January 15, 2002

Here's something I'm glad I never did: get really worried about cloning.

Is all I'm saying. Cloning anxiety seems so weird right now. What does it matter if we create monsters? Humanity produces monsters already, without any help from science. Though at least for now the monsters aren't genetically enhanced and the rest of us have a chance against them.

Here's what I wonder: Am I going to cringe at the sound of jet engines for the rest of my life? And my answer, which of course I have no basis for at all, is that no, I am not. Hopefully. Ditto for the obsessive awareness of everything going on in the sky at any particular moment. I am amazed that I grew up along the flight path for La Guardia, but never noticed until now how many planes there were. I mean, I always saw their lights. I used to watch their lights one after another coming over the river, like orderly fireflies. But it never really occurred to me that each of those lights was a jet filled with passengers and fuel. In the daylight they are like intent and wingless mosquitos. Endearing, somehow, but also terrifying.

And night falls on you, darling darling; it falls on me too.

Go out and buy Beulah's "The Coast Is Never Clear". Because it never is, is it?

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