"I don't like to discuss Works in Progress. If I let the words tumble out prematurely, it changes it, and I may never get it back."
--Barton Fink

Sunday, July 13, 2008

Oh, Mr. Sagan, do go on...

A scientific colleague tells me about a recent trip to the New Guinea highlands where she visited a stone age culture hardly contacted by Western civilization. They were ignorant of wristwatches, soft drinks, and frozen food. But they knew about Apollo 11. They knew that humans had walked on the Moon. They knew the names of Armstrong and Aldrin and Collins. They wanted to know who was visiting the Moon these days.

- from Pale Blue Dot, Chapter 16, Scaling Heaven

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