“When one man, for whatever reason, has an opportunity to lead an extraordinary life, he has no right to keep it to himself.”
Today marks the 100th anniversary of the birth of Jacques Cousteau, a personal hero of mine. Cousteau brought to light an undersea world that few people had ever seen before (and people like Jules Verne had mostly just imagined). His documentaries and books expanded the horizon of the known world by an incredible degree, and his love for nature and commitment to environmentalism were infectious and inspiring. How could anyone see those images and not be moved?
Today there are hundreds of documentaries about ocean life, thanks to Cousteau. He took the risks that made so much progress possible. (Being the human guinea pig for the first scuba systems meant he got to “discover” the range of terrible things that can happen to you from diving, too.) Those early videos of him out exploring the ocean in his aqua-lung, like an astronaut, are enchanting. Every image is a humbling reminder that humans are but a small part of our earth.
Andrew Revkin over at the New York Times has a really nice homage to him, and Gizmodo Australia has posted an excerpt of his book The Silent World, about his first use of the aqua-lung. Perhaps most thrillingly, The Cousteau Society has decided to broadcast, for free online, the entirety of his Oscar-winning 1960 film The Golden Fish.
Thank you, Jacques-Yves Cousteau.
Short version of a very long story: my college science fiction library had a fantastic, robust library of classic and contemporary (up to the early ’90s) science fiction, fantasy, and horror books. About ten years ago they were no longer able to store them and had to get rid of them. About five years ago I volunteered to be responsible for the library. I stored them for about three years before it became too expensive–over $200/mo!–and though I had some financial help from other alums, it wasn’t enough. I wound up moving the entire collection to my small NYC apartment.
The good news is that a university rare book library picked out tons of books to keep in their non-circulating collection. The bad news is that the non-rare, non-valuable books are still in my apartment.
For the past two years I’ve been slowly cataloging the collection, one book at a time. I’ve done over 2000 now, with only five more boxes to go. Once this is complete, I’ll offer what’s in the collection to the public (after first dibs go to the people who’ve helped me pay for storage over the years).
Now, in addition to the book collection, the library also included hundreds of comic books. I don’t know much about comic books, but I am pretty sure that none of these are valuable (they’re pretty much all from ’79 onwards). I’ve finished cataloging them all and now need to figure out what to do with them.
COMIC BOOK NERDS: Can you please take a look at the list below and tell me if anything here is valuable? If it’s not, any suggestions for where I could try and sell them online? Or do you think I should just chuck them? Any and all advice is much appreciated! Read more »
…not really. I went on vacation, which meant becoming very behind on blogging in general. But in the meantime I’ve posted a number of things to Tor.com:
Re-watches for “The Immunity Syndrome” and “A Private Little War” are both up. The former I’ve already forgotten–it was that unmemorable–while the latter was easily the most gender-regressive episode of the series so far.
Also up is the most recent re-watch, “Return to Tomorrow,” a really stunning episode that I had never heard of before. And in lieu of a re-watch this week, my personal favorite post of the entire Re-Watch blogging series: instructions for how to make a tribble. Not exactly a re-watch, but hopefully a lot of fun.
And finally: I wrote a brief tribute to the Apollo 13 mission on its 40th anniversary. Unfortunately I’m a month late with that news, but it’s better late than never! It’s definitely time to re-watch Apollo 13. Hollywood needs more competency porn.
Ack, I am so behind! The last two Star Trek Re-Watches are up: “Gamesters of Triskelion” and “A Piece of the Action.”
Perhaps more importantly, the Tribbles Week contest winners have been announced! We really had a lot of fun reading everyone’s submissions, and since so few people wound up entering, I decided to just make enough tribbles for everyone who threw in their hat.
I decided that, but I haven’t exactly made them yet. Er. It’s gonna be a long week. I hope I have enough fabric left over.
Last year, shortly after we began the Star Trek Re-Watch, I was trying to brainstorm ideas for Eugene’s birthday. It had to be something Star Trek-related and I was looking for something crafty to do. The tribble presented itself as an intriguing project. So with the help of his girlfriend and his roommate, I began a quest that traversed two states for just the right fabric. Using online tutorials for how to make a ball (it’s HARD) and some polyester fiberfill, I pulled it off and they look great.
This of course got us talking about tribbles, and we started thinking about what we were going to do for “The Trouble With Tribbles” when we finally got to it. We knew it was pretty much everyone’s favorite episode and that people would be excited about it. I also knew that I had a big bag of this furry fabric (a total menace, because it sheds everywhere) that needed to be Taken Care Of.
The solution seemed obvious: a contest for the tribbles! I wasn’t sure if anyone would want them, but since it’d be free stuff on the internet, I hoped there would be sufficient interest. The fruits of those labors are up here:
The Next Tribble-ation Contest
The Tribbles and Altos Contest
I am really thrilled about it, and I can’t wait to see what kinds of entries people come up with. Major thanks to Jamie Stafford-Hill for his awesome photoshop jobs. It’s almost like he’s a professional or something.
I’ll put together a how-to post for folks who want to make their own tribbles, with the caveat that having faux fur in the house is not only worse than living with dozens of shedding cats, but it’s kind of hella expensive.
And since I didn’t announce it daily, here are all of the Tribbles Week posts:
The latest installment is up over at Tor.com.
Sometimes I surprise myself.
Happy April Fools Day!
This past weekend I had the opportunity to attend PAX East 2010, the first east coast installment of Penny Arcade Expo. It was, in a word, insane. It was the most catastrophically organized convention I’ve ever been to because the 62,000 attendees were just way too many for the Hynes Convention Center.
Friday
After the long NYC->Boston bus ride, the usual issues with hotel check-in, and lunch, we got into the queue line on Friday to enter the convention. The queue line stretched through two gymnasium-sized rooms, and though we arrived an hour early, there were thousands of folks in front of us. By the time we made it up to the Main Theater for Wil Wheaton’s keynote address, the doors slammed shut in our face. The fire marshal had declared the space full, and we were left out. I asked an Enforcer (what they call the volunteers who help keep things running smoothly) if it was going to be broadcast in any other rooms since there were thousands more people in line behind me, and he told me I could “probably catch it later on YouTube.” Great.
Turns out Wheaton spoiled the end of Dragon Age: Origins, so maybe I was better off anyway. Read more »
I’ve got two PAX East-related posts over at Tor.com:
Vengeance of the cloud vampire, over at Tor.com.
Uncategorized | Torie | 
June 11, 2010 11:11 am | 
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