{"id":6376,"date":"2026-01-31T13:42:24","date_gmt":"2026-01-31T13:42:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/cromercrox\/?p=6376"},"modified":"2026-01-31T13:42:24","modified_gmt":"2026-01-31T13:42:24","slug":"vertiginous-nostalgia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/cromercrox\/2026\/01\/31\/vertiginous-nostalgia\/","title":{"rendered":"Vertiginous Nostalgia"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"IMG_8252\"<\/a>Against the remote possibility that neither of you has heard that I’ve written a book called The Wonder of Life on Earth<\/em><\/a>, which is out next week, well, you know now. Or, rather, I co-wrote it. I did the text, but an artist called Raxenne Maniquiz<\/a> painted the pictures. \u00a0They aren’t attempts as realism so much as stylish and impressionistic. The book is aimed at pre-teens, who I’m sure will appreciate the pictures more than the text. In an afterword, I wrote that Raxenne’s illustrations ‘remind me of a book I read as a small child called The First Days of the Earth<\/em>. That was a long time ago, and you can’t get it any more’.<\/p>\n

Indeed, you can’t. I tried. I could find no trace of its ever having existed.<\/p>\n

Then I had an epiphany.<\/p>\n

The book was actually called First Days of the World<\/em>, and I have just taken delivery of a paperback copy I bought on eBay. It was \"IMG_0595\"<\/a>published by Scholastic in 1958. The text was by Gerald Ames and Rose Wyler, the impressionistic illustrations by Leonard Weisgard. I am sure the copy I had as a small child back in the mid- 1960s was hardback, but after almost 60 years, my memory isn’t what it was.<\/p>\n

But as for the pictures — looking them now, the wonder of them came flooding back in a wave of nostalgia that feels almost like physical vertigo. The power of these pictures took me back to my infant self. I hope that The Wonder of Life on Earth<\/em> will have such an impression on a young mind that they’ll feel the same when they come across it again more than half a century later.<\/p>\n

\"IMG_0597\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\"IMG_0596\"<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Against the remote possibility that neither of you has heard that I’ve written a book called The Wonder of Life on Earth, which is out next week, well, you know now. Or, rather, I co-wrote it. I did the text, … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6376","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/cromercrox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6376","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/cromercrox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/cromercrox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/cromercrox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/11"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/cromercrox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6376"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/cromercrox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6376\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6381,"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/cromercrox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6376\/revisions\/6381"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/cromercrox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6376"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/cromercrox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6376"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/cromercrox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6376"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}