Bricks

The entrance to the parking lot I use is being re-paved. After scraping up the old asphalt I can now see the brick used to pave the streets over fifty, perhaps even a hundred years ago. It reminded me that until they repaved Charles St. I could see a little piece of damaged asphalt about a foot wide that gave more glimpses of paving brick, and of the old streetcar rail. Now the light rail is two blocks over and less than a decade old now, and concrete sidewalks I walk have been replaced by warm brick once again, along with new "old fashioned" street lamps. Baltimore seems to be intent on burying the past and re-creating it at the same time.

Review: Earthlight (no spoilers)

Finished another re-read of an old book I own. This time it's Earthlight by Arthur C. Clarke. I recalled this one being kinda dull even when I read it as a kid and it hasn't really improved.

Anyway, 200 years in the future an accountant named Sadler is shipped up to an observatory on the Moon by a shadowy intelligence agency to investigate who there is sending classified information to the Federation, a coalition of outer planets who are peeved at Earth because apparently heavy metals are in seriosuly short supply Out There and Earth has been stinging handing out stuff to her former colonies.

I'm afraid the Zeerust is heavy in this book. It's designed to give a sense of wonder about living on the Moon, but as a travelogue it's lacking. Sadler is a passive observer, events happening around him (and he's not even the one who get a front seat at the climatic battle) rather than too him. And a look at a shiny future Moon is hard to take seriously when the observatory's computers are described as being big hulking calculators with clacking printers.