The Cosmos

After the all-day retreat for board members at the San Francisco Center for The Book, a board member said how much she enjoyed watching "Cosmos." She made it clear that she was speaking of the new "Cosmos" on PBS and not the old "Cosmos" on PBS, which was more to her liking but which had been superseded by the new in terms of the information it provided.

We were all tired, it had been a long day, a good day full of ideas and fellowship but a long day nevertheless.

The new "Cosmos" she said, has much more information about time. I don't remember that much information about time being presented by the old "Cosmos." For instance,the new "Cosmos" makes it clear how small human history is, that human history is like 2 or 3 seconds of time in the entire time continuum of the universe, she said.

We're infants, another man said, we're just learning how to conduct ourselves, we really are doing the best we can. Another man said, I've always thought of time as a sledgehammer or a chain-saw, bludgeoning through space on its way to take me out. Wally, a Dutchman, winked, at least I think he winked, it would be just like him to wink, though it happened so fast he might not have.

I thought, this is really interesting, these people are the best of the best--artists, writers, bookmakers--who've come together for a common purpose, to promote bookmaking, and through bookmaking the idea that there might be some continuity and purpose to existence, and yet everybody here has their own idea of time. One's idea of time is like DNA, I thought, everyone has their very own idea of time, but what we have in common is the idea that time is either something coming toward us or something we're approaching.

After the meeting I drove as slowly as I could up 16th, in my little black spaceship, made by Honda. I was headed to my little house in The Presidio, which seemed millions and millions of light years away.