forty years ago today.

from a.o. scott's - as usual, nearly perfectly written - pop culture-infused take on the moon landing in today's paper:

(n. mailer was disappointed that) the conquest of space (had been) planned and conducted by scientists, bureaucrats and other practical-minded, down-to-earth squares.

But of course, “we” didn’t walk on the Moon. “We” were, like Rabbit and Aquarius, sitting at home, scribbling in our notebooks or, most likely, watching television while something happened to us that we are still trying to figure out.

scott's article, as i said was, as usual, flawless (he might be the best writer at the times.). and it aptly conveys a lot of my own sentiment as to the dichotomous nature of people's experiences of the moon landing. (no, i wasnt alive then.)

but, to me, it's important to remember that the moon landing wasnt about our individual, ephemeral experience of life. rather, it was the stuff of the collective consciousness (and unconscious), of the composite experience of all individuals, since the nascient humanesque primates, who first looked up at the moon and wondered what the eff it was and no doubt didnt even consider it could be a place as opposed to a light fixture, to the astronomical-age members of antiquity who understood it was a body, impossibly far away, to the people, like my parents, who were there to witness the event of 'our' finally getting to that body, to our children's children, who, presumably, will experience this intimacy with mars and other planets, to their progeny, who will touch the rest of the galaxy, and so on and so on.

no, it goes back even further than that. it's the experience of the first protist, the first algae, the first iterations of life whatsoever, born in the depths and darkness of the ocean, that began that slow crawl to the heavens long before anyone who could come up with the word 'heavens' even drew breath.

that is how i view the moon landing. not the triumph, but the first in a series of paradigmatic triumphs, which will continue ad infinitum, that show physically, forget metaphorically, that truly, anything is possible.

in short, i know that man can walk on the moon. but, chronologically if not numerically, most men before me surely thought that idea pure fantasy.

there is no fantasy. there is only patience.