{"id":18443,"date":"2023-04-20T18:00:52","date_gmt":"2023-04-20T23:00:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/?p=18443"},"modified":"2023-04-20T02:48:02","modified_gmt":"2023-04-20T07:48:02","slug":"any-moonwalker-can-tell-you-o-rings","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/archives\/18443","title":{"rendered":"Any Moonwalker Can Tell You: O Rings"},"content":{"rendered":"

Trying to come grips with the psychology of machines,<\/span><\/p>\n

Mailer (being Mailer) brought it back to sex\u2014everything and everyone an interface\u2014<\/span><\/p>\n

a connection\u2014a kiss\u2014a link\u2014but<\/span><\/p>\n

any moonwalker can tell you how carefully each move must be made, a<\/span><\/p>\n

balletic transposition, a pirouette in space, how everything must be aligned, perfectly\u2014the<\/span>
\npilot careful not to oversteer or use too much thrust\u2014 trusting entropy to do its work, to<\/span>
\ndock\u2014the way my mother used to bring the boat in, killing the engine, spinning the wheel<\/span>
\nwith an offhand, last-second flourish to glide in stern-first toward the moorings, with only a<\/span>
\ngentle wake lapping at the dock: the complex mathematics of intuition overcoming distance<\/span>
\nand resistance to bring together in<\/span><\/p>\n

compatible parts\u2014a thing we used to call seduction (Were we ever that innocent?)\u2014<\/span>
\nso like<\/span><\/p>\n

a writer to imagine a world of wants\u2014all the stones intent on the caress of a river,<\/span><\/p>\n

the crowbar a crack beneath a windowpane, the trigger, pressure, the fist, a chin\u2014a moon, it\u2019s<\/span>
\nplanet\u2014 \u201cNow\u201d become another word for waiting on the surface as your lifeboat orbits<\/span>
\noverhead\u2014each stage of the ship, desiring, reaching, aching like an astronaut for home, for<\/span>
\neach other\u2014but also, themselves\u2014to be a thing and part of thing at once is to be<\/span><\/p>\n

conflicted\u2014is to be constantly making<\/span><\/p>\n

messages and waiting<\/span><\/p>\n

for translation before they are received, then waiting again\u2014and to wait is to be<\/span><\/p>\n

locked in an embrace with an unknowable thing\u2014which is maybe why Collins<\/span><\/p>\n

claimed he never felt lonely through the 27 hours and 14 trips around that rock (I had too much\u00a0<\/em><\/span>
\nto do<\/em>)\u2014self-contained with containment, within<\/span><\/p>\n

his capsule, the radio cutting out, kept company only by the beating of his heart, his<\/span>
\nown body\u2019s stink, a light the console blinking\u2014isolation as freedom\u2014after all he wasn\u2019t the<\/span>
\none staring up at the sky in faith and trust\u2014like children staring out into a parking lot, an hour\u00a0<\/span>
\npast the time when their parents were supposed to pick them up\u2014or a parent when their child<\/span>
\nis the last one off the bus\u2014in the space before<\/span><\/p>\n

a rendezvous\u2014when there is only you<\/span><\/p>\n

and your wanting and how each wanting contains<\/span><\/p>\n

consequence\u2014any interface must find, must create, space, gaps, points<\/span><\/p>\n

of contact\u2014must translate, conduct information, energy across<\/span><\/p>\n

the gap\u2014everything a semicolon, or better, a dash\u2014the Russians could never crack<\/span><\/p>\n

aaaaa<\/span>it\u2014their N1 splitting at the seams, exploding on the launchpad\u2014I think<\/span><\/p>\n

of all those early fumbling attempts in the passenger seat of my father\u2019s chevy in the<\/span><\/p>\n

aaaaa<\/span>parking lot outside the abandoned Brothers of the Sacred<\/span><\/p>\n

Heart Catholic School for Boys\u2014and of that light that<\/span><\/p>\n

blinks<\/span><\/p>\n

and blinks its way each morning outside my office window, along the mountainside,<\/span><\/p>\n

across the Ohio\u2014<\/span><\/p>\n

lonely satellite\u2014and I can\u2019t help<\/span><\/p>\n

but wonder what driver plows through the dark, what kind of person steers what kind<\/span><\/p>\n

of machine toward where, by when\u2014 and why that connection matters\u2014 what is the<\/span><\/p>\n

aaaaa<\/span>payload\u2014what is the spark<\/span><\/p>\n

traveling a wire or leaping branch to branch, sky to surface, launchpad<\/span><\/p>\n

to space\u2014a cup of coffee set between thick thighs, nestled to the groin and<\/span><\/p>\n

steaming\u2014the engine trembling the surface\u2014and I think of those O Rings and the sequence<\/span><\/p>\n

aaaaa<\/span>it took, it takes, to blow it all up\u2014a few degrees of cold, the seal compresses, and gas<\/span>
\naaaaa<\/span>escapes, ignites\u2014 then<\/span><\/p>\n

poof\u2014then<\/span><\/p>\n

boom\u2014so like a human, balancing<\/span><\/p>\n

its wants, clinging for dear life to itself and to others, waiting for it all to come<\/span><\/p>\n

apart.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Joel Peckham JR<\/a><\/h6>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Trying to come grips with the psychology of machines, Mailer (being Mailer) brought it back to sex\u2014everything and everyone an interface\u2014 a connection\u2014a kiss\u2014a link\u2014but any moonwalker can tell you how carefully each move must be made, a balletic transposition, a pirouette in space, how everything must be aligned, perfectly\u2014the pilot careful not to oversteer […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2272,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false},"categories":[76],"tags":[25],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6Jypy-4Nt","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18443"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2272"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18443"}],"version-history":[{"count":17,"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18443\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18634,"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18443\/revisions\/18634"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18443"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18443"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18443"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}