The Big Space Eye

Prose, including snippets (mini-memoirs).
Post Reply
User avatar
mnaz
Posts: 7672
Joined: August 15th, 2004, 10:02 pm
Location: north of south

The Big Space Eye

Post by mnaz » April 18th, 2017, 9:27 pm

We don't do moon shots anymore, but we still put a lot of stuff in orbit. Space junk gathers like killer screws loose from old Sputniks at thirty-five thousand miles per hour with kinetic energies of trucks. How long until all this stuff mashes itself into big menacing bands of debris? . . . A lot of machines up there, and some of them take pictures. Lots of pictures.

......Now we have gone deserts onscreen, places I went to not be seen. You click, scroll and zoom to ridges or valleys, but they were much more powerful when uncountable, and more than bent bumps in pixels on a screen. It's amazing. If resolution ever gets sharp enough, then some day if I click along some far-gone trail, I might see myself looking up at the sky, right into the Big Space Eye.

saw
Posts: 8279
Joined: May 23rd, 2008, 7:32 am
Location: B'more, Maryland

Re: The Big Space Eye

Post by saw » April 19th, 2017, 10:07 am

8) 8) 8) 8) 8) 8)....much to ponder...surveillance is here to stay.....I love to be in the woods alone without the sounds from cars or people...there's a connection like no other...the joy in silence....the bond with trees....I'll be deep in the forest today...trying out a new trail
If you do not change your direction
you may end up where you are heading

User avatar
mnaz
Posts: 7672
Joined: August 15th, 2004, 10:02 pm
Location: north of south

Re: The Big Space Eye

Post by mnaz » April 19th, 2017, 3:12 pm

t.y. saw. And of course, out in the desert it's wide-open; you're completely exposed-- to the Eye of ... everything. You can see the stories and tribulations of rock. Until I hung out in those spaces I hadn't thought of rock in years-- fell asleep in Geology 101, too abstract, I couldn't see it under all the moss and clouds and parking lots, but then suddenly it was all around me, no choice put to pay attention...

(This is something I first wrote back in 2009 when I discovered G-Earth for the first time, and I recently (re?)wrote it into my latest stuff...)

User avatar
still.trucking
Posts: 1967
Joined: May 9th, 2009, 12:56 am
Location: Oz or someplace like Kansas

Re: The Big Space Eye

Post by still.trucking » April 20th, 2017, 1:35 am

somewhere out beyond the stars
I have the feeling there is a big space eye
looking down on all of it
before I ever did drugs, it was a mind altering experience when the first pictures of Earth rise seen from the moon were shown on live TV.

I felt fortunate to get to see gods country even if it was through the windsheild of a truck.

Thanks for writing.
"Natural selection, as it has operated in human history, favors not only the clever but the murderous." Barbara Ehrenreich

Avatar

Free Rice

User avatar
mnaz
Posts: 7672
Joined: August 15th, 2004, 10:02 pm
Location: north of south

Re: The Big Space Eye

Post by mnaz » April 20th, 2017, 7:55 am

Thanks Jack. That "Earthrise" image rocked my world back in '68. I've thought about it many times..

User avatar
stilltrucking
Posts: 20605
Joined: October 24th, 2004, 12:29 pm
Location: Oz or somepLace like Kansas

Re: The Big Space Eye

Post by stilltrucking » April 21st, 2017, 8:44 am

never read the book but I liked the title, Future Shock. I don't get it, I mean I have a fuzzy idea it ain't what I think it is. This brave new world of technological miracles. And what they cost in terms of our survival. Love my electric toothbrush dearly. But batteries are nasty things to get rid of. Back in the forties I lived next to a junk yard in Baltimore. I remember finding a bunch of batteries also those old Edison clay Cylinders for his talking machine. The cylinders I smashed with with rocks, the batteries I cut open. Ugh, nasty stuff in there. I can only imagine alkali batteries are worse. Even if I use rechargeable the ecological buck has to stop somewhere, in somebodies back yard.

sorry for the long ramble not entirely irrelevant I hope.

saw
Posts: 8279
Joined: May 23rd, 2008, 7:32 am
Location: B'more, Maryland

Re: The Big Space Eye

Post by saw » April 25th, 2017, 9:48 am

I'm Just a Big Space Eye For Your Love....sounds like a J. Geils song....maybe he's in my head 'cause he just passed away last week at the young age of 71....too early my man....

Sure played that Bloodshot album a ton.... 8) :D 8) :D 8) :D

and remember Magic Dick with his commando belt full of harmonicas....?
If you do not change your direction
you may end up where you are heading

User avatar
mnaz
Posts: 7672
Joined: August 15th, 2004, 10:02 pm
Location: north of south

Re: The Big Space Eye

Post by mnaz » April 26th, 2017, 3:28 am

Has it been eight years already since I first saw those satellite images on a computer screen?
Wasn't sure what to make of it at first.

User avatar
mnaz
Posts: 7672
Joined: August 15th, 2004, 10:02 pm
Location: north of south

Re: The Big Space Eye

Post by mnaz » March 3rd, 2018, 1:31 pm

And Jack, forgot to reply... Completely relevant. Tech, like Capitalism, is just another organism on the rock, and will need to adapt to survive. And yes, the ecological buck has to stop somewhere.

Post Reply

Return to “Stories & Essays”

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 7 guests