Daily Archives: May 4, 2020

Were living in a time right now, one that some movies like Contagion kind of predicted. But there are plenty of films and shows that portray a far different version of 2020 where aliens invaded Earth, robots have taken over boxing... or maybe dragons have even taken root.

Below weve put together a list of several films and shows that either took place in 2020 or had key plot points within that year. Just goes to show that things could always be worse at least we dont have radioactive sharks...

Rita Vrataski (Emily Blunt) tells William (Tom Cruise) how not to die again.

Edge of Tomorrow starring Emily Blunt and Tom Cruise takes place five years after a race of nearly invincible aliens called Mimics invaded Earth, turning 2020 into a futuristic hellscape where soldiers of the newly minted United Defence Force have to don bulky mech-suits just to stand a chance against them. It shows how quickly society can adapt when faced with an unprecedented threat though in this case, it was by creating a massive military-industrial complex.

Space: The terrible CGI frontier.

In this Brian De Palma film inspired by the ride at Walt Disney Worlds Epcot, space travel has grown to support expeditions to Mars. The astronauts embarking on these missions discover that the planet was previously inhabited by highly sophisticated aliens. Billions of years ago, theyd abandoned the planet, sending one alien to Earth to create lifeforms who could one day land on Mars and discover their true extraterrestrial ancestry. Astronaut Jim McConnell (Gary Sinise) is chosen as the ambassador of Earth, and the movie ends with him being summoned to the Martians new home.

The Abbott family is on the move again.

A Quiet Place fast forwards two years into its future, to a world devastated by an invasion of alien monsters who could hunt by sound. As a result, vocal speech is impossible and largely replaced by sign language. Its a world similar to ours, except without any form of functioning government or society, because anything that makes a sound will draw deadly attention.

Part of the poster for Voyage to the Prehistoric Planet.

This is the kind of futuristic flick that can only come from 35 years of far-future speculation and the fact that it was a Soviet film that was slightly retooled with new scenes in English and repackaged for the U.S at the height of the Cold War.

In this version of 2020, the Moon has already been colonised because its the future, baby! A pair of astronauts have been sent 200 million miles to explore Venus i.e., the one thats famous for being an uninhabitable gas planet. Upon landing there, the astronauts discover that its actually a prehistoric world filled with strange monsters and murderous plants, and theyre forced to launch a daring escape. Its perfectly schlocky 60s sci-fi akin to Voyage To the Planet Of Prehistoric Women. Not a lot of plot, but definitely some cheesy special effects.

This robot is ready to rumbleeeeeee.

This sci-fi sports flick presents a 2020 where human boxers have been replaced by robots, turning it into a mix of Detroit: Beyond Human and that BattleBots show. Hugh Jackmans Charlie Kenton trains a robot called Atom to become a champion boxer, and the movie ends not with humans returning to the ring but robot boxing continuing to reign supreme. The focus of the story was more about the strained relationship between Charlie and his son Max (Dakota Goyo), with robot boxing being the thing that brings them together, but the framework was this strange, disjointed world that mixed futuristic robotic technology with old timey state fairs.

Oh hey Drogon.

Dragons have awakened from beneath the Earth to bring about the next apocalypse. In Rob Bowmans Reign of Fire, its 2020 and theyve nearly completed their goal, with humanity on the brink of extinction. The few pockets of people remaining have gathered in small communities one of them led by Christian Bales Quinn Abercromby and daily life is a challenge. They cant even grow food without dragons coming in to burn all their crops. Luckily for Bale and his co-star Matthew McConaughey, theres only one boy dragon and if you kill that one, they all go down.

Behold the future of sharknado hunting.

This movie takes place five years after the previous Sharknado film and focuses on a private space company loosely modelled after Elon Musks SpaceX. The company developed a technology that can diffuse tornadoes from space, which has not only helped save millions from annual tornadoes, its effectively killed the whole sharknado thing but not for long. Lo and behold, in comes a sharknado thats so big, it contains boulders, fire, oil, even lava. Eventually, it becomes nuclear, meaning weve got radioactive sharks floating around in a giant tornado. The only thing it was missing was space sharks. I wanted space sharks.

Hell yeah were cancelling the apocalypse.Image: Warner Bros.

The bulk of Pacific Rim takes place in 2025, but the events of 2020 had a huge impact on the plot. After the Kaiju came to Earth through the Breach, celebrity fighters teamed up in gigantic Jaeger mech suits to take them on including brothers Yancy and Raleigh Becket. Together, the two manage to kill the first Kaiju in 2020, but it cost Yancy his life. Afterward, Raleigh (Charlie Hunnam) quit the Jaeger program and humanity started losing the war. In 2025, Mako Mori (Rinko Kikuchi)joined Raleigh and together they managed to journey into the Breach and seal it once and for all. Oh, that whole sequel thing? Never heard of it.

The Dollhouse doesnt feel so safe in 2020.

Dollhouse was a show about a secretive group called the Rossum Corporation that had the ability to wipe peoples personalities and implant them with characteristics that served the wealthy. However, this technology took a darker turn in two episodes: Epitaph 1, which was a bonus episode on the season one DVD, and the series finale, Epitaph 2.

These episodes jumped forward to 2020, after the Rossum Corporation had succeeded in wiping the minds of everyone around the world turning them into mindless zombies that could be imprinted with whatever traits the select few in power wanted. Main character Echo (Eliza Dushku) and her friends managed to stop them and restore everyones minds, but were sure waking up to that post-apocalyptic nightmare sucked.

An apocalypse sucks until you have someone to share it with.

This series opens in 2020, about one year after a virus swept the world and seemingly killed everyone. Phil (Will Forte) thinks hes the only survivor and decides to die by suicide rather than live alone. However, he ends up coming across another survivor named Carol (Kristen Schaal). Together, they manage to bring together more people and build their own society, though its not always a happy bunch. Just imagine if The Walking Dead were combined with The Office. The colourful and complicated cast of characters end up turning the series into a sort of family sitcom only instead of putting someone in time out, you get banished like Phil.

Originally posted here:

10 Movies and TV Series That Predicted Very Different 2020 Disasters - Gizmodo UK

Space junkis a growing problem, and an issue that could go eventually jeopardize space travel if not correctly handled. If we have learned anything over the past decade, it is that humans continue to be eager to get into space. Private andgovernment-funded organizationsare planning to expand our presence in space, build bases, and even have plans for livable habitats within the next few decades. However, for us to reach Mars and beyond, we first need to be able to get off this planet safely.

However, there are more immediate dangers. The space debris floating around the planet could threaten the lives of astronauts on the International Space Station. And, it is not just the big pieces of junk we have to worry about.

According to the European Space Agency, there are128 million objects the size of 1 mm to 1 cm, 900,000 objects the size of 1 cm to 10 cm, and 34,000 objects greater 10 cm currently whizzing around our planet. Many of these objects are traveling around our planet at roughly 28,163.52 kph,or about 10 times faster than a bullet.

According to senior NASA scientist Jack Bacon, the collision of a piece of aluminum with a piece of space debris roughly the size of about 10-centimeters would be the equivalent to detonating 7 kilograms of TNT. Properly tackling this problem will not be easy. Today we are going to explore everything you need to know about space debris and what organizations are doing to track and manage the situation.

As described by Agnieszka Gautier in an article for NASA, The remains of these communication satellites, along with sixty years of space activity, have littered outer space. An orchestra of objects swirls in various orbits: decommissioned satellites, burnt-out rocket stages, lost tools, and fragmented particles from explosions and collisions. When tiny flecks of paint travel with enough force to cut cables, damage space shuttle windows, or kill astronauts, accurately tracking debris matters.

As one can imagine, our space junk problem all started at the beginning of the space race between the Soviet Union and the United States. When the Soviet Union launched the first satellite in history into orbit around the Earth, the beach ball-sized craft sparked a race to the stars that would eventually create new space programs around the world.

Over the decades, companies and governments have developed satellites for military defense, cell phones, television, and GPS, launching hundreds of them into space each year. In fact, much of the debris in space consists of pieces of old rockets. You can find nuts and bolts, garbage bags, a lens cap, a screwdriver, and even a spatula, if you look hard enough. So if you were to go junk collecting in space, what would you find?

Lets start with some of the more common objects that you might find floating around the planet. NASAs Orbital Debris Space Program Officelists the types of space junk found in orbit, and is constantly monitoring them as the amount of space junk continues to increase each year. The first thing you might find in our space junkyard are stages from rockets and old satellites that no longer work.

Going out to retrieve these larger pieces of debris is expensive and not practical. The sad reality is that when parts of a spacecraft falls off, they end up floating around the planet until they fall back to earth or collide with another piece of space junk.

You might even come across tiny bits of paint. In fact, there aremillions of pieces of paint that have flaked off of other pieces of space junk, or even spacecraft, and they are growing exponentially. As mentioned above, even these little pieces of junk can pose a serious threat to astronauts. But wait, there's more.

While out in space, junk scavenging, you might come across the occasional upper stages of launch vehicles and even solid rocket motor effluent. However, people there are even weirder pieces of space junk floating around, including gloves, tanks of ammonia, pee, and Gene Roddenberry's ashes.

The NASA Orbital Debris Program Office is currently the leading program monitoring the space debris currently orbiting our planet. The team is constantly collaborating with other governments and private institutions to gain a better scope of the issue, but the Orbital Debris Program Office is also hard at work coming up with creative solutions for potentially removing the space debris. As described by NASA, The OPDO, has taken the international lead in conducting measurements of the orbital environment and in developing the technical consensus for adopting mitigation measures to protect the users within it."

Located at the Johnson Space Center, the Office continues to develop an improved understanding of the orbital debris environment and measures that can be taken to control debris growth. Explore Orbital Debris. The OPDO is tracking, detecting, and archiving space junk using a large collection of global telescopes. The OPDO is even able to track objects as small as 0.12 inches using ground-based radars. Space debris around the size of 10 inches are cataloged consistently and monitored diligently.

However, it is not just one organization's or country's responsibility. Space junk is not one countrys responsibility, but the responsibility of every spacefaring country. The problem of managing space debris is both an international challenge and an opportunity to preserve the space environment for future space exploration missions," says NASA

Yes, but not anytime soon. First and foremost, you might think the simple solution is to develop a more effective and junkless process of launching objects into space. There are private companies and institutions doing just that, but it could be decades before we make any commercially viable progress. Even more so, if we stopped launching objects into space, things would get worse. Pieces of space junk collide with each other on a regular basis, multiplying the problem.

It is well understood that we are past the point of no return. Relying solely on improved tracking and avoidance is not enough it is simply a technical form of sticking your head in the sand and crossing your fingers, Texas A&M Ph.D. student Jonathan Missel told SPACE.com. We are at a point where the problem needs to be solved, with active removal, not just avoided.

Computer simulations completed by OPDO have shed some light on this problem and how things could get dramatically worse. One simulation, covering a 200-year time period, showcased how debris larger than about 20 cm across will increase by 1.5 times,while space debris 10-20 cmcan be expected to multiply 3.2 times, and debris less than 10 cm will grow a factor of 13 to 20. In addition, we will consistently be launching spacecraft and satellites in the coming years. The good news is that NASA, alongside other organizations from around the world, are developing a series of potential solutions that could make a dent in the space junk problem.

The Space Junk Slingshot - This project is the brainchild of the engineering minds at Texas A&M University. The simple, cheap but ingenious project would be able to fly from one piece of space junk to another using little fuel. Dubbed the Sling-Sat Space Sweeper, it would capture various objects, swinging them towards Earths atmosphere, and using the momentum generated to move on to the next group of debris.

The Space Debris Elimination system - Developed by Raytheon BBN Technologies, this NASA funded project would fire targeted puffs of air into lower orbit and into the paths of unsuspecting space trash. This process increases the drag of the space junk,causing it to de-orbit. According to Dan Gregory of Raytheon BBN, "The air pulse creates a cloud that impacts any piece of debris that flies through while the cloud is still coherent. In other words, it depends on how much debris flies through the cloud you create while that cloud is still intact."

Go Space Junk Fishing - First conceived in 2014, the e.DeOrbit's mission would go out hunting for space junk lying in a polar orbit and at an altitude between 800 and 1,000 kilometers. Various means of capturing the junk have been propsed, including the use of harpoons, magnets, massive nets, robotic arms, and even tentacles.

Sail it away - This project is fairly straightforward. The British-proposed CubeSail would utilize the power of drag to push orbiting space debris down to lower orbits. Solar sails are garnering a lot of attention beyond just debris collection, with researchers looking at using them for interplanetary travel.

Humans have big plans of reaching beyond Earth to the Moon, and other planets. New space stations will make their way into orbit into our orbit in the near future. In order for humans to reach their space goals safely in the near future, we will need to keep a close eye on space junk. Poet S. Thuy Nguyen-Onstott summed this up perfectly,writing:

"The Universe is infinite

But space has its limits

Rockets a launching

Satellites are orbiting

Explosions in Space

Oh what a waste

Fragments go flying

And we go crying Space junk weve got Man-made or not

Then comes Kessler Who knows the better

When things collide

Their debris do multiply

Thanks to partnering

And NASAs gathering

We look for ways

To manage the spray"

Do you think humans should be worried about space debris? What solutions have caught your attention?

Read more:

Our Space Junk Problem Is Getting Serious; Here Is What You Need to Know - Interesting Engineering

Imaginary worlds, absorbing nonfiction and daft belly-laughs are hopefully providing some relief to frustrated kids during lockdown. In picture books, Smriti Halls and Ella Okstad offer a cheeky rhyming romp through a house invaded by animals, including a badminton-playing panda and a tiger doing something smelly, in Elephant in My Kitchen! (Egmont). But the rowdy displaced creatures just want their own habitats to be protected in this blithe, engaging introduction to ideas of conservation for the very young.

From Richard Jones, illustrator of The Snow Lion, comes Perdu (Simon & Schuster), his first title as author-illustrator. Perdu, an appealing, diminutive dark-brown dog with a jaunty red scarf, is lost, with no place to call home. From countryside to uncaring city he wanders, fearful and hungry, until a gesture of kindness draws him in. It may not be an unusual story, but its delicate pathos and warmth imbue it with a salutary sense of reassurance.

I Am Brown (Lantana) by Ashok Banker and Sandhya Prabhat is a joyful celebration of brown skin and wide-ranging achievement I am brown, I am beautiful, I am perfect. I ran this race, I won this prize, I wrote this book. Full of all the different and wonderful ways to be brown, whether worshipping, working, playing or eating, its uplifting without being preachy, rolling out an inspiring range of possibilities.

Meanwhile Avocado Asks (Orchard) by debut illustrator Momoko Abe is a delightful, boldly graphic wander down the supermarket aisles, as Avocado asks: What am I? Fruit or veg, cheese or egg Avocados quest for self-knowledge eventually brings him to the exuberantly confident Tomato, who declares that when youre as fabulous as Avocado, it simply doesnt matter.

For five- to eight-year-olds, the Pig Diaries author Emer Stamp moves from porcine to musine capers in PESTS (Hodder), kicking off a hilarious new series. Grandma has drilled into young mouse Stix that he must never let humans see him but when Stix joins the Peewit Educatorium for Seriously Terrible Scoundrels, how far will he go in his quest for the coveted accolade of pest of the year? Stamps new venture is riotously funny, with enough expressive drawings and poo jokes to delight longstanding Pig fans as well as new readers.

In the Garden (Princeton), a gorgeous oversized picture-book from Emma Giuliani, features two silhouetted siblings, Plum and Robin, as they enjoy a year of tending their patch. Under beautifully designed flaps lies information about fruit, flowers and foliage. Full of rich words (peduncle, pericarp) and the sensuous pleasures of a warm breeze, sweet smells and the enjoyment of growing things, it creates a consolatory sense of space for those with limited access to the outside world.

For seven-plus, Jack Noels Comic Classics: Great Expectations (Egmont) is a comic book exploration of the adventures of Pip, Miss Havisham, Magwitch and Estella, featuring much of the original language and packed with engaging doodles explaining or riffing on the story. A funny, thought-provoking treat, its the ideal way into an author whose verbosity is off-putting to most children, but whose meaty plots and unforgettable characters offer much.

Eight-plus readers with a taste for fantasy are in for a treat in LD Lapinskis debut The Strangeworlds Travel Agency (Orion). When Flick walks into a dilapidated travel agency and befriends Jonathan, its teenage proprietor, she makes the intoxicating discovery that the suitcases lining its walls are gateways to other worlds. But energy is draining from Five Lights, the world at the centre of everything can Flick somehow save it from collapse, and save her own world too? Assured, witty, riotously inventive, this debut has future classic written through it like Brighton rock.

From super-readable publishers Barrington Stoke comes David Longs thrilling Survival in Space, a retelling of the Apollo 13 mission published to coincide with the 50th anniversary of its launch. Written with limpid simplicity, filled both with fascinating facts about the history of space travel and a tensely contained sense of dramatic excitement, it offers pent-up imaginations the chance to leave Earth on a nail-biting adventure.

Finally, Kirsty Applebaums TrooFriend (Nosy Crow) is an agreeably sinister account of artificial intelligence, sentience and corporate obfuscation. The TrooFriend 560 will never lie, steal or bully what parent wouldnt want one for their child? But when Sarah is given the TrooFriend she calls Ivy, she soon discovers that human-like responses lead to human-like emotions. What happens when an android learns to feel? Told from Ivys perspective, Applebaums second novel is a heartfelt, compelling sci-fi story.

Robin Hood: Hacking, Heists & Flaming Arrows by Robert Muchamore, Hot Key, 6.99Set in a contemporary, slightly dystopian version of the Midlands, this high-octane, rip-roaring escapist reimagining from the author of the cult CHERUB series serves up a 12-year-old Robin flush with hacking skills, quick wits and a carbon-fibre recurve bow. When his dad is arrested for a crime he didnt commit, Robin falls foul of gangster Guy Gisborne and takes refuge with the hippyish denizens of the dangerous Sherwood Forest, robbing Gisborne-controlled cashpoints with the help of Marion Maid while his half-brother Little John finds unexpected common ground with the Sheriff of Nottingham. Intensely readable, outrageously enjoyable action.

Good Girl, Bad Blood by Holly Jackson, Egmont, 7.99Pip Fitz-Amobi, schoolgirl star of Jacksons bestselling debut, A Good Girls Guide to Murder, is back, now running a hugely popular podcast. She is determined not to be a detective any more, however too much hate came her way in the wake of her first case. So when her friend Connors brother goes missing, and his family ask her to help, Pip is dismayed to feel a familiar tingle of excitement. As nail-biting, taut and pacy as her first book, Pips second outing confirms Jackson as a homegrown thriller writer to watch.

Rules for Being a Girl by Candace Bushnell and Katie Cotugno, Macmillan, 7.99When Bex, her handsome teacher, is attentive to her, Marin is flattered but when he kisses her, shes appalled. Her best friend wont believe her, so, in the school paper, Marin writes an article laying out the rules for girls: dont be easy, dont be a prude, dont friendzone him, dont blame him for trying. School and social hierarchies may be poised to punish Marin instead of Bex, but that doesnt mean shes ready to stop fighting, or to lose her newly discovered voice. A fiercely feminist call to arms, from Sex and the City author Candace Bushnell.

The rest is here:

Childrens books roundup the best new picture books and novels - The Guardian

Andr Bormanis, co-executive producer and writer for the Fox/Hulu series The Orville and consulting producer on National Geographics Cosmos, picks the following five films:

1. 2001: A Space Odyssey. This 1968 Stanley Kubrick film is one of the most realistic depictions of space travel in our solar system, Bormanis said.

Astronaut Poole, left (Gary Lockwood) and Mission Commander Bowman (Keir Dullea) seek the privacy of a one-man space pod in an effort to confer without being overheard by computer Hal 9000 in the movie 2001: A Space Odyssey.

(Handout/Handout/Handout)

2. Apollo 13. This 1995 film, directed by Ron Howard, is a re-enactment of the flight of the third mission to send men to the surface of the moon, which nearly ended in tragedy.

3. The Martian. This 2015 film by Ridley Scott is a very good, scientifically credible story about one mans attempt to survive being stranded on Mars.

Matt Damon portrays an astronaut who draws upon his ingenuity to subsist on a hostile planet in the movie The Martian.

(Aidan Monaghan/Aidan Monaghan/Aidan Monaghan/Twentieth Century)

4. The Planets. This 2019 BBC documentary series, hosted by Brian Cox, offers a very good overview of our solar system and our current understanding of it.

CG illustration of Saturn in The Planets, a 2019 BBC documentary series. Credit: Lola Post Production/ BBC Studios

(Lola Post Production/ BBC Studios)

5. Star Trek, the original 1966-69 series, created by Gene Roddenberry. Fifty-plus years later, they really still hold up. And the special effects were redone for high-definition television standards a few years ago. If your cable company carries the MeTV network, which specializes in Boomer reruns, you can find original Star Trek episodes at 10 on Saturday nights.

Star Trek

(Paramount Pictures/Paramount Pictures/Paramount Pictures)

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Best sky-centric movies and TV shows of all time. Yes, Star Trek makes the cut - Los Angeles Times

The old friend shows up every night, big and brawny as ever. Hes on a Brooklyn familys seventh-floor balcony in Windsor Terrace, and above the Portofino Ristorante in Forest Hills, and bellowing out of a truck rolling slowly up and down the empty canyons of Manhattans avenues, right on time to with the crash of a cymbal start spreadin the news.

It is 7 p.m., and the city is already clapping, a nightly outpouring of support for health care workers that has taken place for weeks. And many have added a soundtrack to their applause, as familiar as the skyline. Its as brassy and over the top as ever and yet, playing out across a cooped-up city of crowded apartments and masks and gloves, its bottomless optimism can visibly bring smiles, a short pause to The Pause.

I want to be a part of it New York, New York.

A lot of people stop doing what theyre doing and start cheering, said George Leon, a manager at Portofino with a front-row seat to the nightly performance, when an upstairs neighbor plays it on loudspeakers from his apartment window. Its awesome.

With the city in the grip of the coronavirus, Frank Sinatras Theme from New York, New York, its actual name, has once again stepped up as its anthem, as it did after 9/11 and as it does after Yankee games and police promotion ceremonies. It seems to have always been with us, a staple of the voice instantly recognizable all over the world since his prime in the 1940s and 1950s; but in fact, its a song thats barely reached middle age.

The nightly performances are the latest stop in the unlikely journey of a song that, in more ways than one, almost didnt get made at all.

In 1977, the director Martin Scorsese was making New York, New York, and he needed a title track. The songwriting team of John Kander and Fred Ebb wrote a song and brought it to a meeting with the director and the films stars, Robert De Niro and Liza Minnelli.

We played our songs Scorsese and Liza liked them a lot, Mr. Kander told the Cleveland Plain Dealer in 2015. We were just about to leave, and Bobby, over on the couch, waved his arm, and Scorsese said, Excuse me just a minute, and he went over and talked to him. It was a very animated conversation in terms of arms, but we couldnt hear what they were saying.

The director returned very embarrassed and said Mr. De Niro found the title number lightweight and wanted them to try again, Mr. Kander said.

The two writers, whose credits included Chicago and Cabaret, were annoyed Some actors going to tell us whats a good song and whats not? but returned to Mr. Ebbs apartment. In about 45 minutes, he said, we wrote this song called New York, New York another one. It fared better: They seemed to like it a lot, Mr. Kander said.

As he would tell The New York Times in 2015: De Niro was completely right.

Ms. Minnelli sang the number on the films soundtrack, and the song seemed to belong to her. This would not last.

Elsewhere in the entertainment world, Mr. Sinatra, then in his early 60s, had recently emerged from an early retirement to a vastly changed cultural landscape from the ring-a-ding days of the Rat Pack. He looked around and saw not fellow crooners, but acts like Led Zeppelin and Pink Floyd, and he struggled to adapt.

He had fought an ambivalent battle against the new music, sometimes trying to make it his own, almost always with heart-sinking results, wrote James Kaplan in a biography, Sinatra: The Chairman.

Frank was straining for relevance, he wrote.

The singers wife, Barbara Sinatra, suggested he cover New York, New York.

Naw, thats Lizas song, he replied, according to Mrs. Sinatras book, Lady Blue Eyes. But she persuaded him to play it at a 1978 concert at Radio City Music Hall, she wrote, and the number he almost didnt sing brought the house down.

The Sinatra historian and radio personality Jonathan Schwartz was in attendance that night. I suggested to him that he might want to record it, he recalled this week. He said something like, Well see. The music publisher Frank Military, a longtime collaborator, has also been credited with introducing the man to the song.

Mr. Sinatras daughter, Tina, in an interview Wednesday from her home in California, recalled another important voice in his ear. He was reluctant to take it from Liza, she said. She told him, Its OK, Uncle Frank.

The following year, Mr. Sinatra set about making an ambitious triple-album, Trilogy: Past Present Future. Amid a curious collection of covers Billy Joels Just the Way You Are, Neil Diamonds Song Sung Blue and a suite of songs involving space travel, he thought back to the familiar, comfortable fit of those vagabond shoes.

On Sept. 19, 1979, in a studio in Hollywood, he recorded the song at last, with Rob Fentress, a member of Sinatras large circle, among those crowded in the jubilant control room after the final take. They were playing back New York, New York, and Frank was sitting in the engineers chair, and he was just oblivious to all the noise, Mr. Fentress recalled in Mr. Kaplans book. He was just focusing on the song. And you could see how pleased he was. He wasnt laughing; he was just smiling slightly. Id seen that focused look before.

The song would close his concerts for years to come, nudging aside My Way in that spot, and was the last one he performed in public, when he joined an array of stars in 1995 at a tribute for his 80th birthday. He died in 1998.

I think he could thoroughly identify with the song, growing up in Hoboken and looking across the river at the skyline, his daughter Tina said. He wanted to be there. He wanted to be on the other side.

Twenty-four years later, Allison Garber, 45, of Windsor Terrace, one of the countless New Yorkers who grew up with the song showing up like a proud uncle at ballgames and public gatherings, heard a friend say it was blasting nightly at 7 p.m. from an apartment in Manhattan.

I wanted to bring that to my neighborhood, she said. Its undeniable when you hear that last bit, you really have to point out at your city.

She found herself a little uncomfortable with the A-number-one lyrics, not at all about community, and cast about for a replacement. From her balcony facing Prospect Park, she tried Heroes by David Bowie, Wind Beneath My Wings by Bette Midler, and others. Below, people passed by. Only one song seemed to make them stop, so she brought it back.

Maybe New York, New York makes everybody feel like theyre that person? she said. That everyone is king of the hill, top of the heap.

See more here:

The Story Behind "New York, New York," the City's 7 P.M. Anthem - The New York Times

In SF Saids first work of childrens literature, Varjak Paw, the eponymous cat ventures out into the big, wide world. By rather appropriate contrast,another feline hero rendered by the author in The Book of Hopes, a collection of short stories published for children in the time of coronavirus, is living in close confinement.

The Naughtiest Cat I Have Ever Known is a 500-word tale by the Beirut-born Said and sits alongside 110 other contributions from leading childrens authors, poets and illustrators to provide words and pictures to comfort, inspire and entertain children in lockdown.

Saids cat in the autobiographical story, named Monamy from the French mon ami meaning my friend, is not under restrictions imposed to contain the spread of Covid-19 but instead lives in the claustrophobic third-floor London flat that was the writers childhood home. Ultimately, Monamy performs a valiant leap that sends a pompous relative of Said packing. Before that feat, however, the cat prances about climbing walls and tearing the place apart.

I was thinking about myself as a child at a time when I felt very isolated in a way that I imagine kids in lockdown will be feeling everywhere, Said tells The National. It was the appearance of this extraordinary, incredibly naughty cat that sent this explosion of activity and hope into my life, he says.

My mum was a single mum. I was an only child. She was quite protective and we lived in not the most salubrious bit of London. She did not really let me go out on my own until I was about 13.

The Book of Hopes has been launched as a free e-book by the National Literacy Trust in the UK, and will eventually be published as a gift book in the autumn by Bloomsbury, in support of NHS Charities Together.

The book is dedicated to: The doctors, nurses, carers, porters, cleaners and everyone currently working in hospitals: you are the stuff that wild, heroic dreams are made of.

The Hope Project was started only a few weeks ago by the award-winning author of The Good Thieves, Katherine Rundell, who emailed some of the childrens writers and artists that she most admires, asking them to write or draw something that might make children laugh or wonder or snort or smile.

The response was magnificent, which should not have surprised me, because childrens writers and illustrators are professional hunters of hope, Ms Rundell says in the foreword.

We seek it out, catching it in our nets, setting it down between the pages of a book and sending it out into the world, she says.

The stories, poems, essays and pictures are not all explicitly about hope but they each aim to create it through plastic-devouring caterpillars, doodles, beautiful prose, space travel, new shoes and dragons or accounts of a cat, like that of Saids Monamy.

Said is only one of the many luminaries who wholeheartedly embraced the project, including Lauren Child, Onjali Rauf, Anthony Horowitz, Michael Morpurgo, Axel Scheffler, Jacqueline Wilson and Sita Brahmachari.

Said, who won the 2003 Smarties Prize for Childrens Literature for Varjak Paw, describes the The Book of Hopes as a wonderful, inspiring idea and is thrilled he was asked to contribute.

I tried to think what I could do, he says. Childrens literature is capable of expressing absolutely anything that any other kind of literature is capable of expressing. But one thing it is uniquely good at expressing is hope as a possibility.

As the world looks for silver linings amid an avalanche of negatives brought about by the coronavirus pandemic, Said hopes that children will discover or reconnect with the joys of reading and also possibly take that pleasure one step further by creating their own written works.

If you love reading as a kid, and that could be reading anything, that is the single best thing you can possibly do, he says. Move from reading to writing for pleasure or drawing for pleasure. It can be anything. Make videos for pleasure, animation. That is enormously powerful.

Before the Covid-19 outbreak, Said would regularly embark on school visits, talking to children about reading, writing and creativity.

The closure of schools has stopped him from turning up in person but he has been using online video chats to reach out to pupils. It might not be exactly the same thing, he says, but the connection is still there.

The fact that I was not in the room did not get in the way of the message being communicated, he says.

I was really getting the sense that what they were getting from it was exactly that the feeling they wanted to go and write their own stories now, and you could do that at any age. One thing I always try and get over to kids is that age is irrelevant to writing. [You] guys can totally be writers right now. Just think about what you love and write something about that.

The message that Said is spreading through his talks and stories has come full circle because it was his own pet, Monamy, when he was a child that provided the inspiration for his own career as a childrens author.

I remember writing stories about him at the time, making comics about him. I used to love drawing him, the author says of his adored childhood cat. Whatever it is that you love a pet, another person, another object, a sport making something about the things you love can be an incredibly hopeful thing to do.

The Book of Hopes begins with a particularly poignant drawing by Child of a little girl framed in the window of a house, all in monochrome, looking out at the vibrantly colourful birds perched in a tree outside.

It serves as a powerful illustration of Saids belief that the book might be a creative momentum to help its young, cooped-up readers find some release, freedom and possibility. Which I think we could all use a bit of now, he says.

Updated: May 4, 2020 12:18 PM

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Beloved authors and illustrators create a free 'Book of Hopes' for children in lockdown - The National