Date: Mon Jun 1 02:58:30 EDT 1998
Subject: A.Word.A.Day--daedal

daedal (DEED-al) adjective

1. Ingenious and complex in design or function; intricate.

2. Finely or skillfully made or employed; artistic.

[Latin daedalus, from Greek daidalos.]

Another of the many words discussed on AWADtalk not long ago,without any of us knowing it was in the Archives

Daedalus was a mythical polymath who built Labyrinth for
Kind Midos of Crete, who later was so ungrateful that he imprisoned Daedalus and his son. Daedalus made wings and escaped. This was commemorated by:

1988 DAEDALUS flys from Heraklion airport on Crete to Santorini setting world distance and duration records. 116 km in 3 hours 54 mins 59 secs The pilot was Kanellos Kanellopoulos

I had to think for a while to remember who the son of Daedalus was... Icarus, for anyone else similarly afflicted with "right-on-the-tip-of-my-tongue-itis"...

Icarus was mentioned in this article about translating Harry Potter and the Philosophers' Stone into ancient Greek.

http://www.npr.org/dmg/dmg.html?prgCode=WESAT&showDate=14-Feb-2004&segNum=6&NPRMediaPref=RM

...and Stephen Daedalus was James Joyce's early pen name.

Deadalus was the name of the first starship planned in 1973-77 by the British Interplanetary Society to travel to Barnard's Star.

The spaceship which appears in "The Planet of the Apes" is named Icarus.

And if you want to hear what CAN happen, you should listen to "Rambling On" by Procul Harum ...

Deja Daedalus! from Dr. Bill [wwh] almost a year ago. [See what we're missing! We don't have to. :) ]

re Daedalus was the name of the first starship planned in 1973-77 by the British Interplanetary Society to travel to Barnard's Star.

Makes me think of the Starship Enterprise [and its noble mission]:

Good discussions with three or with four
Are twice as good if you double the score.
Please don't lurk
Be like Capt. James Kirk
Boldly go where you've n'er been before.

Excerpt
Blue Latitudes: Boldly Going Where Captain Cook Has Gone Before
By Tony Horwitz

Prologue: The Distance Traveled

"Ambition leads me not only farther than any other man has been before me, but as far I think it possible for man to go."
—The Journal of Captain James Cook

"Just after dark on February 16, 1779, a kahuna, or holy man, rode a canoe to His Majesty's Sloop Resolution, anchored off the coast of Hawaii. The kahuna came aboard with a bundle under his arm. Charles Clerke, the ship's commander, unwrapped the parcel in the presence of his officers. He found "a large piece of Flesh which we soon saw to be Human," Clerke wrote in his journal. "It was clearly a part of the Thigh about 6 or 8 pounds without any bone at all."

http://www.bordersstores.com/features/feature.jsp?file=bluelatitudes