Katia Noyes, author of Crashing America, has just put up a wickedly funny faux interview on her blog, called What Authors Really Want, wherein she chats with Author Famous Head, Author Amazing, Author Sincere Dyke, Author Obscure Lesbian, and Author Special Press, among others.
Plus, new on Segundo! Ed Champion interviews Jonathan Safron Foer and A.M. Homes.
Plus, if you’ve long considered Pluto to be your favorite planet, you’ll need to pick a new darling of the solar system. Turns out, it’s not a planet! So say “an international body of astronomers.” This from the Mercury News:
Pluto is no longer our most puny planet, but King of the Kuiper Belt, a collection of small, orbiting objects in the outer solar system.
“There was going to be a change, no matter what. This was not a whim. A decision was required,” said Andrew Fraknoi, chairman of the astronomy program at Foothill College in Los Altos.
“Pluto has always been considered a little strange,” he said. “It’s like the cousin you don’t want to invite to Thanksgiving dinner, but you have to — but he’s so weird, you hope he doesn’t show up. It is as if Pluto has been living under an assumed identity all these years, and we finally found out.”
And why was a decision required? We’re not told by the heavy weight from Foothills. You’d expect with something of this magnitude we’d be getting expert opinion from MIT or something. Anyway, I’m disappointed as Pluto was actually always my favorite among the planets. Small and a bit out of the way, how could it not appeal–and now it’s been excluded, no doubt because heavy hitters like Saturn and Neptune wanted the space.