Cosmicomics

Just finished Cosmicomics (1965). I think Italo Calvino is my new favourite author. He rocks the Casbah, even in translation. I am tempted to learn Italian just so that I can read him in the original.

Cosmicomics is a series of stories based on theories regarding space and the universe. Example:

The more distant a galaxy is, the more swiftly it moves away from us. A galaxy located at ten billion light-years from us would have a speed of recession equal to the speed of light, three hundred thousand kilometers per second. The 'quasi-stars' recently discovered are already approaching this threshold. (The Light-Years)

And from this, Calvino creates a story, a wonderful, smart, audacious story. Wow.

Particular mention goes out to The Aquatic Uncle about the transition from water living creatures to land living ones, and to The Distance of the Moon, which is about a time when the moon passed super close to the earth and people would jump up to gather a cottage-cheese like substance from it's surface. It's about unrequited love. As a matter of fact, so is The Aquatic Uncle. Now that I am thinking about it, The Dinosaurs is truly fantastic as well, about the last dinosaur who lives with those who have replaced his species in the earth's evolution. Bittersweet.

In other news, I just spent ten minutes engrossed in a Youtube video-slideshow of Arnold Schartzenegger' s early bodybuilding days. Random.