sounds about right
31 August 2012
29 August 2012
22 August 2012
We've started roving today
Curiosity touched down in the crater now called "Bradbury Landing" on August 5, and started driving today. The news brief at JPL opened with this clip of Ray Bradbury reading his poem "If Only We Had Taller Been" in 1971. He had been invited to participate in a symposium at Caltech on the eve of Mariner 9 going into orbit around Mars.
IF ONLY WE HAD TALLER BEEN
The fence we walked between the years
Did balance us serene;
It was a place half in the sky where
In the green of leaf and promising of peach
We’d reach our hand to touch and almost touch the sky,
That blue that was not really blue.
If we could reach and touch, we said,
‘Twould teach us, somehow, never to be dead.
We ached, we almost touched that stuff;
Our reach was never quite enough.
So, Thomas, we are doomed to die.
O, Tom, as I have often said,
How sad we’re both so short in bed.
If only we had taller been,
And touched God’s cuff, His hem,
We would not have to slip away and go with them
Who’ve gone before,
A billion give or take a million boys or more
Who, short as we, stood tall as they could stand
And hoped by stretching thus to keep their land,
Their home, their hearth, their flesh and soul.
But they, like us, were standing in a hole.
O, Thomas, will a Race one day stand really tall
Across the Void, across the Universe and all?
And, measured out with rocket fire,
At last put Adam’s finger forth
As on the Sistine Ceiling,
And God’s great hand come down the other way
To measure Man and find him Good,
And Gift him with Forever’s Day?
I work for that.
Short man, Large dream. I send my rockets forth between my ears,
Hoping an inch of Will is worth a pound of years.
Aching to hear a voice cry back along the universal Mall:
We’ve reached Alpha Centauri!
We’re tall, O God, we’re tall!
The fence we walked between the years
Did balance us serene;
It was a place half in the sky where
In the green of leaf and promising of peach
We’d reach our hand to touch and almost touch the sky,
That blue that was not really blue.
If we could reach and touch, we said,
‘Twould teach us, somehow, never to be dead.
We ached, we almost touched that stuff;
Our reach was never quite enough.
So, Thomas, we are doomed to die.
O, Tom, as I have often said,
How sad we’re both so short in bed.
If only we had taller been,
And touched God’s cuff, His hem,
We would not have to slip away and go with them
Who’ve gone before,
A billion give or take a million boys or more
Who, short as we, stood tall as they could stand
And hoped by stretching thus to keep their land,
Their home, their hearth, their flesh and soul.
But they, like us, were standing in a hole.
O, Thomas, will a Race one day stand really tall
Across the Void, across the Universe and all?
And, measured out with rocket fire,
At last put Adam’s finger forth
As on the Sistine Ceiling,
And God’s great hand come down the other way
To measure Man and find him Good,
And Gift him with Forever’s Day?
I work for that.
Short man, Large dream. I send my rockets forth between my ears,
Hoping an inch of Will is worth a pound of years.
Aching to hear a voice cry back along the universal Mall:
We’ve reached Alpha Centauri!
We’re tall, O God, we’re tall!
21 August 2012
Mos Def and Muhammad Ali for Louis Vuitton
Yasiin Bey recites Muhammad Ali's words. Graffiti artist Niels Shoe Meulman mops the canvas with black paint.
17 August 2012
08 August 2012
Vin Scully translating a tirade
Vin is my fave and here's another reason why. Skip to the minute mark.
07 August 2012
The xx "Chained"
I was as big a fan of The xx as you were until I saw them in concert couple years ago. This might have just won me back over.
02 August 2012
Power Hour 2008
Another one from the archives. Friends celebrating Christmas 2008 with the Power Hour - one shot of beer every minute for 60 big ones.
Seth's birthday hike
Digging through my hardrives for the family project, I stumbled across this oldie but goodie I put together a couple years ago.
Seth was turning 31. Plus, after some historic rainfall, Saturday was going to be the first dry day in a week. With our charming grey-brown "marine layer" temporarily washed away, what better day to go for a hike?
+ In n Out
+ winding canyons
+ car sickness
+ Sandstone Peak, the highest point in Santa Monica
+ lots of pictures of heels and butts
+ and middle fingers
+ novelty size bottles of Glenlivet
+ Neptune's Net
Seth was turning 31. Plus, after some historic rainfall, Saturday was going to be the first dry day in a week. With our charming grey-brown "marine layer" temporarily washed away, what better day to go for a hike?
+ In n Out
+ winding canyons
+ car sickness
+ Sandstone Peak, the highest point in Santa Monica
+ lots of pictures of heels and butts
+ and middle fingers
+ novelty size bottles of Glenlivet
+ Neptune's Net
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