-¦ March 2021 ¦-

STAIRWAY TO HEAVEN

a n a l y s t █ On April 15, 1726, while taking tea in the garden w/ his friend, Issac Newton b.1642 pondered on an apple which had just fallen to the ground. William Stuckeley records how Newton mused:

█ “Why should that apple always descend perpendicularly to the ground? Why should it not go sideways, or upwards? but constantly to the earth”s centre? Assuredly, the reason is, that the earth draws it. There must be a drawing power in , and the sum of the drawing power in the matter of the earth must be in the earth’s centre, not in any side of the earth. Therefore does this apple fall perpendicularly, or toward the center. If matter thus draws , it must be in proportion of its quantity. Therefore the apple draws the earth, as well as the earth draws the apple.”

a n g e l █ The ancients, even if concerned of this “drawing power” that Newton was to articulate, mocked the gravity throne by continuing to send prayers up to heaven. Entreaties in temple script on paper were folded into a lantern, a candle is attached so that heat and smoke from the flame collects inside the lantern -- causing its ascent to gods and goddesses. █ Mankind eventually followed that lantern, yet the earliest airmen didn’t know to carry oxygen, and returned spouting the wildest tales of beings living in the upper air, and among them were four brothers, who were curious and would approached w/ whistles and roars and yells, about many subjects, including that confounded new contrivance, a wind tunnel.

█ Sensing fear in the visitors’ eyes, their thunder abated. Then Zephros drew even closer and whispered: “We are wind gods of the four cardinal points, heralds of seasons, sons to Typhöeus, fifth and final monster born to mother Earth. We too seek a reason for existence, and whether or not it becomes us to be suited up in turbines, pumps, and such.” █ Notos spread icicles when parting his lips: “Can these regulation systems really help w/ my restlessness? and what’s up w/ welded insulation?” Euros brought up the sorest point: “Can gravity weigh me down and curb my mood.” Boreas’ grumble rumbled: “Magnetosphere constrains our empire but why? and who are these rocketmen and their aerial adventures in guidance and control?”

a v a t a r █ Then the wind gods would invariably take their guests on a grand tour. Earth’s atmosphere is spherical and contains a precise mixture of gases such that oxygen becomes its miraculous chemical product. The atmosphere has the same shape as Gaia due to her gravitational grit, which she bestows to water and all things living. And just as the sea and mountains are deemed sentient so too should Aether be considered a being, having undergone “biochemical modifications by living organisms” ever since his aboriginal form coalesced into a paleo-atmosphere. Material enough for mother Earth to lassoo the invisible entity w/ a girdle tight enough to separate him into distinct layers and is the main cause of clouds. █ Ancients can discern this sky god only when he digs into his bag of optical tricks and throws mirages or scatters light. Aether is designated the patron deity to life on Gaia, whose existence depends on a narrow band of the bottom layer, beginning at sea level.

a i r m a n █ Imaginative proto-aviators studied birds, how they populate the air and go where they will. Wings got built, men got strapped, jumps happened -- all to naught or worse. Leonardo da Vinci b.1452 had sketched out such dreams of levitation but his idea, wings that can flap, never left the sketchbook.

⁝ Bird wings are folding fans, able to expand and collapse. Each wing is a web of arm bones, having joints which, by evolutionary decree, have quills on the knuckles; each quill grasps one feather.

a e r i a l i s t █ The wind gods liked to play w/ mankind’s kites and were completely entranced by paper prayers heaven-bound using only heated air. They then found out that hydrogen, discovered c.1780, has levitational abilities also -- but only in unadulterated form; otherwise, being a gas, it would simply dissipate. Rare and difficult to distill, hydrogen requires a chamber, white-hot iron, running water; and had to wait until a non-porous material to contain the new gas had not yet been developed. In the interim, heated air would have to make do for heady inventors. █ A ginormous pillow, w/ a small opening and tied to a large basket, was deemed capacious enough that, by taking in a healthy gulp of hot air, the entire contraption will rise into the air (1783). Then, as the trapped air cools, the hot-air balloon will descend. The first volunteers chosen to carry out this maiden flight were a french sheep, duck and rooster.

a c r o b a t █ Kites were originally devised to bring the way wind into better play. Kites (and smoke) could and were used for military reasons: as a signal, a measurment of distance, to “test the wind”. Dog-earred generals carried mint editions of The Myth of Icarus into battle and tasked military engineers to make accessories to kites so that, adding a passenger, the gimmick can be carried upwards. █ Starting in the late 1850s, the idea of a man in the air, tethered to a kite, got serious attention. Could it be that sending up an entire lab was so 1847 already? That was when the first use of a kite to forecast the weather occurred at Kew Observatory, when a “very stable” one was able to support “meteorological instruments at height”. Benjamin Franklin b.1706 had got there first w/ a simpler laboratory: kite, key, lightning storm.

█ Then the golden age of kiting came to an end around 1910, when the military began to pay visits to the sky, giving notice that the empire of the winds was coming to an end.

a l c h e m i s t █ Gunpowder is the earliest known chemical explosive. Adding heat to a mixture of carbon, sulfur and saltpeter (an efflorescence mineral found on stones) will cause a flash accompanied by fire that burns off. China’s alchemists had learned how to extract saltpeter, during a medicinal quest to find the elixir of life -- what they got instead “smoke and flames”.

█ Although the earliest pyrotechnics in the sky were to send signals they were also used, in profusion, on any occasion for pomp that needed a pop. █ Paper tubes filled w/ confetti and a spoon of gunpowder were then sealed w/ a fuse sticking out. The tube is secured to a long stick that acts as a tail, is aimed towards the sky -- fire is introduced to the fuse gets ignited. The detonation produces a propulsive force, the firework ascends and the contents spill out.

█ Ingenuity on how the firesmith fills the tube is what will happen next. █ Fireworks are propelled missiles guided during a brief initial phase of powered flight. Each firework has a subsequent trajectory that obeys the laws of gravity, codified as classical mechanics.

a r c h e t y p e █ When the Second World War ended in 1947, pilots from many nations returned to the civilian ranks. █ Some, however, together w/ their ground mechanics and radio operators, were eager to go further into the sky, and by the late 1950s heaven was beginning to get crowded.

█ Governments were wont to fund space explorations, but only after the remainder of Earth not yet bound by passports -- the north and south poles -- were divvied up. Longitude and latitude determinations then led to precision mapping of the world, and in the co-mingling of new disciplines, rocket science took off to map all the others.

South African National Space Agency

Formed in 2010 to manage satellites that monitor the continent for flooding and fires, provide an earth watch record, play host to the only regional space weather warning center for Africa, and the inheritor to a recording station, the Hermanus Magnetic Observatory, set up to be a geomagnetic research center and part of a network taking measurements of the global magnetic field. ❚ ❚ ❚ Now the station is a part of the site that administers South Africa’s space program.

European Space Agency

A compact for western Europe after intergovernmental discussions for a cohesive approach to space. Designed for uncrewed missions in 1975, ESA soon enough changed its approach to space science. Today, ESA does so much more than exploration. There is development going on for a spaceplane and a project to turn earth-watch data into apps. A survey of one percent of the known universe (2019), which will result in a map. What happens when regular and dark matter meet, and how both act, together and separately, when mingled w/ dark energy (2019). A study the Sun up close. Search for life on Mars. Planned mission to Mercury (2025). Several exo-planetary hunting missions. Origins of phosphorus. Then a deep dive into an asteroid defense shield. The agency’s major spaceport is in French Guiana, where it conducts human spaceflight, launches Earth observation satellites, and sends spaceprobes to explore. Founded by ten nations, the European Space Agency now has 22 members, and a waiting list of ± eleven applicants.

国家航天局

China launched into outer space in 1970 w/ a song. The satellite contained a perpetual loop of Dong Fang Hong, a sung eulogy to Mao Zedong, bringing the revolution to the subhurbs of the solar system. ❚ ★ ❚ Formed in 1993 from input by four bodies: systems engineering, space science, general planning, foreign affairs. China’s space program was made possible because of Hsue-Shen Tsien b.1911, expelled from JPL for political uncertainties. Aerospace scientists in Chengdu have shown interest in launching an artificial moon as a fixed satellite no more than 50 miles wide and 22,000 mi (35,400 km) away. When the reporter asked, the developers of this secondary source of illumination at night promised a “dusk-like glow” that won’t disturb nocturnal animal rites. Today, the CHINA NATIONAL SPACE AGENCY has landed on the moon twice -- the first since the Apollo missions. Recently named an asteroid it discovered for Wu Weiren (2020), a pioneer of deep space exploration. Yesterday, China thanked its stars that an out-of-control spacecraft, spinning and tumbling going on two years, finally crashed into the south Pacific (2018).

Ελληνικός Διαστημικός Οργανισμός

Experiencing a malleable moment w/ yearnings for a return to Olympus, Greece put away the telescope and announced the creation of a ≡ ≡ ≡ HELLENIC SPACE CENTER in 2019, inviting divine messengers Hermes and Iris to issue a directive that greek culture plans to again be a participant in “space events”.

Bộ Khoa học và Công nghệ

Vietnam’s interest in space, if any, falls under the purview of the ministry of science and technology, which has thrown a bucolic blanket over its astro-plans. ❙ ★ ❙ Back in 1980, the country was proud to have had a vietnaut join a cosmonaut to pilot Soyuz 37 onto the Salyut-6 space station, the first of three such pairing of viet- and cosmo- nauts, under a program from the soviet union for socialist countries allied to the warsaw pact. Phạm Tuân, born in Quoc Tuan village (1947), flew a jet fighter in the people’s air force (1965) and died age 32 in a Mig-21 crash.

International Space Station

The era of comfort in space took place silently when the first component to a future space station complex was launched (1988), carrying container connections for contingency transfer of water, container bags, wipes, “filters”. The space module also carried six nickel-cadium batteries, two solar arrays, three docking ports. A pressurized valve unit w/ air ducts, funnel containment filters and dust collectors. Smoke detector, gas analyzer, gas masks, portable fans. The cabin has a pole, handrails, hooks, instrument containers. Zarya was the first component to ISS, designed to be autonomous for eight months. More modules then arrived to interlock and create an exponential habitat. Fifteen nations and five space agencies coordinate this mission -- Canada, Japan, Russia, United States, the European Space Agency -- signing agreements covering legal, financial and political implications in how the station is utilized; day to day; traffic; crew time. Serviced by a team of three robots capable of independent or conjoined activities. Legacy loos are being replaced w/ new comfort stations (2020); a waste management system common for all vehicle platforms is on the drawing table.

Indian Space Research Organisation

A moon mission, led by female scientists in 2017, detected “magmatic water” -- first evidence of h-two-oh. Chandrayaan-1 then had a mishap and crashed, adding a new crater. A second moon mission, having released a lander which was within a mile from touchdown, suddenly became disabled from a cyberattack and ceased functioning (2019). Reporting to the department of space, the space program also develops and delivers satellite apps for smart phones, including in cartography and dedicated distance education. ❚ ❚ ❚ India’s space program (1969) had humble beginnings, when ionosphere soundings were being conducted in Calcutta (1920s). Today’s sky watchers prefer to do so in a theater, watching the latest bolly-fi release.

Zambian Space Programme

Edward Nkoloso was an african grade school teacher tinkering with a catapult capable of sending a spaceship carrying ten or so to Mars. ❚ ❚ ❚ When Zambia gained independence in 1964, he was then appointed liaison w/ regional freedom fighters; all the while his space program going. There is footage of his training camp for afronauts from 1960. Born a prince of the Bemba tribe, Edward Makuka Nkoloso had a missionary education in latin, french and theology; he died in 1989, age 70.

Canadian Space Agency

Continuing to maintain its air fleet after World War Two, Canada paid attention to the upper atmosphere and in 1962 launched a satellite. ❚ • ❚ Formed in 1990, the Canadian Space Agency now shares its space knowledge for the “benefit of canadians and humanity”, and has challenged its youth to submit ideas for “making space easier and more fun”, w/ the promise to prototype the best entry. There is a trove of footage from a canadian astronaut training camp.

Royal Canadian Air Force WW-2

NASA

As the outcome to World War II turned in their favor, the United States set in motion “operation paperclip” to retrieve nazi rocket technology, and came back w/ 100 V-2 rockets, production site drawings, and Wernher von Braun b.1912, amenable to continue where he had left off. Homegrown rocket science was already happening at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, so America made plans for a future in space and in 1958 created the NATIONAL AERONAUTICS AND SPACE ADMINISTRATION. ❚ ❚ ❚ Seven years later there was an orbiting lab. Then a duo-man program left footprints on the Moon (1969). The first untethered spacewalk was in 1984, when astronaut Bruce McCandless performed free flying 320 feet away from his craft: “... overused lines ‘slipped the surly bonds of Earth’, but when I was free from the shuttle, they felt accurate”. From its inception, NASA hired talent, and some of these stories are dramatized in 2017’s Hidden Figures, about three african american female mathematicians.

Soon attention will be paid to samples brought back from apollo asteroid Bennu by the Origins Spectral Interpretation Resource Identification Security Regolith Explorer (2020). These days NASA has plans for an interstellar mission to the Alpha Centauri system (2017). Elated about the scholarship named for Dr Katherine Coleman Goble Johnson (2018). Perturbed that “poor record keeping” contributed to the loss of an Apollo 11 lunar collection bag that contained lunar dust particles (2018). Released a 60-year anniversary video (2018). Established as a civilian space program, America’s space program was militarized sixty years later.

Technicians at Goodyear Aircraft Corp work on an inflatable space habitat concept for NASA

Mary Jackson. Judy Sullivan. Betty Skelton. Eleanor Burbidge. Dr Mae C Jemison. Laurel van der Wal. Grace Hopper. Dorothy Vaughan. Judith Love Cohen. Katherine Johnson.

UK Space Agency

Britain caught the space flu earlier than most, and by 1933 already had an interplanetary society. Post World War Two, recovered german rocket science underwent forensics and soon enough test launches were conducted, in 1957 reaching an altitude of 125 mi (200 km). Eventually a national space agency was set up in 2010, absorbing an earlier iteration from 1985. ❚ ❚ ❚ UKSA offers an apprenticeship program, is noted for sustainable development, and now focused on space debris -- an emerging reality. A folder on UFOs, “comprising entirely of correspondence w/ members of the public” going back 50 years, is to be released through the royal air force website.

New Zealand Space Agency

❚ ❚ ❚ When it became apparent their location was becoming an ideal spot for space launches, New Zealand donned ministerial gloves in 2016 to fetch back a suitable space scarf to add to the country’s wardrobe.

宇宙航空研究開発機構

On a hunch, three research labs decided to merge, bringing together experience in radio astronomy, the magnetosphere, and x-ray (1955) (1964) (1969). The team went on to found the JAPAN AEROSPACE EXPLORATORY AGENCY in 2003. Whereas it used to send satellites to watch the earth and report on the tropical rainfall seasons and atmospheric dynamics (1997), JAXA now conducts innovative research -- based on their encounter w/ Ryugu in 2019. As Hayabusa-1 was approaching the half-mile wide asteroid the spacecraft took a potshot (creating a new crater) before its lander boarded this flying rock. Then it flung samples back to Earth. Projected to hit the ocean off Australia, the envelope, containing samples betwen 10 million and 20 million years old, was retrieved in the outback (2020). ❚ • ❚ Japan’s dream of space came from Hideo Itokawa, who test-launched a small missile in 1955. Graduate of the imperial university w/ a major in aeronautics (1935), Itokawa was a visionary and is grandpa to Japan’s space program.

Asteroid belt objects Vesta Eros Ida Juno Mathilde Dactyl Ceres

Centre National d'Études Spatiales

When France went over the rubble of World War 2, any ballistic missile, exploded or not, were gingerly handled. Victorious though shell-shocked, the nation had once set records for hot-air balloon feats when the 18th-century was still young, now she sat about to tinker w/ these weapons in order to glean aerodynamic achievements from the german school of “rocket propulsion and guidance”. ❚ ❙ ❚ Enough interest that the NATIONAL CENTRE FOR SPACE RESEARCH was created in 1961, and gave space medicine a face when astronaut Jean-Loup Chrétien was monitored medically in 1982. Then military wings sprouted in 2019, when NCSR joined the air force, and is planning to release a trove of UFO files going back to 1954. With a heady mission to transpose civilization to space, France’s space program is the largest budgetary contributor to the European Space Agency.

Agentur für Luft-und Raumfahrt

In 1961, a manuscript by Conrad Haas b.1509 appeared, waxing poetic of his experiments in crossing weaponry w/ fireworks, what China knew as a “fire lance” he called his “flying javelin”. Lab work in ionospheric physics, wave propagation (U of Graz) and plasma physics (U of Innsbruck) would have intrigued Haas, an austrian military engineer from Transylvania. ❚ ❚ ❚ Seeking a foundational starting point, the academy of sciences convened, in 1972, the AUSTRIAN SPACE AGENCY.

Державне космічне агентство України

By the time H.F. Proskura b.1876 began to specialize in helicopters (1914), a Ukraine space program was already in situ. He was a hydraulic engineer who built systems for regulating hydrodynamism, and together w/ like-minds launched a missile to the stratosphere in 1937. This feat prompted the retooling of an automobile plant into manufacturing rockets (c.1960s). ❚ ❚ Today’s NATIONAL SPACE AGENCY OF UKRAINE (1992) is child to the soviet space program.

Uranus + moons Ariel Titania Oberon Miranda Umbriel

Neptune + moons Nereid Galatea Proteus Triton

Agenzia Spaziale Italiana

19th-century Italy looked at the sky w/ scientific eyes, keeping up a study begun 300 years or more ago. Luigi Gussali b.1885 would go on to propose solar power as a propellant in 1946. Nuclear power would work, Gioulio Gostanzi b.1875 had said earlier, in 1914 -- postulating on the plights of weightlessness, heat death as well as poisonous rays from the Sun. ❚ ❙ ❚ Today their research are a part of the ITALIAN SPACE AGENCY, which opened next door to the Vatican in 1988, now studies “habitable space infrastructure” and all things gamma-ray related.

Magyar Űrkutatási Iroda

The ministry of national development oversees a civilian space program, w/ aerospace researchers and advisory board (1992). ❚ ❚ ❚ Then money for the nation’s science sector dried up and has jeopardized the HUNGARIAN SPACE OFFICE.

Роскосмос

The Russian space program has claim to many fathers, some already delving into reactive propulsion tests when the 20th-century was yet a babe. Konstantin Tsiolkovsky b.1857 theorized about aeronautics and rocketry in 1929. Friedrich Zander b.1887 finetuned liquid-fuel research for practical applications. Then a space academy blossomed before being folded into a classified military program in 1992 -- and ROSCOSMOS its public face. ❚ ❚ ❚ Left behind are iconic moments from the soviet space program. First woman in space Valentina Tereshkova (1963); the cosmonaut who preceded her Yuri Gagarin (1961). Standing on their shoulders Alexei Leonov, who made the first spacewalk (lasting 12 minutes and nine seconds): “I stepped into that void and I didn‘t fall in. I was mesmerised by the stars. They were everywhere – up above, down below, to the left, to the right” (1965). The best looking satellite is still the first, Sputnik-1 (1957), a globe w/ four antennae.

Agenţia Spaţialǎ Românǎ

Early 20th-century Romania had enough enthusiasts building and testing aeroplanes that the nation developed five aircraft companies into a national industry. ❚ ❚ ❚ Combining in 1990 to become the ROMANIAN SPACE AGENCY, and tasked w/ space research activities and “security applications”. Member of ESA since 2012.

Deutsches Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt e.V.

By 1907 Germany had already set up an experimental aerodynamic station (1907). Soon eough attracting interest from an institute, association, consortium and a society. ❚ ❚ ❚ Interest in space never waned, and in 1989 this productive R&D all came together to form the GERMAN AEROSPACE CENTER, w/ a current emphasis on hydrogen as an energy carrier, and research into traffic congestions.

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WHAT SHE SAID Mae West quote: His mother should have thrown him away and kept the stork.

ROMANCE COMICS

♛ EPILOGUE

Looking back at the Golden Age (which took place on Earth-Two), it has come to light that the biography of Lois Lane, beginning in the early 1950s, has properly belonged to the Silver Age.

All along, readers had grown up w/ a golden-age Lois. There was a golden-age Clark; and Superman too. It turns out there has been – and always has been – some other Lois, who lived on Earth-One, w/ another Clark and a different Superman.

EARTH-2 LOIS

[-1954-] In a grand send-off to Earth-2 Lois, she gets to step into the shoes of other women and lead a different existence, if only for 12 pages. Florence Nightingale; Betsy Ross; Barbara Fritchie; Annie Oakley; Madame Curie; Queen Isabella.

In 1956, fan loyalty was rewarded when DC Comics put out the first issue of SUPERMAN’S GIRLFRIEND LOIS LANE. Once again, a newer Lois Lane sprang forth, and helped to usher in the Silver Age. This Lois again came fully formed – and a lived-in backstory spooled out. The first two tales, about a witch and a wig, looked forward towards the experimental 1960s -- when beauty was redefined, and backwards, w/ a ginned-up glance at the battle of the sexes, when it was still in black-&-white.

What is left of the original Lois are some stories about the Man of Steel in which she features prominently, where she proves herself an intellectual equal of a super man. These historic events embark embryonically from the heartland of America during the onset of World War II. They then roam globally, and extra-globally, only to disembarked at the untested outpost of the Cold War.

Lois of Earth-Two became marooned until the DC universe took on a reimagining. By 1978, her story was rethreaded into the continuity. Lois married Clark in the late 1950s, discovered his secret identity, went on to new adventures -- even after their son was born, passing the mortal coil in 2005, in events occurring during Infinite Crisis. All of this happened before the 21st century woke up.

I Love Lois

Working nine to five as a reporter for a city daily must not leave time to do much else. As a single female working and living alone in Metroplis, how do you find balance in your life?

Lois Lane, Clark Kent and Superman are the creations of writer Jerry Siegel and artist Joe Shuster, two Cleveland teenagers nurturing keen tastes and quick psyches, who combined complementary skills to make manifest their dream of another world. Inventing a city of skyscrapers where an otherworldly creature lives and makes its living as a newspaperman, while wooing a wonderful woman, and using as his secret identity a coward’s persona. Overnight their comics become a bestseller, starring the Man of Tomorrow opposite Lois Lane.

The Golden Age 1938-1955

Lois Lane is already there when Clark Kent arrives on his first day at the Daily Planet, she’s a lonely hearts advice columnist. Clark, a seasoned reporter, gets called in to the editor‘s office and is assigned a new beat. In a supreme act of irony, he’s to cover someone who has been seen in Metropolis and word has it a champion of the oppressed. Proximity to the vibrations of an unknown being notwithstanding, Lois soon slips into a vaudevillian vortex. Somehow a dastard is sure to create chaos, usually a damsel-in-distress episode plays out, acrobatic acts can follow before displays of unnatural skills bring back the normal. This and a secret identity plot to string it all together and tie into a bow.

Page after page, the reader gets to know more about a super-being living in Metropolis, while he himself is getting to know more about Lois -- exposing her to the maw of mayhem by his dada duels w/ weird foes. Lois can’t see Clark for the super-simulacrum that he’s hiding behind; is drawn to Superman instead. Clark smiles and winks at the fourth wall, at ease and worldly wise.

Lois and Clark start dating right away, in the first story they put on evening attire and go out on the town. The next week she flies off on assignment to a foreign land and, due to misadventure, ends up blindfolded and standing in front of a firing squad. Back home again, Lois thinks little of dropping a sleeping pill into Clark’s cocktail so as to chase a lead and beat him to a scoop. This brazen stunt backfires when she lands in trouble and, for the very first time, falls out of a window.

But first, she hones in on Clark’s beat by looking up the Man of Mystery herself, trying to score an exclusive. Going to a traveling circus where he was performing for charity, an unexpected occurrence ensures she will not get her scoop. Editor Perry White sometimes sends both out together, especially when murder has occurred. On these occasions, Lois often ends up solo because Clark can and will disappear at the first sign of trouble. One time this happened, she was tied down next to a table saw w/ the on-switch deployed, too annoyed though not surprised w/ Clark to bother about her imminent demise.

Chastened to live another day, Lois expands her comfort zone, finding it in herself to bring joy to a thawed caveman, out of time and gravely disoriented. Lois was as one reborn some other time when she ran around w/ a great ape. Through all this, Lois kept up her advice column, where once a grateful writer bequeathed a gold mine to her and which, sadly, she lost. She then plunged herself into a murky episode about a fifth columnist movement in Metropolis, wading into espionage, disinformation, and sabotage.

Around this time she meets Lex Luthor. Picking through the day’s press releases, Lois sees a tony and toothy one: Someone has called a gathering of the millionaires of Metropolis. Intrigued, Lois finds a way into the mansion and hides behind draperies. Eight men enter, followed by their host; Lois pulls out her notepad. Altogether, these men control railroads and airlines, real estate and financial firms. Each involved in prohibition-era rackets. One has a publishing firm hawking inspirational books. Another runs a secret fascist cell. The last to speak turns out to be a common man who had shown up disguised in order to give a rant on the wickedness of wealth. Lois is taking this all down, filling one comic book page w/ nine long speech balloons. When suddenly Luthor appears w/ a weapon and knocks everyone -- including Lois -- out.

By 1943, budding popularity for her character propels Lois onto the cover w/ Superman, gasping as he goes head-to-head with crime’s comedy king, the Prankster. Lois is also on the splash page, because she has inadvertently wandered too close to a giant jack-in-the-box … Then a year later lands her first series, LOIS LANE GIRL REPORTER, focusing on her exploits without Superman or Clark, which had a thirteen issue run.

The Silver Age 1956-1970

The winds of change began blowing in the mid-1950s, when DC Comics rehabilitated a dormant character from the past and re- introduced Flash, giving him a new backstory and wearing a different costume. Gradually, this new universe folded outwards and at first divided into two.

In 1956, a seminal tale had taken place on Earth-One, where Barry Allen was working late one stormy night, when a lightning bolt comes crashing in, striking chemical vials filled w/ stuff. Barry is knocked out and falls to the floor. Lying in a suspicious-looking soup of laboratory juices the entire night, he undergoes a molecular sea change. What had lain on the lab floor that October night was a police-lab scientist. What woke up the next morning turned out to be an agile Adam – harbinger to a new aeon.

This refashioned “human thunderbolt” draws a chalk line at the starting point, resets the timer to zero, jumps into his costume and takes off. Soon enough he learns of the existence of Earth-Two, and he visits w/ the original Flash, semi-retired but still contending w/ super-foes. Overnight, the aggregate number of costumed beings doubled -- then grew, as readers couldn‘t get enough.

The Lois of Earth-One lived a complicated existence, being routinely subjected to Imaginary Tales of what-ifs that bedevil storylines, confounding known facts w/ familiar fantasy. This Lois had her own title, which ran for 137 issues, ending just in time to usher in the Bronze Age, and are known chiefly as having imparted a level of light-heartedness to her life.

In between, Lois left her classic looks behind and is shown on a 1968 cover tearing down part of her own masthead containing the words "GIRL FRIEND", and throwing it to the ground. This was just one step less shocking than her get-up: knee-high go-go boots and a rocking aquanet hairdo, declaring that she was over the Man of Might. This fit of feminist zeal subsided, though, and the designation reappeared on the next cover. Lois Lane, born on Earth, had up until then led an unearthly existence, all because she chose to be near the one she loves, and do battle w/ battalions of babes intent on becoming the one to make children w/ the alien Adonis.

★ As our story begins, Lois is about twenty-three years old, and Clark is two years older than that.

▶ Champion of the Oppressed
Action Comics №1 - 1938

Lois Lane sprang into life fully formed, alongside the genesis story of Superman. On his first day at the Daily Planet, Clark Kent is smitten and begins to court Lois.

When Clark is then assigned to cover a mystery man showing remarkable potential, Lois is intrigued and goes on a first date to find out more. Twirling about the dance floor, he asks pointedly, “Why is it you always avoid me at the office?”

“Please Clark-! I’ve been scribbling sob stories all day long. Don’t ask me to dish out another.” Bored and staring away, her eyes happen to lock onto Butch, who’s been staring at her for quite some time.

Seeing his move Butch cuts in, then things turn ugly, and Lois gets an inkling that Clark may not be a man’s man. When Butch facepalms her date she storms out and calls Clark, for the very first time, “… a spineless, unbearable coward!”. Catching up w/ the car that has just abducted her, Superman upturns the vehicle and catches Lois, for the very first time, as she spills out of the backseat window. What he does next is famously depicted on the iconic front cover - lifting the car above his head. ... turning his attention back to Lois, she backs away in mild terror until he says, “You needn’t be afraid of me. I won’t harm you.”

Transfixed, she lets the strapping stranger scoop her up into his arms and, leaping high, carry her away. This winning formula provided years of creative chaos as the three main characters circled each other round and round.

This ends the first tale of Lois Lane’s life, and the beginning of her startling adventures to document the existence of this mental marvel and physical wonder, devoted to daring deeds she knows will reshape the destiny of a world.

▶ How Lois Got Her Job
Lois Lane №17 - 1960

(An Untold Story) (Demand Classic)

Every year on the anniversary of her first day to work for him, Perry White has thrown an office party to celebrate. One time he turned sentimental -- opened up: “... When Lois first asked me for a job, I told her I would hire her if she brought me three scoops in three days! She did it ... w/out Superman’s help!”

Picking up the cue, Lois blows out the candles and hands the first slice to Perry. While his mouth is full, she gives her side of the story. On the first day at work Perry had given her a choice of several assignments, she chose the easiest one: securing evidence on a team of safe-crackers.

Dressed as a cleaning lady, Lois walked into their lair w/ a vacuum cleaner, plugged it in, turned it on. This disguise turned up pure gold when a torn-up note was retrieved, then taped back together. Implications were deduced; arrest warrants eventually issued. More cake was passed around.

Her next assignment was to secure the first-ever photograph of a reclusive royal, prone to strongarm tactics to ensure his privacy -- she comes back w/ the photo. Clark and Jimmy ask for another slice -- at the same time.

The guest of honor takes this opportunity to sit down, staring into the cavern now developing in the cake. Her car had unexpectedly broken down on the third assignment, and she ended up walking miles out to nowhere in order to interview an archaeologist who was claiming a new discovery. She gets her story, and it’s a doozy but, w/ no easy access back, Lois devises the most ingenious method known to correspondents worldwide – enabling her post to reach Perry. It is front page news, and Lois lands her dream job.

▶ Man or Superman?
Superman №17 - 1942

Lois and Clark once teamed up to track down the Talon, titular head to a gang of thieves. She later returned to her desk, thinking she was going to write up a scoop, only to learn that Clark got there first. Exasperated, she then asked and he then gave a reason so lame that it was enough to make her wonder if Clark might be Superman. (There have been many versions of this story since.) Clark is the archetypal nerd, wearing glasses because he really has to -- it’s his secret identity. But how his physiognomy didn’t give him away as son of Krypton is one for the books. This instance of willful ignorance apparently is impossible. Because mental snapshots. In one telling, while at the office a commotion on the street below draws them to the window -- a necklace robbery was in progress. She suddenly got a feeling she knew what Clark would do next, which was to give a flimsy excuse and disappear, then a minute will pass and Superman should (and will) fly past the window. This quizzical look does not go unnoticed by eagle-eyed Clark as he stages a retreat. Changing into his costume he thinks back to the very first time Lois ever did all of her wondering. It had happened one morning when he had flown over the Daily Planet, and she had caught a quick glimpse. Lois was rounding a corner and became aware of his landing on the roof of her office building. “… and now he’s dropped out of sight! Good gracious! Maybe he works on the Planet staff, under a secret identity!”

▶ Miss Lonelyhearts
Lois Lane №3 - 1958

Lois once went above and beyond her duties as the advice columnist. She had shown up at the eighth floor landing window of the Belvue Apartments, where a despondent man was threatening to jump. Lois climbs out, telling him she too wants to jump, “Er-(gulp!) Do you think you’re the only person in the world w/ a broken heart?” Promptly losing her footing, Lois goes over the edge. Manages to catch the corner of a election banner hanging below. Before it can tear off she has swung into position to plummet through a number of window awnings. Cushioning her fall until a fireman’s net catches her. This vivid demonstration of falling in love cures the man’s sick heart, so he climbs back in and goes to where Lois is being treated. “You’re wonderful, Miss Lane! The next time I commit suicide, it’s going to be over you!”

▶ School for Scoops
Lois Lane №29 - 1961

Through pluck and perserverance Lois becomes the number one female reporter in the United States! The University of Metropolis asks her to give a lecture course. Hearing this news, racketeer Nick Roker sends two gunmen to the campus. Because.

Lois proves a precocious professor and, w/ the help of Jimmy Olsen, stages re-creations of actual cases. Jimmy walks the class through the first scenario. Drugged by a gang she’s been after, Lois gains consciousness to find that she is bound, gagged, inside a tiny basement. Someone behind is about to put a blindfold on her. At this critical moment, Lois locates the basement’s electric meter and memorizes its serial number.

This bit of information helps break the case and gets her a scoop. Before dismissing the class, she hands out writing assignments.

The next day students are greeted by a gruesome set piece: Having once crossed the line w/ racketeer “Duke” Benson, he has enticed her over to his office and there ties her to a chair, placing a bomb beneath the chair before his exit. Ignoring the lit fuse, she leans forward and nudges the phone off its cradle, picks up a pencil w/ her mouth, and dials 9-1-1, ... in the time it takes for her to grade this second assignment, Lois has deduced that two are not written by journalism students.

Thinking to instruct her class by treating this development as a case study, she outs them only to realize too late they were sent to off her. Lois’s quick thinking distracts them long enough for Jimmy’s signal-watch to summon Superman, who makes a brief cameo at the very end.

▶ Lois’s College Scoops
Lois Lane №55 - 1965

(An Untold Tale)

One time, Lois took Jimmy Olsen and Superman to her college reunion. There she grew nostalgic and, picking up a school scrapbook, leafed through to find a clipping of her first scoop for the Raleigh Review. It was an impossible first assignment: to join an all-male only fencing team and write about the experience. The fencing captain, who was a good sport and willing to go along, gives Lois a week to practise before they were to meet in a bout.

Through diligence and sheer love-of-reporting, she outfences the captain, landing Lois her very first scoop.

Then she puts down her cup of punch and begins to leaf through a second scrapbook, locating a clipping of her first-hand account of discovering a new comet – by fluke, during a night at the Smallville observatory, where she was using the telescope to write a paper for astronomy class.

The last page held a tattered clipping of her strangest scoop. Taking a solo field trip for biology class, Lois had stumbled across – and captured on film – a live pterandon and a living sabre-tooth. Her biology teacher is wowed. “Those prehistoric creatures vanished without a trace, Lois! But thanks to the movies you took, we know exactly how they looked and acted!”

▶ How Clark Kent First Met Lois Lane (Bonus Tale)
Adventure Comics №128 - 1948

(An Exclusive Adventure of Superboy)

While still in high school, Clark receives a letter from the Daily Planet: Clark Kent, 713 Main Street. Congratulations! You are one of the two winners of our annual contest to honor the best school newspaper reporters. Your prize is a free-trip to Metropolis, where you will be allowed to work as cub reporter for one week.

Overjoyed and full of bonhomie, Clark shows up and is introduced to Lois Lane, the other winner; he takes an instant shine to her. The editor tries to break this spell by assigning a competition to see who can bring in the best story of the day, with the winner getting a front page byline! Lois suggests a side bet to Clark, “The loser treats the winner to an ice cream sundae?”

“I never bet … but I’ll make an exception in your case!” After handshakes, Lois ventures out and, based on a hunch, stumbles into criminal activity, resulting in being tied up and about to meet her end – Superboy arrives and saves the day. After he has dispatched her attackers, this unknown being glides over and unties Lois. On an impulse she jumps into his arms and asks to be carried away from the scene, a request the Boy of Tomorrow was fated to grant. She later on wins the competition (Clark has been busy elsewhere) and, after work, he takes her to a soda fountain and pays his bet. They spend the week chasing stories, then it’s time to wave goodbye to Lois from a train platform, wondering if he’ll ever cross paths w/ her again.

| NOTES

[1]

BASED ON reports from, among others, Tricia Annis, Tim Hanley, Steven Thompson, and Internet searches.

[2]
BACK COVER AD – The back cover ad for Action Comics №1 was bought by the Johnson Smith & Company in Detroit, Michigan. They were purveyors of, among other things:

- pocket radios - midget radios - midget pocket radios - magic radios - crystal radios - radio & television books - experiment sets - wireless transmittals - telegraph sets - electric phones - electric baseballs - world mikes (a microphone) - deluxe microphones - big entertainers (an air mattress) - Stinson Reliant giant flying planes - all-metal model airplanes - wigs (blond only) - yacht caps - live chameleons - x-ray glasses - booklets on hypnotism, learning to dance, learning to tap dance, ventriloquism, and ju-jitsu - whoopee cushions - joy bussers - rings - luminous photos - luminous paints - movie projectors - telescopes - field glasses - world's smallest candid cameras - bull dog fish hooks - and Japanese rose bushes.

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WHAT HE SAID
Gary Hustwit quote: I saw Helvetica everywhere [in New York City], and watched how people were interacting with - but not really thinking about - it. People going about their lives, letting a typeface tell them which direction their subway train was headed, where they could park, where the bathroom was, how much to pay for a hot dog. I felt like I’d stumbled onto a secret language.

Gary Hustwit quote: I saw Helvetica everywhere [in New York City], and watched how people were interacting with - but not really thinking about - it. People going about their lives, letting a typeface tell them which direction their subway train was headed, where they could park, where the bathroom was, how much to pay for a hot dog. I felt like I’d stumbled onto a secret language.

PIXELS

c.1929

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First Class Steamboat Menu

Marsailles to
Indochine
+

c.1968

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Children’s Menu

Cape Kennedy
Cafe
+

c.1984

c.1952

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Thanksgiving Lunch

Marlton Manor
+

c.1935

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Thanksgiving Menu

Hotel Metropole
+

San Francisco magazine food writer Jack Shelton, “I would no sooner serve a great portion of this delicacy than I would fresh caviar.”

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Sacripantina

“Holy Smokes”
+

| In 1990, San Francisco’s Board of Supervisors honored baker and owner of Stella Pastry in North Beach, Franco Santucci, as the best baker in the world. Sacrapantina

| His prized creation is the Sacripantina, born long ago and in Genoa, where a feast was given by a king in which a dessert was to be the centerpiece. | Conceived by the queen, it stunned the assembled when they tasted this confection of “cream, air and magic”, conjured w/ Almond Powder, Butter Cake, Cream Frosting, Meringue, Simple Syrup, and Zabaglione. | Here is a similar recipe to a treasured North Beach treat.

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PORTFOLIO

My everyday tools can incl. HTML and thesaurus, Indesign and pencil, Photoshop and glue, PDF and stamps.

♦ | Business Cards

Federico De Vera likes to keep things simple.

♦ | Typography

Johnny Strike Voices, guitars (words) Hank Rank Drums, percussion Roger Strobel Bass Michael Campbell Processed sounds, bowed strings, soundscapes Joey D’Kaye Guitar, synthesizers, theremin

♥ | Prepress

CMYK quarter-page ad on newsprint, featuring a b-&-w photo.

♣ | Pencil

A hand-drawn map of the staircases of Forest Hill. There are eleven: Alton, Alton Backstairs, Magellan, Merced, Montalvo, Oriole, San Carlos, Sola, and the Grand Staircase, which drops down to Dewey Avenue.

San Francisco’s Forest Hill is a “small town” located near the center of San Francisco. Boundaries are roughly 7th Avenue and Laguna Honda Boulevard to the north and east, Taraval Street to the south, 14th Avenue to the west. It has its own light-rail station, bringing the K, L and M lines to its doorstep. Built in 1912 on land originally owned by Adolph Sutro, roadways took on a sinuous route to allow for horse-and-carriage to make it to the top, are wide and generous, albeit steep.

♠ | DVD cover

Sabrina Alonso’s feature documentary Grizzly Road: The Last Days of the California Grizzly. Cover features a b-&-w photo of a grizzly captured and held in captivity by William Randolph Hearst for 22 years: Monarch.

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4L83R7 31N5731N Quote: 7H3 M345UR3 OF 1N73LL163NC3 15 7H3 481L17Y 70 CH4N63.

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-| March 2021 |-

WHAT SHE SAID Mae West quote: His mother should have thrown him away and kept the stork.

STAIRWAY TO HEAVEN

⁝ Bird wings are folding fans, able to expand and collapse. Each wing is a web of arm bones, having joints which, by evolutionary decree, have quills on the knuckles; each quill grasps one feather.

█ Then the golden age of kiting came to an end around 1910, when the military began to pay visits to the sky, giving notice that the empire of the winds was coming to an end.

Ελληνικός Διαστημικός Οργανισμός

Indian Space Research Organisation

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ROMANCE COMICS

♛ EPILOGUE

Looking back at the Golden Age (which took place on Earth-Two), it has come to light that the biography of Lois Lane, beginning in the early 1950s, has properly belonged to the Silver Age.

All along, readers had grown up w/ a golden-age Lois. There was a golden-age Clark; and Superman too. It turns out there has been – and always has been – some other Lois, who lived on Earth-One, w/ another Clark and a different Superman.

EARTH-2 LOIS

[-1954-] In a grand send-off to Earth-2 Lois, she gets to step into the shoes of other women and lead a different existence, if only for 12 pages. Florence Nightingale; Betsy Ross; Barbara Fritchie; Annie Oakley; Madame Curie; Queen Isabella.

In 1956, fan loyalty was rewarded when DC Comics put out the first issue of SUPERMAN’S GIRLFRIEND LOIS LANE. Once again, a newer Lois Lane sprang forth, and helped to usher in the Silver Age. This Lois again came fully formed – and a lived-in backstory spooled out. The first two tales, about a witch and a wig, looked forward towards the experimental 1960s -- when beauty was redefined, and backwards, w/ a ginned-up glance at the battle of the sexes, when it was still in black-&-white.

What is left of the original Lois are some stories about the Man of Steel in which she features prominently, where she proves herself an intellectual equal of a super man. These historic events embark embryonically from the heartland of America during the onset of World War II. They then roam globally, and extra-globally, only to disembarked at the untested outpost of the Cold War.

Lois of Earth-Two became marooned until the DC universe took on a reimagining. By 1978, her story was rethreaded into the continuity. Lois married Clark in the late 1950s, discovered his secret identity, went on to new adventures -- even after their son was born, passing the mortal coil in 2005, in events occurring during Infinite Crisis. All of this happened before the 21st century woke up.

I Love Lois

Working nine to five as a reporter for a city daily must not leave time to do much else. As a single female working and living alone in Metroplis, how do you find balance in your life?

The Silver Age 1956-1970

★ As our story begins, Lois is about twenty-three years old, and Clark is two years older than that.

▶ Champion of the Oppressed
Action Comics №1 - 1938

▶ How Lois Got Her Job
Lois Lane №17 - 1960

▶ Man or Superman?
Superman №17 - 1942

▶ Miss Lonelyhearts
Lois Lane №3 - 1958

▶ School for Scoops
Lois Lane №29 - 1961

▶ Lois’s College Scoops
Lois Lane №55 - 1965

▶ How Clark Kent First Met Lois Lane (Bonus Tale)
Adventure Comics №128 - 1948

| NOTES

[1]

BASED ON reports from, among others, Tricia Annis, Tim Hanley, Steven Thompson, and Internet searches.

[2]
BACK COVER AD – The back cover ad for Action Comics №1 was bought by the Johnson Smith & Company in Detroit, Michigan. They were purveyors of, among other things:

| Back |

╋╋╋╋╋

-| March 2021 |-

Station to Station

♦| Reece Metzger

♠ | Don Bachardy

♥ | Andy Warhol

♠ | Rey Ray

♦ | Laszlo Zauberer

I Love Lois

Working nine to five as a reporter for a city daily must not leave time to do much else. As a single female working and living alone in Metroplis, how do you find balance in your life?

The Golden Age
1938-1955

The Silver Age
1956-1970

♦| Reece Metzger

♣ | Don Bachardy

♠ | Rey Ray

♦ | Laszlo Zauberer

♠ | Andy Warhol

⊝¦ Reno

⊝¦ Monterey Bay

⊝¦ Sea Ranch

⊝¦ Sacramento River

⊝¦ Ocean Beach

⊝¦ Santa Cruz Calif.

⊝¦ Monument Valley

-¦ March 2021 ¦-

I Love Lois

Working nine to five as a reporter for a city daily must not leave time to do much else. As a single female working and living alone in Metroplis, how do you find balance in your life?