Connections: Specialness, balloons, and yes, Carl Sagan

OK. CONNECTION. The balloons of my previous work are about SPECIALNESS. Scratch that. Maybe ALL OF IT is about specialness. :) Things that are special and making you feel special. I think that is why the things that make me want to cry, make me want to cry. Special things mean they are the only, it means they are set aside and there is just that one, and there is such a HUGE desire in each of us, I think, to be special. But this is in total conflict with so much about what we know about the world. There is no privileged position because even "special" people are ordinary, and even special people get into car wrecks or plane crashes or get cancer. They are not protected from losing the things that are truly special, to them, their family and friends. And we are supposed to think that people are special, so then the only way to deal with things like knowing that 100,000 or however many people died in the earthquake in Haiti is to assume that the number of them makes the individuals less special, they seem less significant. That's what the numbers do for us. There is this extreme tension between wanting to be special, knowing that each individual is unique (a snow flake, if you will. . . which you shouldn't) and knowing that we are just one of a million species on earth. And now for the Carl Sagan connection (because you've been waiting and of course there is one). At the beginning of Pale Blue Dot, he goes through a very similar set of "demotions" that Robert Kruhlwich does on another episode of Radio Lab which recounts the history of humanity's place in the universe as we have seen it. It goes through a long list, essentially saying, "well, if we aren't at the center of the solar system, maybe our SOLAR system is the center of the galaxy!" etc. ad infinitum . .. down to our species being the only one that can do X, which we periodically change so that we are the top species, most important one, on the planet and ideally the ONLY one in the universe. But we are both heartbreakingly small and unique in that there might only be this one version of us anywhere, and horrifyingly mundane, just another planet around another star. Carl Sagan seems almost obsessed with teaching us this fact, that we are nothing, a speck on a speck on a speck, a "mote of dust" and that our egocentrism or earth-centrism or human-centrism is disguising reality. Every culture on Earth has believed that it was the chosen one, selected by God or even just by nature, as the pinnacle and most important. Even scientists fall prey to this desire to be SPECIAL. (All of this is illustrated much more eloquently, of course, by Carl Sagan). The point is that there is a very delicate balance, a struggle perhaps, between wanting desperately to be special and the heartbreaking knowledge that we are not. That there are "billions and billions" [sorry]. . . of human beings teeming on the planet but as each one of us is extinguished, it isn't really all that significant. It makes me think about this idea of pests and pets - the fine line between them - and the comment someone made in a critique which has stuck with me - that whenever we try to justify the killing of one particular group of people, we cast them as non-human ("cockroaches" often) and when we keep something as a pet, we make it more human, like our dogs. The more special something is, the tighter we hold to it, and the more plentiful, the easier it is to wipe them out, as a whole rather than individual, special parts.

This is, by the way, that famous pale blue dot photograph:

And here is an audio story of the anniversary of the "famous photograph that almost didn't happen" from NPR: An Alien View of Earth.

Also, here is an audio slideshow talking about those very changes in our perspective of ourselves from NPR: Views Of Earth From The Middle Ages To The Space Age.

Two related passages from Carl Sagan's "Broca's Brain"

Here are two quoted passages from Carl Sagan's book "Broca's Brain" that I found to be particularly moving for me and that, after writing them down, seem oddly related. They could, perhaps form the crux of a new piece? :) Who knows. Anyway:

from "Life in the Solar System" Chpater 12 of Carl Sagan's book "Broca's Brain"
A Quote from Anton van Leeuwenhoek

"On April 24th, 1676, observing this water by chance, I saw therein with great wonder unbelievably very many small animacules of various sorts; among others, some that were three to four times as long as broad. Their entire thickness was, in my judgment, not much thicker than one of the little hairs that cover the body of a louse. These creatures had very short, thin legs in front of the head (although I recognize no head, I speak of the head for the reason that this part always went forward during movement) . . . Close to the hindmost part lay a clear globule; and I judged that the very hindmost part was slightly cleft. These animacules are very cute while moving about, oftentimes tumbling all over."

I love this part (the bold emphasis is mine). . .to think of them as being very "cute" even if this is an old use of the word that no longer quite applies :) or has the same meaning

and then thi one p. 150- "The Sun's Family" from Carl Sagan's Broca's brain. In the beginning of this chapter, he describes what it might have been like for some outside intelligent being to watch the activity of Earth from afar (I think he ends with something about how "something interesting is happening on Earth lately" :))

". . . But nothing in those eons of time leaves the planet. And then the planet suddenly begins to fire tiny dispersals throughout the inner solar system, first in orbit around the Earth, then to the planet's blasted and lifeless natural satelite, the Moon. Six capsules--small, but larger than the rest--set down on the Moon, and from each, two tiny bipeds can be discerned, briefly exploring their surroundings and then hotfooting it back to the Earth, having extended tentatively a toe in the cosmic ocean. . . . ."

goes on to list alll the other probes and sateleites, etc. How charming, his view of us. I want to paint that, I think. The two tiny bipeds. :) it makes us seem so adorable.

This one makes me think of this image, which I have always loved but can't really say why.

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This is, by the way, the piece that emerged from these two quotes. I deeply loved making it, even if the drawing is not that great. And I keep wanting to go back to the place I was in when I made it, listening to the Brandenberg concertos.

"For future times and peoples" . . . More on the Golden Record

Though the UIUC library does not seem to own a copy of the record itself (put it out in a limited release), the friendly and super-helpful "ask a librarian chat window" person directed me to a website in which you can listen to the audio on the record online.

Golden Record Sounds
Note: The first sounds are straight out of the X-Files, and the Mozart Magic Flute aria is astounding. This woman manages to sound like either a violin or an extremely high-pitched horn instrument . . . which is an awe-inspiring sound I have never heard a human voice do before and I think I actually opened my mouth and made a gasping noise when I heard it.

There is actually an official NASA page on the Golden Record as well:
NASA Golden Record Voyager Intersellar Mission

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In addition, I acquired a book from the UIUC library called "Murmurs of the Earth" written by Carl Sagan, F.D. Drake, Ann Druyan, Timothy Ferris, Jon Lomberg, and Linda Salzman Sagan.

This, by the way, is the book cover. I actually thought the pressed gold circle on plain black fabric was kind of breath-taking. And it makes me want to stick a gold circle on my painting.

The book is all about the Voyager project, and specifically the creation of the records. I have some brief notes, quotes, and commentary below.

"For future times and peoples" is the title of Carl Sagan's introductory essay, which I think is a really lovely phrase. I think that is what we're all doing with art, in a way. . . or at least I feel that I am. That much less permanent drawings or paintings are just futile gestures to the future and an attempt to "survive our time so that we may live into yours." (Jimmy Carter on the record).

- the fundamental realities of the universe are math and physics. I think this is fascinating, that since the laws of physics and math are presumably the same throughout the universe, those will be the only constants we can expect to encounter. Biology may be completely different, atomic structure or molecules he says, but not the laws of math. So . . .
"Because of the relationship between music and mathematics, and the anticipated universality of mathematics, it may be that much more than our emotions are conveyed by the musical offerings on the Voyager record." 14

I think this is fascinating . . . that perhaps so much is encoded in our musical language . . . or perhaps that their communication will be completely meaningless, like a string of 1's and 0's to someone who doesn't translate binary. . . hmmm. This goes back to trying to reach for universals, to find something transcendent. "I want to believe" in something.

". . . they are now irretrievably set on trajectories that will take them out of our solar system." 7 So lonely and empty.

"This plaque also contains a sketch of two representatives of the human species greeting the cosmos with hope." 8 (referring to the previous plaques on. . . Pioneer maybe?

Why copyright law and beaurocracy is maddeningly ridiculous

They wanted to send "here comes the sun" by the Beatles, and "all four Beatles gave their approval. But the Beatles did not own the copyright, and the legal status of the piece seemed to murky to risk." 19.

"By late May 1977 the general configuration of the musical selections was becoming clear. Each selection to be included would have to have a copyright release, because the International Copyright Convention restricts the reproduction of a piece of music "for any purposes whatever," presumably including extraterrestrial purposes." 22

"There was no way that NASA was going to launch full frontal nudity to the stars." 35

A few reasons why I really wish this were a movie

25. I liked how he switched from a paragraph about delegates from all the countries leaving long commentary to this. page break, and then "Roger Payne of Rockefeller University is a zoologist who has performed important studies of great whales in the free ocean. From a small boat he has trailed hydrophones beneath the surface of the ocean and recorded the tantalizing, enigmatic, haunting "songs" of the humpback and other whales. . . ." If I were to make a movie . . . well, I'd want to see one on this whole process. Why is this not a movie?

"After weighing the matter for about a day, NASA decided it was essential to include on the Voyager record at least the names of a large number of senators and representatives, especially those whose committees had cognizance of NASA activities. As a result, 4 additional pictures were added at the very last moment to the Voyager record with the information that is contained int he boxes on pages 30 and 21. So in case the reader wonders who it is, say, that Senator John Stennis of Mississippi has his name aboard the Voyager record, I suppose it goes back to Kurt Waldheim and the nature of beaurocracies." 29. amazing. they also had this amazing story of how to accommodate these new images, because there was a special recorder lent to them from Honeywell and the picture transcription had to be supervised by personel at Cornell, so someone had to fly with the recorder back to Boulder, CO at this video place that did it for them before, . . .29. totally amazing little rush story about it. and since the turnaround was so short, they had to reserve a seat for the recorder on the plane since it wasn't safe to put it in cargo. "It turns out that airlines have difficultly coping with concept of a seat for a piece of equipment. The solution, we found, was to reserve a seat for an individual named "Mr. Equipment." Since Mr. Equipment was under the age of ten, he was able to fly at half fare." 32 I LOVE IT.

I think it is interesting, and a little note to why artists and writers and people who make their living by using their imaginations are important. :)
"Because some science fiction writers with backgrounds in the sciences have been thinking about such problems longer than most of the rest of us, I also queried my friends Isaac Asimov, Arthur Clarke and Robert Heinlein." 11 (for work on the plaque)

I've got a Golden Record

My last bit of looking into Carl Sagan info led me to the Golden Record placed on the Pioneer 10 and 11 spacecraft. I am not the first person to be enamored with this strangely poetic and beautiful gesture -- I think that was part of the point, but here are my thoughts anyway.

I am interested in what is actually ON the record, since I only have a vague idea.

There is an article from the New York Times called The Mix Tape of the Gods which I thought sounded good too.

According to wikipedia, you can get the CD from various libraries. "A CD-ROM version was issued by Warner New Media in 1992[9]. Both versions are out of print, but the 1978 edition can be found in many college or public libraries."

Anyway, the wikipedia article about it (Voyager Golden Record) is full of really intriguing and interesting ideas.

"thus the record is best seen as a time capsule or a symbolic statement rather than a serious attempt to communicate with extraterrestrial life."

"This is a present from a small, distant world, a token of our sounds, our science, our images, our music, our thoughts and our feelings. We are attempting to survive our time so we may live into yours.”
— U.S. President Jimmy Carter

"After NASA had received criticism over the nudity on the Pioneer plaque (line drawings of a naked man and woman), the agency chose not to allow Sagan and his colleagues to include a photograph of a nude man and woman on the record. Instead, only a silhouette of the couple was included."

Random fact:
"After the Pioneer Program, NASA put a Golden Record aboard the two Voyager spacecrafts, which included a greeting "Hello from the children of planet Earth." That was recorded by then six-year-old Nick Sagan, Carl's son." (from a blog of random facts)

Glorious Dawn - Carl Sagan

A few months ago, this fantastic video remix of various things Carl Sagan said went viral and basically everyone I knew online was talking about it. When I heard it, I immediately became mildly obsessed with it, listened to it 8 times, and then proceeded to send it to everyone else I knew, as is expected of something like this. The person who made it also made the video and mp3 available for free (bless them) so I have them in my permanent possession now :) but I also have it linked here.



Anyway, I didn't know much about Carl Sagan except for the very brief and wonderful love story about him and Ann Druyan and their work on the golden record included in the Voyager expedition from the Radiolab episode about Space. So I went on a cursory search of information about him beginning with the Carl Sagan wikipedia article.

There are so many reasons to find him and his work totally fascinating, not the least of which is his apparent talent of bringing complex scientific ideas to average people. I feel like he is a great example of someone whose passion for something exceeds that thing's natural appeal in such a way that makes it accessible to everyone else around him. For instance, take this sentence from the Wikipedia article which . . . says as much "Sagan's ability to convey his ideas allowed many people to better understand the cosmos—simultaneously emphasizing the value and worthiness of the human race, and the relative insignificance of the earth in comparison to the universe."

Also, this: "Isaac Asimov described Sagan as one of only two people he ever met whose intellect surpassed his own." I think this speaks to my general fascination with people who are brilliant and my nerd-crushes on all of them.

And also, some really interesting stuff about UFO's and . . . other things which remind me of the X-Files and are great. :) (I did find a mention of the particular episode that I was thinking of, by the way, on a wikipedia article about the Pioneer 10 spacecraft that they sent the golden record on. . . . "In the X-Files episode "Little Green Men", Bach's Brandenburg Concerto No. 2 can be heard whilst characters discuss the Golden Record.")

Here is something further about the remix that I didn't know: "In 2009, clips from Carl Sagan's Cosmos were used as the basis for A Glorious Dawn, the first video produced for the Symphony of Science, an educational music video production by composer John Boswell. Musician Jack White later released this song as a vinyl single under his record label Third Man Records.[51] Additional clips were used in the followup video, We Are All Connected, which featured Sagan alongside other noted scientists Richard Feynman, Neil Degrasse Tyson, and Bill Nye" I think this might be from Wikipedia or something. Not sure.

More on Rats

For whatever reason, I am still harping on rats. I started researching rats a little bit, as broadly as possible.

Here are some wikipedia articles that I thought were interesting as a starting point:
Fancy Rat
Model Organism
Laboratory Rat

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Rat Traps
I stumbled upon an absolutely horrific, heartbreaking video on youtube (which I refuse to link to here) that shows a rat caught in a sticky trap, choking on sticky glue and twitching as it tries in vain to free itself. That video actually makes me hate humans . . . and decide that people really are a bunch of bastards. I cant really understand how we can do things like that to other animals. I know I sound like a overly sentimental person or something, but I think the unnecessary torturous death of another living thing is objectively awful. And I'd like to see the rats get revenge. Its a nice idea anyway :)

I hate to post this one, but it makes me want to cry. I thought maybe it was a cartoony sort of image before I clicked on it, but once I realized how sad it was . . .

This leads me to following question: How can people kill rats when there are photos out there like this:

In all seriousness, though, what makes us feel like we can just kill them? Is it their size? What if they were the size of dogs and cats, how would we feel about it then? We have no problem killing insects, but the further up the food-chain we get (or rather the closer to mammals we get) the less comfortable we are with treating them as pests.

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Rat-baiting
Another thing that people do (or did anyway) with rats is throw them into a rat pit and have dogs (rat terriers, go figure, jack russels, etc.) try to kill as many as possible within a certain time frame. This is called rat baiting. This is interesting to me for a couple of reasons.

1. Again, people are bastards
2. This is a connection to dogs in an unexpected way that I tend to forget about . . . the way dogs were often used for cruel things, not just to each other, such as pit-bull fighting, but towards other animals
3. People often make a big deal about laboratory animals being treated cruelly, but it seems to me that compared to the other ways rats can die (sticky trap, being smashed in a trap and left to suffocate, or perhaps having their necks wrung by dogs in a pit), lab-rat life is not so inhumane after all. I might revise my thoughts on that if I ever actually spent time in a laboratory setting. . . but. . .

maybe the glitter blood thing can go with the rat pit. . . or maybe not.

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Rats and Garbage in NYC
I also came upon an interesting video talking about rats in New York City. It was really interesting their relationship to garbage and waste - rat expert talks about how WE provide our waste garbage on the streets in NY and then of course there are tons of rats as a result.

Some thoughts on rats

• rats have so left the naimals kingdom and are now the property of science - when you think of rats its either garbage rats or genetically engineered things living in cages. I should make a really huge one. out of scale. really smart one?
• do the rats with all kinds of crazy electrodes on them maybe all connected with glitter. :) glitter red eyes? :) ha. Ok, enough with the glitter.

Excellent use of glitter

So here is a video that I first saw because it was directed by Richard Ayoade (of the IT Crowd, and Jesse Thorn posted it of course). I don't know much about music videos, but I actually really liked this one a lot. You can watch it here: Heads Will Roll by the Yeah Yeah Yeahs. I thought it was very artful. And what's more, there was excellent use of glitter. :) As we all know, good uses of glitter are few and far between, so I'm really pleased with the way the video uses confetti-type paper, glitter, etc. to evoke blood and guts without actually grossing people out with real blood and guts. :)

In case the video is taken down someday, I went to the trouble of taking a few screenshots of parts that I thought were kind of awesome and that also use glitter.

This makes me think - if glitter is meant to be cute and bright and fun, and they do a bang-up job of using it for something gross and unpleasant, perhaps I can utilize that structure in order to get some of that damn glitter into my own work. Hopefully as successfully and non-tacky as this video did.