The Pale Blue Dot

I don't know how many of you are familiar with Carl Sagan's "Pale Blue Dot," but it is one of those unassuming works of art that leave you breathless and covered in goosebumps. I first came across it in a Creative Writing class, in our section on media and videogaphy, and my initial reaction was, "Ugh. Videos. I hate videos. I want to read." About ten seconds in, I was interested. By the time the video ended, I was on the edge of my seat and filled with such pride and love for our pale blue dot that I watched it again. We all know the Earth is our home. I mean, duh. Toddlers know that. First graders definitely know it. To most of us, the Earth is the largest object we will ever personally know. It's where we live and eat and sleep and raise our families. It's where we were born and where we will die. It's where we laugh and cry, and serves as the great stage upon which the grand drama of the human race is played. All the heroes, all the villains, all of us as are "but dust and shadows," and we live upon a "mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam." What a spectacular world.

“Look again at that dot. That's here. That's home. That's us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every "superstar," every "supreme leader," every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there-on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.

The Earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of this pixel on the scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner, how frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another, how fervent their hatreds. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that, in glory and triumph, they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot.

Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the Universe, are challenged by this point of pale light. Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity, in all this vastness, there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves.

The Earth is the only world known so far to harbor life. There is nowhere else, at least in the near future, to which our species could migrate. Visit, yes. Settle, not yet. Like it or not, for the moment the Earth is where we make our stand.

It has been said that astronomy is a humbling and character-building experience. There is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly with one another, and to preserve and cherish the pale blue dot, the only home we've ever known.”

-Carl Sagan, Pale Blue Dot: A Vision of the Human Future in Space

An Example of the Various Ways 26 Letters (and A Few Numbers and Symbols) Can Be Combined

I don't know about you guys, but I have always been one of those ridiculous people who gets absurdly excited when I've just learned something that is completely and totally useless and irrelevant in any way, shape, or form. I've got more useless information stockpiled in my mind than I would ever care to admit, and I count myself as very lucky to run across a particularly frivolous fact before sitting down to write this blog. According to Mental Floss's blog (which is one of my favorite websites and a fabulous place to wile away the hours), the melody of Vladimir Putin's favorite Beatles song "Yesterday" came to Paul McCartney without any words. Until he could find the words that have since become the stuff of legend, he walked around his house humming, "scrambled eggs, baby, I love scrambled eggs," so he wouldn't lose the tune. (You can find the entire article, "11 Fun Facts about the Beatles" in the link listed below). It seems that genius and madness truly are separated by a very thin line.

Anyways, as promised, this is the first edition of our monthly newsletter thingamajig that will really do nothing but give you lot an inside look at how dreadfully delightfully uncool we are. Since this is the first go, it will be pretty experimental until we figure out what works and what doesn't.

What We're Doing
1. Scales. I sing scales in my sleep, I kid you not.
2. Writing/recording/writing/writing/recording. This is the fun stuff! It's such an incredible experience to see something that we created in our minds become a tangible object. We've truly been blessed to find a producer who is beyond talented and so passionate about his work. He has a gift for getting inside our mixed-up minds, finding the root of the song, and coming up with something that blows us away. We'll be hitting the studio again in a few weeks, and I'm getting more impatient everyday!
3. Scales.
4. School. For Beau and Braeden, September brought about the beginning of the school year. For me, it brought about the joy of reminding both of my younger siblings that I don't have any school to do because I have graduated and I'm taking a semester off. They grow less tolerant of this every time it's mentioned, but it's hard to hear their complaints over the fun of being free.
4. Scales.
5. Wrangling little monsters two- and three-year-olds at church. I love this age group. Their noise level is spectacular, their ability to love unconditionally is inspiring, and their enthusiasm and thoughtless expression of emotions are contagious. I never knew how much fun it was to build a tower of blocks and run at it, full speed ahead, with my arms flung out to the side and a battle cry on my lips. There is as much fun in the destruction as their is in the creation. Plus, their constant need for the answer to "Why?" make it even better. These kids will believe anything!

What We're Listening To
(I have to start this off by saying that the grammar fanatic in me wanted very much to revise this title and make it say "To Whom We're Listening," but the obsessive-compulsive desire for continuity and parallel structure won out. It took five minutes of great internal struggle before I could get on with this post.)
1. Paramore's self-titled CD. Beau and I have always been fans of Paramore and the band's leading lady, Miss Hayley Williams. It's impossible to dislike her, thanks to her magnetic, charismatic performances, her killer vocals, and her fiery red hair. She is the embodiment of a highly caffeinated energy drink, with all the charm of a red velvet cupcake with sprinkles on top. I just love her, and this album has made me love her even more.
2. Daughter. I happened upon this band very early one morning while I was on YouTube. I can't remember what songs led me to them, but I'm very grateful they did. Elena Tonra has the voice of an angel, and it pulses with more feeling than Ron Weasley could ever believe any one person could possibly feel. If you've heard of them, you are an honorary member of some lofty, enlightened club. If not, you have now, so go check them out.
3. Imagine Dragons. This band is the greatest. It's Time caught my attention, Radioactive gives me the desire to break through the windshield of the car and go all Rambo on a tree, and everything else is beyond criticism. A++++++++.
4. Ed Sheeran is the second ginger to make this month's list and will most likely be mentioned in every month's list. I love this guy. He's short, he's a Lego enthusiast, and his cheeks can turn the color of his hair. Don't get me started on him, because I will go and go and go and go.

What We're Watching
1. The Avengers. We are superhero freaks in this house, so anything that Joss Whedon created that includes Iron Man, Loki, and Captain America (Beau is his biggest fan, though I think that Iron Man is much more better* than Spangly-Butt Tight-Pants)is bound to be a hit with us. I think we've watched it at least a dozen times, and unlike Thor (which is also a fabulous movie that we all love), I paid attention to the whole thing, not just the first thirty minutes. (I like to watch them and pretend it's a short film called Loki.)
2. Iron Man, Iron Man 2, Iron Man 3, Iron Man deleted scenes, Iron Man bloopers, Iron Man behind the scenes. Ok, so what? I'm a big Iron Man fan. Sue me.
3. Sherlock. We've recently been introduced to the brilliance (and emotional trauma) that is British television. Feeling good, life going well, everything looking pretty nice? Don't watch anything offered to you by BBC. Run. Run. But seriously, if Robert Downey Jr. insists on being happily married, Benedict Cumberbatch and Tom Hiddleston are very nice consolation prizes.

What We're Reading
1. Harry Potter, or Emotional Trauma in Book Form by J.K. Rowling. Still no letter. Still waiting. Always.
2. The Perks of Being a Wallflower, or A Study of Emotional Trauma and Extremely Nonfictional Feelings for Fictional Characters in Fangirls by Stephen Chybosky. This book is powerful in a way that very few books are nowadays. It hits me every single time I read it, no matter how many times I've read it before, and I'm left speechless and feeling a bit confused in finding once again that Charlie is in fact not a real person.
3. The Infernal Devices by Cassandra Clare. Don't talk to me about these books. I still can't think about them.
4. Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut. This book surprised me and actually turned out to make the list of my favorite books. It's just weird enough to keep me turning the pages while driving home a very real point about something that I've yet to figure out. I'll get back to you when I do, though.

Well, to make up for the length of last week's post, I'm going to cut this one off. Enjoy your weekend, remember to tell someone you love them, master a new form of martial arts, and either be very grateful it's actually cool enough to wear sweaters or turn the air conditioner on and pretend it's not 80-something degrees.

Xx, L.

P.S. Here is the link for the article I mentioned above! Very cool to read. http://mentalfloss.com/article/51566/11-fun-facts-about-beatles

*I am aware that "much more better" is not correct grammar, but quoting Capt. Jack Sparrow (the only real captain) has proved to be the only way to get some points across.