The earth from the stars

August 20th, 2005 at 10:47 pm by james

We were the only people in our favourite Chinese at lunchtime today. They always make a fuss of Josie and today they put The Simpsons on the 60-inch plasma for her to watch. Very tired two-year-old absent-mindedly shovelling noodle-bits and sprouts into her mouth (mostly) while glued to Homer desperately trying to find another watering hole to replace the one Mo had banned him from. “That’s right! I’ll find another bar and I’ll drink there, and I’ll get drunker than I’ve ever been!” The logical tension between empty restaurant, personal service, and innapropriate two-year-old viewing was briefly intriguing.

I was reminded of it later in the day when we caught five minutes of a Trekkie documentary in which hominids from impressively diverse parts of the gene pool were assuring us that the philosophy of StarTrek would form the blueprint for the way we play out the 21st century. They could be right. What is certain is that for them the 21st century couldn’t be played out any other way.

We all view the earth from somewhere, this is why we live in society: it affords us the opportunity to gain a measure of objectivity if we want it, but far more important it affords us the opportunity to develop perspectives way wackier than anything we could think of all on our own. Try walking into an empty restaurant sometime. Better still, ask them to put Bart on the plasma.

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