Man, Moon, Book
My family gave me a wonderful Christmas present: the Folio Society edition of Andrew Chaikin’s A Man on the Moon: The Voyages of the Apollo Astronauts. In chronological terms, Chaikin’s book basically picks up where Tom Wolfe’s The Right Stuff left off, but Chaikin is the anti-Wolfe: restrained and businesslike, rather than flamboyant and hilarious. Still, he tells the story well, and this edition is magnificently complemented by dozens and dozens of perfectly-chosen photographs. What a delight.
And, like many Folio Society editions — I have about a dozen of them — this book prompts me to reflect on what an extraordinary thing a book can be. When a book is well-written, well-edited, well-designed, well-printed and bound, so many skills have been practiced at a high level, from journalistic research to paper-making to photographic reproduction, that it amounts to a genuine Gesamtkunstwerk. To me, few things are as beautiful as a beautiful book.
Also, you have to love the fact that the book’s text is set in Adrian Frutiger’s Apollo, with Futura for display.
Stefan Collini: “Carlyle’s forte as a social critic was not likely to lie in making practical suggestions. The denunciatory sublime was his preferred register.” I shall make a point of using the phrase “denunciatory sublime” in future.
NYT: ”Despite these difficulties, there can be a reluctance among the clergy to talk about their own troubles. Ministry is often seen as a calling rather than a vocation, let alone just a job, and the concept of service underwrites the work.” Pro tip: Look up the etymology of the word “vocation.”
the good earth
Fifty-five years ago, on Christmas Eve 1968, astronauts Frank Borman, Jim Lovell, and Bill Anders were orbiting the moon. It was while in lunar orbit that Anders took the photograph above. Later he would say that the irony of their mission, for him, was that they went to explore the moon but ended by discovering the Earth.
On that Christmas Eve the three astronauts made a transmission to their home world, which began with a reading, done in turns:
In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.
And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.
And God said, Let there be light: and there was light.
And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness.
And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day.
And God said, Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters.
And God made the firmament, and divided the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament: and it was so.
And God called the firmament Heaven. And the evening and the morning were the second day.
And God said, Let the waters under the heaven be gathered together unto one place, and let the dry land appear: and it was so.
And God called the dry land Earth; and the gathering together of the waters called he Seas: and God saw that it was good.
Then, the reading concluded, Frank Borman said this: “And from the crew of Apollo 8, we close with good night, good luck, a merry Christmas, and God bless all of you, all of you on the good Earth.”
The good Earth.
When I think of that phrase, and the enormous load of meaning it bears, I remember something John Ruskin wrote:
God has lent us the earth for our life; it is a great entail. It belongs as much to those who are to come after us, and whose names are already written in the book of creation, as to us; and we have no right, by anything that we do or neglect, to involve them in unnecessary penalties, or deprive them of benefits which it was in our power to bequeath. And this the more, because it is one of the appointed conditions of the labor of men that, in proportion to the time between the seed-sowing and the harvest, is the fulness of the fruit; and that generally, therefore, the farther off we place our aim, and the less we desire to be ourselves the witnesses of what we have labored for, the more wide and rich will be the measure of our success. Men cannot benefit those that are with them as they can benefit those who come after them; and of all the pulpits from which human voice is ever sent forth, there is none from which it reaches so far as from the grave.
Christmas coma setting in.
Lo how a rose
