Meteor!

Meteor! is a 1987 children's picture book by author Patricia Polacco. Polacco is well known for writing and illustrating novels depicting events from her childhood in Michigan. Meteor! was published in 1987 by The Trumpet Club, commonly known for publications of children’s books from grades PreK-6. The novel is about Patricia, her brother Richard, and Cousin Steve as young children spending time with their grandparents on their farm in Michigan. It seems to be a normal summer night until a flash from the sky and a crash in the yard.

According to Publishers Weekly, "Based on a true event, this enchanting book overwhelmingly expresses the magic that suddenly pervades a small town, from the funny folksy way the story is told to the imaginative, full color illustrations."

Booklist says, "Polacco’s full-color pictures are completely in tandem with the telling".

Story

The novel tells the story of Patricia, her brother Steve, and her cousin Steve spending the summer at their grandparents' farm in Union City, Michigan. Late one night while sitting in their cozy home, a bright light falls from the sky landing in the Gaw’s farm with a loud crash. Curiosity overcomes the family as they set foot outside to find a fallen star in their backyard. One line in the book reads, “Of all the places on earth a meteor could have fallen, it landed smack-dab in the middle of our yard, Gramma exclaimed.” This was such a huge deal for the residents of Mudsock Medow. Word gets around quickly, and before long there is a carnival at the Gaw farm. There is a band, a circus, a hot air balloon, and more. The entire town gathers to celebrate the meteor. Many residents touched the meteor claiming it was magical. It seemed like magic to all that the fallen star, which flew through the galaxy, had landed in Union City and brought such joy to all.

Meteoroid

A meteoroid is a small rocky or metallic body travelling through space. Meteoroids are significantly smaller than asteroids, and range in size from small grains to 1 meter-wide objects. Objects smaller than this are classified as micrometeoroids or space dust. Most are fragments from comets or asteroids, whereas others are collision impact debris ejected from bodies such as the Moon or Mars.

When a meteoroid, comet or asteroid enters the Earth's atmosphere at a speed typically in excess of 20 km/s (72,000 km/h; 45,000 mph), aerodynamic heating of that object produces a streak of light, both from the glowing object and the trail of glowing particles that it leaves in its wake. This phenomenon is called a meteor or "shooting star". A series of many meteors appearing seconds or minutes apart, and appearing to originate from the same fixed point in the sky, is called a meteor shower. If that object withstands ablation from its passage through the atmosphere as a meteor and impacts with the ground, it is then called a meteorite.

Meteor (film)

Meteor is a 1979 science fiction Technicolor disaster film in which scientists detect an asteroid on a collision course with Earth and struggle with international, Cold War politics in their efforts to prevent disaster. The movie starred Sean Connery and Natalie Wood.

It was directed by Ronald Neame from a screenplay by Edmund H. North and Stanley Mann, which was inspired by a 1967 MIT report Project Icarus. The movie co-starred Karl Malden, Brian Keith, Martin Landau, Trevor Howard, Joseph Campanella, Richard Dysart and Henry Fonda.

Plot

After the asteroid Orpheus is hit by a comet, a five-mile chunk of Orpheus is sent on a collision course towards Earth, which will cause an extinction-level event. While the United States government engages in political maneuvering, smaller asteroid fragments precede the main body, wreaking havoc on the planet. The United States has a secret orbiting nuclear missile platform satellite named Hercules, which was designed by Dr. Paul Bradley (Sean Connery). It was intended to defend Earth against a massive space rock, but instead was demoted to become an orbiting super weapon now aimed at Russia. However, its fourteen nuclear missiles are not enough to stop the meteor.

The Milk-Eyed Mender

The Milk-Eyed Mender is the debut album by American singer-songwriter Joanna Newsom, released on March 23, 2004 on the Drag City label (see 2004 in music).

Joanna Newsom wrote all the songs on the album except for "Three Little Babes", a traditional Appalachian song by Texas Gladden. According to the liner notes, Joanna plays "a Lyon & Healy style 15 harp, a wurlitzer electric piano, a harpsichord, and piano."

A bandmate in San Francisco band The Pleased, Noah Georgeson, produced and recorded the album, as well as contributing guitar to two tracks and backing vocals to one. Cover art embroidery is by Emily Prince and photographs are by Alissa Anderson. Newsom thanks former touring partners Will Oldham, Devendra Banhart, and Vetiver, along with many others.

Reception

The album received general acclaim upon its release, earning Newsom several accolades that same year and by the end of the decade. The Sunday Times ranked it at #28 on its best albums of the decade list, and in 2009, Pitchfork Media named The Milk-Eyed Mender the 47th greatest album of the 00's. The website also named "Peach, Plum, Pear" the 197th Greatest Song of the 2000s (decade) and "Sprout & The Bean" the 229th.Slant Magazine named the album the 83rd best album of its decade.The Milk-Eyed Mender was also ranked number 76 inside Tiny Mix Tapes's greatest records of the 2000s (decade) list.

Sadie (album)

Sadie is the debut studio album by Australian pop singer John Farnham (billed then as Johnny Farnham) it was released by EMI Records in April 1968. The lead single, "Sadie (The Cleaning Lady)" had been released in November 1967, it was #1 on the Go-Set National Singles Charts for five weeks, and was the largest selling single in Australia by an Australian artist in the 1960s. The single, "Sadie (The Cleaning Lady)" sold approximately 180,000 copies in Australia, and was also released in New Zealand, Denmark and Germany.The second follow up album single was Jeff Barry/Ellie Greenwichs "Friday Kind of Monday" included on the album and was released in March as a double-A side with a cover of "Underneath the Arches" (non-album track) as Farnham's second single, which peaked at #6.

Background

Johnny Farnham's first commercially successful solo recording was the novelty song entitled "Sadie (The Cleaning Lady)", his manager Darryl Sambell had disliked it as the lyrics were so persistent. However, EMI's in house producer, David Mackay, insisted and so the single was released in November 1967. By arrangement with Sambell, Melbourne radio DJ Stan Rofe pretended that he disliked "Sadie" before playing it. Rofe continued the ploy on TV's Uptight and viewers responded with calls to play the song. Rofe was also a writer for Go-Set, a teen-oriented pop magazine, another writer for the magazine, Ian Meldrum, praised Farnham's efforts. "Sadie" hit #1 on the Go-Set National Singles Charts in January 1968 and remained there for five weeks. Selling 180 000 copies in Australia, "Sadie (The Cleaning Lady)" was the highest selling single by an Australian artist of the decade. Farnham's second single, released in March, was the double A-sided "Underneath The Arches" (non-album track) / "Friday Kind Of Monday", which peaked at #6. The album, Sadie, produced by Mackay was released in April.