Had fun yesterday afternoon nosing around in the basement of the science library. Stuff germane to the novel, and also some nostalgia for the simpler days of my astronomical youth – issues of Sky & Telescope from the fifties. Curious kind of time trip – an ad for the $49.95 4-inch Dynascope that opened up the universe for me when I was in 7th grade. (It was wobbly and fragile; they discontinued it right after my father bought one for me. If I'd held on to it, it would be a valuable antique.) (Checking up on that, there are exactly none for sale in the old-telescope market, though thousands were made. I should've held on to it.)
Nice nostalgia trip, anyhow. How simple life was and how little we knew that.
We went to see a pretty worthless arty movie at school last night – two, actually, mercifully short: "Slow Action" and "I Know Where I'm Going," both by Ben Rivers. Static random artiness, as far as I could tell. One is on a tropical island and the other is in a Scotland winter. That one at least has a human being, a demented old man who croaks out orphic mumblings through his beard as he picks up things and looks at them. I suspect that Mr. Rivers can write one hell of a grant proposal.
Joe
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