[TheForge] Re: Jean Tijou screens

[ries]

Stephenson is truly great, but I dont think he has sufficient  
grounding and history in blacksmithing.
It is a subject notably missing from all his books.
Which, I am in agreement, are some of the best.

He is a classic computer nerd type, who understands the significance  
of ideas, but seems to forget that all those shiny toys need to be  
kept running by somebody.

Gibson has a slightly wider view- as does Sterling, but in general  
somebody ought to be teaching  a class in the importance of crafts to  
science fiction writers.

Ries

On Mar 21, 2008, at 1:16 PM, Mike Spencer wrote:


> I found out recently that the friend I went to college with (Steve
> Tijou) is a direct ancestor of Jean Tijou. How cool is that?!?

Er, um, unless you accept Dan Tull's correction, that is *STUPENDOUSLY*
cool! :-)

But even as "descendent", that's pretty good.  Although I haven't
really made a study of it, all the mentions I've seen say Jean Tijou
faded into obscurity after his work in England and nobody knows what
happened to him.  But I see your friend Steve and his dad have web
pages detailing the family tree.  Cool!

Stephenson's Baroque Cycle is probably my favorite book(s) of all time
(possibly excluding other books by the same author) but I was a bit
miffed that Newton & Leibnitz got starring roles, Robert Hooke got a
lot of lines and Christopher Wren had a couple of walk-ons but Tijou,
(who was doing the Hampton Court screens and major iron for Wren in
St. Pauls at the same time) got no mention.  Ho hum.  I know,
picky-picky.


- Mike

-- 
Michael Spencer                  Nova Scotia, Canada       .~.
                                                           /V\
mspencer at tallships.ca                                     /( )\
http://home.tallships.ca/mspencer/                        ^^-^^
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Ries Niemi
Industrial Artist
http://www.riesniemi.com/