Fae Wellington's The Loathing of Spaced Men
I'm no dummy. When somebody says "I am over the moon!" I know that they are not literally over the moon; I know that they are merely happy. But if I worked at NASA and some space-walking astronaut said to me via aerospace walkie talkie, "I say, Houston, I am over the moon!" I wouldn't be able to restrain myself. Is the fucking astronaut happy, or just stating the obvious? "Listen, shut up! I'm not your therapist! And I know where you are - I can see you on my goddamn aerospace radar machine screen, you dolt," I would reply, with no small amount of heat. I've never had patience for astronauts. Cosmonauts I can handle, at least until their novelty wears off. But astronauts? Bunch of puffy, silly asses. You're in space. Say something profound or just cut the cord already.
2 Comments:
Point of fact: The phrase over the moon was actually first used by Richard Nixon, not to describe a state of happiness, but, rather, to explain the reason his administration was ending funding for the Apollo program. "The precipitous decline of the Nielsen ratings for the live televised lunar landings indicates that we as a nation are so over the moon, already," Nixon jowled gruffly to an increasingly hostile press.
That said, I can appreciate how this error came to see the light of blog, having been left with egg on my own face thanks to research assistants, and knowing how hard it is to recruit decent apprentices. Kids these days, etc.
They say that in space no one can hear you scream. I wonder if this theory has ever been tested. I suppose if it has been tested, and it is true, then no one would no that it has been tested.
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