Magpie and Cake blogged recently about the The Essence of Rabbit. I’m a particular fan of the cartoon bunny. In fact my pet name for my mom is Rabbit.

Quote: No other living creature features as heavily in contemporary character design and art as the humble hare. But what exactly makes bunnies so irresistible to artists, designers and illustrators worldwide? Depending on the viewersí cultural context rabbits can symbolise anything from insanity, alertness, defencelessness, all the way to promiscuity, magic powers and utter innocence. By condensing the endless variations of the rabbit motif into one ultimate system – a perfect bunny mandala – the true nature of the beast emerges: the eternal essence of rabbit.

Over 1,500 bunnies.

Here’s the close up shot of the bunny wallpaper design.

Tonight in Vancouver.

[From a press release]

What: The Joy of Words, An Evening of Readings and Music with Award-Winning Canadian Author Joy Kogawa
When: Tuesday, April 25, 2006
Time: 7:30 to 9:00 pm
Where: Christ Church Cathedral, 690 Burrard Street, Vancouver
Price: Admission by donation

Kogawa will read from her first novel, Obasan, recently re-released as a Penguin Classic. Along with Joy, special celebrity guests, including well-loved actors Joy Coghill, Doris Chilcott, and Bill Dow, along with CBC Radio One host Sheryl McKay and other special guests, will read favourite selections from BC prose and poetry. Japanese Canadian actors Minami Hara, Hiro Kanagawa and Maiko Yamamoto will read from the libretto for Naomi’s Road, the opera based on Joy Kogawa’s children’s novel. Jazz gospel singer Leore Cashe will also perform.

The event is a fundraiser to save Kogawa’s childhood home. The owner of the property has given TLC and the Save Kogawa House committee only until April 30 to fundraise the $700,000 needed to purchase the house. So far, more than $220,500 has been raised from 384 donors around the world.

TLC wants to save the house as a cultural landmark for all Canadians. Once protected, the house will be a used as a writing retreat, enabling new writers to create works focusing on human rights issues. It will also be open for public and school tours to educate people about the Japanese Canadian experience during World War II. For more information visit www.conservancy.bc.ca

I was in San Diego last week and toured the USS Midway, an aircraft carrier.

San Diego Aircraft Carrier Museum website

The USS Midway was in service for 47 years. It was commissioned in 1945 and served as a flagship in Desert Storm in 1991. Apparently no other carrier has served as long.

Initially I was skeptical. I didn’t really want to tour an aircraft carrier, but then I listened to a radio documentary in Tod Maffin’s workshop. The documentary was “Somewhere in the Arabian Sea” from This American Life. You can listen to it online by searching the site for “arabian”. The documentary is about life aboard the USS John C. Stennis, an aircraft carrier in the Arabian Sea. The bombing missions and military aspect of aircraft carriers are still not interesting to me, but the people who live onboard are. And, the stats are certainly interesting.

There’s 2,000 feet of anchor chain aboard the USS Midway.
Each chain link weighs 130 pounds.
Anchors weigh 20 tons each.
The Midway is 1,001 feet long: 3+ football fields
The flight deck is 4.02 acres.
The catapult power is 0 to 170 mph in 3 seconds or less.

(An aircraft carrier does not have the space that an airport does, i.e., no runway. In order to get the planes airborn they are launched or catapulted into the air–0 to 170 mph in 3 seconds.)

The landing area within arresting wires is equal to the size of a tennis court.

(This means the planes must land within an area the size of a tennis court. They also must hook one of three cables or arresting wires. The cables stretch up to 273 feet. The plane must stop by then otherwise it crashes. One vet I talked to, Bob, said that stress tests have shown landing on an aircraft carrier at night is more stressful than surprise attack. Bob had 1243 launches. He said you want to have equal number of landings. He did.)

The flight deck is 50 feet off the water.
The aircraft carrier draws a 35-foot draft under water.
4,300 crew worked to support 200 aviators: approx. 750 men/women in engineering; 225 cooks.

I toured the hangar deck with the berthing spaces, where they slept, and then went up the Island, which is like the air traffic control tower. I missed the second deck with the mess, food galley, sick bay and post office. According to someone who did visit that area, it is impressive.

10 tons of food per day
13,500 meals a day
10,500 cups of coffee at a time
4,500 pounds of beef per meal when served
3,000 pounds of potatoes per day
1,000 loaves of bread a day
650 pies when served

The aircraft carrier weighs 70,000 tons. I wonder if that is before or after a meal. Regardless, it was all rather interesting.

Here’s my round-up of publishing tidbits:

SFU’s Master of Publishing program has launched the new version of Thinkubator. The site is aimed at those in publishing and newbies. I’ve never been a dedicated reader, nevertheless, I did read an interesting post on web fonts. Some web 2.0 developers have found a way to dynamically render any font for the web.

Bruce Walsh, formerly of M&S, has joined Atwood’s Unotchit team as vice-president of marketing. Bruce is a very clever guy and I’m glad that he’s still in some aspect part of the publishing world. Bruce got me hooked on the M&S 100 Readers Club, which I truly hope continues despite his departure from M&S.

And, if I wasn’t hanging out in San Diego, I’d show you the totally awesome bookplate that my internet buddy Patricia of BookLust has sent me. It is most beautiful. I adore her cartoons.