Listening to last night's podcast of the Rachel Maddow Show on one of my forty-five minutes drives this afternoon, I was delighted to hear the audio for this piece, which I was finally able to see on returning home much later tonight. Take a look:
Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy
I could make some moderately profound statement at this point, something about how humans meld art and science by carrying music, in a small way, into space. There's a history there, going back to the Voyager missions, both of which carried a golden LP of the best music from the Earth, just in case that some wandering extraterrestrial should happen across one of those craft in a million years' time. But frankly, a large part of my enjoyment derives from being a long-time Jethro Tull fan. The notion of Ian Anderson having leant a flute to an astronaut for a space mission strikes me as rather a wonderful gesture.
As a result, this, like Christmastide, puts me in a Tull sort of mood. Here's a clip of classic Tull which isn't one of the two songs ("Aqualung" and "Locomotive Breath" which most people generally know), the title track of their 1977 LP:
I spent far too long selecting this clip, looking for something that was just right. Almost went with "Hunting Girl", but decided against it. There are lots of other great ones out there, especially from the late 70s. Just have a look.
The other amusing element in the first clip is Rachel Maddow's unfettered delight at the astronauts' zero-G antics. Which led, of course, to the post title. And after all, if you found yourself in orbit, wouldn't you do the same?
No comments:
Post a Comment