Monday, July 20, 2009

We walked on another world

CNN should have asked me. I would have said that "Man's greatest achievement" was our first moon landing. Apollo 11 proved we could accomplish the impossible. We set foot on another world and came back to brag about it. Not sure what happened after that, but no one has made any effort to top that accomplishment since.

Hard to believe that that was exactly 40 years ago, today. Harder to believe that in theory I could have watched Armstrong and Aldrin's moonwalk 'live' on TV. I'm pretty sure we had an old black-and-white, and I know I was already watching TV at that age (I have the glasses to prove it), but I don't know if we could get a 'live' feed back then.

What I do remember of the Apollo 11 mission was several years later when I watched an amazing theatrical performance at which the solo performer faithfully recreated each shot of the televised mission using the exact voice transmissions and, get this... his fingers! That's right, his digits were the only things moving on stage, and through them this historical event came to life again. I don't remember whose hands they were, and I haven't been able to discover even a mention of the performance online. A pity, 'cos I'd really love to watch it a second and even third time.

Essay mill's on hold 'cos life just got really busy. But hey, 40 years ago, we touched the moon. What can't we do now?

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