In this creative spoof, Bernasconi imagines the discovery of an important diary that documents the attempts of Captain Arsenio in the eighteenth cen tury to invent a flying machine. Excerpts from the diary are produced along with detailed diagrams, formulas, and illustrated pages for six failed projects that include, for example, an “Aerial Submarine,” whose “miraculous” but flammable gas and wooden “flight vessel” leads to disaster, and the uncon trollable “Illusion Burner”—a prototype of the turbine engine. Untutored in the sciences but with an unflagging optimism, Captain Arsenio survives one disaster after another, refusing to let physical pain and the destruction of his machines deter him from yet another attempt. hc

Captain Arsenio was a curious man who liked, more than anything, to tinker and explore. One day in 1782, he decided that he would put his unusual skills to work in a most ambitious way: he would build a flying machine.

Despite a hodgepodge of materials (and a total unawareness of the laws of physics), Captain Arsenio aimed to get his feet off the ground and his head in the clouds--temporarily, at least. But would any of his crazy inventions ever achieve flight?

In this hilarious fictional account, Pablo Bernasconi imagines a legend in the making--a retired cheesemaker and scuba diver turned inventor who sets off to fly with the birds, in spite of himself.