Tuesday, Aug 19, 2003

Dear you little nymphs,

Since we last spoke, there was a blackout here, and elsewhere, but most importantly of course here. This was not actually that bad, all things considered. Considering, for instance, that among certain species of walrus and seal it is apparently a way of life both rote and annual for the adult males--all but the single alpha--to "bugger" the tribe's children, the blackout was not actually that bad. One nice thing was that New York City, which is a very lovely town, was being lighted exclusively by candle, which is a good light. It may be that man's population growth has far outstripped that of other terrestrial species for the simple reason that until a hundred and fifty years ago all lighting was mood lighting.

Strolling the very dark streets, a friend of the band's wondered aloud whether there might be, nine months from now, an appreciable pop in birthrates in the powerless, t.v.-less cities. The answer is of course that no, before the blackout people were already making babies as fast as they possibly could.

On the subject of darkness, were you aware that Pluto is so far from our (and its) sun that, were a person to stand on Pluto, said sun would appear to him or her as nothing more than a bright star in a star-filled sky? Is that not the very picture of loneliness, somone standing there on icy Pluto trying to pick out from among thousands of others the star to which they belong? Luckily, it wasn't like that in New York. It was dark, but there were lots of us here, and candles.

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