The Archives
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03.21.10The Daughters of the MoonIn this world where every object was thrown away at the slightest sign of breakage or aging, at the first dent or stain, and replaced with a new and perfect substitute, there was just one false note, one shadow: the moon. It wandered through the sky naked, corroded, and gray, more and more alien to the world down here, a hangover from a way of being that was now outdated. The Beloved insists that I get rid of the stack of New Yorkers crowding the corner of the bedroom, and so I shall, so I shall. The New Yorker ...
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07.20.09not a shiny dime floating in a cold blueWe pull off to a road shack in Massachusetts to watch men walk on the moon. A final space poem (for now), this one by Elizabeth Alexander, the poet who read at Obama's first inauguration. This poem juxtaposes the strangeness of the astronauts on the moon with the strangeness of a black family at a rural New England roadside stand, and contrasts the incredible progress of the moon mission with the halting, shuffling progress of our society's attitudes. And the poem suggests, at least in my optimistic reading, that more strange sights like "bounces in space- / boots, tethered / to cords" cannot be a ...
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07.20.09My friends, my suited up pilgrimsOne side of our house was desert And the other, the one facing east, Was Eden itself. I didn't know this until I bounced on a trampoline And landed on the garage roof, me the unpaid astronaut, Age nine, knees scuffed from a rough landing. On the theme of poets in space, here's a wonderful poem by Gary Soto, "The Boy's First Flight," commissioned by NASA. Soto pairs a boy's roof-top adventure beneath "the bushel of stars, / Pitched and pulsating their icy thorns" with the space shuttle's launch ("what lever does the commander push / To make a smile on his face, her face?"). ...
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07.20.09their rare and wondrous deedHere it is at last, the 40th anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing. In the long and decidedly mixed history of human beings, this is certainly our crowning achievement so far: the first extraterrestrial excursion by earthbound beasts. Be sure to tune in to We Choose the Moon to hear the real-time lead-up to the landing. The YouTube video above is the song "For Michael Collins, Jeffrey, and Me" by Jethro Tull. David Bowie is all well and good, but for me, this is the ultimate space exploration song: a wistful meditation on the thoughts of Michael ...
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07.17.09Moon Shot: a link roundupI was born on July 22, 1969, while the Apollo 11 astronauts were preparing for their return trip from the moon; the journey to the moon has always been of personal interest to me. With the 40th anniversary of both occasions (of varying auspiciousness) looming, there has been a lot of interesting material published on the web. Interestingly, the UK's Manchester Guardian has had some of the best coverage. Of particular note is an illustrated guide to the landing, with time lines and diagrams that show how this incredible act of hubris and bravado came off. Blake Morrison's ...
