Gather Up Your Memories

 I asked Ken Miller of California if he had any pictures of his grandfathers old buildings he used to build, like I do my crazy planetarium structures (long on passion, short on skill)  He answered :

Sadly, I'm not sure if there are any pictures at all.  There may be one or two, but I'll have to dig through a lot of stuff to see.  You never realize what you will treasure down the road, and wish that you had tried to record in some way.  I passed by my grandfather's old place a few months ago, and there is nothing but bare ground, and no evidence that anything of value ever existed there.  It is the place of a thousand memories, and a wellspring of inspiration.  It may be gone, but I can try to do my part to pay it forward by trying to give some of that inspiration to the next generations, just like you are doing.
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Its a good subject.  My son has flat out told me when I'm gone these buildings GO, so I'm making it easy for him maybe!  A more permanent structure could always been used for some other purpose when we're gone, chances are probably the next generation won't want a planetarium, I think we have to face that don't we?   But YES.. Ken's captured that yearning .. that VALUE that so may people lose because its just old stuff ..     gather up your old pictures while you can and document them - every time I visit my old daddy in Florida I look for more of them - so many on Facebook etc have NONE.    Paying inspiration forward I guess doesn't have to be in exactly the same currency - our children may see our passion in building crazy things chasing dreams, and they may put those principles to work on their OWN dreams, whatever they may be!

The Paradox of Planetariums

I looked to none other than the Romantic Poets to find a paradox in planetariums as I have experienced and loved them.   The Romantics somehow captured the simultaneous presence of isolation and community in their words, the stillness of death and the motion of life.   The stars have stillness and loneliness, and the stars have breath and humanity.   The stars as we experience and think about them ARE just such a paradox, and the planetarium can capture this contradiction perfectly.   Thoreau built a cabin to experience solitude, yet he was a mile outside Concord, entertained frequent visitors, and even walked into town whenever he felt like it.   So too can experience both alone and together in a planetarium.     But most public planetariums do the alone thing in a group setting.   Nobody there gets to TRULY be by themselves contemplating the projected heavens - they are shoulder to shoulder with fellow beings.  Each patron of a public show indeed may live in his own mind, and the sights and sounds experienced there may truly stir the inner self.   Yet its only in your OWN planetarium, as under the night sky on some distant hillside, can you really be alone with the stars.  Then you can live the paradox .. alone - and yet you know what you are seeing is the same thing all recorded history saw for the most part.   Your community is not those fellows in the seats next to you - your community is all of humanity for all its history.    It would seem to me then, there are only two ways to really live what the Romantic Poets described - that simultaneous presence of true isolation and total community.  Under the stars themselves alone - or in your OWN planetarium!