Abandonment - Part 2

You say you've missed the Earth shattering first instalment of the further adventures of Ed and Leslie! Look no further, here's Part 1.

Some say that when you're about to depart this world you'll see a bright light guiding you to the next. I saw some bright lights. They didn't lead to the pearly gates, but to a standard issue, industrial grade, overhead LED light fixture. I was lying flat on my back in a gurney staring up at a ceiling. 

My head hurt. 

I scrunched around a bit and propped myself up on my elbows to look around. I was in a long corridor where both walls were lined bumper-to-bumper with gurneys and patients. Some were sleeping, others hiding from the world under covers. There was silence and crying and moaning and cries for a nurse. At the far end was a waiting area with some chairs and a few vending machines. In front of the one dispensing coffee there was a woman trying to coax some liquid into a paper cup. I'd know her from a mile away. It was Leslie.

With coffee secured, she turned toward me. Our eyes locked in recognition. I was feeling a little light headed and eased back into the gurney as she walked toward me.

She sat in the chair beside my gurney and carefully placed her coffee on the floor. 

"How are you?"

"Ok, I guess, but I have a headache. What am I doing here?"

"You don't remember?"

"No."

She reached through the bed's safety bars, held my hand and said, "You fell while you were trying to get on a streetcar and hit your head on the ground. You're in Confederation Hospital."

"I don't remember that."

"Do you remember anything?"

"I know you and I went to visit Mary's lab, and when we were done we walked out to the streetcar stop. There weren't any cars around, so you went over to the cafe to get a coffee. When I saw a car coming to the stop I called you to come. Then I woke up here just now."

Leslie looked me in the eye and picked up where my memory failed. "When you called I turned and saw the car coming into the stop. I turned back to pay and then heard a crash. I spun around and saw a big truck had crashed into the back of the streetcar. The crowd at the stop parted a bit and I saw you on the ground. I dropped my coffee and ran over."

"What happened?"

"The police told me the driver said that when the car door opened, you put one foot on the step, and when the truck hit, there was a jolt, you stumbled, bounced off the door frame, fell on the ground, and hit your head."

"A truck was in the streetcar lane?"

"The cop said the driver was drunk and drove over the streetcar lane's curb. He was driving too fast too."

"I don't remember any of that." I paused and continued, "All I remember is when I woke up just now I had a feeling like I'd talked to Adams. Of all people. It was a strange feeling."

"Well, you were mumbling while you were on the ground. It sounded like you were having a conversation. You did mention his name."

Leslie let go of my hand and reached for her coffee. She took a sip, and after a few sips more she continued, "The cops said they'll probably come by today to talk to you. There's going to be an investigation." She stopped and took another sip from the cup. She looked tired.

I asked her, "How long have I been here?"

"About twelve hours. They brought you in around ten last night."

"Have you been here all night?"

"Yes."

"Thanks for staying." I hate these places, so I was compelled to ask, "Did they say when I can get out?"

"They want to keep you here today to do some more tests, but they say you seem ok."

A nurse and orderly made their way down the hall and stopped at my bed. The nurse looked at Leslie and said, "Mrs. Bryce, we're going to take your husband to the scan lab and then to a room when they're done." The orderly released the gurney's brakes and steered me out into hall traffic.

Missus Bryce? What else had I forgotten? I gave Leslie a questioning look with my eyebrows raised as high as my aching forehead allowed.

She gave me an equally raised eyebrow look, waved, and called to me as they wheeled me away, "I'll see you in your room when you're done, hubby."

Part 3 is here.

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Understory

Throughout the series I've tried to have some fun with names and places. Here's a guide. These days even I can't tell the players without a program :-)

Ed Bryce: Edward was my paternal grandfather's name, and Bryce is from Utah's Bryce Canyon. I wanted this character to have a somewhat macho name even though he's usually less than macho. After working at the Fortran Corporation, he became a Special Investigator at OSI, but wound up getting dismissed as a consequence of the Adams affair.

Dr. Leslie Warden: Named after two roads in Toronto, Leslie Street and Warden Avenue. For awhile Leslie was the principal research scientist on fusor development at the Office of Scientific Investigations. Leslie figured out the mathematics behind making the fusor reaction stable. She quit OSI after her breakthrough when OSI then decided to transfer - without her and her team - the now viable fusor technology to a military department in order to remove it from the civilian world. After her departure, Leslie was falsely suspected of stealing prototype fusors.

Zachariah Adams: A high level bureaucrat at the federal government's Office of Scientific Investigations (OSI). I wanted him to have a biblical sounding name. He's not the kind of person you'd ever call Zach, although he sometimes used the rather pompous alias, Zed. Adams is short and thin, around 5'-6", but has a voice like Darth Vader. He has a daughter in Ottawa and a gambling problem.

Jess Bryce: Short for Jessie, short for Jessica. She was an artist and Ed Bryce's wife. They divorced during Ed's probationary period at OSI.

Donna Martin: An ex-OSI scientist who was thought to have stolen prototype fusors from OSI. She killed Constable Robert McMillan with a fusor and wound up in a prison know as The Hole. The Hole was known as The Hole because it was built into an abandoned open-pit iron mine. When Leslie disappeared after quitting OSI she used 'Donna' as an assumed name.

Mrs. Jane Warden: Jane is also a street in Toronto. She's made only one appearance so far. Although not yet revealed, she's Leslie's sister-in-law.

Michael: I never gave him a last name. He was Leslie's husband, but I never resolved last names, and just assumed Leslie continued to use her own name after marriage. Leslie and Michael got divorced soon after Leslie quit OSI.

Professor Mary Ellesmere: The Ellesmere part is named after Toronto's Ellesmere Road. She runs the University of New Toronto's Centre for Rail Guided Transportation, a completely fictional university and department. 

Andy Dumont: Named in honour of Alberto Santos-Dumont, the aviation pioneer. Andy is an airship pilot for a clandestine blimp development group operating on Vancouver Island. 

Cathy: No last name. Another member of the Vancouver Island based blimp development group.

David Ryan: A physics professor on Vancouver Island specializing in InterTrack Routing Protocols. Many years earlier David and Leslie worked together in Montreal and had an affair.

Helen Ryan: David Ryan's wife.

The InterTrack Network: Sometimes just referred to as the IT. A vast network of railed paths criss-crossing Canada. As our Intenet is to telecommunications, so the InterTrack is to rail transportation. Routing is governed by the InterTrack Routing Protocols.

University of New Toronto's Centre for Rail Guided Transportation: A group in the University of New Toronto's physics department with a near 1-to-1 model layout simulation of New Toronto's electrified transit system. They publish a magazine called Model Rail Experimenter. The Lone Trainmen work out of this group.

New Toronto: Throughout the series it's hinted that there's been a large-scale war in what we'd call North America. New Toronto is built on what's left of Toronto. The story takes place in New Toronto 20 or 30 years after it's been mostly reconstructed. Transportation in New Toronto is more-or-less all electrified. It's mainly streetcars and subways, but there are some cars and trucks. Although transportation is sophisticated, telecommunications technologies are rather backward in New Toronto's world, and are reminiscent of what we'd associate with the '40s though the '70s, with a crude proto-internet thrown into the mix 

The Lone Trainmen: An homage to The X-Files' Lone Gunmen. A secret society of streetcar builders and advocates. The Lone Trainmen so far only has women members.

Frank Madwood: He runs a business called Model Investigations, and sometimes hosts a call-in radio show on WMRR. Where did the name Madwood come from? I wanted something that sounded crazy and ridiculous. He's an injured war veteran who picked up model building via making aircraft recognition models as part of his rehabilitation. 

Model Investigations: A business run by Frank Madwood that does scale model related research, building, and investigations in the broadest possible sense.

The Office of Scientific Investigations: A semi-secret federal government department focused on early stage technical and scientific research, as well as evaluating developments in science and technology in the wider world. Sometimes referred to as OSI.

Fusor: A device about the size of a deck of cards that generates energy via a cold fusion process. Mostly considered a curiosity as the fusor reaction was highly unstable and couldn't be made to run without eventually exploding. While Leslie was at OSI she figured out how to stabilize the reaction and eliminate those nasty explosions. Fusors act as a McGuffin throughout the series.

Rob and Bob Birney: They run Birney Brothers Custom Trams, which makes trams for movies. They built a Pacer tram for Duane's World, and a 350 Boss Birney for Bullitt.

Keon's Dounuts, Mahovlich's Dounuts, Ellis' Dounts: Donut store chains in Ottawa named after players on the 1967 Toronto Maple Leafs hockey team.

Constable Robert McMillan: A street-level OSI officer. He's gunned down with a fusor-based weapon.

Constables McFarland, Williams, and Logan: Low-level OSI officers.

Progress on highrise facade

While I'm squirrelled away at home I thought I'd make some progress on the new highrise.

That's the current state of the front facade in comparison to the prototype. I've done considerable selective compression to get the model down to a size that won't overwhelm the layout, but still have it come across as tall. 

The technique I've used is a similar to that used on the previous highrise, but now that I've got a little experience, construction has gone a bit faster.

The first step was to draw locating lines for the horizontal panels on the acrylic pieces. A black, fine-point Sharpie pen was used.

On this model only the front and one side will have the prototype's signature horizontal and vertical elements. The other two sides will be simple brick walls. 

The horizontal panels were cut from a scrap of black construction paper. At this stage I've just laid them on the blanks to check the count and sizes.

They were then attached to the blank with 3M transfer tape. This is an excellent double-sided tape, but you've got to be careful when bonding pieces because it grabs immediately and doesn't allow much wiggle room for adjustments.

Once all the panels were stuck down they were trimmed and a roller was used to make sure all were bonded down tight.

Next, placement lines for the verticals were drawn on the horizontals with a sharp pencil. I scribbled in an X to mark each piece that would need to be cut out to make room for the verticals.

Vertical lines were then scribed on in accordance with the pencil lines. I had to make sure each line cleanly cut through the horizontals so that the Xed pieces could be removed without tearing.

All I can say is that you can feel when the knife has cut through the paper and is making contact with the acrylic. Once you've done that there's no need to scribe any further.

The Xed pieces can be lifted out by sliding a knife blade under each one. One thing missing from the photo is that I used the pointer finger on my left-hand to push down the blade just a little to help the blade slide along the acrylic instead of pushing into it - I had to use my left-hand to take the photo, hence the inaccurate picture :-)

Removing the Xed pieces doesn't take long, and when it's done you're left with a panelled surface ready for the verticals to be attached. 

There's probably an easier way to do this, so don't take any of this work as definitive. These highrises are way out of my comfort zone, and I admit to making things up as I go along.

The last step was to attach the verticals. They're pieces of Evergreen 3/16" styrene channel.

I painted them an aged concrete colour, and then a thin flat black wash. When dry I stuck a length of transfer tape on the back of each, and then attached them to the acrylic. 

Problem was I thought I had enough channels, but it turned out I'm 6 short. With the local hobby shops closed, I'll try ordering some online somewhere. That's not my favourite thing as I like to try and support local businesses.

After close examination it looks like some of the horizontals are a bit short and will need replacement, and I'll need to do some touch-up painting to prevent light leaks. Overall though, compared with the prototype it seems to be coming along.

Modeling a Homestead in 1869

Cover image on Harper's Weekly, February 13, 1869

Vince and I have been having an ongoing discussion into whether any aspect of the sub-hobby of making miniature buildings for model railroads has any folk art roots - it came up again in a discussion about Samurai Crafts. Folk art miniature buildings isn't an established category, and I must admit to basing my thoughts about this on a single book, American Folk Art Buildings: Collection of Steven Burke & Randy Campbell, which isn't a good thing to do, but I find they make a compelling argument, and it's a good starting point for some investigation.

In the Burke & Campbell book they mention a story that appeared on the cover of the February 13, 1869 issue of Harper's Weekly. The magazine's cover shows a picture of man, surrounded by his family, making a model of a house. Under the picture it says, MODELING A HOMESTEAD - [See Page 105.]. It turns out that 151 years later, page 105 can be found in Google Books. I was hoping to find some instructions on how to build the little model, maybe giving some fodder for the folk art argument, but here's what I found,

The group represented on our first page is very suggestive. During the long winter evenings what occupation can be more interesting to the family gathered about the fireside than that of "modeling a homestead?" The first question with birds - the first problem they set about solving - is that of nest-building. With every frugal lords, or shall we build for ourselves, and upon our own plans, such as our several necessities and our tastes suggest?

The freedom from thraldom of rent is in itself a great end to be secured. But this is by no means all. The homestead, which is the outward and material symbol of the spiritual significance of home, should become ours no simply by legal possession; it should be an outgrowth from our own souls, stamped with the impress of our own thoughts. The robin can not build a nest for the swallow; and why should Mr. Boodle or Mr. Coddle build a homestead for you or me? 

Of course we may need to consult those who are more experienced than ourselves as to materials best adapted to certain ends, as to cost, or as to the practicability of our plans, considering the means at our disposal. But every good housewife knows exactly what sort of kitchen or pantry would suit her best. Every family can agree as to what would be the nicest kind of parlour for itself, or what kind of sitting-room would precisely meet its ideas of comfort and cheerfulness. Even the hall can have a sort of individuality impress upon it, so that the first entrance of a stranger would disclose some hint as the taste of the occupants. The size of the bedrooms and the character of their finishing; the convenience and abundance of closet-room; the number, arrangement and shape of the windows; the style of portico or piazza; every thing, in fact, from the floor of the cellar to the chimney-top is a subject for mature deliberation, and the exercise of individual tastes. The house we live in, not less than the garments we wear, should furnish some indication of our predilections.

The first thing is the determination to build; such a purpose will furnish an additional motive to economy and thrift. The comes the planning - the delicious occupation of many pleasant hours spent in family consultation. Even the youngest members of the household are interested, and may participate in the work.

The outlined sketches of plans on paper are by no means satisfactory. Therefore our group in the illustration prefers modelling. This may be done either by the use of wooden blocks or of cardboard; the latter being more convenient, because more easily managed. In this way a perfect model can be shaped of the future homestead. It is a happy little fireside company, which we recommend to our readers. Let us hope that the house will not only be modeled but built, and that it will shelter those who will always be as ready to co-operate with and help each other as they do now in this "modeling of a homestead."

So, I'd say this was more about trying out a planning activity that was used by architects - the architect T. A. Richardson published a book 10 years earlier in 1859 called The Art of Architectural Modelling in Paper that gave instructions and advocated paper models as planning and promotional tools - than engaging in a hobby or art. I don't think this advances the folk art argument, but it does imply the making of miniature buildings was not considered outside the realm of possibility for middle class people who might read a mainstream publication like Harper's Weekly, although I suspect it was harder to get a good result than is breathlessly implied by the story and the cover picture.

Samurai on the Rocks

 

Samurai this and Samurai that got me thinking about the 1/24 scale Suzuki Samurai kit by Fujimi I built many years ago. When it was done I took it with me on a country trip to get some outdoor photos in natural light.

The Foundations of Samurai Aerodynamics

In Samurai Crafts I mentioned that Kuethe and Chow's book, Foundations of Aerodynamics, has a minor role in Helen DeWitt's novel, The Last Samurai. That was surprising to me because besides the rarity of the mathematics of aerodynamics being discussed, however briefly, in any literary novel, K&C's textbook was the one used in the introduction to aerodynamics course I took when I was an undergrad. The only difference being the edition mentioned in TLS was the 1986 one, and my class used the previous one from 1976. The first edition was published in 1950. The book was one of the best in the field, and maybe still is.

Ludo, the child prodigy and TLS's main character, receives a copy of an aerodynamics textbook from Sibylla, his mother, for his birthday; I think from the story's chronology it was his 7th, maybe 8th. I, on the other hand, didn't buy a copy of K&C until I was 20 or so. When I was 7 or 8 I couldn't spell aerodynamics let alone deal with its mathematics. At this point in the story the book's title isn't mentioned, and Sibylla buys it on the strength of the perceived humour in the passage about calculating the manoeuvrability of a grebe in water by approximating its body with an appropriately sized sphere, and on its use of classic 18th and 19th century math, which she thinks shouldn't be that difficult for her son to grasp.

It seems to me though that he does find it hard to grasp. There are several passages where Ludo picks up the text and tries to make headway, but soon puts it down in favour of some other book. It isn't until much later in the novel that Ludo confesses,

I put down Scientific American and picked up my book on aerodynamics. Sometimes I thought I understood it and sometimes it was hard to follow, and when it was hard to follow it wasn't easy to tell what would help; the thing that would really help would be to be able to ask someone who didn't sum up the mathematics required as 18th 19th century stuff. Any idiot can learn a language, all you have to do is keep going and sooner or later it all makes sense, but with mathematics you have to understand one thing to understand another, and you can't always tell what the first thing is that you have to understand. And even then either you see it or you don't. You can waste a lot of time trying to work out what you need to known and a lot more time just trying to see it.

When I read that a wave of deja vu and sympathy washed over me.

I'm an aerodynamicist by training, but I had a hard time with my first encounter with the subject. My introductory class seemed to me to approach the subject from a purely mathematical standpoint, and it wasn't clear why certain methods and assumptions were applied. The instruction had a strong air of 'that stuff should be quite self-evident' about it. I should note that the class wasn't taught to the K&C book; it turned out the book was only used as a reference. It took me a long time to dig into the experiments and observations of the early pioneers to finally appreciate why certain mathematical approaches were used. So, to be candid, it didn't help me that experts well versed in the mathematics of the subject were teaching it. What I needed was pre-mathematical insight into the physical nature of what was going on.

Back then I did a lot of reading into aerodynamics' early experimenters and writers. I eventually figured out that many of the fundamental physical insights and observations came from Fredrick W. Lanchester, and were discussed in his 1907 book Aerodynamics. I don't have a copy, but I borrowed it many times from the university library back in the day. The mathematical edifice Ludo encountered didn't exist when it was written, and it turns out it was the work that allowed practical mathematical approaches to be developed. I only mention this old thing because this pioneering work is a great combination of words and pictures, and that's what I think should be the first approach into the subject. 

You don't need to seek out Lanchester's book as there are later ones that will give you a physical sense of the field and are light on the math, but don't talk down to you. I haven't practiced in the field for a very long time, so I'm not up-to-date on good recent books, but there are a couple of old ones that I like. One is The Science of Flight by O. G. Sutton. It was first published in 1949 and updated in 1955. It's a charming Pelican Book, and includes reprints of a number of the more crucial pages from Lanchester's book. Another choice is Aerodynamics: Selected Topics in the Light of Their Historical Development by Theodore Von Karman. It was first published in 1954, but Dover published the second 1957 version in 2004. A somewhat more modern choice is The Simple Science of Flight: From Insects to Jumbo Jets by Henk Tennekes. It was published by the MIT Press in 1997.

I guess from our vantage point 113 years after the publication of Lanchester's book, maybe aerodynamic flight does seem like a simple science, but I continue to think of it as The Beautiful Science. Flow visualization, along with physical observation, have been key to its development as has mathematical insight. I've found that triumvirate fascinating, and have often thought of aerodynamics as a form of sculpture, where what is being sculpted is the air around a moving body.

When I was Ludo's age there was a period when my father would sometimes take me to a local hill to fly a windup toy airplane. It was small and very forgiving in a crash, so it was easy to try and launch it over and over, making small adjustments, until we got a few nice flights. Even for an adult, if aerodynamics and flight is something you want to learn, that's where to start.

A beautiful spring day

Regardless of viruses and lockdowns and isolation, the natural world goes on. It was a beautiful spring day. +12C on the back porch, so no model building, just soaking up the sun.

Abandonment - Part 1

Here in Ottawa most places are closed down to help prevent the transmission of coronavirus and people are self-isolating. Do what you should to slow the spread and take care. In the meantime, being at home and all, I thought I'd finish some writing I started back in December and travel back to the weird, electric streets of New Toronto :-) Join me now for some new pulse-pounding adventures of mayhem and streetcars ....

"What makes you think you're dead?"

"For one thing I'm here talking to you, and you jumped in front of a subway car right in front of my eyes."

Talk about fronts. I was putting on a brave one. Yeah, here I was sitting on a nice couch, and across from me, sitting on an equally nice couch, was Zachariah Adams. The same Zachariah Adams who jumped on the track at the Crombie subway station just as the train was pulling in. The same Zachariah Adams who I'm told was scraped off every surface and traumatized me and the driver and all those poor souls on the platform who witnessed his departure. 

"Well, yes, but I'm feelin' better now."

"And you're talking funny. You never used to use contractions. You were strictly a full pronunciation man as I recall."

"I've mellowed."

"Mellowed? Are they adding marijuana smoke to the ventilation system down here?"

"Down here? You think you're dead and in hell too? These are pleasant couches, not boiling cauldrons of sulphur."

Adams shifted his weight a bit and plumped a nearby cushion.

"You're the one who committed suicide and I'm sitting here talking to you. The signs don't look too good to me."

Things in general were starting to look not so good to me.

Things were starting to go dark. 

I had this odd feeling of no longer fully inhabiting my body. I felt like I was contracting into a sphere just behind my eyes and was simply pulling some strings to make my arms and legs move. I was now a puppet master and my body was the puppet.

Way off in the distance I heard a woman scream my name.

She continued with,"Stay with me! You're not leaving me!"

I was confused.

"Adams, your voice is a lot higher than it used to be," I mumbled to the other couch. His deep, Vaderian voice was the first thing I noticed about him when we met. His little body didn't seem like it could produce anything so commanding. It seemed weird that now he sounded like a woman.

"I'm not Adams. He's dead. I'm Leslie."

Leslie? I tried getting up from my couch using all my puppet master skills. Trying to move my arms and legs seemed to help push back the darkness. Why did I think I was lounging on a couch? My clearing eyesight told me I was lying on my back in the middle of some road. The ground was cold. It was night. I could see flashing red, blue and yellow lights nearby. I could hear sirens and honking horns and shouts. My head hurt.

I turned my head to the left and saw Leslie kneeling beside me on the pavement.

I turned my head to the right and saw Adams standing by my side. He looked down at me and said, "You'll be fine. I've a job I need you to do."

I turned my head back to the left and saw that a uniformed man was now kneeling beside Leslie. He looked me in the eye and said, "Sir, I'm with emergency services. May I help you?" I think I said yes.

I turned my head to the right again. Adams was gone.

Part 2 can be found here.

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Understory

My first attempt at a streetcar / model railroading / '30s-'40s noir pulp novella was Light Ray Blues, which I started back in the fall of 2012, and finished in late summer 2013. Until the E. L. Moore series got going it was the most hit series of posts here at 30Squares. 

There were a lot ideas I wanted to play with in Light Ray Blues, which included: how a single, unforeseen event in a person's hum-drum existence could permanently change their direction in life; show that day-to-day life in a world with more-or-less completely electrified transportation would still be full of crime, deceit, selfishness, and all the usual vices; connect model streetcar layouts with storytelling. And, most importantly, I wanted to have some fun with Chandler-esque dialogue, weird streetcar aficionados, inventing places in New Toronto, and concocting a strange, alternative electrified Canada.

Light Ray Blues, Series 2 didn't get started until the spring of 2015. There was a long publication gap between June 2015 and September 2016 when I picked up the series again and finally finished. 

I'm layout building again and feeling the strange pull back to New Toronto. I don't know where this will go - although I've got 10 instalments in the bag that set up Ed and Leslie in a direction for new adventures - but I figured I couldn't resist the ride.

Street painting prep

After building and installing the streetcar apron in the west end module, it looks like Ocean Boulevard is ready for painting.

I've been taking some time to study my street photos in an attempt to get the colours right - or as close to rights as I can. One thing that made itself quite clear though is that there is a surprising amount of detail in and around a street. For example, in one King St. photo I noted 6 manhole covers in just one intersection, as well as a considerable number and variety of street markings. So, I think this might take a while to get to an acceptable state. But, that's the fun of it :-)

Samurai Crafts

I recently finished reading Helen DeWitt's book The Last Samurai. I've heard about it for a long time, and some reviewers were claiming it to be the best novel published so far in the 21st century. Be that as it may, I kept putting it off. 

Being at home and having time on my hands I finally decided to give it a go. However, it was with some apprehension as I thought it might be a struggle to get into as say Infinite Jest was, which took me at least 50 pages before it started to click, and I required a long break when I was about half through. I was dead wrong about TLS. I was engrossed right from the beginning, and surprised myself that in 6 days I'd finished it. 

I'm not going to get into a detailed discussion about the main themes and plot, just note a couple of sub-themes that hit home: hobbyist magazines, and Kuethe and Chow's textbook Foundations of Aerodynamics.

The story centres around child prodigy, Ludo, and his mother Sibylla.  Part of Sibylla's backstory is that she lost her place at Oxford, then took a job as a secretary at a small publisher to forestall returning to the US, then lost that job when her mentor left the company. Luckily, to further postpone leaving England, Sibylla's mentor provided her an opportunity to type articles from various popular hobby magazines into a database that the publisher was building as part of a project on 20th century language. On the upside, Sibylla could work from home, but on the downside the job only paid £ 5.50 / hour and she's a single mother with a child to support; a child who we'd commonly think of as a prodigy. Although, one of the main themes investigated in the story is whether prodigies are simply children who are given the opportunities they need when they need them, whereas so-called normal children are those who, for whatever reason, are not provided with opportunities or resources they need when they need them that would make them better and happier. Stated a little more crudely, is it nature or nurture that makes the difference.

Throughout the book, Sibylla's work on transcribing articles from hobby magazines is cast as a scathing commentary on what constitutes normal interests and reading material in contrast to her ongoing attempts to continue to live an intellectual life regardless of her situation. We're treated to some wry commentary as she types in articles from mid-20th century magazines with these titles,

Melody Maker

Advanced Angling

Pig Fancier's Monthly

Weaseller's Companion

Mother and Child

You and Your Garden

British Home Decorator

Horn & Hound

The Poodle Breeder

Practical Caravanning

The Modern Knitter

Tropical Fish Hobbyist

Magazine of the Parrot Society

Carpworld

International Cricketer

Sportsboat and Waterski International

British Ostrichkeeper

Are any real? Are they all just made-up? Some are eye-rolling: British Ostrichkeeper, Carpworld, Weaseller's Companion, Pig Fancier's Monthly ! Some have an uncanny reality: International Cricketer, Mother and Child, Tropical Fish Hobbyist. It hardly matters which are real and which aren't as Sibylla's point is that this material - what we'd refer to today as 'content' - is a waste of our precious life compared to spending time with the world's intellectual riches. Throughout she implies that this has happened because our childhood education and development has been squandered, and we don't know any better than to overly concern ourselves with practical diversions as exemplified by our banal recreational reading material. Although, the skewering is funny, and I particularly liked this passage on Practical Caravanning,

PRACTICAL CARAVANNING said Sibylla. What in God's name is practical about caravanning and why in God's name should the word 'Practical' be thought to add appeal to the activity am I yet again in the market of one? Impractical Caravanning. Impractical Boating. Impractical Knitting. I would buy any of the above and I have not the slightest interest in knitting, boating or, God help me, caravanning.

Let me add: Impractical Model Railroading, Impractical Scale Modelling, Impractical Scale Model Streetcars. I have more than a slight interest in them and I'd buy any of those :-)

All this cuts close to home as I spend a lot of time with this type of material, and have even gone as far as suggesting some of it forms a literature, and at one time, and maybe still does, a folk art :-) 

It's interesting to note what sorts of hobby magazines haven't be satirized: those that at one time in the 20th century covered what were then referred to as the mechanical hobbies. Miniature and model airplanes, boats, cars, trains, clocks, engines, and so on. Magazines that taught skills, presented how-tos, reported on news, contests and products, ran ads, showed off projects, and told stories. At times the material was what we might call STEM-oriented in that it was hoped to provide a training ground for future engineers and technologists. At other times the material was simply for hobbyists and enthusiasts. I'd also argue that some of the material was old folk art practices migrating into the consumerizing world. The best of them combined thought and handwork that allowed readers to improve their chosen craft; the worst merely acted as conduits to sell loads of ready-to-use products to acquisitive and passive consumers. But, one major failing, one that still exists today in many venues, is understanding and recognizing the history and development of the various fields, as well as the threads into other aspects of thought and life.

I'd counter Sibylla's critique that as far as craft, and its attendant magazines and journals, is concerned - and we're not talking about modern-day, touchy-feely therapeutic pastimes, but the more traditional ones - developing skills that interweave thought and handwork, at whatever age, is a long, deeply human, and honourable activity. Not completely intellectual, not rote, but involving and thoughtful. Should one engage in craft? Which ones? What is the right age to start? I'll agree with Sibylla on this though, I don't think we live in a society that knows or cares.

After writing this and thinking about it a bit more I can see I need to understand more about definitions, similarities, differences and popular concepts of arts and crafts and hobbies.

And what about Foundations of Aerodynamics? I've gone on too long and I'll leave that for another time.

Starting a new highrise

I thought I'd get out of puttering-around mode and start a new highrise. I'm finding them to be challenging, but that helps take my mind off things. I might try laying out several at the same time to keep things interesting. The pieces shown above are for the highrise to the left of the Canadian Press building shown below. Although these two aren't Toronto landmarks, their facades are fascinating: one has a very '60s / '70s vibe with its strong vertical elements, and the other has that great wall of square windows that will allow for interesting scene staging. 

And yes, a streetcar does go by, so these two could be classified as lineside structures :-)

Paving the western end of Ocean Boulevard

You may have noticed in the United Transit Twins video that some road work had been done on the new Ocean Boulevard module that leads into Ocean Park. I've used various thicknesses of sheet styrene to build up areas for buildings, sidewalks, and the roadway up to the edge of the rail. To complete I need to add in the streetcar apron over the tracks.

I also played around with some building placement to see how the scene might come together.