Ready for Take Off
Not sure why I do this. I hit the road and am somewhere in the middle of Las Vegas. I don't really know why I did it. I guess because I had the invitation, because it was a reasonable distance from California that is in some way soothing to me right now.
On the 9.5 hour drive here, I listened to podcasts and one of them was Radio Lab's "Space Capsules". It's about the notion of sending a space capsule beyond the sky and into abyss of the universe, and inside the capsule would be relics of different representations of human life... things like posters, foods, objets, a record with different sounds and music on it. The co-stars of the podcast interviewed a few famous authors, artists, and others about what they might send or record in the capsule. Margaret Cho's, was by far the most compelling to me. Here's a quote:
"I would put up a photograph of the first lesbian couple to be married who were together for fifty years and were married in Gavin Newsom's office, secretly, in San Francisco... a couple months ago. The image of these two women who had been fighting for acceptance and truth and equality for their entire lives and finally getting it for a moment... it's just so spectacular... and hearth-breaking... and heart-exploding at the same time.
[I would also put] Mandarin oranges canned in heavy syrup [...] they are an aberration of nature [...] they're so tender and delicate and tart and... almost like a kiss. I would never ever want an alien to be deprived of the joy of a geisha canned mandarin orange in heavy syrup."
The exposure people go through in opening up like this... in revealing some of the closest, most intimate entities of their lives and also as their membership in the union of the human race (and the universe, for that matter)... it almost makes me tremble. It's been making me think about what is most important to me or what I feel all organisms on this planet or another deserve to have, experience, or know.
I would send a dryer sheet, because the smell reminds me of home, whatever or where ever that is. A ticket stub from the Olympic Games, because it's one of the few things at least the majority of the world can come together for and participate in that doesn't involve war or hate. A recording of "O Magnum Mysterium"... for a lot of reasons, but one would be because I feel that its message transcends all language despite it being a cappella. A wheel of goat cheese preserved in a cryogenic chamber and recordings of circus sounds. The amorphous, steel blob of a key chain that I bought in a Spanish bazaar.
On the 9.5 hour drive here, I listened to podcasts and one of them was Radio Lab's "Space Capsules". It's about the notion of sending a space capsule beyond the sky and into abyss of the universe, and inside the capsule would be relics of different representations of human life... things like posters, foods, objets, a record with different sounds and music on it. The co-stars of the podcast interviewed a few famous authors, artists, and others about what they might send or record in the capsule. Margaret Cho's, was by far the most compelling to me. Here's a quote:
"I would put up a photograph of the first lesbian couple to be married who were together for fifty years and were married in Gavin Newsom's office, secretly, in San Francisco... a couple months ago. The image of these two women who had been fighting for acceptance and truth and equality for their entire lives and finally getting it for a moment... it's just so spectacular... and hearth-breaking... and heart-exploding at the same time.
[I would also put] Mandarin oranges canned in heavy syrup [...] they are an aberration of nature [...] they're so tender and delicate and tart and... almost like a kiss. I would never ever want an alien to be deprived of the joy of a geisha canned mandarin orange in heavy syrup."
The exposure people go through in opening up like this... in revealing some of the closest, most intimate entities of their lives and also as their membership in the union of the human race (and the universe, for that matter)... it almost makes me tremble. It's been making me think about what is most important to me or what I feel all organisms on this planet or another deserve to have, experience, or know.
I would send a dryer sheet, because the smell reminds me of home, whatever or where ever that is. A ticket stub from the Olympic Games, because it's one of the few things at least the majority of the world can come together for and participate in that doesn't involve war or hate. A recording of "O Magnum Mysterium"... for a lot of reasons, but one would be because I feel that its message transcends all language despite it being a cappella. A wheel of goat cheese preserved in a cryogenic chamber and recordings of circus sounds. The amorphous, steel blob of a key chain that I bought in a Spanish bazaar.