![]() ![]() The first day of a three-week vacation for me....and the birthday of our country. I could list all the things I like about America...and I do...but I really only know other countries academically. I've never been outside the USA. I'm about as "continental" as Barney Fife. To children, though, the Fourth of July is about fireworks. From Chinese celebrations to Guy Fawkes Day to our own Fourth of July, there is something special about painting the sky. There is something special of, just for a few seconds, turning the placid transcendent eternal beauty of the nighttime sky--and suddenly punctuating it with the explosive, impatient energy of humanity.
We sat on the grass. We didn't bring lawnchairs. People began lining up. Brentwood was a very upscale, whitebread area, and though there were a lot of people, no one got boistrous. There was an air of expectancy as the sky grew darker and darker.
You should have seen Jamie; his head turned at the sound of the first rocket. He winced and looked a little afraid at the soudn of the first explosion...but the fear melted into a look of wonderment and sheer awe---as to melt the most jaded heart. It's was as if he never knew the world was filled with such wonder, such magick. Brian ran around, never still, never stopping talking. "Look at that one, Dad!" "Oooohhhh, isn't that one neat!" "Lookithat! Lookithat!" Jamie, though, barely moved through most of it. I couldn't swear he was breathing. He was perhaps...afraid to break the spell, to end the enchantment. It lasted an hour, and he only really started to move around the last ten minutes or so.
What did it looks like to his less-filtered senses? How bright, how loud, how miraculous was it? At that moment you might all envy my autistic--my "handcicapped"--son.
He proposed to fire them into space, and when they are pulled back into the atmosphere by gravity...not quite reaching escape velocity...they would contain thousands of plaster of paris balls, filled with special fireworks. The head of the re-entry would ignite them, and the resultant show would be able to seen for a hundred miles. That's just from once ICBM. If we launched dozens, or hundreds...all aimed to fall into the sea...we could have a spectacle that would be unbelievable in scope. What a stunning idea that is. How smart to turn weapons of mass, horrible genocide into vehicles for lighting the sky with beauty and wonder. I hope it happens. Surely there's no better way to usher in the Millenium.
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One year ago today: a metaentry: WORLDS LOST AND WORLDS REDISCOVERED .
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