Inconvenience Store
BOOK REVIEW: MARS, Uncovering the Secrets of the Red Planet
BOOK REVIEW: MARS, Uncovering the Secrets of the Red Planet
Paul Raeburn, 1998, National Geographic Society
Well fuck you, I just LOVE the planet Mars and I don't care who knows it, what they think of it, or how they think that the money spent finding out what the fuck's going on, on Mars should have better been spent feeding starving children in Lower Bungholia. So there.
With any luck at all, the fucked up starving children will survive long enough to see perhaps their OWN great grandchildren eking out a hard scrabble existence a hundred million miles away from their own worthless asses, whipping an entire new WORLD into some semblance of hospitability for an entire new branch of the human race. I'm guessing that a fully functional backup civilization on Mars would be a nice thing to have around in case this one succeeds in blowing itself all the way back to the Paleozoic Era. In which case, here's hoping the folks on Mars don't get bogged down in endless debates over whether the money spent is worth it, but just says, "Fuck it," bites the bullet, and repopulates dear old planet Earth at whatever cost it takes. Wouldn't THAT be a twist, eh?
But nevermind such rubbish, we've got a book to review here now don't we?
WHEEEEE... one helluva book!
Large format paperback on really nice paper and illustrated like a motherfucker with some of the coolest images you'll ever come across, including some in 3-D, for which the viewing glasses have thoughtfully been placed in a pocket inside the back cover.
Stupendous!
Incredible!
Mind boggling!
Fuckin' A, Mars RULES!
Sprinkled liberally among the fantastic imagery is a text that kinda lays out the history of our fascination with the red planet, going back to ancient days and, with ever increasing detail, takes us right up through the Mars Pathfinder and Global Surveyor missions, with further speculations on a future none of us can quite see. Since the most recent two missions crashed and burned, this stuff is all we're gonna have for a while, till NASA gets its shit back together and starts lofting funny-looking machinery toward the Red Planet once again.
But lordy god, it's the fucking PICTURES that make this thing!
Any one of which would be worthy of EXTENDED contemplation, sorta like a Salvador Dali painting or something. There's SO MUCH crap going on in each picture that there's no way in hell that your brain is gonna grok this shit all at once. And so, you sorta just stare... and imagine... and maybe stare some more, picking up this or that bit of unnoticed detail in an endless cycle of looking and learning.
Mars is a PLACE, as real as your back yard, and three times cooler by far, and I don't care if your front yard is the Louvre in Paris.
And oh yeah, didn't they just recently discover evidence of RUNNING WATER on Mars?
Water, what all life craves the most.
Life.
Hmm hmm hmm, whatever will the fundamentalist bastards do if they find life on Mars?
I'm guessing that the rhetorical twists and flips will be a breathtaking sight to behold. Holy bullshit at it's finest.
Goddamnit, take my tax money. Take it NOW!
We need to send some folks out there with picks and shovels and start some serious turning of dirt!
A lifetime resident (despite having travelled all over the damn place at one time or another) of Central Florida, James MacLaren took a four-year degree in death thrills riding giant waves on the North Shore back in the 70's. Wound up in the inconvenience store following a lay off from the Cape, where he was involved with the construction of the Space Shuttle launch pads, among other things. Father of best son in the world.
