Postcard
Mostly Angels now-a-days
Tuesday, April 16, 2002
When I was a child my mother took my sister Alice and I to the brooklyn Botanical Gardens in NYC. She told us that we could get a special tour because my father had some affiliation to the garden through the city university. I think he worked at the University for the same reason he went toWWII. . . so that kids like me could go to gardens like that.
The graduate student who took us around seemed appologetic for the shoddy condition of some of the conservatoriums until he noticed that i was trying to identify opportunistic mosses on a neglected wall. My sister blythely skipped and whistled as though through virgin forest. And my mother asked questions like a full proffessor.
The amazing part was going into the room with the electron microscope. The components looked nothing like the merchandised electronics of today. Old Star Trek seemed more real.
The graduate/guide must have worked on the electron microscope project; that's where his eyes lit enthusiastic as he got the whole room humming. When he tweaked enough dials and had the green cathode screen humming. "What do you want to see?" he asked.
"Ragweed pollen," I sniffed, wipping my nose with a sodden paper tissue.
We settled on a mote of yellow dust from a dandelion, embedded in a four inch block of plastic.
After we explored the green electron lit hollows and the broken points, I was disapointed that the machine could only take us that deep. I imagined The Little Prince visting tiny planets and cultivating baobabs and roses and sheep...
(good night)
The graduate student who took us around seemed appologetic for the shoddy condition of some of the conservatoriums until he noticed that i was trying to identify opportunistic mosses on a neglected wall. My sister blythely skipped and whistled as though through virgin forest. And my mother asked questions like a full proffessor.
The amazing part was going into the room with the electron microscope. The components looked nothing like the merchandised electronics of today. Old Star Trek seemed more real.
The graduate/guide must have worked on the electron microscope project; that's where his eyes lit enthusiastic as he got the whole room humming. When he tweaked enough dials and had the green cathode screen humming. "What do you want to see?" he asked.
"Ragweed pollen," I sniffed, wipping my nose with a sodden paper tissue.
We settled on a mote of yellow dust from a dandelion, embedded in a four inch block of plastic.
After we explored the green electron lit hollows and the broken points, I was disapointed that the machine could only take us that deep. I imagined The Little Prince visting tiny planets and cultivating baobabs and roses and sheep...
(good night)
