NPDemers.net

I love Alison Bechdel’s Dykes To Watch Out For, and have from the day I came out and picked up my first GO-Info (strip # 140, “The Last Tango”, where Mo and Harriet have sex one last time before breaking up for good). Until it ended earlier this year, it was the first thing I read when picking up Xtra! West, and I could always count on it to make me laugh make me think, or both. I own all the collected books, including The Indelible Alison Bechdel.

But, there was one book of hers missing from my collection: a non-DTWOF book I didn’t even know existed until this summer, when I saw it as part of an exhibition on animation and comics at the Art Gallery. I read it all the way through in one sitting, absolutely captivated.

Well, damn.

I guess part of me thought he’d live forever, or at least long enough to see all the marvels he imagined or predicted. Hell, he saw geostationary satellites and global telecommunications become reality, why not space elevators or Martian colonies or deep-space travel as well?

I’m still partway through The Descent of Man (specifically, the 1882 edition, available online.) It’s slow reading because I want to be sure to absorb the science… and the occasional bon mots.

…of the year, that is.

Okay, it’s been almost a month. What have I been up to, you ask?

Well, I spent 10 days in Ottawa and Montreal, visiting family. I saw Mamma Mia! at the National Arts Centre, which was awesome. Yeah, it was a pretty threadbare plot, little more than an excuse to string together two dozen ABBA songs, but that’s exactly what I signed up for, so that’s all right.

I just finished reading Jules Verne’s 1886 novel Robur-le-Conquérant. Quite an enjoyable little book, though not really Verne’s best. I did appreciate all his exploration of the science behind the Albatross, Robur’s wondrous flying craft—Verne’s work is meant to educate as well as entertain, and I’m a sucker for a good science history lesson.