A Curious Statistical Anomaly

Couldn’t sleep last night so I finally got sick of tossing and turning and got up, turned on the laptop and got some work done. So today, after a short nap, I was able to catch up on a lot of things that I hadn’t got to yet. One of which was the image you see here. Tor is giving away free ebooks and I signed up to get a notice. Well, they also have two desktop images along with the book. The others have been pretty impressive but I’ve always loved the work of John Jude Palencar. Last year, I did an interview with him for SFRevu.

This image was for the cover of Charles de Lint’s Someplace To Be Flying. Charles de Lint is an author that I also enjoy and the two together, words and cover, make a wonder pairing. Now I’m going to have this wonderful artwork as my desktop background for a while. Already I find it soothing in a weird sort of way. Maybe it’s the colors, composition, or the subtle symbology. Anyway, thought I’d share.

I’d almost forgotten it was March and time to move to a new cup. I was so enjoying the February roses and love cup. This month, I’m using (starting today — this first week has been overwhelming) a cup I picked up at the Maryland Renaissance Faire last fall. I fell in love at first sight when I saw it in the Shore Fire Pottery booth. Shore Fire Pottery is owned and operated by Dan & Rhonda Heinecke. I wanted to ad a link to them but couldn’t find a website. (If anyone knows of one let me know and I’ll add it in). They do wonderful work and it’s really different. A lot of it is organic, meaning there are impressions of leaves and flowers in the pottery along with other elements. They also have the usual dragon and fairy pottery — but it’s this mug (the only one in the booth) that called out to me.

If you happen to be in Maryland during festival season, you should stop by and check out their pottery as well as the festival (which starts August 23, 2008).

Mr. Darcy Presents His Bride takes place in the autumn of 1813 just after Elizabeth and Darcy get engaged and slightly before the wedding. Placing the beginning at this point helps to bridge the reader from Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice to Halstead’s continuation of the story of literature’s best known and loved lovers.

It is not uncommon for a reader who has enjoyed a well told tale with fascinating characters to wonder as they finish the final page, “What happens next?” Perhaps, that is also the reason that series books do so well–because readers want to revisit and catch up with characters that they enjoy. The problem is that every reader has their own set of ideas about how the characters go on with their lives once the story ends. So a writer who opts to continue the tale of two characters that are so widely read about must keep the characters not only true to the ideals, morals, wit, and character that they were imbued by Jane Austen as well as tell a new story that is in concert with the original.

Pride and Prejudice is one of my favorite books and I’ve read it many times. I also often re-view the DVDs of the various movies made from the book. However, when I read a continuation of the story, I try to remember that I’m reading the authors interpretation of these characters. Still, when reading the story, I need to be able to identify those characteristics and traits that made the original characters so wonderful to read about. In this, Halstead admirably succeeds. She manages to continue the tale in a way that is consistent with the original story as it progressed while moving forward with her vision of what would happen in their lives.

We know from Pride and Prejudice that Lady Catherine de Bourgh was not happy with the match and that she’d do all in her power to see that Darcy’s wife was cut from society and the family. We also know that in a time when there was little for women except marriage, that the other Bennet sisters must find husbands, that Georgiana Darcy should probably have a coming out and season in London, that there would be children born to the couples, and that eventually the Bingleys would not be able to tolerate being so near to Mrs. Bennet. We also know that Austen left notes that indicated that Kitty would marry a clergyman–almost unbelievable in the face of Kitty’s dislike of the breed. So, Halstead had these threads upon which to embroider her tale of the married life of Elizabeth and Fitzwilliam Darcy.

While everything comes together in a delightful tale of married life and its ups and down as well as the tribulations and joys of family–it’s not quite the tale that I would have told. But setting aside my own prejudices regarding the Darcys, Mr. Darcy Presents His Bride is a wonderful addition to those brave authors who lay before us their version of happily ever after for this famous literary pair. Whether Halstead manages to also touch your vision of their future, her rendition is well executed, the story springs from those themes that were generated in Pride and Prejudice, and the characters stay true to their roots. Elizabeth remains witty, charming, feisty and yet maintaining a wonderful awareness of society and her place in it. Darcy is proud but tempered with the love of Elizabeth and now making an effort to put others at ease but, when rattled, reverting to his old manners. All the other characters are as they always were but with new insights or manners that give the reader the same character but with more depth and emotion.

A must for all lovers of the original who wonder, “What happens next?”

Every once in a while you come across something that just makes you stand (or sit) and stare with your mouth hanging open. Today, for me, it was looking at a satellite photo of an avalanche that occurred on Mars.

Just think about it for a minute. Today, we got to see a photo of an avalanche that happened on another planet. Not only can we see it but there’s a puff of dust from the avalanche in the photo.

I remember in high school begging to stay up late to see the pictures coming back from our space program. The launches were seen in school on a TV that was brought in for that purpose. Then things seems too ho-hum for constant coverage and even today it’s usually just an item in the news program unless you go to a NASA or other science site to see the news coverage. For example, I didn’t know or didn’t follow up on the Swift Science Satellite program and if I hadn’t seen the link on TechRevu I’d have missed the gorgeous photo of the M33 galaxy (better known as the Triangulum Galaxy).

There is just so much to learn about our world, the universe around us and yet we constantly find conservative lobbies trying to curtail science education in our schools. There’s nothing like seeing an avalanche on another planet in our solar system or other galaxies beyond our own to bring home just how much there is to learn and how far we’ve come to understanding ourselves and our universe.

There seems to be a willingness in this country (the U.S.) to denigrate science and scientists, to glorify sports heros, and honor ignorance. We’ve reduced scholarships and funding for students to attend colleges — in some cases pricing it out of reach of middle as well as low income students. I worked my way through college as well as having a lot of financial aid but from talking with people now and looking at going back for an advanced degree — I really don’t see how many families can afford to send their children to college without taking some drastic steps (like second and third mortgages) that could impact their retirement years.

If the US wants to once again be a leader in the world in science and engineering — it must take educating its people seriously. I remember seeing several years ago a news item where they were talking about American ingenuity and the wonderful breakthrough in science that had been made at an American college. The camera then switched to a picture of the team of students and professor in the lab — guess what? The professor was from the US but all those Ph.D students were foreign students. That’s a fact of life in academia — and until the government and the people become concerned enough to support US students who make the grade as other countries do we’ll continue to sink down into mediocrity.

But meanwhile, I’ll enjoy the wonder of what we have done and have high hopes that our future will see more wonders and insights into our universe.