jaginsburg.com
  • home
  • journalism | science | tech
    • sci | tech
  • exhibitions
    • introduction
    • mickey pallas
    • News art
  • children's media
  • photography
    • photography
    • book covers
  • blogs
    • Medium
    • better
    • PechaKucha
    • TrackerNews (archive)
    • archived faves
  • DNG Archives
    • Fields

A Solstice Encore: Imaginary Carl Sagan, a Holiday Mix Tape and the Tannahill Weavers

12/21/2012

0 Comments

 
Picture

A few years ago, Maria “Brainpicker” Popova and Mel Exon of BBH Labs put together an online holiday mix tape. Friends were asked to claim a date, suggest a song and write something about the season. I drew December 21, the solstice.

Below is the entry reprinted, but to see it in all its original Taped Together glory, click here and page down to the 21st.

Happy Solstice One and All!

“If Carl Sagan had lived long enough to have owned an iPod, what would have been on it?”

In my quest for the perfect solstice song, I found myself channeling a dead astronomer hoping for inspiration. I had learned—the hard way—that solstice music as a genre is dominated by the tenderizingly sweet sounds of New Age artists. Alas, I am Old Age and, apparently, diabetic.

I briefly explored the limited but promising niche of hibernation songs. I thought about my friends who had married on this day-of-longest-night many years ago. So brilliant. I tried conjuring up Chinese astrologers, Egyptian priests, Aztec mathematicians and, of course, those henge-loving Druids. Surely they must have chanted or hummed or sang or drummed as they witnessed time writ cosmic in the swinging perfection of the planet’s seasonal pendulum? Sadly, nothing that has survived to rank on Amazon…

Finally, I asked Imaginary Sagan.

“Good Morning, Starshine?” he offered, apologizing for having come of age in the Hair-y Age of Aquarius.

"H’mmm. Might work in the southern hemisphere, where it’s turning into summer, but it’s not festive enough.”

“Let’s go to the pub,” he suggested. “You wouldn’t believe how many award-winning thoughts I used to have in pubs. Billions and billions of them.” And he was right. Sitting in the cozy glow, with laughter and live music—and the cold Chicago winter on the other side of the door—I watched a parade of Imaginary Ancients troop in, grateful for a pint and some company. It’s a big, cold, lonely universe out there.

So it’s the last call of the night, the last call of the last season of the year. Close your eyes. You are in a pub somewhere in Scotland. You are surrounded by friends, feeling warm, rosy, loving and loved. Now, raise your glass and sway along to The Tannahill Weavers singing “Auld Lang Syne” in deliciously indecipherable Scottish. Here is to you, Robert Burns. Here is to you old friends, stars all.

— J. A. Ginsburg
0 Comments

Your comment will be posted after it is approved.


Leave a Reply.

    Picture

    Background

    Dot to Dot grew out of the TrackerNews Project, a demo news aggregator developed for InSTEDD, an independent spin-off of Google.org's humanitarian practice that focused on health issues, humanitarian response and technology.
    — J.A. Ginsburg
    


    Archives
    
    • Bats, Trees And Bureaucrats: Ebola And How Everything, Positively Everything, Connects


    • Scrubba Dub Carlos and the Big Bad Enterovirus: Why Sneeze When You Can Sing? 

    • Ebola, Bats and Déjà Vu 
    All Over Again

    • Scaling Good: Project Frog’s Buildings And The Kitchen Community’s Learning Gardens

    • Thumbs Up And High Fives: Evolution, Hands And 3D Printing

    • Legos, Makers, Molecules, Materials And The Very Big Business Of Small Things

    • Solid: When Bits and Atoms Dance

    • Science Hack Day Chicago 2014: Reinventing The Space Suit, Cosmic Biomicmicry And The Joy Of Thinking Different

    • The Motors of August Cicadas

    • Mulling Snow, Climate, Pain Points, Bootstrapping And Chicago’s Advantage

    • Glass, Tech And Civilization: The Material That Makes Just About Everything Better

    • A Tale Of Two Maps And Why You Can’t Teach An Old Grid New Tricks

    • When Bad Things Happen To Good Content: Form(At), Function, Perspective And Possibilities

    • The Sum Of Its Parts: Autozone Meet Autodesk (Please) / On Supply Chains, Carbon Footprints And How 3D Printing Can Change The Game (Again)

    • It Takes An Economist: Tallying Natural Capital

    • Beyond Measure: Da Vinci’s Genius, Peripheral Vision, The Prepared Mind, Metric Traps And Hacking The Filter Bubble

    A Solstice Encore: Imaginary Carl Sagan, A Holiday Mix Tape And The Tannahill Weavers



    Categories

    All
    3D Printing
    Architecture
    Automotive
    Biology
    Censorship
    Chicago
    Climate
    Conferences
    Economics
    Education
    Electric Grid
    Electronics
    Energy
    Environment
    Evolution
    Gardens
    Graphene
    Green Building
    Hardware
    Information
    Innovation
    Makers
    Manufacturing
    Materials Science
    Natural Resources
    Nature
    Prosthetics
    Software
    Space
    Startups
    Tech
    Weather


    RSS Feed

introduction
Picture
sci / tech
blogs
children's media
Picture
exhibitions
photography
Website designed by 
J.A. Ginsburg