RIP Scott Carpenter

[Prospero]

John Glenn remains the elder statesman of US space exploration. He is now 92. His old companion Scott Carpenter has crossed the final frontier at the age of 88. RIP starman...

[tsmirandameadows]

I too was bummed about this. Landing a man on the moon and bringing him safely home remains the greatest aesthetic achievement of American civilization, and to see one of the last of the Mercury astronauts die is I think symbolic of the close of the American era. More than that though, space exploration, regardless of commercial benefit, is one of man's noblest endeavors, and it saddens me that it is no longer valued.

I apologize for the larger influence of politics, and the tendency towards loftiness, in my speech to night but I'm afraid I poured far too much gin into my mixed drink, and now, having foolishly consumed the better part of 6 shots in an hour, find myself drunk beyond all repair.

[Prospero]

Miranda... you are surely a hugely eloquent drunk. You must be truly terrifyingly Tolstoyan when sober. Great postings from you here and on Hemingway.

[Rusty Eldora]

Miranda - at least it was Gin, my choice also.

I grew up in Scott's hometown, Boulder, Co. and remember as a kid going to the grand opening of Scott Carpenter pool, then swimming many a day at the place https://bouldercolorado.gov/parks-rec/history-of-scott-carpenter-park-and-pool

The pool had diving boards, including a 3 meter that everyone could use. Now pools don't have boards. We now need everyone to be safe up until they go out for the X games without experiencing risk.

It was an era where we were rapidly adopting technology and the American Dream was quite real. If you worked hard, you had a good chance of success. A lot less people saying "No".

[tsmirandameadows]

Miranda... you are surely a hugely eloquent drunk. You must be truly terrifyingly Tolstoyan when sober. Great postings from you here and on Hemingway.

Thank you. I am often accused of articulation regardless of my level of intoxication, yet I find that when I am drunk I am less inclined to censor my speech and reduce it to conversationalisms with a few choice bits of elevated diction. This is, I think, a welcome change from the drunkenness of old, i.e. my college years, when intoxication would bring with it increased introspection and a tendency to dwell on all my sources of self-loathing. Drunk me circa 2006 was hopelessly depressed and largely consisted of me stumbling back to my dorm, collapsing in my bed, and internally begging for death or some sort of release from the existence I no longer could bear. Today I no longer feel depressed, just uninhibited, which in turn translates into me speaking and, when drunk at home on my computer, writing, in overly florid forms which I would not ordinarily engage in. I do very much wish to see what will happen when I am this drunk in a club full of admirers of transsexuals for that is an experience I have yet to have, yet long to have. :)

[Prospero]

I am sure that experience can be easily actualised and I would not call your writing florid.

[tsmirandameadows]

:) Funny that you should mention that, for I received what amounts to a tentative job offer this evening for a position that would at least consist of regularly being in a club with numerous admirers, who, I am sure, would gladly buy the drinks necessary for intoxication if I was not already in such a state. And perhaps florid is the incorrect word with which to describe my drunken prose, but certainly as I type this I feel my language pouring forth with a degree of fluidity that escapes my sober prose. Certainly long years pouring over Latin and Greek grammar and literature has made expressing myself in English relatively trivial, yet I cannot help but feel that alcohol loosens my expressive faculties in a beneficial way.

[Prospero]

Alcohol clearly unblocks the dam holding in your instinct as a writer Miranda.
had a collection published called "Damburst of Dreams' - a great title i think.