Re: Some administrivia updates and stuff

["RAY D STANFORD" <STARSONG@prodigy.net>]

Mickey P. Rowe said:
[From: Mickey P. Rowe <mrowe@indiana.edu>
To: dinosaur@usc.edu <dinosaur@usc.edu>
Date: Sunday, November 01, 1998 4:45 PM
Subject: Some administrivia updates and stuff]


SNIP...
>Now as a reward for those of you who've stuck with me...  Last month
>Ralph Chapman mentioned that Philippe Taquet has "a new book out on
>his exploits".  I suspect what Ralph was talking about is the
>following, which is new only to those of us that don't speak French
>(some of us just don't have enough gall... or should that be Gall?):
>
>    Dinosaur Impressions
>    Postcards from a Paleontologist
>
>    Taquet, Philippe
>    Translated by Kevin Padian
>
>    1998 6 x 9 256 pp.  18 halftones 22 line diagrams
>
>    Hardback 0-521-58372-1 $24.95...

    Mickey, you have done well in rewarding us with this reference.  I
receved this book from www.amazon.com about two weeks ago and would like to
offer my commments and heartfelt recomendation.

    Please note: The book provides a far better, more interesting, and
wonderful read than the sub-title, "Postcards from a Paleontologist", might
cause someone glancing at the cover to think.

    DINOSAUR IMPRESSIONS is thoroughly warm with humanity, enthusiasm, joy,
humor, and a capacity to enable us to not only visually see, but to
emotionally experience paleontology at its dual best:  Realitiesin the field
(a delightfully broad one geographically), and an intelligent, sensitive,
and even poetic mind immersed therein.   Taquet's outstanding accounts are a
true privilege to share.

    Indeed, those accounts are far more than 'postcards',  Taquet's book is
a song from the heart of one in love with our planet and its wonderous past.
Reading a book like this, intellectual dissection thereof seems a foolish
distraction, and I shall refrain from doing so in these comments.

    Although the book contains a only few black and white photos and no
color ones (except for the dust jacket), in this case the condition seems an
asset.  Two-dimensional images do not distract us from words, visions, and
feelings far more interesting, revealing, and profound.

    As with a rich, deeply artistic movie classic, readers can lean back
with Taquet's DINOSAUR IMPRESSIONS  and enjoy not only some profoundly felt
experience, but a mind that is unique, rare, and, yes, wonderfully French in
the best and most universal sense!

    Read it with pleasure.

    Ray Stanford