Where I like to think a lot of my perspective comes from...
I've posted Pale Blue Dot before, and it's an essay that is worth reading often. I think when the words are juxtaposed with such beautiful visuals, it's incredibly powerful.
"Look again at that dot. That's here, that's home, that's us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives...."
"...To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly with one another, and to preserve and cherish the pale blue dot, the only home we've ever known."
In a serious attempt to avoid throwing up-- People, please. I'm asking you a huge favor... if you ever hear me say that I'm going to have popcorn again for dinner, STOP me. I don't know how you'll do that, but I know in my heart that you want the best for me and you will try to keep me from making bad food choices... like having popcorn for dinner, which leads to the inevitable tummyache and we are OUT of Pepto-Bismol and yes, it's my own damn fault. So just promise, okay?--
Anyway, to keep my mind distracted, I decided to re-read an email I got from my sister today, regarding my niece, Little Curly Girl (you all remember her...):
"Wish us luck--we're potty training. She got married this morning in my black spiky heeled boots and black cocktail dress. She peed in the dress and into the boots... But she was a beautiful bride. Pictures to follow..."
I think the gist of the email is clear but what you don't know is that my sister and LCG had their honeymoon in Fiji, before the peeing incident. I think that is so romantic. I wonder what the pictures will be like.
(I guess the potty training train derailed a few months back when Princess Chubness was born-- who has been renamed The Forgotten Child because being the second, totally chill and happy baby that she is, no one is taking any photos of her-- anyway, having that kind of distraction kept LCG's Potty Training Train from leaving the station. So my sister thought to tell LCG that brides know how to use the toilet [that's a ruse, certainly] but unfortunately the idea of being a bride and then going on a romantic honeymoon with her mother to Fiji was not enough.)
See, just in writing this and laughing, I almost am forgetting about my poor tummy and what I've done tonight. Perhaps I've cured you of some small ill, too.
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If I have not cured you (and you needed curing), I want you to know that there is a product that will improve the appearance of your aura. I bought some body oil today, by the brand Aura Glow. (I think body oil is way better than a moisturizer after a shower--okay, maybe that's a little too personal but I am always trying to provide you with helpful and inexpensive beauty advice).
Anyway, I didn't think much of the brand name, until I read on the label that the formula was recommended by none other than Edgar Cayce, and it "has actually been shown to brighten the physical aura when it is used."
To quote the inimitable Dave Barry: I am not making this up.
So now my aura is lavender scented and obviously brighter, even though I can't tell (does this mean I can read in the dark without my booklight?). I do have to say that I sincerely wish there was a Carl Sagan body oil because I'd be all over that sh*t.
Okay, I think between making fun of my new body product AND picturing my niece peeing in my sister's black cocktail dress and high heeled boots, dressed as a tiny Goth bride, is totally better than downing a couple spoons of Pepto-Bismol.
And on that note, my aura and I bid you a fond adieu.
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UPDATE 5:02am: There is really no good reason for me to be awake this early, but I wanted to add that right now up at the top of my gmail inbox is an automated link (you know how Google thinks it knows what you want to read about?), and it's a recipe for:
FRENCH FRY SPAM CASSEROLE
(Again, I am not making this up.)
The secret ingredient (no kidding) is Corn Flakes.
I guess I could have had that for dinner instead of the popcorn..
I don't know how he did it, but The Boy wrangled us some tickets to the new Morrison Planetarium at the California Academy of Sciences today. (I've been there three times already, and the lines to do anything there, including use the bathroom, are formidable. So I've not even been close to the inside of the planetarium until today.)
But whatever he did--bribe, kiss, look menacing-- The Boy knows that his little science dweeb Tangobaby enjoys nothing better than some good space-based entertainment. For those who remember the old planetariums with the spidery, imposing star projectors in the center of the floor, those days are gone. Instead are six state-of-the-art projectors cleverly hidden around the ceiling, creating the IMAX version of space travel for those of us packed into the stadium seating.
I miss the old-fangled projector, though. It was a childlike pleasure to think that an universe of stars was enclosed in a metal projector in San Francisco. The stars had to come from somewhere, right? The new show is modern, spectacular with lots of zooming and moving about the planets, and you get the added attraction of Sigourney Weaver's reading the narration.
As much as I was enjoying our trip through the universe, half of my brain kept going off and getting all distracted, wondering is that really Signourney Weaver's voice, or someone who sounds almost exactly like her, and if I really like Alien more than Aliens (I do), and how if it really was her voice, how cool it was (and entirely appropriate) that Ripley would be narrating our space journey.
The best part of the presentation was at the end, after the movie portion, when the planetarium guy (don't know what else to call him) told us about some very recent discoveries regarding exoplanets, or extrasolar planets. I had no idea that we've found so many, 333 planets to date. And two major discoveries by two different teams of astronomers on the same day(Fomalhaut b, which is 25 light years from Earth, and 130 light years away, the three planets orbiting a star named HR 8799).
Learning stuff like this just make me wish I was eight years old again, dreaming of being an astronaut or an astronomer, or wishing I could live several lifetimes just to see what we might discover over a span of a few generations. And I also think about a Pale Blue Dot, that no matter how much we discover about the universe, we're still just a mote, a speck. The real version of Horton Hears a Who!
Awesomely beautiful and fragile and rare, all at the same time.
Of course, I couldn't finish a post like this without another free association segue, so how about some David Bowie: "Life on Mars." I still don't quite understand the lyrics, but it's one song that does bring out the tiny feelings we have sometimes, that our lives are small. Small they may be, but not insignificant. And Bowie, I just love him, so that's reason enough right there.
I'm normally not a huge fan of cover music, but I really love Brazilian singer Seu Jorge's Portuguese covers of Bowie's music. You may remember his songs from the woefully underappreciated (and my favorite) Wes Anderson film The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou. (The Critereon Collection DVD has a ton of great extras to enjoy with the film itself.)
First of all, I want to say helllloooooooo to all of you new visitors to tangobaby via Blogs of Note.
I love you all. I'm totally blown away that you're here.
Secondly, I am guessing that this shout-out from Blogger is randomly generated (although I am super grateful all the same) because I don't know what I've done of late to be noteworthy. A year and a half ago, I didn't even know what a blog was. But don't get me wrong, this is cool! Thank you!
Thirdly, I hope you'll come back to visit me again and not just this one time and I'll try to visit you all and not be some sort of blog diva who is stuck up and snobbish.
But fourthly, I am probably going to get fired because of this. I seriously have not done any work today and have been totally distracted and just sent a co-worker out to buy me a BLT just so I could write this post.
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I have some questions about my being discovered (which is funny since I just wrote something about Lana Turner a few days ago--is this the blog equivalent of being a Sweater Girl? Probably not. I don't think I get to quit my day job). Up until this morning, I was just minding my own little bloggy business and cajoling my friends into looking at my photography on flickr and JPG.
Is there some sort of blog guru who selects us? To whom do I say thank you?
Can I quit my day job now? Does this mean I am an expert at something?
Am I going to have to start moderating comments because now I'm going to get all of these spam comments about erectile dysfunction? I would really hate to do that.
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Just so you know a few things:
I love my little blog. But it's very very random, even to me. If you can make sense out of the myriad brain stuff here, then I applaud you. I just read over my whole list of tags and I'm covering a lot of bases in a very shallow manner. Although if you love old films (especially noir and silents), dance (especially Argentine tango), San Francisco, photography, eating yummy food until you have to unbutton your pants, quoting Monty Python, Dorothy Parker and Carl Sagan, keeping your passport in your wallet just in case and then once in a while having a philosophical moment, then I think we'll get along just fine.
And swearing. Sometimes I swear.
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I am having a hard time keeping up with the comments (and was even before this explosion of attention) so please be patient with me (I'm older than you think) and just know that I am thrilled you're here even if you think you hear the crickets chirping on my end. I'll try to write back. I just have to not get fired from my day job until I get a call from my new agent.
Thanks for making my day. Now I don't hate my outfit as much.
xoxo
ps.: If you are a new reader here, then I should tell you that I never have a movie reference on the blog just willy-nilly. There are too many good movies that people don't know about and I'm just doing my share to be bossy and make sure that you see them.
Above is a photo for the noir Fallen Angel, which is a great flick and Linda Darnell is H-O-T. Hot hot hot and so is Dana Andrews. So rent it.
Do you think Obama's health plan will cover PTBS (Post Traumatic Bush Syndrome)?
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"Widespread intellectual and moral docility may be convenient for leaders in the short term, but it is suicidal for nations in the long term. One of the criteria for national leadership should therefore be a talent for understanding, encouraging, and making constructive use of vigorous criticism." ~ Carl Sagan
Good luck, America. Let's get things back on track. We can do it!
In the Mission.
On Haight Street.
On Divisadero.
In the Tenderloin.
In Golden Gate Park.
In my 'hood.
I wish that all the people who normally watch Faux News had watched Obama's infomercial instead Sean Hannity, but hopefully a few of them did.
I will be so proud when this man is my president. Yeah, I took all of the photos. Except that first one.
"When I admire the wonders of a sunset or the beauty of the moon, my soul expands in the worship of the creator." ~ Mohandas Gandhi
"What is life? It is the flash of a firefly in the night. It is the breath of a buffalo in the wintertime. It is the little shadow which runs across the grass and loses itself in the sunset." ~ Crowfoot, 1890, as quoted in Catch the Whisper of the Wind
"It is sometimes said that scientists are unromantic, that their passion to figure out robs the world of beauty and mystery. But is it not stirring to understand how the world actually works — that white light is made of colors, that color is the way we perceive the wavelengths of light, that transparent air reflects light, that in so doing it discriminates among the waves, and that the sky is blue for the same reason that the sunset is red? It does no harm to the romance of the sunset to know a little bit about it." ~ Carl Sagan
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III. NATURE.
XIII.
THE SEA OF SUNSET.
This is the land the sunset washes, These are the banks of the Yellow Sea; Where it rose, or whither it rushes, These are the western mystery!
Night after night her purple traffic Strews the landing with opal bales; Merchantmen poise upon horizons, Dip, and vanish with fairy sails.
But years before the fortune cookies, I was really a Bazooka Joe person.
Do you remember Bazooka bubble gum? The powdery dust on that hard-as-a-rock gum, how good it smelled, how you almost broke your jaw trying to chew it before you got enough spit into it to make it soft?
And the little cartoon folded up inside the wrapper, on that waxy paper? My sister and I used to collect them. You got a cartoon and a fortune. Remember? (And then Bubblicious got invented and that semi-disgusting Freshen-Up gum with the goo in the middle and we stopped chewing Bazooka.)
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Anyway, I was just pondering my inspirations for wisdom since I did not ever notice that you can get it from Starbuck's cups, too. But Sarah Palin does:
I know it's nitpicky, but if you want to see what those words of wisdom really were on her cup, look here. But if she had used those words instead, the story wouldn't have been as cute.
I don't know why she's so down on us in California!
"Okay, now, thank you so much for receiving that well. I didn't know how that was gonna go over. And now, California, let's see what a comment like I just made, how that is turned into whatever it'll be turned into tomorrow with the newspaper."
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And now I'm going to hell because I wouldn't vote for her because she's a woman? I thought I was going to hell because I was born Jewish. Or at least that's what some Born Again Christians have politely told me in the past. (Someone is going to have to explain the Rapture again to me because it is so confusing. Why is Israel so loved but we're still going to hell? Ah well, if there is a hell, I think I'll see a lot of people I enjoy there, so maybe it won't be that bad.)
I just learned that the real reason I don't like Sarah Palin has nothing to do with the fact that I am not impressed with her record and experience in the PTA, as a mayor or governor, her education and mostly, her positions on things that are important to me, especially when put into context of holding the second highest office in the country (or the first, if you consider Dick Cheney).
Does this mean Letterman won't be burning in Hell because he's a man? It's so not fair. Here it is... I'm allowed to think and vote and be a woman, but I'm still wrong.
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ps. I don't know if you noticed, but the fortune on this particular Bazooka Joe comic says "Don't take a detour on the path to greatness." I should send that in to the RNC and see if a speechwriter picks up on it. heh heh.
pss. And if I am such a bitch like that article says I am, then I'm going to have to say that Sarah needs to apply her blush/bronzer differently. Applying that bronzer in a line back to her ears like that...it's sooooo Eighties. And she needs to blend.
psss. And do I have a crush on Joe Biden now? Yeah, I think I do. And it looks like I'm not the only one. Well, I've had non-traditional crushes before-- I've had the hots for Carl Sagan since I was twelve.
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UPDATE 10/5: Looks like Madame Albright isn't okay at all with Palin misquoting her. Her reply:
Albright responded to Palin's remarks in a statement to the Huffington Post on Sunday. "Though I am flattered that Governor Palin has chosen to cite me as a source of wisdom, what I said had nothing to do with politics. This is yet another example of McCain and Palin distorting the truth, and all the more reason to remember that this campaign is not about gender, it is about which candidate has an agenda that will improve the lives of all Americans, including women. The truth is, if you care about the status of women in our society and in our troubled economy, the best choice by far is Obama-Biden."
(Which is still probably about 99.9% of the planet. I don't think the US has this category locked up, although we're doing a damn good job as a frontrunner.)
"Look again at that dot. That's here. That's home. That's us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every "superstar," every "supreme leader", every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there--on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.
The Earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that, in glory and triumph, they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot. Think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of this pixel on the scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner, how frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another, how fervent their hatreds.
Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the Universe, are challenged by this point of pale light. Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity, in all this vastness, there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves.
The Earth is the only world known so far to harbor life. There is nowhere else, at least in the near future, to which our species could migrate. Visit, yes. Settle, not yet. Like it or not, for the moment the Earth is where we make our stand.
It has been said that astronomy is a humbling and character-building experience. There is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly with one another, and to preserve and cherish the pale blue dot, the only home we've ever known." ~ Carl Sagan, Pale Blue Dot
From Reuters: "Friday 13th not more unlucky, study shows"
A study?!! GTFO.
The idea that something like this was actually the subject of a study makes my head hurt. And just when I was going to call in sick to work tomorrow to avoid random bad things happening to me.
Or maybe I will call in sick and go see thisinstead.
And because it's tangentially related (i.e., general stupidity), let's all do our part to prevent the rampant spreading of ignorance via email by always going here and here before we click Send. And maybe read this book, too. I highly recommend it.
I have to admit that I'm one of those people who breaks chain letters.
But Ms. Wellspring tagged me, and this little exercise does seem like fun, and there's no wierd karmic threat imposed by my not participating, so here is my reply to her tag. But first, here are the rules:
Link to the person who tagged you (okay, I've done it twice for good measure) and post the rules on your blog (here ya go): Share seven random and/or weird things (you can decide if they're wierd) about yourself. Tag seven people at the end of your post and include links to their blogs. Let each person know they have been tagged by leaving a comment on their blog(done).
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My hero is Carl Sagan. I wish I could have met him.
I've taught myself to do two things in my dreams: How to drive a stick-shift car (no joke) and I invented my recipe for my famous mashed potatoes that are so deliciously addictive that The Boy has named them Crack Potatoes. I guess I am a very practical dreamer when I want to be.
I have been TV-free for more than 12 years (and no, I don't miss it one bit). That doesn't mean I don't sit on my butt a lot. I read about 1-2 books per week, and if you ever check out the Recently in the DVD Player section on my blog, you know I watch a ton of old movies on our movie projector system.
My astrological sign is Scorpio, which isn't wierd, but apparently pretty much all of my planets and whatchamacallits are also under the sign of Scorpio, too, which raises eyebrows among those who are astrologically inclined. My birthday is 11/11 and I just think that's super cool. Even though I don't believe in astrology or numerology. (No, this is not my chart. Mine is in my underwear drawer.)
I have never had a cavity. It's not that I'm a paragon of dental care, I'm just really lucky. I think my sister got all of my cavities, and hers too.
Until I was about 16 years old, I wanted to be a paleontologist. I still am fascinated by dinosaurs. I just don't want to get hot and dirty digging them up.
Johanna won't believe this, but my favorite food is actually not chocolate. It's lamb chops.
No, not that Lamb Chop!
These lamb chops. Mmmm. Must be the T-Rex in me.
Ta-da!
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My little tagging victims--er, bloggers are (should you decide to accept the challenge):
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