"Clear skies with a chance of satellite debris."

Gravity, Alfonso Cuarón's homage to mass and inertia, is a great movie.  Sandra Bullock gives a gripping performance as orbital disaster victim Dr. Ryan Stone, supported by scripting and direction that combine to present an intimate, emotional experience against an epic backdrop. The film beautifully balances and contrasts the awesome beauty of planet Earth as seen from orbit with touches of humanity: country and western music, bits of everyday life like chess pieces and pens, and the crying of a baby over a radio.

But the really impressive thing about Gravity, the thing that really caught my attention?

It's not science fiction.

The settings of space shuttle, International Space Station and Soyuz flight module are real settings; the spacesuits are real spacesuits, with clumsy gloves and fogged faceplates; and the dangers being faced are real dangers, no more fictional than the perils of being killed during a bank robbery or waking up in a burning house.   

Yes, we as a species have now reached a point in time where it's possible to make a 90 minute movie, set in space*, in which the heroine narrowly escapes death by satellite debris impact, lack of oxygen, zero-gee combustion, freezing, explosive decompression, and burning up on re-entry to Earth's atmosphere, and it's not science fiction. In fact, when it finally dawned on me that I wasn't watching a science fiction movie, I was almost embarrassed, as if I had gone to the theatre under false pretenses. 

 And the next step?  The next step is we start shooting on location...

- Sid

* Okay, near-Earth orbit if you're going to be picky.

Location location location.

And now, a call to action.  I'm in the very early stages of negotiating a joint steampunk costume-and-photoshoot project with a friend of mine - and I mean VERY early, to the point where I'm thinking in terms of the spring or summer of 2014 for actually taking the pictures.  However, if this goes ahead, I see it as being a lot of fun. I imagine the results as being very earth-toned, relying on stripes and ruffles, stockings and short jackets, decorative brass accents, hats with veils, and perhaps a bit of copper pipe here and there– for the steam, you know…

I'm a big fan of environmental photography for things like this - I think it would be a huge tragedy to invest a great deal of time and effort in evoking the alternate history of the British Empire in the form of a costume, only to document it in front of an eight foot roll of white seamless paper in a studio. So, I open this up to those blog readers who live in the Greater Vancouver region: where should we go to photograph the eventual results, if any?*

I realize that the nature of the costume will play a part in the choice of a location.  An intrepid aviatrix would call for a completely different situation than a daring explorer, scientific detective, or corset-clad assassin.  But let's not limit things at this stage, let's start by casting as wide a net as possible - where are the best rivets, girders, gears, locomotives, and arcane engines in the Lower Mainland?

Oh, and just for the record, I don't think that we're going to take the route of creating a steampunk courtesan's costume.  Very little challenge to that, in my mind that just means adding goggles and subtracting clothing, which would make for a completely different photoshoot.  Certainly interesting in its own way, but not what we're after.

- Sid

* See above re: VERY early stages.  Life is full of change, and the whole thing may fall through.  Don't worry, if something does come of this, I do plan to post the results here, with the permission of my collaborator.

Better late.

I had a birthday late last month, albeit a somewhat unacknowledged one - the usual suspects did step up to the plate, but at least one very good friend did absolutely nothing to acknowledge the date, about half of the people I work with didn't sign my card, and the birthday cake showed up about two weeks later along with a bunch of other cakes for people who had also been left at the altar, so to speak.

However, I'd like to acknowledge a couple of thoughtful late-breaking gifts that did a lot to make up for the shortfall.

About a week after my birthday, the vice president of my department walked into my office at work and presented me with a present, accompanied by the slightly diffident comment, "Sorry it was so busy last week, here's your gift.  Don't try to get it back into the box." 

Now normally birthdays are only celebrated at my workplace with cake and off-key singing, so I was quite touched that John the VP had decided to do something a little special.  John is a decent fellow to work for, which I have not always found to be the case with people who have ended up a few rungs above me on the ladder of success.*

His advice was absolutely correct.  My gift was a Cubebot, and as the photos above indicate, it had been carefully constructed so as to start out as a cube, but it might have been a bit challenging to return it to that state after unfolding it.  (Which is apparently what you're supposed to do with it - it's as much a puzzle as it is a person.)

I'm not entirely certain that adding the word "bot" to a product name automatically qualifies it as a robot, but the elastic articulation that keeps Guthrie (my Cubebot's name, according to the web site) together has been very cleverly engineered, and as such I consider him a more than acceptable addition to the gallery of science fiction figures who stand watch over my iMac.

The second set of presents was courtesy of my friend Chris, who has done yeoman work in the past in terms of gift selection. This year he once again logged in with a t-shirt, one which celebrates the path through London's Underground from Neil Gaiman's classic urban fantasy novel Neverwhere, and a copy of Hanging Out With the Dream King, an intriguing compilation of interviews with people who have collaborated with Mr. Gaiman on comic books, graphic novels, musical projects, and novels.  The interview list reads like a sort of outré Who's Who: Dave McKean, Alice Cooper, Charles Vess, Toris Amos, Gene Wolfe, P. Craig Russell, Terry Pratchett, and similar luminaries from the other side of the creative tracks.

Chris was a bit concerned about giving me the book, because he'd found it used rather than buying it new.  Chris, as I said at the time, you can't imagine how little that matters to me.  I've received used books from other people in the past, and in every case I have considered those gifts to be a bit more interesting due to their pre-owned provenance.

And ultimately, it really is the thought that counts - thanks again, gentlemen.

- Sid

*  There's no flattery involved here - I'm pretty sure that John isn't one of the frequent flyers on TIR, and as such I think it's unlikely that he'll be reading this entry.  I think it's safe to say that John has much bigger fish to fry. 

Gnomic Statements VIII.

Honestly, I had no idea that Mormons weren't allowed to wear short shorts.

- Sid