The World's Fair

The other day, I read Shelley's great account of the Challenger explosion, called "The Blight Upon the Sky," and it just got me thinking that I wish there were more outlets for that kind of science writing. By outlets, I do mean those in the print arena, like a magazine here or there that is condusive to these type of pieces.

I think I speak from experience, because whilst I've done the occasional traditional science piece, most of the stuff I have fun with are things that are little different, on the humourous side, creative side, or reflective side. And although the web has many outlets for these things, it seems quite difficult to make it to print.

An example of this, is a piece I have up at the SCQ today called "Anytime." This is basically an essay I wrote maybe a year or so ago, where I tried to amalgamate two interests that I have (that is science and music) into one reflective piece. I had hoped for it to make it to the songbook section of McSweeney's, but it didn't make the cut, although partly (I hope) because it was submitted at a time when the songbook section was being phased out.

So for a while, I just shopped it around to see whether there was a place that would be interested in such a thing, and you can guess that because it's now appearing at the SCQ that the answer was not really.

Which is kind of a shame, because I'm quite fond of this piece - I think it's one of my better ones. And generally, I think I can say that I'm fond of these types of pieces, like Shelley's, or like what Dr. Charles basically showcases all the time.

Anyway, it's too bad about the songbook section. It was really great - and definitely worth checking out. Ben's got a piece there by the way, which of course, is why there is a part about being jealous in the title. Dammit.