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Some people really want to build a space elevator. Part of me thrills to this idea; another part of me — having read Kim Stanley Robinson’s Mars Trilogy — is scared by giving the bin Ladens of the world such a tempting target. But that, I suppose, would be a point in favor of building it. And what a sight that cable would be! I wonder how far away from the Earthbound-terminal one could be and still see the thing. I wonder how much economic activity would spring up around that terminal, wherever it is. I wonder where that terminalDown the rabbit hole….

Reviews of John Williams’s score to Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones are starting to pop up on the Web and Usenet, including this one from Ain’t It Cool News. The good news is that so far the buzz on the score is very positive. The bad news is that the thing isn’t going to be released until April 23. It’s going to be a long four weeks…. (….assuming, of course, that I do not succumb to temptation and track down the MP3’s of the thing that are circulating now….must resist the Dark Side….) Share This PostDown the rabbit hole….

IMAGE OF THE WEEK Icon of Christ Pantokrator, Mount Athos Monastery I’ve been somewhat interested in Byzantine mosaic ever since I read Guy Gavriel Kay’s Sarantine Mosaic duology, in which the protagonist is a mosaicist. There is something fascinating in a wondrous image being constructed from thousands of tiny pieces of glass. Particularly amazing is the detail in Christ’s beard — no uniform brown, but definite contours and light patches. I had never realized that this level of detail is possible in mosaic; the mosaics that I have seen tend to be done with larger tesserae, giving the images aDown the rabbit hole….

I posted a long-winded review of Howard Shore’s Oscar-winning score to The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring to the rec.music.movies newsgroup. It can be read, via Google, here. Share This PostDown the rabbit hole….

I keep repeating to myself, like a Zen mantra, “The Oscars are meaningless….the Oscars are meaningless….the Oscars are meaningless….” Or, I borrow from William Goldman: “There is no ‘best’….there is no ‘best’….there is no ‘best’….” ….and yet I’m still annoyed that Ian McKellan didn’t win an Oscar. Oh well, maybe the Academy is waiting to see what he does in The Two Towers, when Gandalf the Grey becomes Gandalf the White….or maybe they’re just a bunch of dingbats. I’d like to believe the former, but I fear that the “dingbat” theory will have to hold sway for now. But atDown the rabbit hole….

Until today, if asked to name the single worst decision made by a sports figure in the last year (meaning decisions directly related to onfield-happenings, leaving out things like Jeff Kent’s apparent motorcycle ride/truck washing), I would have named St. Louis Rams head coach Mike Martz’s bizarre decision in the Super Bowl to only give Marshall Faulk seventeen carries, despite the facts that Faulk averaged 4.5 yards per carry in that game and the Patriots played the entire game in a defensive scheme that practically rolled out the red carpet for a power running game. That was a godawful decision,Down the rabbit hole….

One of the better writers of the space opera subgenre in science fiction is Timothy Zahn. His novels set in the Star Wars universe are probably the best available, and I’ve just finished Conquerors’ Heritage, the second volume in his Conquerors trilogy. This is the story of a war between spacefaring humanity and what is at first presented as a ruthless conquering alien race called the Zhirzh. However, the second book of the trilogy is told from the Zhirzh point of view, and the war takes on a new light as it becomes clear that the whole thing is theDown the rabbit hole….

Congratulations to Timothy Goebel, who just won the silver at the World Figure Skating Championships in Nagano, Japan. (Of course, had Evgeny Pleshenko competed Goebel probably would have finished bronze.) As for the new World Champion, what can be said? Alexei Yagudin is far and away better than anyone else skating right now. Share This PostDown the rabbit hole….

Just finished: Piano Lessons: Music, Love and True Adventures by Noah Adams. Adams, a commentator for NPR, wrote this book to recount a year he spent attempting to learn how to play the piano. It’s a charming book that tells the story of what might be considered a kind of “midlife crisis”. Share This PostDown the rabbit hole….

There is always something kind of goofy about the World Championships of Figure Skating during Olympic years. They’re always held just a month or so after the Games, and they invariably feel a tad anticlimactic, especially since just about all of the skaters use the exact same programs with which they competed in the Olympics, and some of the newly-crowned Olympic champions or runners-up end up not competing at Worlds. Notable absences this year include America’s Sarah Hughes and Russia’s Evgeny Pleshenko. (Not that it matters in the latter case; Alexei Yagudin right now is the skating equivalent of theDown the rabbit hole….