Below are the 20 most recent journal entries recorded in beamjockey's LiveJournal:

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Friday, November 27th, 2009
12:36 am	Stephen Colbert to Interview Brother Guy Next Tuesday I wish to propagate this announcement to those who may read my LJ but not brotherguy's: Brother Guy Consolmagno, curator of the meteorite collection at the Vatican Observatory, will be a guest for a brief interview on Comedy Channel's The Colbert Report on this coming Tuesday evening, 1 December, at 10:30 PM EST. (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Thursday, November 26th, 2009
8:47 am	Happy 90th Birthday, Frederik Pohl! Frederik Pohl, a legend of science fiction, turns 90 today. Here's what I wrote on his blog: Happy ninetieth birthday, Fred. It couldn’t happen to a nicer guy. Thanks for all the books and stories; thanks for your part in building the now-sprawling edifice we call science fiction. Keep telling stories! (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Monday, November 23rd, 2009
7:53 pm	Boris Artzybasheff Goes to the Moon It's 1958. Satellites are in the sky. The Moon seems within our grasp. Life runs a spread about the Moon in its 15 December issue. Lunar science, photos of the Army's new Moon rocket, an essay about how the Earth is affected by the Moon... They commission the great Boris Artzybasheff, famous for his grotesque covers for Time, to paint an illustration of history's great Moon stories. It's a two-page spread. It's totally classic Artzybasheff, and I love it. (Click on the photo. Then be sure to use the little magnifying glass to zoom in and see detail.) (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Friday, November 20th, 2009
7:41 pm	LHC Lives Again! The Symmetry blog reports that a few hours ago, CERN circulated protons around the Large Hadron Collider. This cheerful news marks a milestone in a long recovery from the accident of 19 September 2008. Congratulations to all those involved. May the journey of commissioning be smooth and speedy. (7 Comments |Comment on this)
1:38 pm	The Fate of Harold Hill Recently at a flea market, I picked up The Music Man: A Novel by Meredith Willson, Pyramid Books paperback #R-736. It was published in 1962 as a tie-in to the movie version of the hit Fifties musical. Here's a glimpse of the cover. I love The Music Man, and so do daisy_knotwise and brotherguy and scarfman and minnehaha K. It is my favorite musical. I've read Willson's account of its creation, But He Doesn't Know the Territory. So for a buck, I knew this belonged in my library. The book has some nice extras, such as numerous stills from the film, and a listing of all the song lyrics in the back. Nevertheless, it is a weird experience to read a novelized version of a story where you know the characters are supposed to break out into song. Paperbacks can't do that. I suppose there might be some hope for the Kindle. Or one could always turn to the lyrical appendix at the appropriate point in the story, and sing. I would expect a book like this to be ghostwritten. However, a few things make me suspect it might really have come from Willson's typewriter. First, it is dedicated "to Rini and Rosalie," an unnecessary touch for a ghostwriter and an insincere thing for the celebrity author to do if he didn't really write it. Second, in But He Doesn't Know the Territory, Willson makes a big deal about speech-as-music, arranging words in rhythmic chants that seem like music. The most celebrated example is probably the number "Trouble," which is mostly talk and hardly any singing. In a moment, I'll give you an example from the novel. Anyway, for all those who love this story, and wonder about the fate of the characters, the final page of the novel offers a veiled glimpse of the future. I thought you might like me to share. Naturally, there are spoilers. ( Spoilers for The Music Man ) The first sentence of the passage sounds like authentic Willson to my ear. (19 Comments |Comment on this)
Thursday, November 19th, 2009
1:19 pm	More on THE BOY MECHANIC and the Man behind It I'm not finished with this yet. The Boy Mechanic series continued after the publication of the initial book in 1913. There were at least four volumes of collected projects by 1936. Volumes 1 and 2 are available at the Internet Archive. Fun fact: In the first volume, the words "nitric acid" and "sulpuric acid" appear together in four different articles. I have learned that Wikipedia has no entry for its author, Henry Haven Windsor (13 November 1859 – 11 May 1924). Since the guy founded Popular Mechanics and its publishing empire, which has persisted for 107 years so far, you'd think he would be notable enough to warrant an entry. The magazine itself doesn't have much of an entry. Since he lived to the age of 65, I presume Mr. Windsor was careful about mixing his acids, leaping off the barn roof in homemade gliders, etc. I tinker with Wikipedia sometimes, but have never started an article and have not acquired the skills to do so. For anyone who might, here are some useful links. Nice 1985 article from American Hertiage Invention and Technology: http://www.americanheritage.com/articles/magazine/it/1985/1/1985_1_42.shtml 1922 bio from the Press Club of Chicago: http://books.google.com/books?id=tRYZAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA211 Note that this is in the public domain, so the photo could be used to illustrate a Wikipedia article. (Link to high-resolution version.) Wayne Whittaker, then Assistant Managing Editor, wrote a fantastic account of the magazine's history and operation for its 50th anniversary in 1952: http://books.google.com/books?id=tNwDAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA127 The history has been rehashed for other anniversaries: In 1977: http://books.google.com/books?id=LOIDAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA72 In 2002: http://books.google.com/books?id=AtEDAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA95 HHW was succeeded as editor by his son, Henry Haven Windsor, Jr. The Windsor House (HH junior's place in Winnetka): http://www.winnetkahistory.org/index.php?id=137 A different Windsor House on the Grinnell campus, celebrating the father of HHW: http://www.grinnell.edu/aboutinfo/map/win/ Find A Grave lists his burial site: http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=9646 Certainly a family worth celebrating. They cast a long shadow on the American technoculture. (Comment on this)
Tuesday, November 17th, 2009
11:55 pm	Windycon Aftermath: More Girl Genius Lore, a Questionable Book, and a Steampunk Guest Lecturer My "Seeds of Girl Genius" talk went satisfyingly well. Phil and Kaja Foglio attended. As a surprise, Rolf Wilson presented them with a fabulous 1958 book on automata, signed by dozens of Girl Genius readers. Then I launched into my (hopefully-)learned discourse. I covered the origins of Frankenstein in 18th century science, tried to establish it as an ancestral work to GG, and moved on to clanks. There were some fabulous performing automata built in the 1700s that clearly influenced some of the machines portrayed in the comic, as kajafoglio afterward confirmed to me. Then I moved on to the final topic, my role as eyewitness to the birth of the Heterodyne clan. (Must write this down soon.) The crowd was amused by Steven Savage's Seventh Sanctum Heterodyne Story Generator. Cries of "URL!" I met with a quote from Teresa Nielsen Hayden, "What is this, National Forget How To Google Month?" But to silence any remaining grumblers, here is the link. I touched on the fictionalized nonfiction book The Heterodyne Boys' Big Book of Fun, as portrayed in Stanley and His Monster #1 in 1993. Few readers realized that it's based on a real book, which Phil found on another shopping expedition to the Bicentennial Bookshop in Kalamazoo a few years after the birth of the Boys. Kaja mentioned that the book of horribly dangerous amusement for boys is The Boy Mechanic: 700 Things for Boys to Do, whose full text may be found in Google Books. Enjoy it. Here's an ad for the book from the June 1915 issue of Cartoons magazine (itself well worth examining). Click for a larger version. Here's a review from Education magazine. The ideas contained in "The Boy Mechanic" would more than keep a boy occupied until he grows up and also be an incentive to original thinking and achievement. Presuming he is not killed first. Unlike so many other books of a somewhat similar nature, it is not confined to only one or a few subjects but describes 700 different things boys can make and do in the fields of mechanics, electricity, sports, arts and crafts work, magic, etc. An unusually generous book; size 7 by 10 in. and 1.5 in. thick; printed from large, clear type on high grade book paper and durably bound in cloth. Attractive four-color cover design. Many hours of enjoyment are in store for the boy who becomes possessor of this book. Price, $1.50, prepaid to any address. Google's robot has its own inchoate, yet somehow stirring, way of reviewing this book, by extracting "common terms and phrases" from its text: acid amperes armature attached babbitt metal base battery bell bend binding posts binding-post blade block bolt bored bottle bottom brass brush camera carbon paper circuit clamp cloth coat coil color connected constructed copper cord cork cover crosspieces diameter drilled dry cells edge electric fastened fingers frame glass glue groove gunwales hand handle heat hold hole Home-Made Ice Boat induction coil inside iron kite knife lamp lathe leather length light magnet metal motor nail needle notches ordinary paper paraffin photograph piece of wood pipe plate pulley removed Rheostat ring rivet round rubber sal ammoniac screws Secure shaft shape sheet shellac shown in Fig side sketch slide soldered solution square steel stick string strip surface switch tacks thick thread tion tube turned wheel wide wire zinc Meanwhile, out West, serge_lj was giving his lecture on "Steampunk and Hollywood," which he has posted in not just one, but two parts. This is fun, if not as much fun as hearing Serge deliver it in person would be. (12 Comments |Comment on this)
Thursday, November 12th, 2009
2:05 pm	Windycon: My Talk "Seeds of Girl Genius" At Windycon 36 this coming weekend, since Kaja and Phil Foglio are guests of honor, and, furthermore, the con has a steampunk theme, I'm giving a new talk. It'll be Sunday at noon in the Lilac BD room. Seeds of Girl Genius: Glimpses from the Romantic Age of Science The world of the Foglios' complex comic, filled with adventuresome scientists, menacing inventions, and peculiar creatures, mirrors certain elements of our own world. Romp through the history of science with Bill Higgins in a slideshow that examines the fabulous automata of the 18th Century, the science that gave rise to Frankenstein, and the hidden origins of Agatha's clan in a quaint bookstore, 14 years before Girl Genius was first published. Be there. Aloha. (6 Comments |Comment on this)
9:11 am	Unveiling the Center of Our Galaxy, Illustrated Thanks to Thomas Gill of North Central College, I have enhanced my previous entry with a few photos. (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Wednesday, November 11th, 2009
6:30 pm	Two for the Egoboo File (Yes, I do actually have an Egoboo File. It's in the basement.) Gary Westfahl of the University of California at Riverside, a science fiction critic whose work I have often admired, quoted our 1977 filksong "Home on Lagrange" in his 1996 book Islands in the Sky: The Space Station Theme in Science Fiction Literature. This I learned because there is a new paperback edition, which has been swallowed by Google Books. Our parody is offered as evidence that stories of space stations often invoke the American frontier. Read the relevant passage here. We originally wrote it to poke fun at the grandiose proclamations of prophets advocating space colonies. The title pun (about Lagrange points in celestial mechanics) motivated us more than the connection between a cowboy song and the space-type frontier. But the song does express a manifest-destiny approach to the wide-open spaces, so I can't disagree that it's relevant... Turning to another bit of egoboo, yesterday at North Central College's Oesterle Library I participated in an event celebrating 400 years since Galileo first turned his telescope to the heavens; you can read about it in today's Daily Herald. A new NASA image combining views of the Milky Way's center from three different space telescopes was unveiled. ( More photos behind cut ) Photos by Thomas Gill, courtesy of North Central College. The affair was a great success. About 70 people showed up to hear about astronomy on a Tuesday afternoon. The Oesterle's Emily Prather-Rodgers was mistress of ceremonies. Three faculty members, Richard Wilders, Michael de Brauw, and John Zenchak, gave fine talks about Galileo and his work. Visitors examined the library's first edition of Galileo's Dialogo and peered through a modern copy of his first telescope. My job was to give context to the Milky Way picture and explain a little about the objects it reveals. I had a grand time. (10 Comments |Comment on this)
Monday, November 9th, 2009
3:11 pm	"Ua Sau Le Palolo!" Happy Palolo Night, everyone! I hope your Palolo Night goes better than this guy's. Joey Cummings is a Mississippi electric slide blues ukulele player transplanted to Samoa. That's all I know about him. (4 Comments |Comment on this)
Wednesday, November 4th, 2009
7:38 am	Spy Planes of Groom Lake, on C-SPAN If you're in the mood for one hour and forty-eight minutes of hangar-flying tales, I have a link for you. C-SPAN aired a panel discussion called "Spy Planes of Groom Lake" (streaming video available). On 7 October at the Atomic Testing Museum, pilots and engineers who were involved with the secret U-2, A-12, and SR-71 programs in the 1950s and 1960s at "Area 51" (and other bases around the world) talk about, well, stuff they haven't been allowed to talk about. I found it fascinating. The veterans belong to Roadrunners Internationale, "Preserving the history of the aviation pioneers and programs that developed the U-2, A-12 and YF-12 during the Cold War. The high water marks of aeronautical development." (Comment on this)
Tuesday, November 3rd, 2009
9:05 pm	Unveiling the Milky Way with Three Space Telescopes I'll be speaking next Tuesday at North Central College in downtown Naperville, Illinois. As part of the International Year of Astronomy celebrations, NASA has encouraged institutions across the U.S. to hold "unveilings" of a new image of our galaxy's center. Here's the press release for the event. Quoting a portion: Oesterle Library displays new Milky Way images, rare Galileo book The public is invited to North Central College’s Oesterle Library Nov. 10 to view two stunning, large-scale, multi-wavelength images showing the core of the Milky Way Galaxy as viewed by the Hubble Space Telescope, the Chandra Space Telescope and the Spitzer X-Ray Observatory. North Central College is one of only 11 cultural and scientific sites in Illinois and 152 nationwide authorized by NASA to unveil the images as part of the International Year of Astronomy celebration. The free event will take place from noon to 2 p.m. on Tuesday, Nov. 10, in the College’s Oesterle Library, 320 E. School St. Following the unveiling, the mural-size images will be on permanent display in Oesterle Library. The first image is 3 feet high by 6 feet wide, and the second image is 4 feet high by 3 feet wide. [Read More] I'll discuss the new image and the science behind it. There will also be talks about Galileo and his telescope, and you can see the Oesterle Library's first edition of Galileo's book Dialogo (or Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems). If you're nearby at noontime Tuesday, come by and see us. (4 Comments |Comment on this)
Wednesday, October 28th, 2009
1:57 pm	Thought, After Watching Relentlessly Repeated Promotions for a New DVD Too Many Times Generation X question: So Transformers are these robots, originating on a distant planet long ago, which are able to fold themselves into a perfect replica of semitrailer trucks, fire trucks, and (if memory serves) a yellow Volkswagen Beetle. I believe the latter was recast as a Chevy Camaro for the live-action film. Do the Transformers have an arbitrary ability to change their forms? If they found themselves on, say, Mars, could they disguise themselves as Martian trucks? Or were they designed originally to fold up into a Volkswagen Beetle (etc.), and nothing else? (17 Comments |Comment on this)
Saturday, October 24th, 2009
2:25 pm	Chicagoland: Help Unload Bill Leininger Sunday, Redistribute Karma Bill Leininger needs help. He is a guy who has not only helped moved me many times, but for years has showed up almost any time an SF fan in Chicago was moving. He has accumulated more Moving Karma than anyone else I know. If Bill decided to move to Mars, I would feel obliged to help him. As I write this, he is piloting a truckload of his worldly possessions up from Mississippi. He expects to arrive in Mokena, Illinois tomorrow, Sunday afternoon, at a time which cannot yet be predicted with accuracy. Upon arriving there, he plans, for reasons not encompassed by my Visualization of the Cosmic All, to unload his stuff into a storage locker. Then he will return his rental truck. All must be accomplished before Monday morning. If you can help, leave a comment, or e-mail me your phone number (higgins at f n a l dot g o v). I will try to notify you when Bill is getting close, and provide you with directions. (9 Comments |Comment on this)
Thursday, October 22nd, 2009
7:13 pm	Dance by the Light of the Earth Remember the mysterious ballet performed on the set of Destination Moon? Here are eightysome of Allan Grant's 1949 photos, assembled from thumbnails into a crude animation. All images are copyright 1950 by Time, Inc. (1 Comment |Comment on this)
6:25 pm	Fidgeters from Another Dimension I was thinking about 3-D movies today. Suddenly I recalled that I had seen a batch of photos in the Google Life archive that included one of the most famous of all Life's pictures: patrons in a movie theatre wearing 3-D glasses. It was shot by the appropriately-named J. R. Eyerman (1906-1985), at the Paramount Theater in Hollywood on 26 November 1952, during a showing of Bwana Devil. Since there were multiple pictures from the shoot in the collection, I began to wonder whether one could find two of them, shot from slightly different points of vew, that might permit the construction of a 3-D image of the audience itself. Wouldn't that be cool? Unfortunately, it turned out that there aren't very many images. Some of them are duplicate images printed at different exposures. And Eyerman apparently used a tripod, so the camera doesn't move much with respect to the audience. Nevertheless, I found a couple of images that allowed me to animate the audience. Here's a quick-and-dirty GIF. It's copyrighted, as always, by Time, Incorporated. One could do this trick with many of the Life shoots. If one needed a new hobby for some reason. (10 Comments |Comment on this)
Sunday, October 18th, 2009
5:58 am	Half Past Heinlein For many years William H. Patterson has been working on a biography of Robert A. Heinlein, which will be published in two volumes by Tor Books. Bill is an erudite guy, and a good writer, who played a role in organizing the Heinlein Archives at UC Santa Cruz. Robert A. Heinlein: Volume 1 (1907-1949): Learning Curve has appeared on Amazon.com and on Borders.com as well. The release date is given as 13 April 2010. I'm very much looking forward to reading it. And then waiting for volume two to come out. (3 Comments |Comment on this)
Thursday, October 15th, 2009
2:33 pm	The Littlest Aeronaut FORT COLLINS, Colo. -- A 6-year-old boy is floating over northeastern Colorado in a homebuilt balloon and authorities are racing to try and rescue him. He's drifting eastward at a brisk 30 miles per hour, surrounded by a flock of TV helicopters. I sure hope he descends without injury. Web site of the boy's dad, documentary filmmaker Richard Heene. (8 Comments |Comment on this)
Wednesday, October 7th, 2009
11:30 pm	Moonwhacking, Barrybilling, Lifegoogling Weekend Coming Up On its 30th anniversary, the Bill and Barry Show rides again! Now with the original cast! It's Conclave 34 weekend, in Romulus near Detroit. Travis S. Taylor, whom I have not yet met, is the Literary Guest of Honor. I can't wait to see Barry and Jo Gehm again; Barry is Fan Guest of Honor, this year, and Brother Guy is Science Guest. As you may be aware, on Friday morning NASA will run two spacecraft into the Moon, with telescopes and spacecraft watching intently. Brother Guy and I have recklessly volunteered to discuss this on Saturday. If any "instant science" is available, we'll try to put it into the presentation. I'm scheduled for three program items: Assault on the Moon: The New Generation of Lunar Spacecraft 11:30 Saturday in Ballroom 6 Friday morning two NASA spacecraft deliberately crashed into the south pole of the Moon, while a third continues orbiting. This follows a small armada of robots from China, Japan, India, and other countries which have recently conducted observations of the Moon. Join Bill Higgins and Brother Guy Consolmagno to learn more about the new wave of lunar exploration. Bill and Barry Show, Reunited 2:30 Saturday in Ballroom 6 In 1979, Conclave V invited Bill Higgins and Barry Gehm to take the stage for the first Bill and Barry Show. Over the years this has included substitute Bills, substitute Barrys, and, once, robot duplicates of both. Today Bill and Barry are reunited for an hour of science, storytelling, and comedy, not necessarily in that order (or, indeed, ANY order). Searching for Weirdness in the Vaults of Life Magazine: Puppets, Jetpacks, and Ballet on the Moon 10 Sunday in Columbia Last year Google placed online TWO MILLION images shot by Life magazine photographers. There's something for everyone in this mountain of negatives, from flying cars to behind-the-scenes photos of classic science fiction movies. Bill Higgins conducts a tour of Twentieth Century oddities lurking in the archive. Watch the skies, kids! (13 Comments |Comment on this)