Carl faced his death with unflagging courage and never sought refuge in illusions. The tragedy was that we knew we would never see each other again…But the great thing is that when we were together, for nearly twenty years, we lived with a vivid appreciation of how brief and precious life is…We knew we were beneficiaries of chance. That pure chance could be so generous and so kind; that we could find each other, as Carl wrote so beautifully in Cosmos, you know, “in the vastness of space and the immensity of time”; that we could be together for twenty years; that is something which sustains me…That is so much more important than the idea I will see him someday. I don’t think I’ll ever see Carl again. But I saw him. We saw each other. We found each other in the cosmos, and that was wonderful.
Karen
Posts by Karen Kaminski:
Tuesday Project Roundup: Another Active Copy
I am on a roll with my knit dress knockoffs. First there was the “mustard active dress,” and now I give you the “turquoise fleece active dress”:
This one is a loose interpretation of this dress (in boring gray, for $90):
As you can see, the pockets and front seams are similar, but instead of figuring out how to draft a hood I just added a cowl neck like before. My starting pattern was the same one I used for the “orange sack dress” in September, and I used an organic sweatshirt fleece that is warm and soft and pretty much feels like pajamas.
The active dress: For when you can’t wear yoga pants.
"It Is Clean"
That’s why T.E. Lawrence reportedly liked the desert; I could add, “It is indifferent.” And this weekend, it was also cold:
Fortunately, Mom and I were prepared with winter gear.
Also fortunately, we escaped the enormous mesa-top lizards this sign showed us:
Lizards not to scale? Or do they come as big as bighorn sheep now?
Friday Unrelated Information
1. I don’t know why someone didn’t think of this earlier, but it is brilliant: Anthroparodie, photos from the Anthropologie catalog with new (awesome) captions.
2. And another parody: If you’ve read any Cormac McCarthy, you’ll get a kick out of Yelping with Cormac, reviews of local places as if they were written by him. From the “review” of Taco Bell:
The man asked could God make a taco so terrible even He could not eat it. The priest considered this and said no this was not possible and to think so was a sin. The man was silent for some time. Then he said that he had eaten such a taco and that it tasted of bootblack and horsefeed. That if this taco was under God’s dominion then surely all other great evils must be as well. And then the man took the halfeaten and greaseblackened taco from his coatpocket and thrust it at the priest like a broken sword. Eat it, he said. Eat it or be damned.
To The Desert
I’m headed to the desert by Moab soon to make my inner hippie happy and get some perspective. Here’s Paul Bowles‘ feelings about it (even though his desert was the Sahara):
Here, in this wholly mineral landscape lighted by stars like flares, even memory disappears; nothing is left but your own breathing and the sound of your heart beating…Once [someone] has been under the spell of the vast, luminous, silent country, no other place is quite strong enough for him, no other surroundings can provide the supremely satisfying sensation of existing in the midst of something that is absolute. He will go back, whatever the cost in comfort or money, for the absolute has no price.
"Science: What’s It Up To?"
Have you been trying to ignore the gearing up of the presidential race, too? From what I’ve been unable to ignore, it seems every potential candidate so far is trying to win by being anti-science–anti-vaccine, anti-evolution, anti-global warming, etc. Thank god for satire:
“Luxurious palace of science”–I love it. Found via one of my favorite science blogs.
Tuesday Project Roundup: Warm, Yet Dull
I have three knitting projects in different stages of completion, so because I don’t have any sewing finished this week, let’s talk about the most complete one:
I started this last winter to use up leftover yarn. (God only knows how I ended up with so many earth tones.) It’s coming along slowly; I’m sure I’d like working on it more if it were made of, say, leftover orange yarn. But it will be warm. I’m planning on using it as a layer for winter hiking–hopefully this winter, but if not, the next one.
And The Grinch’s Heart Grew Three Sizes That Day
…oh wait, I’m confusing my holidays. But this is a similar transformation:
I have a long list of reasons why I hate Halloween as an adult, but do you know what melted my shriveled little heart this year?
1. Charles Schultz and Vince Guaraldi:
2. Having an actual kid around. Is this baby jaded or disappointed? No–he is delighted by that pumpkin! He is going to be a cow tonight. I can’t wait.
Friday Unrelated Information
1. Have you seen Animals Talking in All Caps yet? ALL CAPS MAKES THINGS FUNNY! (OK, no always, but this one makes me laugh so much. It’s how I feel about IKEA, too.)
2. Recently, I noticed that Jack Daniels had changed its bottle shape and label a little. (Hey, I buy whiskey pretty frequently.) Here’s a case study of the brand refresh by the agency that did it. Nice work–I especially love the new copy bits on the side panel (under “A Refined Identity).
3. And speaking of advertising, how about some Don Draper nihilism to kick off the weekend? You’ll have to click through and wait through an ad (how meta!) but it’s worth it to hear him say, “What you call love was invented by guys like me to sell nylons.”
Convincing Myself
As I’ve let my inner hippie free, I’ve caught myself, say, doing yoga and nodding when the teacher says this will help the solar plexus chakra–which is then followed by the thought, “Carl Sagan would not approve of this.”
However, this is Carl Sagan we’re talking about. This is the man who contributed an essay to Marihuana Reconsidered, who approved that theme music* to the Cosmos series, and who famously said:
Some part of our being knows this is where we came from. We long to return. And we can. Because the cosmos is also within us. We’re made of star-stuff. We are a way for the cosmos to know itself.
That last line is what makes me think Carl would be all for letting the inner hippie out.
*Sometimes I just leave that site open and let the music loop. It’s great for irritating days at work.