SpaceRock

For some time there has been an eccentric link between rock music — particularly British rock music, it seems — and science fiction — most specifically to space travel science fiction. Perhaps David Bowie’s Space Oddity is the earliest well-known example of a pop song telling a story of space travel.

Although Bowie later sang “we know Major Tom’s a junkie”, calling into question the science fiction of the song, Commander Chris Hadfield firmly returned Space Oddity to space travel with his farewell rendition from the International Space Station.

Elton John and Bernie Taupin came up with the quite Bradburyesque Rocket Man, memorably covered by Kate Bush and less memorably by William Shatner.

In ’39, Queen’s Dr. Brian May wrote and sang a surprisingly moving science fiction poem about the tragedy of time dilation during extended space voyages.  There’s a hint of Science Fiction in Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon and I suspect Supertramp did something of this nature, but memory of moments of my life listening to Supertramp are strangely blank.  One must also think of ELO and of Boston’s flying saucer guitar album covers.  The reunited Beatl — I mean Klaatu made a career out of science fiction and fictionalized science, from their initial hit ode to an early pneumatic subway to their space travel concepts Hope and Magentalane.

And, of course, there are the Science Fiction treatments of Rick Wakeman, Alan Parsons and American Jeff Wayne.

For decades rock musicians have been attracted to science fiction themes, and, unknown to much of the public until Hadfield’s collaboration with The Barenaked Ladies early in his stint on the Space Station, Astronauts have long had a hobby of forming their own rock bands.

After Hadfield’s surprise YouTube dropping from orbit of Space Oddity, I wondered whether real Space Rock would be a one (or two) hit wonder.  But a few days ago, Alan Parsons added a new twist, dedicating a live performance in Rome of Eye in the Sky to Italian astronaut (and unintentional space aquanaut) Luca Parmitano.

Science Fiction has become everyday reality — Rocket Men have become Space Rockers and pop music is bringing science to the masses.  We live in the Science Fiction world we used to read about.

Decades ago Cosmonaut Alexey Leonov began to use his art to bring the experience of space exploration to the earthbound and Moonwalker Alan Bean has continued to produce magnificent paintings of his lunar experiences for us to wonder at.  Although many may not know it, art has been a part of the experience of space exploration from the earliest days, and the art of Chris Hadfield, his music and photos, have brought the wonders space exploration, of science, technology and engineering to the attention of more of us on Earth than ever before. The beautiful photographs being beamed down to us every day by Astronauts Karen Nyberg and Luca Parmitano continue the necessary expression of their rare experiences through art.  I’m certain that ever more young people will be inspired by the wonders of exploration in science and art.

Karen Nyberg is also a painter and a pianist. I wonder what surprise she has coming for us.  I keep hoping for something involving astrophysicist Dr. Brian May, an orbiting artist astronaut, and ’39.

Update September 29, 2015:  The space people keeps reaching out to their fellow Spaceship Earth crew members with music.  Last week Italian astronaut and space endurance record holder Samantha Cristoforetti turned DJ and hosted a podcast of music connected to space for Radio Everyone. A very interesting listen.

On the Occasion of Commander Hadfield’s Return to Earth

I have written elsewhere about my inspiration as a youngster watching Neil Armstrong stepping down onto the Moon, the same event that put another young Canadian boy on the road to command of the ISS.  I have written elsewhere about the writings of Carl Sagan leading me to the great Irish mystic poet Yeats.  I have written elsewhere about how obvious it seems to me that science and art are fundamentally the same thing, that both inspire and move us, the both change us and our world and, perhaps most importantly, both science and art, and all the wonder they stir in us, are accessible to all of us.  I have always known this to be true.  I have always seen supporting Science and supporting the Arts as obvious obligations of individuals and society. But I am very aware that many friends and acquaintances have never been able to see through those lenses.

Over the last five months I’ve often thought of Spider and Jeanne Robinson’s Stardance in which art comes to a space station as dance. And, of course, I’ve thought of the paintings of astronaut Alan Bean and of cosmonaut Alexey Leonov.  While Bean and Leonov’s art is exquisite and inspiring, they painted after they came home. And the Robinsons so wonderfully imagine making art in space, but they never did it.  But, perhaps because they lacked the internet, these artists never caught the larger public’s attention.  They never joined, on a grand scale, science to ordinary people through art.

I realized tonight as Commander Hadfield’s new video of Space Oddity went viral, that this fairly  unassuming gentleman from Sarnia has done it.  He has shown ordinary people art and science meeting together  And the people get it!

Using social media and the biggest stage possible – the sky – Hadfield has had us watch him rapt for five months as he shape-shifted from rock star to zero-gravity chef to science teacher to science fiction character to military commander, and, finally, to a fifty something man with a crew-cut and moustache who actually pulls off a self-shot music video of his own acoustic cover of perhaps the most iconic Bowie song.  Whatever the flaws of adaptation or performance, Hadfield has capped his inspiring public Space Odyssey with a piece of art that captures the tension apparent in his earlier collaboration with Ed Robertson, the tension between the unknowable-to-most joy of looking down on Earth from a home in the sky and the universal human joy of standing at home on the Green Hills of Earth.  No longer the story of an ominous malfunction of Major Tom’s capsule which leaves the astronaut stranded, Hadfield’s revised Space Oddity is a bitter-sweet lament for the end of his stay on the Space Station and his final return to earth. He is facing an inversion of Bowie’s original conceit of the Marooned Astronaut  –  Hadfield knows that it is to Space, not to Earth, that he will never return. With this recording Hadfield has turned a once inconceivable  Space Oddity – a Canadian kid from Sarnia becoming the tweeting rock star commander of the International Space Station opening hailing frequencies to Captain Kirk – into an Odyssey of Space very true to the spirit of the Greek epic poem.  Although at last he stands on the shores of Ithaca, he can’t help but look longingly back at the Cosmic Ocean he has sailed.

Hadfield has put himself up there and made a point of making art with us and for us from that tin can he’s sitting in.  He makes us all feel like we’re there with him, doing science, looking down on our blue home, feeling wonder at the speed and the vastness.

And we can’t help but sing along.

Thank you, Commander Hadfield.

We can hear you, Major Tom!

Safe landing!

 

Update, May 14, 2014: Yesterday Commander Hadfield’s one year licence from Space Oddity‘s publishing company ran out, so the Space Oddity video was voluntarily taken down from YouTube.  Sad, in a way, I guess.  For those who missed it: you missed something pretty special. For those who saw and heard glitter space rock science fiction become science fact, you’ve been part of something special.  This morning Jian Ghomeshi gave us a fine audio essay on the vanishing of Hadfield’s Major Tom.

 

Another warm cold day

I really am going to get back to writing about art and literature soon.  Really.  I’ve been reading William James’ Varieties of Religious Experience for the last little bit, so I haven’t had much to say about reading.  In the mean time . . .

I found myself at the University of Alberta this afternoon, intending to join in the almost daily Round Dance here in Edmonton.  That University has a bunch of different buildings from when I went there thirty years ago!  And it’s a whole lot more crowded (with little youngsters) than I remember it.  I found myself sub-vocalizing  David Bowie’s new single, “Where Are We Now?”, which has been making me feel a sort of peacefully melancholy nostalgia for lost time.

The festivities began right on time with polite passing out of information pamphlets to passers by and then an Elder’s prayer from the steps of Pembina Hall, one of the oldest buildings on Campus.  The crowd turned in good order to the four cardinal directions and then proceeded to a sunny position in the main Quad while the drummers and singers received brief instructions on the steps.  It was a good crowd — a couple of hundred, I’d guess.  And it was a very diverse crowd!  There were Canadians of all colours and ages, although university students seemed predominant.   It was nice to see a trio of young women in hijabs giggling as they tried to figure out the steps, old white guys who couldn’t even round dance, and a bunch of First Nations university students.

The drummers and singers were magnificent!  The sun shone down on the bright snow and the laughing faces as we started off in a big ring, holding hands with strangers — now friends.  We circled, unmittened hands warmed by mittened hands to each side. The ring was large enough that it little more than a single round was completed by the time the drumming stopped for the first time.  We all stood in the ring for a moment and then the shout and response was begun my a gentleman I remember from the Kingsway round dance.  It was that timeless old simple and direct one:

“What do we want?

“Justice!”

“When do we want it?”

“Now!”

There were one or two others and then the drums started up again, we circled again happily, and then, in no time we made our way back to the steps of Pembina Hall for bannock and tea, a very nice touch.  As I stood in line with all the other smiling people, I felt a tap on my shoulder, turned around, and there was Phyllis!  After a hug and introductions to friends, she said “I’m goin’ inside to warm up!  See tomorrow at the rally downtown!”

After I got my bannock, I went inside to warm up a moment before the bus ride home.  I stood listening to Phyllis chatting for a bit while toddlers toddled around the lobby of Pembina Hall, grinning as broadly as the adults.  Then I took my leave, feeling that I couldn’t have spent the afternoon in any better way.  And the warmth and happiness has been so lasting that even the nasty comments tacked on to the bottom of online news stories about Idle No More haven’t cooled or saddened me this evening.

I really wish that every Canadian could find it in their heart to take an hour from their day sometime over the next few months to take the hand of the stranger on their left and of the stranger on their right and hear the drums and the singing and connect themselves to all the long generations of this land.

“As long as there’s sun . . . As long as there’s rain . . . As long as there’s fire . . .”