(urth) The mystery of the image of an astronaut cleaned by Rudesind

[Dave Lebling]

He's told us some of his main sources for obscure words, such as "Mrs.
Byrne's Dictionary" and books on the Byzantine and Roman Empires. I don't
think he needed to spend much time with a microfiche reader, if any.

I also think you overestimate the availability of NASA Apollo prints. Some
were only released in the last few years, for example.

But at least we are in violent agreement...

-- Dave

On Fri, Jul 2, 2010 at 1:56 PM, Ryan Dunn <ryan at liftingfaces.com> wrote:

>
> On Jul 2, 2010, at 1:22 PM, Dave Lebling wrote:
>
> > I'm really fairly amazed at the level of nit-pickery over this question.
> Let us cast our minds back to the thrilling days of yesteryear (the late
> 70s), when Wolfe wrote SotT. There was no internet on which you could look
> up all the thousands of then-unreleased Apollo program pictures, there were
> a few places you could find pictures in hardcopy (Life -- already moribund,
> National Geographic, a few coffee table books, etc.). As an SF fan, I'm sure
> he had resources such as the F&SF cover -- or not, he may not be a pack rat.
> >
> > It seems quite obvious that the description he wrote is based on his
> memories of various photos and paintings he had actually seen, but he very
> likely wasn't staring at an actual photo when he wrote the words. Even if he
> was, who's to say he might not have taken auctorial liberties with what he
> saw?
> >
> > I know that after many re-readings of SotT, my minds-eye image of the
> "canonical" Apollo photograph is now the (non-existent) one Wolfe described.
> >
> > -- David Lebling, aka vizcacha
>
>
> David,
>
> Wolfe also built an entire SF series with hundreds of extinct words which
> he found through diligent research. I wouldn't put hours spent at the
> microfiche table past him, and those NASA photos would have been released
> I'm almost certain. Hell, most of the images currently found on Google are
> from prints from the 60's and 70's, some of them autographed.
>
> However, I'm of the same mind as you, that he cobbled together the perfect
> composition from a few iconic images. I think the image in my head in that
> pinakotheken, is a wide shot of an astronaut standing on Earth's surface
> with a flag in his hand and an Earth rising over his shoulder. You can't see
> a staff in his hand without it being wide enough, etc.
>
> ...ryan
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