopmast crosstrees and tell Mr Jagiello, with my compliments, that I would like to speak to him, when he is at leisure. And harkee, Mr Rowbotham, he is to come down through the lubber’s hole, d’ye hear me? There is to be no skylarking, no sliding down the backstays.’
Ship Fever
Ship Fever, a collection of short stories by Andrea Barrett. I finished it this afternoon and I’ve been in a daze ever since. Wow!
The sentence I previously quoted from the opening story about “science . . . bent by loneliness and longing” pretty much sums up the whole collection. That’s what these stories are about: science, bent by loneliness and longing. Each one is about some aspect of science — biology — and most are set in the late eighteenth to mid-nineteenth century. Recurring themes include intelligent, interesting women who are stifled by society’s sexist conventions; frustrated men who feel inadequate in comparison to their peers; the beauty of the natural world.
Lately
This is the reason I’ve been able to get so much reading done lately. Can you tell? It’s a sandbox filled with water. My god, it keeps him happy for hours at a time. Hours, I said. On nice days, anyway. So I just get out a lawn chair and sit there with my book while he splashes and digs and fills and empties and swirls.
An astonishing discovery
Plot, plot, plot. Of course I read for plot. Who doesn’t? All I’m saying is, I do recognize that there can be more to a book than just plot. I will probably pick up The Plot Against America again some time. I’m sure it’s a great book. Maybe it was just bad timing. Have you ever had it happen that you don’t like a perfectly good book just because it clashes with the book you just finished? I might have liked Kite Runner if I hadn’t just read Atonement, for example. Anyway, enough of that. Movin’ right along . . . .
Physics 101
Well, I’m gonna take a break from all the yucky stuff and tell you about something that happened at our house the other day. It has nothing to do with hurricanes or the federal government.
