It was just a few days ago, August 25th, that marked one year since the passing of astronaut Neil Armstrong, first man to step foot on the moon.
It still seems hard to believe. Not so much the passing of Neil Armstrong, but that the era he represents – probably better than even John F. Kennedy – is forever passing. The golden age of Apollo, almost now unnoticed by new generations preoccupied with smart-phones, ipads, tweeting and something Miley Cyrus does called “twerking.” They hardly seems to notice or understand the monumental strides in virtually everything about civilization that occurred during the 19th century, and especially during the 50 years leading up to the new millennium.
I don’t think it’s an exaggeration to suggest there has never been and probably will never be another epoch in human history that will equal the Apollo era. You could suggest the movie, 2001: A Space Odyssey, captures the first such moment in history when the monkeys have some sort of epiphany while sitting around the obelisk – the not too exact moment when they become “human.” Not to get too involved with a review of the movies satire and the eventual inhumanity of the damn dirty apes, and that bastard HAL created by the newly civilized “human” geniuses. What could possibly equal – a walk on Mars, leaving for the Andromeda galaxy never to return again, discovering a worm hole that could transport macro-scope style to another galaxy? If we ever get there, I bet it won’t be for like a million years.
It seems like only yesterday that that news media pundits were all sitting around trying to figure out how we would say the years once we reached the 2000’s. Would it be two-thousand and one, or would it be two-thousand zero zero one? I swear I remember that discussion. It seems like little more than yesterday that I was just getting fired up on my webpage presentations, all kinds of great html and java scripting and the Internet was blazing with dial-up connections, and 400cpu computers, and laptops were just about to take off and FLY!
Looking back through the TOCC.tv archives that are no longer available on the Internet, I ran across what I felt to be a virtual classic when I posted it in January of 2000, and I still think it’s just too cool to be sitting around gathering dust. It’s a photography page by rights, but it’s a multimedia page that I just can’t recreate using WP. So, I’ve reconnected all the files on the page and I’m providing a link here so you can review it in it’s original form, and in the shadow and honor of Neil Armstrong’s passing, and of course the millennium that already seems to be so long gone.
The page as I say is a multi media presentation using midi, .wav files, java script animation, and a pop-up as you exit. So, it may not work right in your browser. I recommend using I.E. for this page, and if it blocks the Active X controls, go ahead and allow. Turn on your audio, it has background sound too. When you exit, there’s a fun pop-up to check out that opens automatically, but also needs to use the Active X controls to work properly.
I think Stanley Kubrick would like this page.
The last sunset of the millennium
