The Bishop on the Moon in 2018

Many a science fiction writer of the mid-to-late 20th century will have been disappointed by NASA’s announcement of its plans to put man back on the Moon a mere 13 years and 100-billion dollars from now; confirming that space agency’s sluggish development of inertial dampers, light-cone drives, hyperspace-bypass override oscillotators and other highly anticipated means of achieving faster-than-light travel. The Bishop, on the other hand, was merely amused as the satellite feed between a NASA official and his Australian interviewer went down—twice—saying more than your ecclesiastical elucidator ever could on just why mankind in space is such a space-brained idea.

The Bishop, to be fair, is willing to admit a certain thankfulness for satellites and other space-race-driven technology—though he has never been a fan of the microwave oven, and figures that the magic ju-ju heaty-uppy box would probably have been perfected quite quickly and cheaply on its own, rather than as the sole useful by-product of several billion dollars wasted on something else. (‘Sorry, Dad, I wrote-off the Beemer, but in doing so I learned a valuable lesson about the function of red lights at intersections.’) However, having created those satellites and reached a stage where a mere five-percent of all space-travellers and an acceptable number of ground crew are killed in their development, installation and repair, one is compelled to wonder why the United States is so keen to return for a week of Moon-rock collecting, when stones and other useless bits of dirt and dust are one of the few resources we are unlikely to run short of anytime soon.

Is the Bishop merely accepting the mantle of neo-Luddite in pointing out that heading into space is something humankind was never really meant to do? After all, his opponents will say, man was never ‘meant’ to fly. In response, your humble correspondent notes than man was also never meant to play strip poker in piranha-infested waters and, sensibly, doesn’t. Space flight is exceedingly dangerous, highlighted most cogently by the fact that not only is it impossible to breath in space, but the act of holding your breath when you get there is fatal, too—causing one to blow up in a way normally reserved for helium balloons and Kirstie Alley. Indeed, putting people in a vacuum only goes to illustrate how very specifically tailored human beings are to life in one atmosphere of pressure, as the blood literally boils, for the same reason scalding water sprays the Bishop every time he absent-mindedly ignores the warning to wait before removing his car’s radiator cap.

Space is also very difficult to get to, especially for a species that has trouble making trains run on time. As anyone who’s ever put on a Superman costume knows, rising off the ground just doesn’t happen on its own and, in contradistinction to the graceful imaginings of sci-fi writers and twelve year olds everywhere, about all our space-flight technology ever looks like amounting to is pouring the entire gross domestic product of Qatar into a couple of pointy canisters and lighting a match. Then there are the g-forces involved, and the unfortunately life-disaffirming consequences of a slightly botched re-entry angle should give pause to anyone who baulks at the thought of a parallel park.

Add to this the costs of space flight, the simple keeping track of which may require higher order differential equations than the act of astronautery itself, and the Bishop is left asking the obvious question: ‘Where is my next drink?’ Followed by: ‘Is it really worth all the trouble?’

The Bishop on political stupidity

George W. Bush’s response to the Hurricane Katrina disaster reminds the Bishop of an expression once coined on an episode of The Simpsons: to pull a Homer; or, to succeed despite idiocy.

Rivalled only by his famous fifteen minute ‘Hmm’ in reply to the 2001 World Trade Centre attack, the President’s reaction―Rothkoesque in its minimalism, if not its sense of forward planning―seems, once again, unlikely to affect his reputation as America’s best buddy. See, for example, a recent speech―somehow heard as apologetic despite shifting blame to state and local officials―the subtext of which read, ‘Hey, I know I kinda haven’t done much, but helping out after a national disaster is a complicated business. It’s not easy looking after all this stuff. Do you reckon you could do any better?’

Probably not; but, then again, the Bishop isn’t president; and one could be forgiven for hoping that the head of the free world might behave more like its head and less like its small intestine. The question, then, becomes: why is this sort of mumbling incompetence not only meekly accepted but, in some circles, celebrated?

The answer, perhaps, lies in our hated of that most villainous of modern archetypal figures: the boss. The Bishop knows only too well the cerebral circumlocutions each of us will go through to convince ourselves we’re best―for who among us wants to admit that that slick-dressed arsehole in the corner office is not, as cognitive dissonance avoidance reassures us, a brown-nosed turkey fit only to be served up at the next Christmas dinner, but in point of fact far smarter, more hardworking and, most unacceptably, more talented than us? What better executive officer, then, than a down-home, limp-brained limpet, leading his fellow lemmings to the levee as the floodwaters rise?

Forget Iraq; forget family values; forget the rise of the religious right. What the Democrats need on the next presidential ticket is a candidate that all Americans can recognise as clearly stupider than themselves. Which leaves only one small roadblock on the highway to victory in 2008. Who?

The Bishop on recursion

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The Bishop on Martha Wainwright at @Newtown 2.9.2005

According to several* what’s-on columns, pop-folk siren Martha Wainwright is one of the ‘must-see’ acts of recent weeks and/or months. So of course the Bishop had never heard of her—until your humble cleric’s girlfriend informed him they were going to see her play on Friday night.

Comedian Bill Bailey has noted the review-set’s strange obsession with entertainers’ appearances (apparently he’s taller and more bendy than you might expect); and, while the Bishop would like to lift himself above that trend, he won’t. Wainwright, who bears a striking resemblance to Lily Tomlin in her natural brunette, took the stage in red heels, denim skirt, partly ironed shirt and scrappy mid-length blonde hair quickly tied back—suggesting, perhaps, a cash-strapped, sexually-available bank teller on mufti day. As a bank teller, though, she has considerable stage presence, and the outfit would have gone a long way to saying forget what I look like, listen to my voice, if only it hadn’t gone such a long way to say forget what I look like, listen to my voice.

It’s good advice, though, as Waiwright’s voice is not so much a diamond in the rough as all diamond and all rough. She’s one of those singers whose vocal chords seem to have a life of their own, with more fire and smoky desperation than even her unbridled, knees-up, slap-and-tackle delivery implied. As to the songs, they sauntered back and forth between the lovely and the lovelorn; the latter, all too typically of Indy pop, substituting atonal silliness for genuine harmonic imagination (in other words, they need some work). The Bishop must also lament the over-reliance on added ninths and other ‘colour’ notes so common in acousti-pop circles. Speaking of added ninths, support act Josh Ritter was supportive enough in his I’m-mostly-in-this-for-the-chicks kinda way, with a couple of funny moments in between the earnest folkery.

A must see? Is there such a beast? If there is, this probably was—at least to let you say you were one of the ones who was there at the time.

*OK, one (that the Bishop knows of). But rhetoric, surely, permits a certain leeway.