Boppity Bop

"Seen a shooting star tonight, and I thought of you. You're trying to break into another world, a world I never knew. I always kind of wondered if you ever made it through. Seen a shooting star tonight, and I thought of you."

The song goes that when you wish upon a shooting star, it makes no difference who you are. Unfortunately when you wish upon a shooting comet, you better have your papers in order Pepe. You don't want to miss the boat. You don't want to leave this place before you have your house in order. Although I may not quite be ready to buy me a pair of Nikes and a purple shroud I nonetheless have been impressed by the sight of the great Hale Bopp comet in the sky. To gaze up at this heavenly wonder and to contemplate the significance of it all is at the very least, a pleasant distraction from trying to figure out the deductions on your taxes.

It's rather easy to get bogged down in the minutia of every day life and lose perspective on the grander scheme of things. But if you stop and think about it, the frustrations you feel after an unpleasant encounter with a raging customer, or a demanding boss, or a lazy coworker pales in comparison with the vastness of what's out there. Those overdue bills? How overdue are they among the waves of eternal time? To think of your own personal significance in comparison with the expanse of time and space, geez its enough to make one either feel overwhelmed or laugh at the seriousness we all tend to take ourselves at times.

The difference in those things cosmic with our daily routines can be somewhat jarring. We do like our lives to be orderly. We count on the dependability and stability of those familiar elements around us and expect a minimum of surprises. Last Tuesday on April Fool's Day several of the comic strip writers got together and switched strips. Thus Dagwood appeared in Garfield's world and Dilbert appeared in Luann's. One of the appeals of our the daily comic strips is their reliability- you may not always find them amusing in the slightest but somehow it is comforting to be able to look at them every morning and know what to expect- something like an old friend.

But with predictability comes boredom. A break in routine every now and then can be a good thing. And the good news for those of you out there who aren't who you want to be, or aren't where you thought you would be, is that because of time, and in spite of it, we all change. Five years from now you may not even recognize who you are today. And what better way to demonstrate this than another geeky example from my own life?

I first saw Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey when I was in high school. Having read glowing reviews of the movie I expected to be awed just like I was when I pulled out my telescope to look at the stars. I was disappointed. The movie seemed sterile and seemed to have no point. This of course was the perspective of one who had just seen the comic book plotted Star Wars movies. Thus I dismissed the movie as just another indulgence of those high brow critics who claim to see art in pretension in the name of being able to understand something the masses will never get.

Last Saturday evening Channel 2 played 2001: A Space Odyssey and I watched it after the rush of having produced another solid edition of the newsletter. Maybe it was the afterglow of having gone outside and gazed at Hale Bopp, but this time around the movie did blow me away. From the terrific opening scene with early man learning to club each other to death with a new found tool, to the mind boggling, surrealistic closing scene concluding with the birth of the star child, the movie seemed timeless and somehow captured that feeling of wonder that the promise of space can create inside of us.

As far as I could tell nothing in the movie was different from what I remembered. More likely it was the dork outside that was different, having gained fifteen years of life experience. The lack of a conventional story was admired this time around. It wasn't even a matter of gained wisdom, it's just that time gives you a different outlook on things. As the now frequently appearing gray hairs are a constant reminder of, life is a one way ride, there ain't no space for a U-turn. (Depressing discovery of the week: while perusing the Twins' opening day roster it dawned on me that I am older than all but four of the players. These guys used to be my heroes- now they are mere inexperienced youngsters. A mid-life crisis? YIKES!) So it was somewhat comforting to see that although the knowledge I have retained may fill a thimble, the perspective stumbled upon still leaves room for an appreciation for what I wasn't able to appreciate in earlier days. Time rolls over us much too rapidly to comprehend at the moment yet in the end it is the ride that can be so intriguing and inspiring.