Forbidden Planet

the chief guardian instructed. Vandara's voice was firm and bitter. "The girl should have been taken to the Field when she was born and still nameless. It is the way." "Go on," the chief guardian said. "She was imperfect. And fatherless as well. She should not have been kept." But I was strong. And my eyes were bright. My mother told me. She wouldn't let me go Kira shifted her weight, resting her twisted leg, remembering the story of her birth, and wondering if she would have an opportunity to tell it here. I gripped her thumb so tightly. "We have all tolerated her presence for these years," Vandara went on. "But she has not contributed. She cannot dig or plant or weed, or even tend the domestic beasts the way other girls her age do. She drags that dead leg around like a useless burden. She is slow, and she eats a lot." The council of guardians was listening carefully. Kira's face felt warm with embarrassment. It was true, ...

Two days ago, I picked up a very nice art book called Master's of Deception: Escher, Dali & the Artists of Optical Illusion . It features the work of many extremely talented illusory artists and at $19.95 Canadian it was an extremely reasonably priced book considering it is full colour and quite large. The problem was that the bottom edge of the book was dirtied and slightly damaged. I looked for another copy but could not find one. I asked at the cash if they had any undamaged copies and they found another, but it too suffered from the same imperfection. I asked if another store had any copies. They did, but it was in worse shape then the ones I had in my hand - the cover was torn. So I took the least damaged copy, they gave me a 20% damage discount (book is now non-returnable) and I got an additional 10% off because I'm an iRewards member. (Going online, I see I could have got an immaculate copy for pretty much the same price). Being religious, I find this picture by Octa...

I saw Metropolis about 15 years ago and then read the book about 8 years later. The book is better than the movie. As I grow older, the futile image of constantly feeding and tending the machines grows stronger in my mind. I recognized pater noster as Latin for Our Father (as in the opening of the Lord's Prayer) and assumed that Thea von Harbou's references to the pater noster machine were overt references to a machine that consumed and ate its workers (much like Cronus in Greek mythology ate his children – or perhaps Moloch, to whom children were sacrificed). I only recently discovered that a pater noster machine is a type of slow moving elevator invented in 1884 . Image nabbed from here .

I have noticed that Google translation is much better than it was in the past, surpassing BabelFish in capability. As evidence I present the following translations from Jules Verne's Five Weeks in a Ballooon . Original text Il y avait une grande affluence d’auditeurs, le 14 janvier 1862, à la séance de la Société royale géographique de Londres, Waterloo place, 3. Le président, sir Francis M..., faisait à ses honorables collègues une importante communication dans un discours fréquemment interrompu par les applaudissements. Ce rare morceau d’éloquence se terminait enfin par quelques phrases ronflantes dans lesquelles le patriotisme se déversait à pleines périodes: Google translation: There was a large crowd of listeners, January 14, 1862, at the meeting of the Royal Geographical Society of London, Waterloo place, 3. The chairman, Sir Francis M. .., made his honorable colleagues an important communication in a speech frequently interrupted by applause. This rare piece of eloquence fin...

Image scanned by me, but copyright remains with the publisher.

"When Columbus returned from the new world and proclaimed the earth was round, almost everyone else went right on believing the world was flat. Then they died - and the next generation grew up believing the world was round. That's how people change their minds." Art & Fear : Observations On The Perils (and Rewards) of Artmaking by David Bayles and Ted Orland This is a pretty good book if you are interested in thoughts and observations on artists and art making. It is a short book, but it has a number of interesting passages. "The poem in the head is always perfect. Resistance begins when you try to convert it into language" - Stanley Kunitz quoted in the above mentioned book. "... most artists don't daydream about making great art - they daydream about having made great art. What artist has not experienced the feverish euphoria of composing the perfect thumbnail sketch, first draft, negative, or melody - only to run headlong into a stone wall ...

- Heather Sellers, Page After Page , Chapter 6: Sleeping With Books

because you like his work is like wanting to meet a duck because you like paté." , Margaret Atwood, Negotiating with the Dead: A Writer on Writing

Being like most people, having extra money wouldn't be terribly objectionable to me. I decided to see how much some of my little treasures are worth. I have a lot of books, some quite old and possibly collectors' items. I did my search on eBay since this is the be all and end all of flea markets. First I looked up The Golden Book of Chemistry Experiments . There were numerous listings, many with the keyword rare in them. It seems to be worth about $2.79 on the open market (maybe a copy autographed by Mr. Wizard would fetch more). Next I looked up Practical Electricity , a wonderful volume from 1923. Hmmm ... no luck. Next I tried a few titles I am sure set off alarm bells at Homeland Security Headquarters: Shrapnel Shell Manufacture , High Explosive Shell Manufacture , and Cartridge Manufacture . Three volumes dating back to World War I (published between 1915 and 1916). There were no listings. Then I tried a Science Fiction anthology originally published in the 1940s (although...

Why? Because we really, really want to. The truth does not sell very well. It is an ugly, sweaty thing requiring work and discipline. We want to believe there is an electrical device that, when strapped onto our love handles, will give us a meaty abdominal six-pack while sitting on our fat asses eating Milk Duds. We do not like the truth because it is simple, we do not want the truth because it is hard, and we do not trust the truth because it is free." - Pat Walsh, 78 reasons why your book may never be published and 14 reasons why it just might , excerpted from Reason #38: You Fell for Self-Publishing Hype I highly recommend this book and The First Five Pages by Noah Lukeman as must reads for anyone who wants to write and get published (or, like me, who dreams of writing and getting published one day). They give a lot of food for thought. Now, all I need is some electronic device I can strap to the back of my head to short out my inhibitory reflexes and get me to just do it (ac...

I recently read the short story "First Contact" by Murray Leinster. It is about the first contact between a human spaceship exploring the Crab Nebula and an alien spaceship doing the same. You might expect a cautious story about miscommunication and cultural faux pas. However, there was no ambiguity about the mindset, or concern about misunderstanding - the tone was pure distrust and paranoia. The essential argument was that while it would be great to establish trade and communication with the other race, they could not be trusted. Neither spaceship was willing to let the other leave in case it should follow it home or learn of its origin - since the next logical step would be for the other to launch a military campaign. The premise is that you could not have two equals negotiating. One has to be dominant, the other subservient. And since no race would willingly besubservient, it was necessary to make it subservient through force. The story revolved around both ships pointed ...

This is the first book (chronologically, though the sixth to be written) in The Chronicles of Narnia series by C.S. Lewis. I had read The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe to the kids over Christmas and they enjoyed (despite my finding some annoyances with it). I wasn't sure if I wanted to read more from the series, but not finding any good books to read, I decided to gamble and borrow The Magician's Nephew from the library. It is a much better book than The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe . A lot more happens in it and the kids enjoyed it more. Tania even remarked that this book was more interesting because there was more stuff happening. Even I enjoyed it. The story of the creation of Narnia wonderfully parallels the Genesis account of Creation, but in a manner that is novel and fresh; there was clearly a lot of thought given to it. While Aslan's sacrifice in the second book paralleled Christ's crucifixion (with Edmund standing in for fallen humanity), it was not a...