Wednesday 26 March 2008

In the Shadow of the Moon

We got invitations to an advance screening of this tonight, and dutifully trooped off to the luxury seating of the cinema. (Trust me, not so luxury at 28 weeks gestation.) I think it went on for a bit long for D'Arcy and he needed more explanation than I was able to give him in a crowded cinema, but I think he got something out of it. I think that part of his problem is that having grown up totally in the information age he's a bit blase about this whole "we went to the moon" caper. A few weeks back we took him somewhere where there was a sample of moon rock you could look at, and he was kind of non-plussed about how awed the beloved and I were about it. His take was pretty much "what's all the fuss? It's a piece of rock". Our take "yeah, but it came from THE MOON!!! Some guy wandered out on to the surface of the moon and picked it up, looked at it, decided it was worth keeping as a sample, put it in his bag of moon rocks, and brought it back to earth FROM THE FUCKING MOON" he still didn't get it. He still doesn't get it. Are we doing something wrong here, or is he just 7? On Friday his class is going to the art gallery to look at stuff including, as he pointed out to me today some aboriginal art that is thousands of years old. He seems to have a sense of awe about that (kind of) and he is fundamentally less interested in "art" than he is in "space". What is it about going to the moon that is so ho-hum? Actually part way through the film when Jim Lovell was talking about Apollo 13 (and I explained that things went wrong, there was an explosion and the astronauts didn't get to go to the moon, but had to fix the problem and come back instead) D'Arcy asked, pointing to Lovell on the screen "Did he die?" and I realised that the documentary style wasn't working for him so well, and said "No, that's the actual guy who did this. It happened to him, and he's still alive." Hmm... End confused-parent rant I think.

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

Ha ha! My guess is... he's just 7. :) Actually, although I'd be impressed by a moon rock, given the choice I'd go for the thousand-year-old aboriginal art first.

Michelle said...

Hi Mummy/Crit

I took that photo at the 2006 NFF.

Cheers
Michelle

Ampersand Duck said...

I'm voting for the 'Just 7'as well, although I'm not sure being on the moon evokes much more awe from me, either. Throw Harrison Ford and a couple of lightsabres into the doco and you'd get a MUCH better reaction...

Mummy/Crit said...

Well,I gotta say that the moon rock still gets me every time, and partly 'cos I know I can go to the art gallery any time. When the beloved came to bed last night we had the same conversation again - it came from the MOON!!!

The first time I saw moon rock I think was in Washington DC in the National Cathedral Space Window. It blew me away. It is, of course, possible that I'd been taken as a child to see the one D'Arcy saw the other day and been as nonplussed as he was...

Mummy/Crit said...

Thanks Michelle. I didn't go at all that year, which explains why Geoff's hair was longer. The bugger didn't ring me! You know I used to live next door to you, don't you? More synchronicity at work.

Ducky - I don't want to go to the moon, but the fact that _someone_ did has me fired up. I think it's an adult perspective... Harrison Ford is pretty good for eliciting reactions though.

Michelle said...

Oh my goodness! Yes, that's why D'Arcy looks so familiar! Congratulations on the new one coming soon, too!

Lever said...

That's amazing mate, I was seriously awed by rockets and stuff when I was a kid and I still get goosebumps when I look up at the stars or a full moon through a telescope...

I think you could be right, this age of information overload has diluted the wonder of things. We should bring back the spirit of the Luddites so that we can all appreciate the simplicity of things again... Right, the PC gets it first...

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