And sure our generation is responsible for a host of horrors
– the stark failure to do what’s required to slow the impact of climate change
being the line leader.
But, give me these words, this from Bob Dylan (in 1965)
‘Now the roving gambler he was
very bored
Trying to create a next world war
He found a promoter who nearly
feel off the floor
He said, “I never engaged in this
kind of thing before
But yes, I think it can be very
easily done
We’ll just put some bleachers out
in the sun
And have it on Highway 61.’
-- From “Highway
61 Revisited”
These words from Claude Levi-Strauss reflect on the 1969
moonshot
‘and then I am glued to my set,
even though it is boring, always the same and lasts a long time. Still, I can’t
turn away. In this sad century, in this sad world where we live, with the
pressure of population, rapidity of communications, the uniformity of culture,
we are closed, like a prison. The Apollo shots open a little window. It is the
one experience – vicarious, but we can follow it on TV – the one moment when
the prison opens on something other than the world in which we are condemned to
live. The moon is the inverse of Columbus’s new world – not an earthly
paradise, but a desolate, dead, inhospitable place.’
Which starts a meditation on a
world in which “smart” referred to its creative geniuses and deep thinkers and
the “smart” of motor vehilces, home appliances and little computers we walk
around with and stare at.
Next: Running for Your
Life: TLDNR (On Trying to Keep Up With the Kids These Days)
