The Pale Blue Dot Redux

This video was just posted via Brain Pickings, and it's fun to revisit the inspiration for last year's Family Homework project. Last year around this time, I remember talking to Richard about his purchase of some vinyl of an Icelandic rock group, and I'm pretty sure that this is the same band, Sigur Rós.




To listen to Carl Sagan's reading of his text, Pale Blue Dot, is to be reminded of the fragility and majesty of Planet Earth.

The video below of Sagan's reading was used for the introductory soundtrack for The Golden Record, the multi-media piece that was installed at the de Young last year.




On Wallace J. Nichol's Blue Marble Project website, his blog entry, "Understanding Blue Marbles," recommends taking 33 minutes to watch two videos, Carl Sagan's Pale Blue Dot and Jean Giono's The Man Who Planted Trees.

I vividly remember my introduction to the story of The Man Who Planted Trees. Moons ago, I sat in my dining room with two cousins who are the best of friends. In the wee small hours, we watched this gentle, beautiful story unfold in two incarnations: The animated movie and a theatrical piece for children.

Something tells me that I should prepare the gift of a Blue Marble, in order to send time looping round once again.









When you're awake, the things you think
Come from the dream you dream
Thought has wings, and lots of things
Are seldom what they seem.

Sometimes you think you've lived before
All that you live today
Things you do, come back to you
As though they knew the way.
Oh, the tricks your mind can play!

— the verse from Rodgers & Hart's standard, "Where or When"
from Babes in Arms, a musical about two friends who put on a show in an effort to avoid being sent off to work!