Carl Sagan, Politicians, etc - revised

'Contact' is a book by Carl Sagan about a how humanity might react to the discovery of an intelligent radio transmission from beyond the solar system. The narrative is split between the reactions of the general public, and the reactions of a handful of scientists who have been actively searching for the radio signal when it arrives. The most motivated of these scientists is a woman named Ellie Arroway, a character who serves as an anchor for the plot as well as a convenient stand-in for Carl Sagan himself, advocating his ideas and philosophy in discussions with political figures, religious leaders, fellow scientists, and others.

The story has also been adapted into a successful movie with Jodie Foster in the lead role, and in a shrewd cross-marketing maneuver, the original manuscript has been re-released in audiobook format, read aloud by Jodie Foster. Her spirited portrayal of Sagan's character in the film flows effortlessly into the public persona she has already established as an actress, and so in the minds of listeners, the audiobook snugly occupies a mental territory between herself and Sagan. We hear the author's original words delivered by the voice that feels most appropriate for speaking them.

(Feelings aside, the most appropriate narrator of 'Contact' would be Dr. Jill Tarter, the director of the Center for SETI Research. Many people say that Jill is actually the person whom the fictional Ellie Arroway is based on.)

Anyway, I'd like to change course, and tell a more personal story. I've walked from my workplace to the movie theater, listening to the audiobook version of Contact on my music player, and wearing some in-ear headphones to defeat the noise of the traffic. In a backpack I've stowed an old hand-held PDA and a folding keyboard - two amazing devices that cost me three hundred dollars new, but now sell online for less than twenty bucks. Technology moves fast!

I've kept listening to the story during my ride up the escalator to the theater lobby, and as I sit down in my fourth-row seat. The alien signal has already arrived and the research compound is overrun by news and military personnel. Ellie Arroway is arguing with the advisor to the President of the United States, about whether to enlist the help of other nations so that they don't lose the radio signal after the Earth rotates their own antennas out of range.

Here, I stop the audiobook, and rummage around in the backpack for the PDA and the keyboard. I perch the little device on my lap, and start typing furiously, before my thoughts are drowned in the noise of the eminently approaching movie:

( Click to read the rambling )

The theatre is still filling up around me, and the lights are still up, so there's still plenty of time before the movie starts, so I change the subject and keep typing. (I'll have to continue this in another entry.)