I know, I know, I haven't updated in forever. Though probably you don't care by this point. Most of my updates go elseblog; I'm too lazy to cross-post these days.
So this post, too, will be brief. It's a few quotes from Contact, which I've begun re-reading.
When they pulled her out, she was not crying at all. Her tiny brow was wrinkled, and then her eyes grew wide. She looked at the bright lights, the white- and green-clad figures, the woman lying on the table below her. Somehow familiar sounds washed over her. On her face was an odd expression for a newborn--puzzlement perhaps. --p. 4
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Sometimes she would get up in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom and find her father there in his pajama bottoms, his neck craned up, a kind of patrician disdain accompanying the shaving cream on his upper lip. "Hi, Presh," he would say. It was short for "precious," and she loved him to call her that. Why was he shaving at night, when no one would know if he had a beard? "Because"--he smiled--"your mother will know." Years later, she discovered that she had understood this cheerful remark only incompletely. Her parents had been in love. --p. 9
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But if something as big as the Earth turned once a day, it had to be moving ridiculously fast. Everyone she knew must be whirling at an unbelievable speed. She thought she could now actually feel the Earth turn--not just imagine it in her head, but really feel it in the pit of her stomach. It was like descending in a fast elevator. She craned her neck back further, so her field of view was uncontaminated by anything on Earth, until she could see nothing but black sky and bright stars. Gratifyingly, she was overtaken by the giddy sense that she had better clutch the clumps of grass on either side of her and hold on for dear life, or else fall up into the sky, her tiny tumbling body dwarfed by the huge darkened sphere below.
She actually cried out before she managed to stifle the scream with her wrist. That was how her cousins were able to find her. Scrambling down the slope, they discovered on her face an uncommon mix of embarrassment and surprise, which they readily assimilated, eager to find some small indiscretion to carry back and offer to her parents. --p. 8
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Her decrypting machine was only for her own enjoyment. She did not use it to convey secret messages to friends. She was unsure to whom she might safely confide these electronic and cryptographic interests; the boys became jittery or boisterous, and the girls looked at her strangely. --p. 18
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"Let's see if I've got this right," she would say to herself. "I've taken an inert gas that's in the air, made it into a liquid, put some impurities into a ruby, attached a magnet, and detected the fires of creation." --p. 31
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If I think too hard about the fact that Carl Sagan is dead, I start to cry.
So this post, too, will be brief. It's a few quotes from Contact, which I've begun re-reading.
When they pulled her out, she was not crying at all. Her tiny brow was wrinkled, and then her eyes grew wide. She looked at the bright lights, the white- and green-clad figures, the woman lying on the table below her. Somehow familiar sounds washed over her. On her face was an odd expression for a newborn--puzzlement perhaps. --p. 4
---
Sometimes she would get up in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom and find her father there in his pajama bottoms, his neck craned up, a kind of patrician disdain accompanying the shaving cream on his upper lip. "Hi, Presh," he would say. It was short for "precious," and she loved him to call her that. Why was he shaving at night, when no one would know if he had a beard? "Because"--he smiled--"your mother will know." Years later, she discovered that she had understood this cheerful remark only incompletely. Her parents had been in love. --p. 9
---
But if something as big as the Earth turned once a day, it had to be moving ridiculously fast. Everyone she knew must be whirling at an unbelievable speed. She thought she could now actually feel the Earth turn--not just imagine it in her head, but really feel it in the pit of her stomach. It was like descending in a fast elevator. She craned her neck back further, so her field of view was uncontaminated by anything on Earth, until she could see nothing but black sky and bright stars. Gratifyingly, she was overtaken by the giddy sense that she had better clutch the clumps of grass on either side of her and hold on for dear life, or else fall up into the sky, her tiny tumbling body dwarfed by the huge darkened sphere below.
She actually cried out before she managed to stifle the scream with her wrist. That was how her cousins were able to find her. Scrambling down the slope, they discovered on her face an uncommon mix of embarrassment and surprise, which they readily assimilated, eager to find some small indiscretion to carry back and offer to her parents. --p. 8
---
Her decrypting machine was only for her own enjoyment. She did not use it to convey secret messages to friends. She was unsure to whom she might safely confide these electronic and cryptographic interests; the boys became jittery or boisterous, and the girls looked at her strangely. --p. 18
---
"Let's see if I've got this right," she would say to herself. "I've taken an inert gas that's in the air, made it into a liquid, put some impurities into a ruby, attached a magnet, and detected the fires of creation." --p. 31
---
If I think too hard about the fact that Carl Sagan is dead, I start to cry.
how's it hangin', ms. monster cock?
[Edited on Apr 23, 2005 4:57PM]