Today is the birthday of Douglas Adams, who had this to say in Last Chance to See:

I’ve heard an idea proposed, I’ve no idea how seriously, to account for the sensation of vertigo. It’s an idea that I instinctively like and it goes like this. The dizzy sensation we experience when standing in high places is not simply a fear of falling. It’s often the case that the only thing likely to make us fall is the actual dizziness itself, so it is, at best, an extremely irrational, even self-fulfilling fear. However, in the distant past of our evolutionary journey toward our current state, we lived in trees. We leapt from tree to tree. There are even those who speculate that we may have something birdlike in our ancestral line. In which case, there may be some part of our mind that, when confronted with a void, expects to be able to leap out into it and even urges us to do so. So what you end up with is a conflict between a primitive, atavistic part of your mind which is saying “Jump!” and the more modern, rational part of your mind which is saying, “For Christ’s sake, don’t!” In fact, vertigo is explained by some not as the fear of falling, but as the temptation to jump!

One of those days just like any other day.

Happy Birthday, James Ellroy.

Rest in Peace, Gary Gygax.

Thanks for the memories, Brett Favre.

Happy birthday to Jules Verne, born this date in 1828. He’s recently become one of my favorite writers.

The past few months I’ve been catching up on a bunch of literature from the 18th and 19th centuries, including the mighty duo of Verne and H.G. Wells. Here’s a little of what I wrote about A Journey to the Interior of the Earth last November:

What struck me most was how modern much of the writing seemed, at least for the time period; the author’s voice, though strained through a translator’s filter, seemed to evidence an inherent humor and friendliness.

The characterization of the two main people was superb — both the professor and his nephew were well-developed personalities, more than making up for the relative cyphers of Hans and the few other characters. They had a depth (appropriately enough), with Professor Liedenbrock a brusque, haughty scientist whose compassion could still shine through when his nephew was in danger. And Axel, a scaredy-cat who can come up with all kinds of reasons why their adventure is foolhardy, but still maintains his scientific curiosity and a bravado when it counts.

Thanks to Project Gutenberg, many of his works are available online to read.

Tangential update: Bruce Sterling has a theory about the current Undersea Cable-Severing Conspiracy —

Captain Nemo did it. Better send Professor Aronnax out to investigate.

Samuel Langhorne Clemens was born on this date in 1835, and the world is a better place for it having happened.

Casting about for an appropriate passage of his to share, I came across this one from The Innocents Abroad which seems applicable to bloggers everywhere….

At certain periods it becomes the dearest ambition of a man to keep a faithful record of his performances in a book; and he dashes at this work with an enthusiasm that imposes on him the notion that keeping a journal is the veriest pastime in the world, and the pleasantest. But if he only lives twenty-one days, he will find out that only those rare natures that are made up of pluck, endurance, devotion to duty for duty’s sake, and invincible determination, may hope to venture upon so tremendous an enterprise as the keeping of a journal and not sustain a shameful defeat.

This picture, by the way, is of Mark Twain in Nikola Tesla’s lab in 1894, which I came across on Wikipedia.

If you’re casting about for something to read, take a gander at Mark Twain’s works at Project Gutenberg.

A couple of other blogs mentioned the birthday this morning:

• Movie Morlocks has “Always the Twain” covering Mark Twain and Hollywood.
• World Hum posted “Happy Birthday, Mark Twain and Jonathan Swift”, (it’s Swift’s birthday as well) mentioning they were “creators of the World Hum’s No. 7 and No. 6 greatest fictional travelers respectively…”

Speaking of birthdays, yesterday was the 80th birthday of Vin Scully.

Happy Birthday to a couple of my very favorite writers!

Dorothy Parker was born on this day in 1893, and while she is most remembered for her days with the Round Table in New York, she spent a number of years in Hollywood as a screenwriter (IMDB). She passed away in 1967.

I’m never going to accomplish anything; that’s perfectly clear to me. I’m never going to be famous. My name will never be writ large on the roster of Those Who Do Things. I don’t do anything. Not one single thing. I used to bite my nails, but I don’t even do that any more.

And yes, you might as well live.

Ray Bradbury, also born on 8/22, but in 1920. (Funny to think of Mrs Parker at 27 when he was born, being fired by Vanity Fair for offending people.) A while back I wrote about Ray:

[He] is the ghost in the machine. He finds the soul in the rocket, traces the life in the Martian colony, points out the demons lurking in the fires of a burning book.

Always one to tweak the nose of too-serious folks, Ray has recently been talking about what Fahrenheit 451 really means. Some people have gotten a little pissy about it, which says more about them than Bradbury. And that’s kind of the point.

Living nearly a century and writing some of the best literature in the world gives you a smidgen of latitude. ;)