"We're Back, and This Time We're Here to Stay!"

What would the future look like if we’d already colonized the Moon by now? That’s the question Ben Bova answers in his book Welcome to Moonbase, my latest discovery during my weeding mission. The book was published in 1987 but is presented as an educational document from some undetermined point in the future when people are living and working on the Moon. In the course of presenting our future on the Moon, Bova gives a brief history of space exploration, from its beginnings in the mid-20th century all the way to the “present-day”, when life on the Moon is just another fact of life for humans.

One of the most fun parts of Moonbase is Bova’s history of space exploration from 1990 to 2010, Bova’s speculation of what his future held and an alternate version of what could have happened in our past. Up until the 1980s, Bova’s history of space exploration fell right in line with everything we learned in school. Around 1990, though, Bova’s speculation and our reality take a sharp detour from each other.

In Bova’s speculative outline of the future:

• An official lunar program began in 1995. Prior to that, a lunar underground had brewed within government agencies and the aerospace community, as plans for permanent occupancy of the Moon took shape.
• We made several innovations in space transportation, including improved shuttles, vehicles designed to move heavy loads into low Earth orbit, and vehicles built in orbit and designed to remain in space.
• In 2001, a team of American astronauts landed on the surface of the Moon for the first time in decades, beginning the process of permanent lunar occupation. The team leader’s first words after landing: “We’re back, and this time we’re here to stay!” The following years saw several achievements in lunar exploration, including the first overland traverse on the Moon in 2006 and the first successful circumnavigation of the Moon in 2009.
• 2003 marked the first formal celebration of Christmas on the Moon. Dinner consisted of prepackaged frozen turkey, Beluga caviar, and plum pudding laced with brandy.
• By 2009, several temporary lunar bases had been established.

Reading one person’s version of what we could have achieved in space exploration is fascinating, but it’s also kind of a downer when I think about all the things that we didn’t do. Instead of setting up shop on the Moon, we’re about to mothball all our shuttles with no immediate replacement at hand. Bova’s work is all speculation presumably based on the rate of scientific advancements at the time he was writing. It was, by no means, ever fated to happen. But there’s always that lingering question of “What if …”

Bova, Ben. Welcome to Moonbase.  New York: Ballantine Books, 1987.

Chinese Water Torture... In My Kitchen

Sunday night I was trying to watch Adventures in Babysitting for the first time since 1988, but the drip from my kitchen faucet kept distracting me. I started wondering exactly how much water I was losing, so I set the timer on my phone for one minute and started counting. (This made perfect sense to me, but apparently not everyone is as interested in their drips!) After only 30 seconds, I had already reached 65 drips! I figured that was a substantial enough number to constitute a good sample and so I multiplied by two. (I explain my tangential methodology in order to remark on how similarly counting drips compares to calculating a pulse rate. I find it oddly apt: The health of my kitchen sink is at risk!)

130 drips in just one minute! That equals 187,200 drips in one day--a number thatseems awfully high to me. I found this nifty drip calculator over at the US Geological Survey's website and got down to some number-crunching. They use an estimated value of 1 drip =1/4 mL. So,

130 drips=1 minute...

7,800 drips=60 minutes...

187,200 drips=24 hours

Divide by 4 to get milliliters...

46,800 milliliters lost in 24 hours!

I saved myself a little time and used a metric to non-metric converter to discover that I am losing 12.36 gallons of water in just one day. Now THAT's a lot of water!

Just in case you're worried, my faucet was fixed Monday morning!

Hometown Mississippi: Benton and Bolivar Counties

This blog post originally appeared 12/3/07.

Moving on alphabetically in our Hometown Mississippi series, we'll take a brief look at some interesting names in Benton and Bolivar counties, MS.


Benton County

Michigan City
Five men from (guess where) Michigan settled this town in 1959 with the intentions of starting up a flour mill. The flour mill did not appear until 1870, but General Grant occupied the grand home of one of the original settlers, Hugh Davis, for many months during the Civil War.

Bolivar County

Alligator
Began as a railroad stop in 1883 and derives its name from Alligator Lake and its many inhabitants.

Catfish Point
This town, settled on land granted by the government in 1832, was named for the many inhabitants of nearby waters as well. However, a broken levee and the subsequent building of a new levee in 1890 could not save Catfish Point from becoming part of the waters of its namesake.
 
Chambers
This settlement is interesting simply for its name changes. First named Winstonville in 1908, for Mike Winston, a local landowner, then changed to Chambers in 1910 for a local salesman, and finally a third name, Wyandotte, adopted in 1931. The Post Office at Chambers officially became Winstonville once more in 1925. I suppose you can still call it Wyandotte if you're feeling brave.

Christmas Crossing
This place is merely the site of the plantation of Judge Christmas, named for him in 1885.

Content Landing
The Content Plantation adopted Content Landing on the river in 1884. Sadly, like old Catfish Point, the landing fell victim to the flood in 1927.

Germania
This town was settled in 1900 by a group of (only one guess this time) German colonists.

Grapeland
Settled in 1833 by a single family, it is said to be named for the grape vine covering a large sycamore tree in the founding family's yard.

Gum Pond
Established in 1903 around a sawmill, the name is derived from the large quanitity of gum trees and the location's low altitude.

Mound Bayou
This name sounds almost like an oxymoron, but in actuality is derived from the many Indian mounds surrounding the location.

Stop's Landing
The history behind the name of this landing, established in 1833, is unknown, although could possibly be some crafty advertising. It too is among those settlements taken by the Mississippi River Flood of 1927.

Stringtown
Established in 1849, this settlement possibly derives its name from a long building-lined ditch on the original property, or a large plantation owner by the name of Stringer.
 
Brieger, James. Hometown Mississippi. 1980.

Yanker, Viver, Voover, Vown.

While weeding a few weeks ago--yep, we’re still weeding--I came across Uncertain Glory: Folklore and the American Revolution by Tristram Potter Coffin. We have many books on folklore, and I was in a weeding groove, not stopping for sentimentality, just assessing and removing books. Uncertain Glory needs to thank me for sparing it because I opened to a page that explains the origin of the Yankee Doodle song.

The tune itself is a folk tune, popular throughout 17th century England and Ireland. However, this Dutch folk rhyme somehow got itself attached to the ditty. Just try NOT singing along, will you?

Yanker, dudel, doodle, down,
Diddle, dudel, lanther;
Yanker, viver, voover, vown
Botermilk and tanther.

Apparently this is all about “Jan, the doodle, and his wages of milk plus a tenth of the harvested grain” (91). (This book doesn’t happen to explain what the heck a doodle is--I like how the explanation is all “oh, you know, Jan the doodle” like that’s a thing! Special thanks to the OED for explaining that a doodle is a silly or foolish fellow.)

Things really get interesting (or at least interesting to me) on the next page, as the evolution of the Yankee Doodle song come to the part most perplexing to the modern Yankee Doodle singer: macaroni. Stuck a feather in his cap and called it macaroni? I never got that. Until now! Allow me to quote at length:

“In the 15 years just before the American Revolution, there was a fad in London that centered on the Italian food. Macaroni clubs were formed. The men wore immense top knots of hair and small cocked hats. Clothes were tight-fitting, and walking sticks with long tassels were carried everywhere. Foppish manners were cultivated, and people embracing the fad served macaroni at all meals, developed macaroni schools of art, macaroni music. By extension, the word could be used to describe almost anything that was ‘in’ with the group. In the supposedly Cromwellian rime, the Lord Protector sticks a feather in a knot, a macaroni, on his hat, and putting on foppish ways, enters town on a silly Kentish pony. Such references tend to date this particular variant of the rime no earlier than the 1760s, and it is certain some other derogatory verse was sung to the old tune that day in Oxford more than 100 years before” (92).

Despite the fact that there is no source for this, I was enchanted at the idea of the macaroni clubs! Macaroni schools of art! Macaroni music! I think it’s obvious why clothes were tight-fitting: macaroni at every meal.

First, I thought this was hysterical. What funny people, getting so excited about macaroni! And then I thought about fads in general, and turned to Panati’s Parade of Fads, Follies, and Manias: The Origins of Our Most Cherished Obsessions by Charles Panati. Panati’s book reminded me that the following fads were just as weird and yet occupied the time of many, many people:

Goldfish swallowing
Ouija boards
Pet rocks
TV dinners
Flappers
Bouffant hair
Lava lamps
Rubik’s cubes
Cabbage Patch Kids
Pac Man

There’s no accounting for what with capture the imagination of a people, is there?

Coffin, Tristram Potter. Uncertain Glory: Folklore and the American Revolution: Folklore and the American Revolution. Detroit: Folklore Associates, 1971.

Panati, Charles. Panati’s Parade of Fads, Follies, and Manias: The Origins of Our Most Cherished Obsessions. HarperPerrenial, 1991.

Blues Tour of Mississippi

Over the long Memorial Day weekend, I decided to take a trip to Clarksdale to see the Blues Museum and check out Morgan Freeman’s club, Ground Zero. I had a great time perusing the museum’s collection of guitars, outfits, and other memorabilia. I also had a blast at Ground Zero and the few other blues clubs I visited. If you love the blues and want to check out some interesting sites this summer, come into MLC to check out Steve Cheseborough’s Blues Traveling: The Holy Sites of Delta Blues. This book provides some must see sites for every blues fan. One great feature about Cheseborough’s book is that it contains interesting sites from across the state. So wherever you live in Mississippi, you can find a blues site for a great day trip.
Here are a few examples:

If you’re a blues fan living in North Mississippi, Cheseborough suggests a trip to Oxford. Once there, you can visit the University of Mississippi Blues Archive which holds over thirty three thousand recordings. You can also find original posters and films devoted to blues studies. Also, north Mississippians can visit Aikei Pro’s Records Shop. A blues fan could spend hours sifting through old records to find their favorite musician.

If you live in the Jackson area, Cheseborough offers several great suggestions. One of the best, and closest, is the Robert Johnson Monument in Hazlehurst. Johnson, as most blues fans know, is probably the biggest name in blues, so quick trip to Hazlehurst is worth the short drive from Jackson. Fans can also find some blues artifacts housed in the Old Capitol Museum in downtown Jackson and take a trip to Farish Street while they’re out.

Blues Traveling: The Holy Sites of Delta Blues is an excellent source for any blues fan looking for a quick trip this summer. Cheseborough also offers some excellent advice for outsiders about how to behave once in Mississippi. My favorite:

“Walking into any bar where you are a stranger can be unnerving. And the apprehension can be magnified when you’re far from home and don’t dress or talk like the other people there, who all seem to know each other. Don’t, however, mistake your own discomfort for real danger. Chances are, the regulars at any Mississippi jook joint or night-club will welcome you warmly, and you’ll have many new friends by the end of the night.”

Now those are words to live by.

Cheseborough, Steve. Blues Traveling: The Holy Sites of Delta Blues. Jackson, Ms: University Press of Mississippi, 2001

Broadsided by Meebo

Today I received a question from a Meebo patron asking about the term "broadside" in relation to printing. After asking Tracy, who knows everything, by the way, I was able to located the term in Glaister's Glossary of the Book. The term "broadside" is defined as:

"A sheet of paper printed on one side only. Broadsides were used soon after the beginning of printing for royal proclamations and official notices. They were later a vehicle for political agitation and the expression of opposition to authoritarian rule. They were even used for the dissemination of scaffold speeches by criminals on the point of execution.

Early in the 16th century poems and ballads were printed in this form in England, and black letter fount continued to be used long after the introduction of roman for books.

Broadsides are also known as broadsheets, single sheets, street-or-still-ballads, and black-letter ballads. The term broadside is now applied to a variety of large regular and special-fold sheets, printed on one or both sides. A broadside may also contain one job or a number of jobs."

If I had to create a broadside for today it would read:

"Reference Librarian Reprimanded for Snarky Comment on Blog. Supervisor Mulls Termination!"

Glaister's Glossary of the Book: Terms used in Papermaking, Printing, Bookbinding, and Publishing with notes on Illuminated Manuscripts and Private Presses. Los Angeles, CA: University of California Press, 1979. p. 73

Are You Lonesome Tonight?

This blog post originally appeared 11/13/07.

Here in Mississippi, we hold a special place in our hearts for "The King," Elvis Presley. Born in a shotgun house in Tupelo, MS, we've held on to his legacy with enthusiasm.


Are you an Elvis fan? Have you ever written Elvis (or any celebrity) a love letter? Well, we have a book filled with love letters to Elvis written by folks here in the U.S. as well as some from abroad. Here's one example we found particularly amusing and uplifting from Bill Adler's Love Letters to Elvis:

Dearest Elvis,
Why do you not make more movies?
You do not make enough movies.
The last Elvis Presley movie I have seen was two years since and I have not seen a movie since two years.
It is not worth going to the movies if I cannot see my Elvis.
If you stopped making records, I do not know what I will do because if I have not Elvis Presley records to listen to, I will put my stereo in the attic.
You see, dear Elvis, without you in the movies or in records, life is not be worth living.
I need Elvis to live like I need the sun, the moon, the stars, the air, and the sky.
You are my world.
All my love,
Irina M.
The Netherlands
 
Adler, Bill. Bill Adler's Love Letters to Elvis. Grosset & Dunlap: New York, 1978.