Atlatls and Aurochs and a Bee on the Moon

Hi Friends,

"How did I get here?" asks a song released in 1981. On Groundhog's Day.

It's from the song "Once in a LIfetime" by the band Talking Heads.

The James Webb Space Telescope finally launched and is cruising at three quarters of a mile per second to L2, an earth orbital point that is nicely stable. It should stay where we put it. By the way, the International Space Station is 220 miles above the earth. L2 is a million miles away. "Where does that highway go to?"

An atlatl, besides being one of the best words ever (talk about rhythm, just look at it), is a throwing device, generally made of wood, used to throw a spear with more force and accuracy. Think arm leverage multiplier. It was the best technology of its day -- one exists made of reindeer horn found in France dated to 17,500 years ago, but researchers suggest it was used throughout the Paleolithic Era, the Old Stone Age, by hominids dating back 3.3 million years, or, put another way, 99% of the time some version of man has existed. It was a tool to feed the roaming band of families whose survival depended on its skilled use. (Listen to "Houses in Motion" on the same album by the Talking Heads). The word "atlatl" comes from the Aztecs. The "woomera" is roughly the same tool used by Australian aboriginals. "You may ask yourself, how do I work this?"

Aurochs are extinct. The last one died in 1627 in Poland. They were one of the largest herbivores of the Holocene or the geologic period that contains the proliferation of humanity, all written history and the rise of civilizations. They were hunted throughout Eurasia and ultimately domesticated as the ur-cattle, the densest source of protein humankind could manage. Standing around six feet at the shoulder, the largest weighed up to 3,000 pounds. "Where is that large automobile?"

Friends, we have a helicopter on Mars. It's just under four pounds and flies in air less than 1% the density of our atmosphere. We have a telescope that will park in space, cool down for five months to achieve an operating temperature of -364 degrees, and look back in time over 13 billion years with an instrument capable of detecting the heat of a bee on the moon. "You may ask yourself, how did I get here?"

Paul Simon sings "these are the days of lasers in the jungle," and the "staccato signals of constant information." Listen to the song by the Police "Driven to Tears." Sting (there's that bee again) sings about "...too many cameras and not enough food." The voices here are the art of awareness, that technology exists willy nilly flinging us somewhere and is it somewhere we want to be? "Am I right? Am I wrong?" "Here comes the twister..."

"Letting the days go by..." I'm not a big fan of David Byrne's voice; never really loved his band Talking Heads, but this album is a monument. Brian Eno was the producer and he had the band listen to Fela Kuti, a west African multi-instrumentalist band leader and political activist whose entire work centered on polyrhythms, music that circled and phased and expanded and hovered, the sonic machinery of time and percussion. The sound of time without a downbeat. "Time isn't holding up, time isn't after us." Listen to the Talking Heads song, "Once in a LIfetime" where all these lyric snippets come from. Notice that the first note in the bassline is missing. Eno had a band that didn't jam, jam, and recorded it all to pick through and make this album. It's a bunch of American art school post punkers playing polyrhythms, speeded up and stumbling, tribal trance dance smashed through electronic looping and tweaking and spit out as a rock album. The band had to learn how to play what was on the album in real time. NPR named it one of the 100 most important musical works of the 20th century. Over it all is the quasi poetry of Byrne sounding like a preacher: "And you may find yourself in another part of the world..."

"These are the days of miracle and wonder" sings Paul Simon. The Heads sing "Same as it ever was, same as it ever was..." The tempo is breakneck these days, but "same as it ever was." Not spears, not bison, but genotyping what's in a zoo by sampling the breeze by the fence. It's today. We are miraculous. Paul closes his song saying "Don't cry baby, don't cry," four times. That's the message. The Heads album is titled "Remain in Light." I will indeed. You too. (How superlative that this album has that specific title). It's bright; stay in it.

Art, my friends, requires eyes and ears. Thanks for the focus and go rock the above loud. Poetry and paintings, drums and reflected light. The James Webb has hexagons of beryllium covered in gold to look through time -- that's what I'm talking about.

P.S. You want to hear hope? Crank up Aaron Copland's "Fanfare for the Common Man". Play it LOUD. There it is. Three minutes that sound like HOPE.

P.S.S. "Same as it ever was..." is the chorus that we have always been here. Different tools. Different toys. Different tribes. And we continue. "Into the blue again..."