Tracks -- review

TRACKS

by Robyn Davidson

With only four camels, her beloved dog and an occasional National Geographic photographer for company, Robyn Davidson set out on a journey from sand to sea across 1700 miles of Australian desert.  The story is like WILD  (in real life TRACKS took place decades before WILD) in that it's all about finding your inner light by taking on incredible hardship.  Ms. Davidson put it succinctly when she wrote: "I experienced that sinking feeling you get when you know you have conned yourself into doing something difficult and there's no going back."  Survival against all odds would change anyone, and it changed Robyn Davidson from a woman who would have lived an ordinary Australian life into someone capable of anything.

Change is what I love about survival stories, by the way.  It's why I read them.

I'll confess I read these sorts of books because my secret dream involves setting out to hike the Muir trail or follow the coast of France from Normandy to Nice.  (In truth I doubt I ever accomplish either because I'm too practical to sell everything I own to fund adventure.)  But a secret dream is a secret dream, and since mine involves a brave walk-about, I content myself to live it vicariously through women who do things I've yet to dare.  Hopefully, before I'm too old, I'll at least have grown bold enough to spend a year trotting about in an Airstream.

Having read both books and seen both movies, I can honestly say I found TRACKS to be the better film and WILD to be the better book.  But if inspiration is what you seek, you'll find plenty of it in both.

The Last Dinosaur Book -- review

The Last Dinosaur Book

by W.J.T. Mitchell

IN the mood for an academic read?  I know I wasn't.  But I went for this book anyway because once I started into it, I was oddly hooked.  That's right, kids.  It’s not fiction.  And it’s fascinating.

Exploring dinosaurs as icons—which is the only way we’ve ever known them, BTW—The Last Dinosaur Book delves into the cultural iconography behind Waterhouse Hawkins, Jurassic Park, King Kong, Sinclair, Barney and more.  If you’ve ever yearned to understand how dinosaurs shaped your world view, (and yes, you read that correctly) then this is the book for you.

The weird thing is, we think we know these beasts.  We think we know how they lived and died.  I mean, I know people who study dinosaur physiology, and on NSF grant money, no less.  But go back 300 years and you'd be sore pressed to find anyone who even knew dinosaur bones existed.  (Beyond the American Indians, who had lots of lovely myths about them.)  This is because dinosaurs, my friends, are a recent ‘invention.’  You can thank people like Thomas Jefferson and Andrew Carnegie for putting them on the 'map.'  Jefferson was so in love with dino remains he was among the first ever to collect bones—he even believed mastodons roamed the unexplored west.

I’ll admit, this book was a deviation from my usual diet of sci-fi followed by more sci-fi.   But I figure dinosaurs are sci-fi-ish by nature, so why the heck not explore them from an academic's POV?  Where else can you read someone shred Barney while praising Calvin & Hobbes?  The author draws unexpected conculsions, offers unique theories and perspectives and leaves you believing that our world would be a far different place, not only without the fossil fuels the dinosaur age died to become, but without what has become our totem animal: the dinosaur.

So!  If you're feeling like something non-fic and interesting, try The Last Dinosaur Book.  Four stars!

Dinosaur dilemma

Today I'm working on my dinosaur book, refining a chapter where a favorite character is doomed to become fodder.  It's always rough when a fav has to go.  But if I wanted to write about a happy world where somehow dinosaurs and people got along smashingly, I'd write Barney ....

I've also been sitting with my daughter as she finishes up what we've come to call the "Project from Hell."  She has to 'make a movie.'  In German.  Who are these ninth grade teachers that assign such crazy stuff?  Not only is my type A child unwilling to go the easy route (sock puppets would have done the job quite rightly), but like every 'project' she's ever tackled since birth, it has to be a production.  Long story short, she needs cheerleading, so I've had a lot of time to draw as well as write today.  Hence, I posted a pic of my latest dino sketch on Instagram.