Jabber, Jabber, Jabberwock

JABBERWOCKY

Lewis Carroll

(from Through the Looking-Glass

and What Alice Found There, 1872)

`Twas brillig, and the slithy toves

  Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:

All mimsy were the borogoves,

  And the mome raths outgrabe.

"Beware the Jabberwock, my son!

  The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!

Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun

  The frumious Bandersnatch!"

He took his vorpal sword in hand:

  Long time the manxome foe he sought --

So rested he by the Tumtum tree,

  And stood awhile in thought.

And, as in uffish thought he stood,

  The Jabberwock, with eyes of flame,

Came whiffling through the tulgey wood,

  And burbled as it came!

One, two! One, two! And through and through

  The vorpal blade went snicker-snack!

He left it dead, and with its head

  He went galumphing back.

"And, has thou slain the Jabberwock?

  Come to my arms, my beamish boy!

O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!'

  He chortled in his joy.

`Twas brillig, and the slithy toves

  Did gyre and gimble in the wabe;

All mimsy were the borogoves,

  And the mome raths outgrabe.

I love the Jabberwock. It sounds like complete nonsense, but there’s fun to be had squinting between the lines.  I found the poem at this website. dshaw@jabberwocky.com   A dusty place last I looked.

What started this was my purchase of the Tremors Attack Pack, a 4 movie DVD set.  I knew and loved the first two movies, but didn't even know about the later two till then.

As I first watched Tremors 3; Back to Perfection, the flying morph of the Tremors creatures first came on screen and I pointed at it, snapped my fingers twice, popped my forehead with my palm and yelled; "Jabberwock!"  and I hadn’t read the poem in years.  Then it launched itself with it's butt on fire!  Haw, rocket powered flying Jabberwock!  A natural boost glider.

There are many examples of evolved chemical warfare in nature. Webbing, irritants, venomous bites and stings are only the most obvious ones. The plant world, both land and aquatic don’t just compete for light but modify the medium in which they live, sometimes in exclusionary ways. The sessile ocean reefs are practically a warzone rife with other examples. 

The prime example for this blogpost would be the Bombardier Beetle, with it’s caustic binary chemical defense spray. From there it’s not such a big step to evolve a rocket propulsion system, improbable in a higher life form though it be.

For centuries we humans have made oxidizers for blackpowder  from our own urine, as well as the excretions of other animals.  Consider how history would’ve changed if we had had rocket powered Jabberwocks as an example.

A short BTW:  I googled the Vorpal Sword.  Another nonsense word at the time, but now it’s become a popular weapon in gaming and comics. Ran across’em a few times myself.

A longer BTW:  In Tremors 2; Aftershocks, when the first Shrieker comes into view it presages its' entrance with much bashing and crashing, louder and louder.  Earl and Grady are getting increasingly nervous and are pointing their rifle barrels higher and higher. Around the corner steps this little 3ft tall spud, they start to let their guard down, then it charges… It reminds me so very much of the old WB Merrie Melodies cartoon; Inki and the Mynah Bird. The jungle thrashes, the jungle crashes, one imagines terrible things; rabid rhinos, a constipated elephant or even worse!  Then out steps the Mynah Bird, tiny and totally blasé. Do not be fooled, DO NOT let your guard down! 

BTW to the BTW;  You're not likely to see Inki and the Mynah Bird on TV anymore due to racial censorship. 

3rd BTW to the second BTW; I cheered back when Warner Brothers Channel brought back the singing frog as its' mascot. I think it would be really cool if WB's New Looney Tunes brought back the Mynah Bird, at least as a cameo appearance, or six. The main characters have to pause the dialogue or chase for pedestrian traffic. The kind of gag Looney Tunes is well known for.  Or; Wylie Coyote thinks a Mynah Bird might be easier pickins' than Roadrunner...NOT!

Now the tune is stuck in my head!

BTW the fifth;  I've been sitting on this draft for a long, LONG time because it's a real rambler. It never gets any shorter though, and it still defies any attempts to divide and conquer.

What a Bomb

As I perused online photo albums from NARAM-51, I saw
another rocket worthy of note amongst the scale and fantasy
scale models. Fantasy scale designs are rockets and spacecraft
that are serious designs that were never built, or designs that
are entirely fictional in nature.  This is a very nice model of
the Alpha Omega Bomb, the doomsday missile that radiation
fried mutant humans worshipped in the movie, Beneath the
Planet of the Apes.  I didn't quite have a primal moment when
I recognized the model, but the apes in the movie sure did.  
Reading up on the history of the movie, it was Charlton
Hestons idea to set off the bomb at the end of the movie.  
He rather hoped that would be the end of the series. 
No such luck.

All the models entered in competition at NARAM have to fly,
but I doubt the Omega Bomb flew as is. It only has 2 fins.
No doubt the model has a set of removable clear plastic fins
that are added to make it flyable.  Unfortunately, I have no
info at this time on the owner builder, or the photographer.

Quest for New Designs?

When I first saw a pic of what I take to be Quest
Aerospace's dealer table at NARAM 51 I had a primal
moment. I curled my lips back and hooted a few
times while slapping my head. A quick check of the
Quest web site confirmed that what I spotted in the
pic was one of Quest's new kits, the Striker AGM.
Well there's new and then there's new. I've seen that
design before and it takes an old rocketeer to know
where.
Way back when, some of the movers and shakers of
model rocketry got together to create a truly  cutting
edge company called Enertek. To make a long  and
mostly unknown story short, Enertek failed to make it
into production. Gary Rosenfield and/or his company
Aerotech was a major participant, others participants
went on to form Quest. A lot of Enertek tooling had
already been done and this formed the core of
Aerotech's kit line. The Mantis launch pad, the Initiater,
Strong Arm, and Arcas kits. All underwent some changes
minor or major, but there they were.  Enertek was
where C-slot motors and Copperhead igniters [called
Top Shot Igniters then] gestated as well.

A close look at the Astra 2000 will cause a lot of fellow
rocketeers to have a primal reaction themselves, the
critter is obviously based on major components from
a Black Brant II. Nose cone, boattail, and the narrow
waist ring [the white section below the upper fins].
Quest naturally used what was at hand and used a Nike
Smoke nosecone.

I always wanted to build a clone-rok of the Astra 2000,
but being a difficult person, I wanted to stage it and
that upper fin set is dreadfully small. I have cloned a
couple other Enertek vapor-roks over the years, but
that's a story for another day.