I have not been shy about voicing my dislike for fairies. (Gag.) So imagine the joy I felt when I stumbled upon Clemency Pogue: Fairy Killer by J.T. Petty. Yes! Fairies die! They're killed either accidentally or in self-defense, so I don't feel too evil for taking satisfaction in their demise. And they're killed in a really cool way.
Guess what you do with a dead fairy. You flush her! Come on! That's great!
Clemency Pogue is a young girl who has to save herself from one witchy little fairy. In doing so, she accidentally wipes out a half dozen of the little mites. She learns of her...I don't know...slip-up?...crime?...from a hobgoblin who becomes her sidekick as she tries to make things right again.
This is a very clever, witty book, the first in a series of three that have been published since 2005. How come I haven't heard about them?
I have to admit that the word play and humor is a bit sophisticated. For instance, younger kids might not get all the nuances in the scene with the Hooooope Lesssss boy trying to use the Song of Solomon as inspiration for the love poem he's writing. (Since I only know the Song of Solomon by reputation, perhaps I don't get all the nuances, either.) But surely there are widely read middle grade and middle school students who will enjoy the chapter about the kid who tries to frame his dog for peeing on the couch. I know I did.
The Clemency Pogue books are short, and they are fairy stories that boys ought to like as much as girls. We're talking a quick, fun read here. Maybe I'll feel differently after I finish the second one (I picked it up at the library on Thursday), but at this point I have to wonder why no one is talking about these books.
Thursday, April 3, 2008
How Come I Haven't Heard Of Clemency Pogue?
I have not been shy about voicing my dislike for fairies. (Gag.) So imagine the joy I felt when I stumbled upon Clemency Pogue: Fairy Killer by J.T. Petty. Yes! Fairies die! They're killed either accidentally or in self-defense, so I don't feel too evil for taking satisfaction in their demise. And they're killed in a really cool way.
Guess what you do with a dead fairy. You flush her! Come on! That's great!
Clemency Pogue is a young girl who has to save herself from one witchy little fairy. In doing so, she accidentally wipes out a half dozen of the little mites. She learns of her...I don't know...slip-up?...crime?...from a hobgoblin who becomes her sidekick as she tries to make things right again.
This is a very clever, witty book, the first in a series of three that have been published since 2005. How come I haven't heard about them?
I have to admit that the word play and humor is a bit sophisticated. For instance, younger kids might not get all the nuances in the scene with the Hooooope Lesssss boy trying to use the Song of Solomon as inspiration for the love poem he's writing. (Since I only know the Song of Solomon by reputation, perhaps I don't get all the nuances, either.) But surely there are widely read middle grade and middle school students who will enjoy the chapter about the kid who tries to frame his dog for peeing on the couch. I know I did.
The Clemency Pogue books are short, and they are fairy stories that boys ought to like as much as girls. We're talking a quick, fun read here. Maybe I'll feel differently after I finish the second one (I picked it up at the library on Thursday), but at this point I have to wonder why no one is talking about these books.
Guess what you do with a dead fairy. You flush her! Come on! That's great!
Clemency Pogue is a young girl who has to save herself from one witchy little fairy. In doing so, she accidentally wipes out a half dozen of the little mites. She learns of her...I don't know...slip-up?...crime?...from a hobgoblin who becomes her sidekick as she tries to make things right again.
This is a very clever, witty book, the first in a series of three that have been published since 2005. How come I haven't heard about them?
I have to admit that the word play and humor is a bit sophisticated. For instance, younger kids might not get all the nuances in the scene with the Hooooope Lesssss boy trying to use the Song of Solomon as inspiration for the love poem he's writing. (Since I only know the Song of Solomon by reputation, perhaps I don't get all the nuances, either.) But surely there are widely read middle grade and middle school students who will enjoy the chapter about the kid who tries to frame his dog for peeing on the couch. I know I did.
The Clemency Pogue books are short, and they are fairy stories that boys ought to like as much as girls. We're talking a quick, fun read here. Maybe I'll feel differently after I finish the second one (I picked it up at the library on Thursday), but at this point I have to wonder why no one is talking about these books.
You Mean You're Not Interested In Children's Book Editors?
If you were meaning to kick back and enjoy watching all the highjinks and shenanigans that go on in the editorial offices of a children's book publisher, well, sorry, but you missed your chance. The Return of Jezebel James has already been cancelled.
I think the show had a number of problems.
1. The kidlit publishing humor may have been too insider. For instance, in the last episode that I saw there was a running gag about what appeared to be a fundamentalist family from the mid-West whose homeschooled son (dressed as a Viking) is being courted by HarperCollins (the real publisher setting for the office-based portion of the show) because he's written a manuscript considered very desirable. Now, I may be wrong, but I'm assuming that this was some kind of reference to Christopher Paolini, who was homeschooled and has talked in interviews about dressing in costumes to promote his first book in schools after the family had it self-published. Was that too inside a joke? And too mean-spirited, since the family was portrayed as rubes and the boy as some kind of oddball savant?
2. We've seen the professional woman wanting a baby at all costs scenario before. Many times before. What little humor was to be had from that situation has already been done.
3. Convincing your sad, directionless sister who appears to have no means of support to bear your child just isn't funny.
4. The title of the show really had nothing to do with anything. The editor character had lifted the idea for a book called The True Adventures of Jezebel James from her sister, who had had an imaginary friend called Jezebel James when she was young. The editor had farmed out the idea to a writer, which is another insider joke, but only if you're familiar with book packagers. But Jezebel James really has nothing to do with what's going on in the lives of the characters in the show. It just left viewers sitting in front of their TVs going, "Wha?"
And then they must have turned the channel because, as I said, the show has already gone off the air.
I think the show had a number of problems.
1. The kidlit publishing humor may have been too insider. For instance, in the last episode that I saw there was a running gag about what appeared to be a fundamentalist family from the mid-West whose homeschooled son (dressed as a Viking) is being courted by HarperCollins (the real publisher setting for the office-based portion of the show) because he's written a manuscript considered very desirable. Now, I may be wrong, but I'm assuming that this was some kind of reference to Christopher Paolini, who was homeschooled and has talked in interviews about dressing in costumes to promote his first book in schools after the family had it self-published. Was that too inside a joke? And too mean-spirited, since the family was portrayed as rubes and the boy as some kind of oddball savant?
2. We've seen the professional woman wanting a baby at all costs scenario before. Many times before. What little humor was to be had from that situation has already been done.
3. Convincing your sad, directionless sister who appears to have no means of support to bear your child just isn't funny.
4. The title of the show really had nothing to do with anything. The editor character had lifted the idea for a book called The True Adventures of Jezebel James from her sister, who had had an imaginary friend called Jezebel James when she was young. The editor had farmed out the idea to a writer, which is another insider joke, but only if you're familiar with book packagers. But Jezebel James really has nothing to do with what's going on in the lives of the characters in the show. It just left viewers sitting in front of their TVs going, "Wha?"
And then they must have turned the channel because, as I said, the show has already gone off the air.
Loving The Gossip Girl
I finally caught up with the reading at the Adbooks listserv and discovered a link to a new article about the The Gossip Girl in The New Yorker.
In Advanced Placement, Janet Malcolm says early on of Gossip Girl author Cecily von Ziegesar, "Von Ziegesar pulls off the tour de force of wickedly satirizing the young while amusing them." Yes, Malcolm really, really likes The Gossip Girl series. Since she follows up her statement about Von Ziegesar amusing the young with the contradictory, "Her designated reader is an adolescent girl, but the reader she seems to have firmly in mind as she writes is a literate, even literary, adult", her delight may be understandable. She's read far more of the books than I have (I found the first one painful), so I'll have to take her word about how much fun the later entries in the series are. I do want to take issue with one of her generalizations about children's literature, though.
At the end of her article, Malcolm complains about The Gossip Girl TV series because of "its promotion of the books’ parents from their status as emblems of parental inadequacy to that of characters in their own right." She believes that characters who are merely "emblems" are actually a good thing--at least in children's literature. "What makes classic children’s literature so appealing (to all ages) is its undeviating loyalty to the world of the child. In the best children’s books, parents never share the limelight with their children; if they are not killed off on page 1, they are cast in the pitifully minor roles that actual parents play in their children’s imaginative lives. That von Ziegesar’s parent characters are ridiculous as well as insignificant in the eyes of their children only adds to the sly truthfulness of her comic fairy tale."
I totally agree that children should be the center of children's literature. It's also true that a lot of classic kidlit involves orphans because the authors needed to get the parents out of the way so the kids could have adventures. But that was then, and this is now. It's the twenty-first century, and we've moved past those cliches. It's not acceptable to create characters who are "emblems" in children's literature just because that's what they did in days of old. Adult fiction isn't mired in nineteenth and early twentieth century forms. Why should children's literature be stuck there?
There are many, many writers out there who are able to maintain loyalty to the world of the child without using shallow stereotypes. But I wonder how many of them Malcolm has read. Earlier in her article, she used the following quote as an example of Gossip Girl wit: "Auntie Lyn," some old lady who'd basically founded the Girl Scouts or something, was supposed to talk. Auntie Lynn was already leaning on her metal walker in the front row, wearing a poo-brown pantsuit and hearing aids in both ears, looking sleepy and bored. After she spoke—or keeled over and died, whichever came first—Mrs. McLean would hand out the diplomas.
"Only someone very hard-hearted wouldn't laugh at this," Malcolm insists.
Come on! If she hasn't read any YA or even books for younger kids she must have at least seen a couple of teen movies. That portrayal of elderly people is one of the oldest stereotypes in the book! Kids must have read or seen something similar a half dozen times by the time they reach their mid-teens. If they're serious readers, they've seen it more.
I certainly have no problem with people enjoying The Gossip Girl. I'd even be interested in hearing a positive argument for the series. I read this article, after all. But suggesting that it's good because it carries traditional kidlit cliches doesn't do it for me.
Advanced Placement seems to me to just be another one of those articles on children's/YA literature by someone who isn't very familiar with the field.
In Advanced Placement, Janet Malcolm says early on of Gossip Girl author Cecily von Ziegesar, "Von Ziegesar pulls off the tour de force of wickedly satirizing the young while amusing them." Yes, Malcolm really, really likes The Gossip Girl series. Since she follows up her statement about Von Ziegesar amusing the young with the contradictory, "Her designated reader is an adolescent girl, but the reader she seems to have firmly in mind as she writes is a literate, even literary, adult", her delight may be understandable. She's read far more of the books than I have (I found the first one painful), so I'll have to take her word about how much fun the later entries in the series are. I do want to take issue with one of her generalizations about children's literature, though.
At the end of her article, Malcolm complains about The Gossip Girl TV series because of "its promotion of the books’ parents from their status as emblems of parental inadequacy to that of characters in their own right." She believes that characters who are merely "emblems" are actually a good thing--at least in children's literature. "What makes classic children’s literature so appealing (to all ages) is its undeviating loyalty to the world of the child. In the best children’s books, parents never share the limelight with their children; if they are not killed off on page 1, they are cast in the pitifully minor roles that actual parents play in their children’s imaginative lives. That von Ziegesar’s parent characters are ridiculous as well as insignificant in the eyes of their children only adds to the sly truthfulness of her comic fairy tale."
I totally agree that children should be the center of children's literature. It's also true that a lot of classic kidlit involves orphans because the authors needed to get the parents out of the way so the kids could have adventures. But that was then, and this is now. It's the twenty-first century, and we've moved past those cliches. It's not acceptable to create characters who are "emblems" in children's literature just because that's what they did in days of old. Adult fiction isn't mired in nineteenth and early twentieth century forms. Why should children's literature be stuck there?
There are many, many writers out there who are able to maintain loyalty to the world of the child without using shallow stereotypes. But I wonder how many of them Malcolm has read. Earlier in her article, she used the following quote as an example of Gossip Girl wit: "Auntie Lyn," some old lady who'd basically founded the Girl Scouts or something, was supposed to talk. Auntie Lynn was already leaning on her metal walker in the front row, wearing a poo-brown pantsuit and hearing aids in both ears, looking sleepy and bored. After she spoke—or keeled over and died, whichever came first—Mrs. McLean would hand out the diplomas.
"Only someone very hard-hearted wouldn't laugh at this," Malcolm insists.
Come on! If she hasn't read any YA or even books for younger kids she must have at least seen a couple of teen movies. That portrayal of elderly people is one of the oldest stereotypes in the book! Kids must have read or seen something similar a half dozen times by the time they reach their mid-teens. If they're serious readers, they've seen it more.
I certainly have no problem with people enjoying The Gossip Girl. I'd even be interested in hearing a positive argument for the series. I read this article, after all. But suggesting that it's good because it carries traditional kidlit cliches doesn't do it for me.
Advanced Placement seems to me to just be another one of those articles on children's/YA literature by someone who isn't very familiar with the field.
Loving Anne Shirley, Too
I sometimes find Margaret Atwood's nonfiction a little rambley. She doesn't seem to subscribe to the "tell them what you're going to tell them, tell them, and tell them what you told them" school of essay writing. Sure enough, in Nobody ever did want me, Atwood's "salute" to Anne of Green Gables on its one hundredth anniversary, she does meander. But she covers lots of good stuff.
1. She explains the attraction the book holds for the Japanese, which is probably a little more intense than the attraction it holds for Canadians, since Japanese tourists have to travel so much further to get to Prince Edward Island and the Green Gables site. And believe me, they do travel there. A Japanese family was taking pictures in front of the house the day I was there.
2. She points out the grim fate of most orphans at the time Anne of Green Gables was written. "Outside of fiction, however, orphans weren't only exploited, they were feared and despised as fruits of sin...This is why Montgomery goes to such lengths to provide Anne with two educated, respectable parents who were married to each other. But a real-life Anne would have led a Dickensian life of grinding child labour and virtual bondage as an unpaid mother's help..."
3. She talks about author Lucy Maude Montgomery's "disheartening" personal history, which I've been hearing murmurings about over the last couple of years, and how it could have influenced Anne of Green Gables. Atwood says, "Anne's plaintive cry, "You don't want me! . . . Nobody ever did want me", is a child's outraged protest against the unfairness of the universe that seems to come straight from the heart. Montgomery was an orphan sent to live with two old people, but, unlike Anne, she never did win them over. Marilla and Matthew are what Montgomery wished for, not what she got."
4. And, finally, Atwood suggests that, "There's another way of reading Anne of Green Gables, and that's to assume that the true central character is not Anne, but Marilla Cuthbert...Her growing love for Anne, and her growing ability to express that love - not Anne's duckling-to-swan act - is the real magic transformation."
As I said, Atwood has lots of fascinating things to say about Anne of Green Gables. What she doesn't do, interestingly enough, is talk about it in terms of "children's literature," as Janet Malcolm did with The Gossip Girls. But, then, Anne of Green Gables is so huge a phenomena in Canada and internationally that it probably doesn't need to be discussed in terms of anything but itself. And while Malcolm's article leaves readers wondering how much she knows about children's literature, Atwood's leaves us in no doubt that she knows her Anne.
This is another story I found as a result of catching up with my Adbooks reading.
1. She explains the attraction the book holds for the Japanese, which is probably a little more intense than the attraction it holds for Canadians, since Japanese tourists have to travel so much further to get to Prince Edward Island and the Green Gables site. And believe me, they do travel there. A Japanese family was taking pictures in front of the house the day I was there.
2. She points out the grim fate of most orphans at the time Anne of Green Gables was written. "Outside of fiction, however, orphans weren't only exploited, they were feared and despised as fruits of sin...This is why Montgomery goes to such lengths to provide Anne with two educated, respectable parents who were married to each other. But a real-life Anne would have led a Dickensian life of grinding child labour and virtual bondage as an unpaid mother's help..."
3. She talks about author Lucy Maude Montgomery's "disheartening" personal history, which I've been hearing murmurings about over the last couple of years, and how it could have influenced Anne of Green Gables. Atwood says, "Anne's plaintive cry, "You don't want me! . . . Nobody ever did want me", is a child's outraged protest against the unfairness of the universe that seems to come straight from the heart. Montgomery was an orphan sent to live with two old people, but, unlike Anne, she never did win them over. Marilla and Matthew are what Montgomery wished for, not what she got."
4. And, finally, Atwood suggests that, "There's another way of reading Anne of Green Gables, and that's to assume that the true central character is not Anne, but Marilla Cuthbert...Her growing love for Anne, and her growing ability to express that love - not Anne's duckling-to-swan act - is the real magic transformation."
As I said, Atwood has lots of fascinating things to say about Anne of Green Gables. What she doesn't do, interestingly enough, is talk about it in terms of "children's literature," as Janet Malcolm did with The Gossip Girls. But, then, Anne of Green Gables is so huge a phenomena in Canada and internationally that it probably doesn't need to be discussed in terms of anything but itself. And while Malcolm's article leaves readers wondering how much she knows about children's literature, Atwood's leaves us in no doubt that she knows her Anne.
This is another story I found as a result of catching up with my Adbooks reading.
Loving Anne Shirley, Too
I sometimes find Margaret Atwood's nonfiction a little rambley. She doesn't seem to subscribe to the "tell them what you're going to tell them, tell them, and tell them what you told them" school of essay writing. Sure enough, in Nobody ever did want me, Atwood's "salute" to Anne of Green Gables on its one hundredth anniversary, she does meander. But she covers lots of good stuff.
1. She explains the attraction the book holds for the Japanese, which is probably a little more intense than the attraction it holds for Canadians, since Japanese tourists have to travel so much further to get to Prince Edward Island and the Green Gables site. And believe me, they do travel there. A Japanese family was taking pictures in front of the house the day I was there.
2. She points out the grim fate of most orphans at the time Anne of Green Gables was written. "Outside of fiction, however, orphans weren't only exploited, they were feared and despised as fruits of sin...This is why Montgomery goes to such lengths to provide Anne with two educated, respectable parents who were married to each other. But a real-life Anne would have led a Dickensian life of grinding child labour and virtual bondage as an unpaid mother's help..."
3. She talks about author Lucy Maude Montgomery's "disheartening" personal history, which I've been hearing murmurings about over the last couple of years, and how it could have influenced Anne of Green Gables. Atwood says, "Anne's plaintive cry, "You don't want me! . . . Nobody ever did want me", is a child's outraged protest against the unfairness of the universe that seems to come straight from the heart. Montgomery was an orphan sent to live with two old people, but, unlike Anne, she never did win them over. Marilla and Matthew are what Montgomery wished for, not what she got."
4. And, finally, Atwood suggests that, "There's another way of reading Anne of Green Gables, and that's to assume that the true central character is not Anne, but Marilla Cuthbert...Her growing love for Anne, and her growing ability to express that love - not Anne's duckling-to-swan act - is the real magic transformation."
As I said, Atwood has lots of fascinating things to say about Anne of Green Gables. What she doesn't do, interestingly enough, is talk about it in terms of "children's literature," as Janet Malcolm did with The Gossip Girls. But, then, Anne of Green Gables is so huge a phenomena in Canada and internationally that it probably doesn't need to be discussed in terms of anything but itself. And while Malcolm's article leaves readers wondering how much she knows about children's literature, Atwood's leaves us in no doubt that she knows her Anne.
This is another story I found as a result of catching up with my Adbooks reading.
1. She explains the attraction the book holds for the Japanese, which is probably a little more intense than the attraction it holds for Canadians, since Japanese tourists have to travel so much further to get to Prince Edward Island and the Green Gables site. And believe me, they do travel there. A Japanese family was taking pictures in front of the house the day I was there.
2. She points out the grim fate of most orphans at the time Anne of Green Gables was written. "Outside of fiction, however, orphans weren't only exploited, they were feared and despised as fruits of sin...This is why Montgomery goes to such lengths to provide Anne with two educated, respectable parents who were married to each other. But a real-life Anne would have led a Dickensian life of grinding child labour and virtual bondage as an unpaid mother's help..."
3. She talks about author Lucy Maude Montgomery's "disheartening" personal history, which I've been hearing murmurings about over the last couple of years, and how it could have influenced Anne of Green Gables. Atwood says, "Anne's plaintive cry, "You don't want me! . . . Nobody ever did want me", is a child's outraged protest against the unfairness of the universe that seems to come straight from the heart. Montgomery was an orphan sent to live with two old people, but, unlike Anne, she never did win them over. Marilla and Matthew are what Montgomery wished for, not what she got."
4. And, finally, Atwood suggests that, "There's another way of reading Anne of Green Gables, and that's to assume that the true central character is not Anne, but Marilla Cuthbert...Her growing love for Anne, and her growing ability to express that love - not Anne's duckling-to-swan act - is the real magic transformation."
As I said, Atwood has lots of fascinating things to say about Anne of Green Gables. What she doesn't do, interestingly enough, is talk about it in terms of "children's literature," as Janet Malcolm did with The Gossip Girls. But, then, Anne of Green Gables is so huge a phenomena in Canada and internationally that it probably doesn't need to be discussed in terms of anything but itself. And while Malcolm's article leaves readers wondering how much she knows about children's literature, Atwood's leaves us in no doubt that she knows her Anne.
This is another story I found as a result of catching up with my Adbooks reading.
Talk Talk Talk About Author Talks
I've been interested in author presentations this spring because I did one last month and have two more coming up. Many children's authors who do school and library presentations would be embarrassed to have so few lined up, but I find three overwhelming. The next one is an on-line chat, which sounds fun and should be easy. (That means I'm riding for a fall, of course.) But the one in May is at a junior/senior high school. In another state. And the library media specialist said I could eat lunch in the cafeteria with the kids, which means he must have read my website page on presentations (the brochure) where I say I like to eat lunch in the cafeteria with the kids. And I do. But in a junior/senior high school?!! I've written scenes in two books (one unpublished to date) about the horrors of eating in those cafeterias. Who's going to want to eat with me? It would be like eating with their mother.
On top of all that, I have to revise my presentation for that age group.
So, anyway, I've been thinking about all that lately, and I've noticed that Mitali Perkins has been thinking about it, as well, because she's been doing author presentations, too.
I also finally read (skimmed) Terrific Connections with Authors, Illustrators, and Storytellers by Toni Buzzeo and Jane Kurtz. Toni Buzzeo is a kind of guru of author presentations here in New England. Or maybe the United States. Or maybe the world. The book she wrote with Jane Kurtz is filled with information, but primarily of interest to media specialists and teachers planning author events. Though new children's authors looking for ideas for preparing a school presentation will certainly get some from Terrific Connections. In fact, even I got a little inspiration for my high school talk.
For anyone interested in finding an author to come visit a school, I've recently learned about Author School Visits BY STATE!, a new blog that collects websites of authors who do school visits. Which is pretty much what its title says.
On top of all that, I have to revise my presentation for that age group.
So, anyway, I've been thinking about all that lately, and I've noticed that Mitali Perkins has been thinking about it, as well, because she's been doing author presentations, too.
I also finally read (skimmed) Terrific Connections with Authors, Illustrators, and Storytellers by Toni Buzzeo and Jane Kurtz. Toni Buzzeo is a kind of guru of author presentations here in New England. Or maybe the United States. Or maybe the world. The book she wrote with Jane Kurtz is filled with information, but primarily of interest to media specialists and teachers planning author events. Though new children's authors looking for ideas for preparing a school presentation will certainly get some from Terrific Connections. In fact, even I got a little inspiration for my high school talk.For anyone interested in finding an author to come visit a school, I've recently learned about Author School Visits BY STATE!, a new blog that collects websites of authors who do school visits. Which is pretty much what its title says.
Inquiring Minds Want To Know
Some children's writers complain (sometimes at length) about children e-mailing them for help with their homework. A couple of days ago, I finally got one of those. A girl told me that she was supposed to read The Hero of Ticonderoga for a report but had had to return it to the library before she was finished. She said she had one question. "How many pages is it?"
I'm sorry. I thought it was funny.
I'm sure there are writers out there who would say, "Well, if you were a popular writer and received questions like that every day, dozens of questions like that every day, you wouldn't be laughing."
I hope I would.
I'm sorry. I thought it was funny.
I'm sure there are writers out there who would say, "Well, if you were a popular writer and received questions like that every day, dozens of questions like that every day, you wouldn't be laughing."
I hope I would.
A Far More Serious Historian
We in the kidlitosphere usually think of J.L. Bell as being a kidlit guy because of his blog Oz and Ends. But he's also a history guy who was quoted in The Boston Globe recently in relation to the historical accuracy of a certain HBO series. You know. John Adams.
I finally went over and took a look at Mr. Bell's other blog Boston 1775. I am now embarrassed to have called myself a history geek here, since I know he sometimes drops by. The difference between J.L. Bell and myself is that he reads history and I...occassionally...read about history. He's a primary source reader, and I'm a secondary source reader.
Believe it or not, though, I am interested in smallpox in pre-Revolutionary times. As luck would have it, Boston 1775 has a post on same. Who knows what other great stuff is over there?
I finally went over and took a look at Mr. Bell's other blog Boston 1775. I am now embarrassed to have called myself a history geek here, since I know he sometimes drops by. The difference between J.L. Bell and myself is that he reads history and I...occassionally...read about history. He's a primary source reader, and I'm a secondary source reader.
Believe it or not, though, I am interested in smallpox in pre-Revolutionary times. As luck would have it, Boston 1775 has a post on same. Who knows what other great stuff is over there?
Wednesday, April 2, 2008
European Space Freighter cleared to dock with ISS: ESA
Europe's brand-new robot space freighter received final clearance to dock with the International Space Station (ISS), officials at the European Space Agency announced Wednesday.
The Automated Transfer Vehicle (ATV), named the Jules Verne after the French pioneer of science fiction, will make its first attempt to link up to the orbiting space station on Thursday at 1441 GMT, said ESA management.
"We have proven that Jules Verne's systems are safe, reliable and ready to dock to the Station," said John Ellwood, the ATV's project manager.
"Everyone has worked very hard to get to this point, and we have also proven that the team on the ground is fully ready for tomorrow's first attempt," he added.
ESA mission control in Toulouse, southwestern France, put the vehicle through two test runs, one on Saturday, the other Monday, which passed off without a hitch.
If Thursday's first attempt at docking does not succeed then the ESA has pencilled in a second attempt for Saturday.
The Jules Verne is a freighter weighing nearly 20 tonnes. Launched on March 9, it is designed to dock automatically with the Russian-made module Zvezda, one of the earliest components of the ISS, an orbital outpost in space.
It carries 7.5 tonnes of water, food and other essentials.
Designing and building it has cost ESA 1.3 billion euros (2.01 billion dollars). Four more ATV cargo ships are in the works, with their assembly and launch each costing just over 300 million euros.
Mastering automatic-docking technology is considered a key to assembling spaceships in orbit for long-term missions, such as to Mars.
The rendezvous and docking will be broadcast live by ESA TV, 16:00-17:15 CEST (14:00-15:15 UT); details are available on the ESA TV web page. The event will also be streamed live via the ESA website starting at 16:00 CEST (14:00 UT); the link will be made available shortly before.
European vessel to dock with space station
PARIS - A European supply vessel carrying over five tons of freight is scheduled to dock with the international space station on Thursday in a major advance for Europe's space program. Officials of the European Space Agency said the docking of Europe's first Automated Transfer Vehicle was slated for 10:41 ET when it should ease into place without any intervention from astronauts in the space station. Dubbed "Jules Verne" in honor of the visionary 19th century French science fiction writer, officials are counting on the ATV program, in which $2 billion has been invested so far, to open the way to further European space exploration.
Philosophy of space and time
Philosophy of space and time is the branch of philosophy concerned with the issues surrounding the ontology, epistemology, and character of space and time. While such ideas have been central to philosophy from its inception, the philosophy of space and time was both an inspiration for and a central aspect of early analytic philosophy. The subject focuses on a number of basic issues, including—but not limited to—whether or not time and space exist independently of the mind, whether they exist independently of one another, what accounts for time's apparently unidirectional flow, whether times other than the present moment exist, and questions about the nature of identity (particularly the nature of identity over time).
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