Return of the 52-Week Illustration Challenge, Week 26

Week 26: Land

"Tetraptych of Uluru". Based on photographs found in a Google Image search. Watercolours on watercolour paper, with some detailing in white Signo opaque marker and black Sharpie.

Update:

Week 26: Land II

"The Eagle has landed." Collage of salted watercolours on watercolour paper and gold foil on black card, with highlights of white Signo opaque marker and black Sharpie.

Week 26: Land III

"When land runs out..." Cartoon in black Sharpie, painted in watercolours on watercolour paper, with highlights of white opaque Signo.

Happy anniversary, Apollo 11!

Wow!

I've spent the last few weeks demonstrating some of the joys of my school's new interactive whiteboard (IWB), and browsing on Google Earth has been addictive for most of the school's population.

But, in similar vein, NASA has just released some very cool pictures from their Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (or LRO), which has returned its first imagery of the Apollo moon landing sites, just in time for the 40th anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing. "The pictures show the Apollo missions' lunar module descent stages sitting on the moon's surface, as long shadows from a low sun angle make the modules' locations evident."



The online comments added by moon hoax conspiracy theorists are hilarious.

I really liked the appended comment from a NASA Moderator: "This is just the first glimpse of many more images to come. When we're in the operational orbit of only 31 miles, resolution should be two to three times better, and we should be able to get the right lighting conditions to identify the rovers."

All images credit: NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center/Arizona State University.

Boy, sitting in the school hall watching a fuzzy black and white television in 1969 (Year 5) at Arncliffe Primary School seems sooooooo long ago, but it also seems like it was only yesterday. Happy Moon Day (on a Monday, even!).



Also worth checking out: The Moon in Google Earth

Filking with Leslie Fish

Over breakfast this morning, an unexpected but very welcome email arrived from "first fandom" identity, fan artist and filk singer/composer extraordinaire, Leslie Fish.

Way back in the 70s, Leslie was the author of numerous Star Trek fanzine stories, often featuring the Andorian character Thelin, briefly seen as Spock's replacement in an alternate history in "Yesteryear", an episode of Filmation's animated Star Trek (TAS).

In 1997, I sought Leslie's permission to upload an online version of her fascinating speculative article "A Summary of the Physiological Roots of Andorian Culture" by F. Sigmund Mead, Journal of Xenoanthropology, June 2341 - originally published in Sehlat's Roar #2, a 1976 Star Trek zine published by Randy Ash. Leslie's extrapolation of Andorian culture was way ahead of the licensed tie-in fiction, which didn't succeed in describing Andorian genetics or social aspects until the post-Deep Space Nine TV series novels, which commenced in 2001.

Leslie recalls that she drew the original artwork that accompanies the article in simple pen-and-ink, and Randy traced over them onto mimeograph stencils! Leslie says she's amazed that they came out readable at all. Furthermore, the added texture you see in the illustrations I uploaded came from the original (amazingly grainy) recycled paper. For republishing them online, I simply cleaned up good photocopies with Liquid Paper and ran the pictures through the photocopier a second time, only on coloured paper, then scanned them. (The grain of that old textured paper played havoc with my first attempts at text scanning the article, too.)

I love the old cover art for Randy's issue #1, too: each cover was hand printed from a linoleum block master! Check out that cover art on Randy's blog.

Leslie's Andorian essay still gets plenty of comment from online readers, especially from people seeking a comparison with the four-partnered Andorian paradigm (suggested by Data in TNG - "Data's Day"), as extrapolated by the recent licensed tie-in novels, and what Leslie had proposed in 1976 with her three-sexed stages of Andorian development.

I was telling Leslie, who's been out of touch with Trek fandom for a while, about recent Thelin appearances in the licensed Pocket Books fiction: in the "Crucible" trilogy (extending the scenes from "Yesteryear") by David R George III; and in a "Myriad Universes" omnibus story, "The Chimes at Midnight" (an alternate history from "Yesteryear" thru to ST VI) by Geoff Trowbridge.

Thanks to her fellow folk singer, Joe Bethancourt, Leslie now has her own website, at www.lesliefish.com/. While investigating the site tonight, I noticed the Youtube song clip on the front page: Star Trek novelist, Julia Ecklar, singing a Leslie Fish song, "Hope Eyrie", about the Apollo 11 moon landing. Check it out! It's great!

Leslie Fish is probably best remembered for the Star Trek filk song lyrics she wrote in a desperate hurry to fill a hole on an album of songs. "Banned from Argo" is still sung at Star Trek conventions the world over (to the tune of the traditional song, "Boston Burglar"). The song isn't her favourite, but it's certainly gained her many fans over the decades.

Sing it with me:

"And we're banned from Argo, everyone.
Banned from Argo, just for having a little fun.
We spent a jolly shore leave there for just three days or four,
But Argo doesn't want us any more..."



By the way, for those of you wondering, "filk songs" are science fiction media folk songs - often, but not necessarily, parodies. The term "filk" came about as the result of an infamous typographical error. A fan named Lee Jacobs meant to type the word "folk" in a program schedule and typed in "filk" instead. It struck his colleagues as being hilarious at the time, so it stuck.

Preparing for "Sorry"...

It certainly snuck up on us... Former Prime Minister, John Howard, stubbornly resisted any attempt - for many, many years - for the nation to say "Sorry" to Australia's Aboriginal population for the Stolen Generations. Actor John Howard (currrently appearing in television's All Saints), did once say "Sorry" in the very funny TV mockumentary, The Games, but that one doesn't count! However... in just a few more hours, our new Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd, will say "Sorry" - and a nation (and much of the world, thanks to the immediacy of the Internet) will down tools and listen. Then the next stages of Reconciliation might be able to proceed.

Australian schools have been encouraged to organise for students to witness the event live, which will no doubt cause a bit of a scramble in some schools. We do have Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander flags on hand - and use them often - but my school doesn't have a working TV antennae on the roof. Traditional broadcast options (at least, those in use since the first Moon Landing in 1969, I reckon) will be impossible for us. Taping the speech at a teacher's home, then watching it all together the next day, just won't cut it. (That might work for the average episode of BTN, but not this event.)

Therefore, the Principal, my library clerical and I did a tech dress rehearsal yesterday, with: a laptop computer, recommended software, data projector, standard projector screen and the spare Internet hub (located in a sports storeroom within in the assembly hall). I'm glad we didn't leave the preparation until the morning of the apology; if the tech fails us, it will be a disaster perhaps equivalent to the communications breakdown that threatened Apollo 11's historic moonwalk in the Aussie motion picture, The Dish.

This significant day in Australia's history will undoubtedly become one of those "Where you you when that happened?" events, and we've all crossed our fingers that the fickle finger of fate won't bring down a tech disaster of epic proportions. (Although we'd been informed that schools could gain access to today's live streaming, from Parliament House in Canberra, via the Internet, the Department's intranet and TaLe, we couldn't find a hyperlink which seemed to be awaiting The Big Day.)

I ended up doing a simple Google search (essentially, my total contribution to the rehearsal), to find the website for Parliament House (haven't been there in ages!), and I was pleased to see a very obvious link, along the top of the frame, for Live Broadcasting. We bookmarked the site, and did our trial run on yesterday afternoon's Opening of Parliament 2008, and were able to identify exactly what needed to be done to maximise sound and picture quality. The extended "test pattern" gave us a moment of panic, but when the session finally started our trial run seemed to indicate that "doing our homework" would ensure success.

I hope the speech brings everyone the hope and acknowledgment that many have pinned to this long-awaited, historic gesture.

Memories of the moon

Today, I had to run a video about the Apollo 11 moon landing of 1969 to some six year olds. Talk about nostalgia! It really does seems like only a few years ago I was in Year 5, sitting towards the back of a school hall at Arncliffe Public School, straining to make out the moving monochrome blurs on a small television set positioned way up on the stage!

On the video today, the narrator suggested that - maybe - someone in the audience might know someone who once saw the moon landing as it happened. Yeah, like their grandparents!