As promised in the last post, here's a link to "Thirty White Horses" (pdf). When I went back to clean it up, the science seemed muted, which was fine with me. The story's still got other problems, but I don't think "wheeling in Science" is one of them. I've also got a paper up about how (it seems to me) Richard Powers uses narrative structure to help get the science across Galatea 2.2 and The Gold Bug Variations. I still don't think they're good novels, but they've got a clever, pretty, operatic structure involving a tension between student and teacher that I haven't seen before, and it's a structure that I think could be useful to others. It's also nice that Powers tried it in two books, one where the student's essentially a wide-eyed undergrad, and one where the student's a strung-out RA, so you can see the pros and cons of the variation. Ordinarily I'm not a fan of academic fiction -- the settings become academic nowheres, tethered to nothing -- but it seems natural in Powers' books.
I missed SLSA '07 thanks to childcare issues, but organizer Aden Evens and panel chair Jay Labinger were terrific and generous in making sure my work got presented. For next year, I'll see if the organizers will call in some conference childcare.
I'm working on something to do with popular science illustration, but first I've got to get a 6th-grade social studies book out of the way. Who knew 11-year-olds needed to learn about trade barriers? I guess now they do. I hope the books come with a good world map, too. Meantime, enjoy the beautiful E. coli by David Goodsell.
1 comment:
Serendipity brings me here I guess. I bumped into Hessler at the Burg back in late November when taking Kaela to a college interview. I find it terrifying that she is old enough to go out into the world, but perhaps that is the overprotective father in me... Funny how she has focused on a career in stage and lighting design without me even pointing her there. Probably someway to blame it on subliminal parenting cues to pass my unrealized dream-path onto her.
It would be ignorant of my Zen self not to identify seeing John as the seed that crystallized in the series of events that has me researching blog sites and certainly expecting to find the only writer in my life with an entry out in the ether...
So I am reading your "info dumping" paper (please take no offense at my truncated labeling of your work) and I am reminded of the feeling I had when I first read the Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance by Robert M. Pirsig back in 1979 and how the book would have been completely different had it had illustrations,photographs, and a good map...
I think that philosophers somehow visualize their ideas in way that cannot be captured by illustrators or photographers. The structure they are trying to describe cannot be relayed in two dimensional media effectively. I remember assigning a studio design project at RPI to design the "The Cave" and the students interpretations were so incredibly different it was amazing.
Thanks for the E.Coli image too. Looking at it, I am instantly reminded about the beauty in all things and it strikes a nice chord with the backyard biologist that still lives in my hardened techno-life exoskeleton.
So now here I am looking for information for a new project and finding you... or at least a virtual pinky print. As I said Serendipity...
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