Monday, July 20, 2009

40

The moon: still America's bitch

As you are undoubtedly aware, today is the 40th Anniversary of Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin walking on the moon while Michael "capsule bitch" Collins had to sit and watch and occupy his time with whatever it is you do when everyone else on the mission is walking on the fucking moon. He probably played solitaire, weeped a little, and then touched his "'lil astronaut" on all of Buzz Aldrin's stuff.

For those of you who are interested there are many retrospectives going on the newsmedia. The NYT has the Our Moon series, the Washington Post has their version, and the LA Times is re-running its coverage from 1969. Amazon is selling From the Earth to the Moon for $11. The Post has an interesting story on Neil Armstrong and why he wishes you'd all kindly stop asking him about the fucking moon already. Apparently he thought the whole "first man on the moon" thing would lead to a life a quiet solitude and be something that people forgot after a few years.

If class and newpaper retrospectives aren't your thing, then there's always shameless commercialism from luxury handbag companies. Louis Vuitton wants you to know they care about this moon thing too and they assembled Buzz Aldrin, Jim Lovell, and Sally Ride in a video series to talk about space. Because what says "40th Anniversary" more than assembling some astronauts to remind everyone that $10,000 Chinese made handbags for you to carry a chihuahua in are readily available? Isn't that what the moon landing was really about?

No comments: