Das Rheingold

 "Got yer nose"

First of all, I feel the need to qualify a certain statement that public radio told me a few days ago. I'll paraphrase it here: At _____ donation level, you may opt to be gifted a copy of Diane Rehm's Life with Maxie; Christmas is just around the corner and this would make a wonderful gift. 

Scholar's, I highly recommend that you click the above link. Take a good hard look (really, it won't take that long) at the cover of that book (covers of books, are in fact important, especially when choosing a Christmas gift, and I really feel the issue needn't be discussed further) and ask yourself some questions (I trust you to generate you own questions).

There are two key phrases in this post's inaugural statement that I'd like to examine. Phrase A: "this would make a wonderful gift." Phrase Ω: "Christmas is just around the corner."


Let's begin with a critical analysis of Phrase Ω.

If a building has four sides, it follows then that it has four corners. A year has four seasons, and if a year is akin to a building and seasons are akin to sides of buildings, it follows then that a year also has four corners, and that, in fact, Christmas is just around the corner.

I'm not Andy Rooney. Not yet. So, scholars, I'll leave you to continue the analysis of phrase Ω on your own (as you grumble yourselves to sleep).

Let's move on to a critical analysis of Phrase A. I mean no disrespect to Diane Rehm, national treasure, and I hope that this in no way hampers my chances of someday securing her, Queen of the Rhein, as my sole patroness, benefactor of the (my(our)) arts.

However.

Please bring the cover of Life with Maxie back to the front of your mind. When I began this blog, I made a promise. We have a covenant, you and us, that I (we) will guide you (us) in slaying some of the more elusive dragons of public radio. Do you see the lady snorgling the wittle doggy in your mind? Here's where I will insert the qualifier I promised early on:

This would make a wonderful gift for a very specific kind of person.

I'll say no more.

Exit first of all.

Enter second of all. 

Second of all, as you may have guessed by first of all, it is pledge season at WAMU. I'll begin with a disclosure of my personal finances (you relentless vultures): I donated $88.50 (also known as the Total Cheapskate and/or Graduate Student Tier). I requested to be gifted the NPR 40th anniversary porcelain mug (because it was suggested by the wielder of the pledge whip that, above and beyond containing coffee, it was also substantial enough to stave off muggers (if the porcelain, thief-killing mug were also embossed with the cover of Life with Maxie, I would have donated upwards of $9,000,000 (keep that in mind for next year, WAMU))). 

This is the first time I have given money to public radio. (Sorry, public radio.) I've been meaning to do this for some years, but every time pledge season rolls around I realize that I'm completely broke. "Perhaps after graduate school," I'll say, as I dip my Bachelor's Degree in ketchup and take a bite. Sometimes I think that I have stayed in school this long for the sole purpose of rationalizing my miserliness during pledge season.

But.

I did it. I was a grad student and a (financial) benefactor of public radio at the same time. It can be done. And, Christmas is just around the corner (of a four-cornered year). I'd be withholding if I did not admit that this (questionable) blog had at least a little something to do with my decision to finally pony up the cash. I'd also be withholding if I went with my gut and suggested that this was the first time that I'd paid for something that made my brain hurt, however, this may in fact be the first time that there is a complete paper trail.

First of all, everybody go get your free copy of Life with Maxie (Only $88.50). Our first book club meeting will be whenever you see fit.

Ghost Heart ( )

"Gotta stand and face it / life is sooooo commmplicated
/ ladi-dadi-da-da"

                                                           The Kinks, 1971

Electronically, she said, "You might want to use this for your blog. Click it. You'd like it."

He clicked it and liked it. You too, scholars, might like it: 

Ghost Heart 

"They take the heart of a cadaver, drain the framework of dead cells, and pump it full of your own living cells. It starts to beat again. You could pretend that you heard it on public radio. I heard it on public radio, so it's totally possible for you to have heard it on public radio. I heard it on Being, which used to be called Speaking of Faith."

Electronically, he said, "Perhaps you could write it up. I could add you as a contributor."

Electronically, she said, "Tell me more." (Not to be confused with Tell Me More. (Token joke for this post. (Not very good.)))

Life got complicated. Electronically, he said nothing for a while.

Electronically, she said, "Sometimes I think you just pop in now and then and try to do the "nice" thing, but then your motivation is revealed as shallow, which sucks."

Electronically, he said, "There is truth to what you say. It does suck. The only caveat is that it's more complicated than that. The only caveat to that is that I make my own complications, which sucks."

Electronically, she said, "Thanks for being honest. That helps I guess, but it still sucks."

Ethereally, Barry Bonds said, "Must have been a slow news week."

Materially, he said, "Brother, you don't know the half of it."

"Ladi-dadi-da-da"

If You've Been to the Moon (Carl Sagan Resplendent)

http://xkcd.com/663/ 

Thank you, xkcd.com

The Pale Blue Dodderer

Today, fellows, let's zoom out a little bit. Rather, let's zoom out a lot. Let's place the camera somewhere out there, somewhere around, let's say, Pluto. Or a little beyond that. Or something. I wasn't taking notes. (Yada yada yada.) Let's place the camera here (not where the arrow is pointing, rather where, in our imaginations, the camera must be):

"OMG"

See that pale dot in the mauve vertical stripe? (Hint: there's an arrow pointing at it.) That's us! That's Earth! Whoa! (Am I right, or am I right? I'm right.) I took this photograph on my recent vacation to Heaven. I thought about using a footnote to reveal that the preceding sentence is a lie, but then I thought better of it. It's quickly becoming passé, the footjoke, and it's impractical and messy in the blog format. (We keep it tidy here.) So here's the truth, mid text: Carl Sagan, hero, encouraged NASA to take this photograph many moons ago, back when humans were doing silly things like shooting robots out of Earth with slide rules. Silly, grand, beautiful things.

Last Friday, Ira Flatow reran an excerpt from a classic Science Friday featuring the late great Carl Sagan (Not to be confused with Carl Kasell (Not to be confused with a castle)). We'll get to the meat and potatoes of informations shortly, (Remember, our locus is still somewhere around Pluto, probably), but I would feel remiss if I did not halt briefly to point out that the Carl Sagan rebroadcast was preceded by a fun little radio piece that I will summarize in this way: "Photograph your own atom! It just takes a few spare parts and a few spare million dollars! YOUR OWN ATOM!"

Unrelated Thing That is Happening Right Now (A One Act Play):

Two ladies sit side-by-side at identical cubicles just outside my (our) office door. The lady on the right is checking Facebook. The lady on the left is out of my (our) sight-line. Both are in earshot. The lady on the right on Facebook has a butterfly tattoo on the back of her neck and a messy up-do.

Lady on the right:

Have you seen this new picture that Carl* put up?

Lady on the left:

No.

Lady on the right:

You know . . . the first thing I noticed about his nipples . . . 

Lady on the left:

. . . 

Lady on the right:

. . . was just how big they are. His cat has worms.

Lady on the left:

Ew.

 

Barry Bonds: 

Shakespearean.

Fin.

Again, Recast: 

Hamlet:

Prithee, Horatio, hast thou seen this,

Prince Carl, resplendent?

Horatio:

                                         My Lord, I fear not.

Hamlet:

Noticéd I first of his pectorals,

of those core rounds ruddy reticulate . . .

Horatio:

. . . 

Hamlet:

. . . mayhaps twas how they fought in fear of foe

 to be as pound for pound proportionate?

 Know thee his feline friend hath worms?

Horatio:

                                                                  Eweth. 

Barry Bonds: 

Prithee, my squire (Paul), get on with it. 

Meanwhile, Back at Somewhere Near Pluto or Somewhere Near Somewhere Near Pluto (The Ranch), Relatively Speaking:

Friends, I had lots of ideas that were more specifically related to Carl Sagan and Pale Blue Dot (the photograph, the phenomenon, the book, etc.), but sometimes there is a lady with a butterfly tattoo. Chaos Theorists refer to this as The Butterfly Tattoo Effect. 

Second Unrelated Thing That is Happening Right Now:

Scholars, as I was beginning to back-peddle, trying to right the course of this sinking (space)ship, and trying to scan the above pentameter (I promise, I spend most of my life not scanning pentameter, but it just keeps coming up when I blog about modernity, duh), you sent me a message on Facebook**. More specifically, you are a friend of mine with whom I have been out of touch for a bit of time. Here is our exchange in its entirety: 


M. L.: 

I read your blog. I am conflicted about how I feel about that. Luckily you don't update very much, so I don't have to deal with the cognitive dissonance very often. 

Me: 

I'm confused. You're conflicted about how you feel about my blog or about the fact that you read my blog?

Also, Hi. 


M. L.: 

Conflicted about being someone who reads blogs as I generally frown upon both the writing and reading of blogs.

How have you been? I hear the drum beat of life has spurred you on to newer and better things these days.

And, hi. 


Return to Meanwhile in Space: 

Friends, early sixteenth-century theologian Martin Luther is right. The drum beat of life has spurred me (us) on to newer and better things these days. She also introduces some very interesting discussion topics, though perhaps for another blog. I "generally frown upon both the writing and reading of blogs" also. Talk about your cognitive dissonance! And how! I think the question here (actually there) is whether or not I'm (we're) engaging in the moral or the hedonistic variety of cognitive dissonance. (Dust off your Psych 101 texts, scholars. Or just google it. I won't look. Because it would(n't?) break our heart.)

Where Were We? Ahem: 

Reader, Father Luther, I think I'm just going to go ahead and tell you what I've been thinking, straight from the gut, no fooling around. Do you want to know what I've been thinking? Of course you do. I apologize in advance if this comes across as a "stoner" conversation. I'll do my best, but let's face it: what the stoners may lack in execution (and elocution), they return to us in spades by excelling in subject matter generation.

Everything that's happening has always (caution: term "always" may be relative) been happening. Sit with me in our little pod out near Pluto (or wherever) and look at that pale blue dot with me: Dinosaurs, Barry Bonds, honeybees, Carl Sagan, you, me, Carl Kassel, castles, White Castle, Burger King, Jonathan Rhys Myers, this blog, puppies, hippies, iambic pentameter, hipsters, the Swedes . . .

And that's just the pale blue dot. There's a whole lot of other stuff in that picture. Who are we anyway? Is that my point? Sort of. No, not really. If you want to read more eloquent writing on that point, (erm, well, maybe near or around that point, again I don't really do research before I write these things, and my abstract-reading safety-gloves are at the cleaners) see Carl Sagan (probably). The pale blue dot, as a topic, however, is no red herring. I'll show my hand here: Little me (cute, right?), curled up on a couch with a box of CHEEZ-IT, watching PBS and my friend, Carl Sagan, is blowing my mind. Filling me with wonder, shaping my educational path, and all of those cliché and wonderful things that great people do. Carl Sagan was one of the minds that made me want to know things. Frankly, Carl Sagan was one of those dudes who made me want to know everything. We have two things: a desire to know, and as time progresses, more and more "knowy" tools. Are those two still friends? How big is my brain?

My point is everything that's happening has always been happening; there have always been myriad species eating each other and pooping just around the globe from a German with a silly haircut, ninety-five new ideas, and a bag of nails about to change everything just around the globe from two ladies talking about the unsettling size of a male acquaintance's nipples (maybe he was spearing a fish (maybe the fish was pooping)), and all the while atoms (whether or not they are being photographed and are "your very own") have been moving right along and doing what it is that atoms do.

So what, then, friends, on Earth (and beyond), is this blog about? Why are we picking on public radio? Are we picking on public radio? Actually, we seem to like public radio very much. Public radio, in the grand scheme of things, is adorably simple.

Back to the pod, friends, it's the only way! And push the throttle for me. Okay. Boosters . . . go, and . . . hello, asteroids . . . hello, Borg . . . and hi, Mars . . . we're not even comfortably through the atmosphere of the pale blue dot yet, and lo!

Informations: Satelites, radio waves, space ghosts, etc. Let's land the pod in my (our) office:

The lady with the butterfly tattoo is on facebook looking at pictures of man-beef, and I'm blogging about it on my knowy tool, and one of us is in Malaysia at a colleague's funeral checking our iPhone to see the latest score in the Leeds United match, and one of us is googling "hedonistic cognitive dissonance", and googling is a word, and a panda bear is eating bamboo on a Chinese web cam, (not from a Chinese web cam, thank God, but give it time), and one of us is sending us a facebook message saying, "Hey, friend. It's been a while."

Everything that's happening has always been happening. It's just that now we can check in. Yikes.

Sure, public radio attempts to address everything (and has for quite some time), but are they our most egregious source of informations? No. See: here. Do we elect to turn the radio on while driving? While showering? While working? Yes, we do. Shame on us. And good for us! And how about a blog called "Thank You, Internet"? Well, how about it? And isn't a blog kind of an ironically stupid (stupidly ironic?) place to have this discussion? Yes, of course it is. And isn't that kind of neat? Sure, sure, following . . . oh, wait. Wait, Paul. I just realized something. I think I should, just, now, erm, stop me if this is hurtful or whatever. But I just realized, you know, your brain is only so big.

Friend. Exactly.

*Sometimes, scholars, the universe is a spooky place.

**Sometimes, scholars, the universe is an interrupter.

 To Carl, In Memory

Thank You, The Onion (Ken Burns Resplendent)

Friends, we have friends.

"Burns added he also wouldn't mind if he never had to talk to Bob Costas or Billy Crystal ever again."

They got me beat, those fellows at The Onion.