"Billy-yuns and Billy-yuns of years ago..."

[jeriendhal]

...the universe came into being. It is believed this occured mostly to give Carl Sagan something to talk about for twelve hours.

I'm watching the old Cosmos series on DVD right now, borrowed from Tracy's library. It's fascinating stuff still, with Carl explaining in stenorian tones worthy of Walter Cronkite the mysteries and wonders of the universe. Bits of it haven't aged well. The main fantasy element of the series, Sagan's "Spaceship of the Imagination", looks like the cheap Chroma-key special effect it is, and the astronomy shots are fuzzy a best, compared to what the Hubble has given us. But the science of the series still holds true, all held together by Sagan's voice and his of sense of wonder that the complex biological machines that are human beings came about through a combination of random chance and evolutionary progresss.

But the more I listen to the damned thing, the more I'm struck with the feeling he tutored Dubya in elocution...

Comments

[jvowles.livejournal.com]

For me, Carl Sagan is always going to be linked to Jeannie. She loved the fact that Carl was so damned smart but still seemed to have been dropped on his head just a bit as a child. :)

[jeriendhal.livejournal.com]

Oh, gods yes. I giggled myself silly when in the second episode Sagan uttered the line, "...polyps, stuck to the ocean floor."