Time Traveling Twins ...

As quoted from Wikipedia: "In physics, the twin paradox is a thought experiment in special relativity, in which a twin makes a journey into space in a high-speed rocket and returns home to find he has aged less than his identical twin who stayed on Earth."

You Are Here ...

In my case, these twins are books I created for the Sketchbook Project. And before you ask, Yes, it was twice as much work to make two, but given my personal rule ("Always Make Two") when it comes to artwork, I couldn't *not* make two.

Since the Sketchbook Project people encourage participants to be creative, to think outside the book if you will, the first thing I did was disassemble the book as supplied and create my own internal pages, as well as creating my own blank book to keep. The books are divided in three sections: (predictably) The Past, the Present and The Future. The Present is a single page, while the Past accordions out to the left, and The Future accordions out to the right, each filled with stuff I've thought about, written about and imagined about time travel, the passage of time and the effects of time on the human experience.

The Past  ... how far back do you want to go?

I've been reading Science Fiction since I was a kid, which wasn't really typical of girls where I grew up. I'd like to point out that I was reading Science Fiction, not Fantasy. As soon as a story introduced a Wizard, a Dwarf or Magic I was OUT OF THERE. I attribute this to reading Dune before Lord of the Rings .. in fact, I never got even made it through LotR, or any of its many brothers.

The Future ... how do you prepare for the unknown?

Anywho ... when I saw Time Travel as an option for a theme on the Sketchbook Project, I knew it was for me. I spent a few months re-reading my favourite SF books on the theme, and making notes and diagrams. I think I probably have enough material in my notes to *actually* time travel when the technology finally gets invented. I even attended a lecture on "The Art and Science of Time Travel" at the British Library while on vacation in London last summer. I was in heaven ... 5 fabulous panelists (including Audrey Niffennegger!), a packed audience (250+) and 2 hours of all the Time Travel you can handle ... one of the best nights of my life. I obviously need to get out more ...

PS ~ I've only shown you a bit of the final books here ... but the twin that's part of the Sketchbook Project's touring exhibit will also be digitized in their online library ... not sure how they're going to deal with the whole accordioning thing ... but, hey, they said be creative ... I assume they'll let me know when the images are online and I'll post the link here on my blog. Now ... off you go, into *your* futures ... :)

Science Fiction at the British Library ... ooooh, aaaaah

Anyone who knows me knows I love science fiction. Wait, let me qualify that ... I love "good" science fiction. If I were a librarian (and who hasn't wanted to be a librarian at some point in their life, I ask?), the science fiction section of libraries would be a whole lot smaller. It seems to me there's a whole bunch of stuff (we're being polite here) that very clearly *isn't* SF that's put there because they didn't know what the heck to do with it otherwise. And don't get me started on Fantasy ... um, yeah, like SO not Science Fiction.

On previous trips to England I've relied heavily on buying a copy of Time Out magazine on my way out of Heathrow Airport (oooh, place name dropping!). This year, I chose to do my pre-trip planning from the comfort of my own home, by checking out all the usual museums, etc. online first.

I got *really* excited when I saw that the British Library was hosting an exhibit called: "Out of This World : Science Fiction, But Not As You Know It". As a person who's read quite a lot of SF, particularly the classics, I wasn't expecting to see a bunch of "new" stuff ~ but (of course) I did. I spent some of my precious time writing down titles that needed to be checked out in the future (no pun intended), but at a certain point gave up and decided to buy the exhibit guidebook ~ which contained not only a complete list, but grouped them by theme and is profusely articled and illustrated.

Years ago when I was an obstreperous teenager, I remember arguing with my Dad about the merit of SF ~ he didn't see the point of it. I may have won that argument, he started reading SF after that. For me, SF has almost always been about the "big questions" ~ why are we here, what would the present look like if the past had been different, and what will the future look like if we make different choices now? As I see it, one of the tools of SF is that it lets you isolate one aspect of human existence and spin it out into the grand "what if?". Because in the end, however well the writers write, they are still human writers writing human stories for human readers, and I think the best of the best of the SF I've read over my life has made me a better human. And I continue to read SF ~ apart from the exhibit guidebook, most of the books I bought while in England were SF, and classics to boot ~ including one that's eluded me for years, but the how and when of buying it is an interesting story for another day ...

Meanwhile, on the other side of the pond ...

In case you've been wondering where I've been for the last month ... I was here (see photo at left). And lest you think it's the Capitol Dome of one of the many places that might have a Capitol Dome ~ it's St. Paul's Cathedral in London.

This is one of the first of several hundred photos I took on vacation in England. This is the first year that I've carried my digital camera with me everywhere, and as a result I have pictures of stuff that I swear will be of *no* interest to anybody but me.

But we'll start with this one ~ which at least has the merit of being iconic. It was taken while standing on the Millennium Bridge looking back into The City (or "downtown" as we North Americans might say). I've never actually been into St. Paul's ... and since we were headed away from it and across the bridge to the Tate Modern, I didn't make it there that day either. It occurred to me (as I took this photo) that somebody went to a whole lot of trouble to make sure that people walking north on the bridge (i.e. heading towards the "downtown") would have a great view. This might not seem like it would be difficult to arrange, but if you've ever been to London and seen it's windy, twisty streets, you'll know a clear view of *anything* is tricky.

Since there are (literally) hundreds of photos, I'm going to do a series of short posts with a new picture each time. I may even spin the wheel (metaphorically speaking) and write about whatever photo I happen to land on. Today you were lucky and got St. Paul's.

Next time, who knows? I have a disconcertingly large number of photos of textures, particularly stone walls, walkways, brickwork etc etc. They're for a future art project and the more I noticed them the more I noticed them, if you know what I mean. I'll let the wheel land there once, but there's only so much you can say about rocks ...

So nice to be home ...