Who doesn't remember the stories of yesterday, the stories we grew up with: stories of a brontosaurus, Horatio, flying with the 8th bomber wing and braving the flak strewn skies over the Teutonic motherland. When he returns home he is greeted with a hero's welcome, a parade down 5th Avenue, a date with Rita Hayworth, and his photo on the cover of Life. But when all the acolades are over and the limelight fades, he finds it difficult holding down a job, wearing a suit and sitting behind a desk. He yearns for the joy and comradship he felt at 25000 feet, dropping payloads of happy explosions down the throat of the Axis powers. Where can he go? Back to the Silurian miasma - hardly!Calvino's Cosmicomics has a character that is a dinosaur who lives beyond the age of the terrible lizards (not that they were bad at being lizards). People remember how fearsome dinosaurs were but have forgotten what they looked like. In Calvino's story, the dinosaur goes about his business, falling in love, raising a family, hoping that no one notices what he really is. Even today dinosaurs could lurk among us, selling real estate, managing banks, delivering candy grams.
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