1 post tagged “things that may or may not...”
The global society of astronomists went on record last week to amend that there are in fact 12 planets in our dear solar system, not nine. It was a nice little ancillary announcement held for the left column of the Post's health and science section and I nearly choked up my coffee over it. It seems that up until this point the team had never actually set down an official definition for 'planet.' Gravity, yes, massive universe-terminating dark energy, sure. but not planets. So when they finally addressed the oversight their agreed upon definition made room for three extra globular giants. .... well.. shit. You think you could have settled on this a little earlier boys? It's like discovering you have three bastard children. Ceres, Cheron and UB313 (who, in rebellion has just decided to go by Xena). What's worse is that they're sort of half-breeds. There is something not quite planetary about each of them, which is the reason they weren't included initially and will ultimately end up in their having highschool experiences that, well, suck. So now we've got to put on this whole show of inclusion, like we loved them all equally from the begining. Elementary school mobiles will be redone, childhood fantasies of living on pluto will have to be expanded to include summer homes on Xena, and, trust me on this, some hollywood great will name his or her newborn Ceres. That and there's the whole added phenomenon of nothing really changing at all. which is even wierder.
This is becoming characteristic, this process of major events speckling our shared canvas without any notable change to the landscape. Take thunder snow. Conleys I think you missed this, but last winter out of nowhere it began to thunder and snow simultaneously in Boston. Thunder AND snow. Thundersnow. It sounds like a transformer figurine. It was entirely thrilling and bizzare. And we handled it with fonz-like unfetteredness. Which I was proud of. If any populous can take it, it's our cut and paste generation. We'll get stuck at the end of the world, sitting on rooftops and watching with reverence at how beautiful everything looks when it's on its way out.
Which brings me to my final point. I've made a mix. For the occasion of sitting on rooftops and taking guesses at the celestial locations of our three new planets (I hear one is between us and mars). If you each will leave me your mailing addresses, I'll send you copies... oh and please, for the love of anything, take a moment and let yourself be in utter awe at our expanding universe. Something's are still meant to steal your breath away.
