If you remember anything, remember tree lobsters.

The bloggers of Pen & Oink visit and report from the studio that I share with Sergio Ruzzier, Sophie Blackall, Edward Hemingway, and Johnny Marciano, here.

Metaphors, gathering steam

Publishers Weekly’s Fall Sneak Previews are online here. 

On the list: “Candlewick climbs aboard for How to Train a Train by Jason Carter Eaton, illus. by John Rocco, which provides information on finding, keeping, and training a pet train” and “Orchard Books rides the rails with Train by Elisha Cooper, in which trains race across the country, coast to coast” and “Atheneum pulls into the station with Locomotive by Brian Floca, a look at the transcontinental railroad.” 

Clear the tracks, folks!

Happy Presidents’ Day

Here is a drawing-in-progress of Abraham Lincoln for the endpapers of Locomotive, coming in September from Atheneum/Simon & Schuster. On July 1, 1862, Lincoln signed the Pacific Railroad Act, which put government support behind the construction of the country’s first transcontinental railroad. (Nods toward this interest and work of Lincoln’s in the recent Spielberg film: a model steam locomotive on the desk in Willie’s room, and a quick bit of conversation between husband and wife about what they’d like to do postwar. “You’ve an itch to travel?” asks Sally Fields. “I’d like that,” says Daniel Day Lewis. “To the West by rail.”) Ground for the railroad was broken in Sacramento on January 8, 1863, 150 years ago last month. 

A closer look at the Pacific Railroad Act is online at the Library of Congress, here. 

Countdown: Apollo (16 and) 17

Back in October, 2008, I began noting on this blog the 40th anniversary of each of the manned Apollo missions that led up to the first lunar landing, Apollo 11. After the Apollo 11 anniversary in July, 2009, I kept going, posting a summary of the goals, challenges, and accomplishments of each subsequent Apollo mission on the anniversary of its launch. I didn’t miss a one — not until April of this year. 

^%$#@! 

Apollo 16 (John Young, Ken Mattingly, Charlie Duke), I apologize. What happened? Nothing more than that I was busy, I was too busy, and the moment got by me. Thus I unwittingly and to my shame provide a sort of sad metaphor for the relationship of the country as a whole to the Apollo program, for as the missions got longer, and the goals became more ambitious, and the science got better, the country’s attention and resources drifted from Apollo. And now here we are, at December 7, the anniversary of the launch of Apollo 17, the last manned landing on the moon.

This was NASA’s first night launch; the Saturn V carrying Commander Gene Cernan, Command Module Pilot Ron Evans, and Lunar Module Pilot Harrison “Jack” Schmitt — a bona fide geologist made astronaut — lifted off from Florida at just past 12:30 A.M., forty years ago this morning. In his book A Man on the Moon, Andrew Chaikin recounts that in the dark, the spectacular glow of the rocket was visible as far away as North Carolina. (What would Orville and Wilbur have thought?) At the moon, Cernan and Schmitt spent over three days on the surface. They undertook three seven-hour moonwalks, covered nineteen miles of ground, collected samples, and set up experiments. Twelve days after they left the Earth, the men returned safely, and Apollo was over. 

Done.

It is hard not to take a chunk of time here to try to write more about this mission, and Apollo in general, to try to conjure up something grand about what it all meant, or even just to put into words more personal feelings about the missions to the moon. It is a dereliction of blogging duty not to do so, but there are deadlines in my calendar demanding I not attempt such a thing just right now — really, really demanding — and in the end maybe that’s for the best, for the more I think about it, the more it seems to me that Moonshot is the best distillation of whatever I have to say and whatever I have to feel about Apollo.

So although you can be sure this won’t be the last post on this blog about Apollo, for now I defer to that book, and for good measure to Gene Cernan’s final words on the moon’s surface: 

“And as we leave the moon at Taurus-Littrow, we leave as we came, and, God willing, as we shall return, with peace and hope for all mankind. Godspeed Apollo 17.”

Sunday: Or The Whale

Don’t ask me my qualifications. Suffice to say that I was in communication with the right people at the right time. That’s how I’ve ended up with a slot in the Moby-Dick Marathon NYC, in which the great book is read aloud from spout to tail. The event gets underway tonight and goes to Sunday afternoon. (Paul Dano will have kicked off the marathon by the time I get this posted.) The event website/blog and event details are here; a write-up in the New York Times is here. I’m one of about 150 readers. (We all are all listed here. Note Sophie Blackall at 10:50 on Saturday!) Each of us will take a ten-minute go at the book. My slot is on Sunday at 2:50, at the Housing Works Bookstore Cafe at 126 Crosby Street, 10012. It’s only an estimate but by that time on Sunday we should be up to chapter 134 or so. Chapter 134! This means no disquisitions on the subtleties of right whales, et cetera, et cetera, for this reader. We are talking “The Chase—The Second Day,” or something in that neighborhood. Don’t let the damp, drizzly November in your soul (or out your window) keep you away. A dead whale or a stove boat!  I hope to see you there!

Saturday: Brooklyn Museum + powerHouse events

From 12:00 to 4:00 on Saturday, November 17, I’ll join forty or so (!) other Brooklyn authors and illustrators at the Brooklyn Museum’s annual Children’s Book Fair. Says the museum: “Meet your favorite Brooklyn authors and illustrators at this year’s fair, featuring storybooks, picture books, and graphic novels. Enjoy readings, games, and activities for all ages.” Details are here.

Following that event a group of us will lock arms and head over to a fundraising event at powerHouse Books in the Brooklyn neighborhood of Dumbo. I know powerHouse because my studio used to be around the corner from the store, because it’s a great bookstore and event space, and because back when the Book Maker’s Dozen was more of a going concern we had a great time showing some of our prints there. Two weeks ago, powerHouse took a pounding from Sandy — read more about that at Publishers Weekly, here — and Saturday’s event is to help the store recoup. The event runs from noon to 9:00. A formidable collection of authors will be on hand to read and sign (Jonathan Franzen, Rick Moody, Paul Auster, Sarah Vowell, more) and then by around 5:00 our group from the Brooklyn Museum should have staggered in to round out the lineup and sign books. At 6:00, happily, powerHouse will start serving drinks. Come for the sake of the store, come for the children’s literature, or come for the Côtes du Rhône, but come!

PowerHouse will be requesting a $10 donation. Available for purchase will be a variety of donated books and prints, including prints from The Racecar Alphabet and Moonshot. (See above, click to enlarge.)

More information is here and here.


Whether you can make it to the museum or the bookstore or both, I hope I’ll see you on Saturday!

Sketch the vote

This morning I walked to my neighborhood elementary school and exercised my franchise. The lines were long, the lines were slow—not a good situation in many ways but good for sketching or for staring at a phone and especially good for sketching someone staring at a phone. Click the image for a larger version.