The spacecraft was a long way from home.

I thought it would be a good idea, just after Saturn, to have them take one last glance homeward. From Saturn, the Earth would appear too small for Voyager to make out any detail. Our planet would be just a point [...]]]>
Video: Pale Blue Films; Music: Mogwai

The spacecraft was a long way from home.

I thought it would be a good idea, just after Saturn, to have them take one last glance homeward. From Saturn, the Earth would appear too small for Voyager to make out any detail. Our planet would be just a point of light, a lonely pixel hardly distinguishable from the other points of light Voyager would see: nearby planets, far off suns. But precisely because of the obscurity of our world thus revealed, such a picture might be worth having.

It had been well understood by the scientists and philosophers of classical antiquity that the Earth was a mere point in a vast, encompassing cosmos—but no one had ever seen it as such. Here was our first chance, and perhaps also our last for decades to come.

So, here they are: a mosaic of squares laid down on top of the planets in a background smattering of more distant stars. Because of the reflection of sunlight off the spacecraft, the Earth seems to be sitting in a beam of light, as if there were some special significance to this small world; but it’s just an accident of geometry and optics. There is no sign of humans in this picture: not our reworking of the Earth’s surface; not our machines; not ourselves. From this vantage point, our obsession with nationalisms is nowhere in evidence. We are too small. On the scale of worlds, humans are inconsequential: a thin film of life on an obscure and solitary lump of rock and metal.

Consider again that dot. That’s here. That’s home. That’s us. On it, everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you’ve ever heard of, every human being who ever was lived out their lives. The aggregate of all our joys and sufferings; thousands of confident religions, ideologies and economic doctrines; every hunter and forager; every hero and coward; every creator and destroyer of civilizations; 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 supreme leader; every superstar; 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 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. 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. 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. 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. It underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly with one another, and to preserve and cherish the only home we’ve ever known.

The pale blue dot.

Carl Sagan, 11 May 1996

And scariest of all…

Video: Sarah Silverman, “Sell the Vatican, Feed the World”

I don’t think I’ve got a good body. And that’s not cause I want you to say I have. I don’t look in the mirror and go: ‘Fucking hell Benny, good body.’ I look at it and [...]]]> Rugby star — and TTNO fan-fave — Ben Cohen strips for Attitude mag and says this about his physique:

I don’t think I’ve got a good body. And that’s not cause I want you to say I have. I don’t look in the mirror and go: ‘Fucking hell Benny, good body.’ I look at it and go, actually, I need to lose some more weight, I need to do some more work and I’ll go into the gym and I’ll try, I don’t really think I have a good body. If people do than fair enough. I think it’s my genetic make-up. I don’t really have much of a say in it.”

I’m sorry, Mr. Cohen, but they simply do not make ‘em much hotter. Predictably, more after the jump (underwear shots, possibly NSFW)…

Courtesy Towleroad.

Important Reminder: The “Green on Thursday” series always reveals very much more about your host at This.That.No Other. than it does about any of the featured personalities.

Protect Insurance Companies PSA from Will Ferrell

Courtesy Sheepy.

Video: The Whip, “Trash”

Thanx to MikeP…

With J.D. (7 September 2009)

…bought an awesome new citybike, heard the seven trumpets:

The Seven Trumpets

…discovered that in Space, no one can [...]]]> Short week, lots of work done, busted my Craigslist cherry (sold a TV and a Betamax — oh, yeah!) and my Kijiji cherry (sold my old bike), hung out with the inimitable J.D.:

With J.D. (7 September 2009)

…bought an awesome new citybike, heard the seven trumpets:

The Seven Trumpets

…discovered that in Space, no one can hear you eat:

Space Lounge

…ate some hard strawberries:

Hard Strawberry

…had problems with scale:

Scale

…lusted after Doug Brooks on Leverage:

Doug Brooks in Leverage

…and we’re currently enjoying Friday Night Martini # 3 4, featuring garlic- and jalapeno-stuffed olives.

A good week.

By that I mean that we humans have a peculiar physiology and psychology which can lend itself to certain perceptions which we casually describe as “religious” and, because these perceptions and experiences have yet to be scientifically studied in any significant fashion, we’re [...]]]> Though I think religion is total horseshit, I deeply respect the religious experience.

By that I mean that we humans have a peculiar physiology and psychology which can lend itself to certain perceptions which we casually describe as “religious” and, because these perceptions and experiences have yet to be scientifically studied in any significant fashion, we’re left with wholly-inadequate — if not wholly-inaccurate — explanations from the faithful or, more benignly, philosophers and artists.

Sam Harris is one scientist who’s been lobbying strenuously for research into the religious experience, to help explain, scientifically, what’s actually going on when we see an angel or travel down a corridor of light or feel a an irregularly huge rush of empathy and belonging. In The Four Horsemen, a deeply-engaging conversation between Harris, Chris Hitchens, Rich Dawkins and Dan Dennett, he makes his case:

I think there is a range of experience that is rare, and that is only talked about without obvious qualms in religious discourse. And because it’s only talked about in religious discourse, it is just riddled with superstition. And it’s used to cash out various metaphysical schemes which it can’t reasonably do. But clearly people have extraordinary experiences. Whether they have them on LSD, or they have them because they were alone in a cave for a year, or they have them because just happen to have the neurology that is particularly labile that allows for it, but people have self-transcending experiences. And people have the best day of their life where everything seemed, you know, they seemed at one with nature. And for that, because religion seems to be the only game in town in talking about those experiences and dignifying them, that’s one reason why I think it seems to be taboo to criticise it, because you are talking about the most important moments in people’s lives and trashing them, at least from their view.

And, you know, he’s right. Trashing such experiences accomplishes little, but illuminating them… that’s how we can dispell the superstitions and discover some seriously exciting potentials for our evolved minds and brains.

Video: Animated representation of Brion Gysin’s Dream Machine

And speaking of illuminating, I’m currently enjoying, very much, Toronto filmmaker Nik Sheehan’s documentary FLicKeR, about one such way to trigger the ecstatic experience, Brion Gysin’s Dream Machine.

A host of ultracool artists appear in Sheehan’s documentary, too, but I’ll let you visit the official site for that. Certainly, some of the most influential artists of the past 50 years — William S. Burroughs, Brion Gysin, Kenneth Anger, Kurt Cobain and Genesis P-Orridge — are connected with the device. I’ve certainly been fascinated by the idea for over thirty years. Here Marianne Faithfull describes the experience and Gen P-Orridge describes its, um, genesis:

Video: Excerpt from the movie FLicKeR

Instructions for creating a Dream Machine can be found at the movie’s official site (link above). Thirty years of fascination alone is more than enough. Looks like someone’s going to be visiting second-hand audio equipment shops in the next week or so.

Wire is coming back again Elastica got sued by them When [...]]]> It’s no secret I’m a huge fan of The Dandy Warhols but it may not be widely known that The Beatles’ “Blackbird” is one of my very favourite songs. As it turns out, in the title track to The Dandys’ Welcome to the Monkey House, they sing

Wire is coming back again
Elastica got sued by them
When Michael Jackson dies
We’re covering “Blackbird”
And won’t it be absurd then
When no one knows what song they just heard
Unless someone on the radio tells them first
So come on come on come on
Come
Come on come on come on
Come on
Come on come on come on
You monkeys

Well, they promised, and they delivered:

Video: The Dandy Warhols “Blackbird”

Zia! Amazing. And so not a tribute, as many have mistaken.

1) Big

2) Bad

A) Acting

B) Room

Image: Screencap from this week’s episode of True Blood

Don’t get me wrong, I love me some over-the-top Alan Ball zaniness, but the scene above, between Bill and The Queen, was one serious thespian trainwreck.

Video: The Arcade Fire “No Cars Go”

Video: B-52′s “Legal [...]]]> Next to “Roam”, this is probably my fave B-52′s song*. Don’t think the grocers’ apostrophe doesn’t drive me nuts — they fixed it last year, with the release of Funplex — but self-identification is to be respected. The literal representation of the instruments cracks me up and, Cindy, you ARE my goddess!

Video: B-52′s “Legal Tender”

*No, wait, it’s “52 Girls”. No, it’s “Deadbeat Club”. Wevs.

About six blocks from where I sit right now is a structure appearing in the Galactica universe as both Delphi (in BSG) and Caprica City Hall (in Caprica):

Oh, the abundant opportunities inherent in this post slug, to go off on flights of quadruple-entendre fancy, but, no, I’m talking about television and my neighbourhood, dear readers.

About six blocks from where I sit right now is a structure appearing in the Galactica universe as both Delphi (in BSG) and Caprica City Hall (in Caprica):

Sharon & Helo at Delphi / Caprica City Hall (mouseover)

It’s actually Vancouver Public Library.

A scant three blocks from where I sit right now is (probably) the most crucial location in the BSG mythos, which also happens to be Vancouver’s Orpheum Theatre:

Battlestar Galactica Vision / Orpheum (mousover)

And, indeed, you can’t go to any university in the Vancouver area without going all fanboy/girl in recognition of so many locations from the series and, especially, you simply can’t watch Caprica without giggling, Champ especially, at the number of Yaletown locations you’ll see.

And for so long I’ve been wanting to describe my two-months-in impression of the people in my neighbourhood, but got bogged-down in an overly-comprehensive catalogue of all the “types” you can encounter here, and how they compare to the “types” in my old stomping grounds in Toronto, and wound up feeling far too mean-spirited about Toronto since, basically, people everywhere are stupid, selfish and oblivous. The Toronto difference being that they’re stupid, selfish and oblivious, only really, fucking mean, too.

So there’s that. And then, when I was on the phone yesterday trying to convince the charming and effervescent ELeven to come on up for a visit after his next gig, I struggled to describe the guys here. And found my outdoorsy-athletic-collegiate-lumberjack description wholly inadequate. It struck me today, seeing a half-dozen different film crews (or notices of near-future filming, like Fringe, two blocks from my place, next week!), that the best way to describe the folks in my neighbourhood — the ones which catch my eye, at least — is to use television archetypes.

Come sundown, Champ observes (accurately) that the women in our neighbourhood most closely resemble the Kardashian chix — not at all unattractive, but seemingly convinced they need to skank themselves to the hilt.

And the men in my neighbourhood tend to be either Athletic Silver-Daddy clones — like in those American (not Canadian) cruise-vacation commercials — or the Sit-Com Best Buddy. You know, the best friend (or workmate) of the flabby, shlubby lead character — who’s inexplicably coupled with a cute, pert ‘n’ perky (but utterly competent) woman — the best friend who’s a bit of a loser but basically a good guy and a loyal friend. And then you see the best-buddy actor in Entertainment Weekly magazine or in some Battle of the Network Sub-Celebrities athletic competition and he’s missing that Ordinary Everyman look the producers cultivate for the show and shows off some seriously above-average handsomeness and an enviable physique, too.

The kind of serious handsomeness and enviable physique which would cause you to turn around after you pass him on the street and mutter, under your breath, “I’d so nail that,” and sometimes they turn around, too, and… hey, I really love my neighbourhood.