The Various Faces of the Moon

"You used to only see one face of it."

"That idea is really difficult to grasp. I'm so used to seeing all sides of it night after night."

"Yes, well, you're used to seeing it with water and plants on it, too."

"Heh, there is that. Sometimes I do imagine it: looking up and seeing it white and dead, like a skull, a rebuke to us of what we could be if we didn't take good care of our planet."

"Heh, I don't get the impression that one person in a million thought of it that way. Evidently most people thought of it as a very romantic sight."

"I've heard that, and I found it completely baffling. The stars I can understand, and fireflies, certainly, since it's a mating display by the insects themselves, but the dreary light of a lifeless Moon? I would think that the light of our own terraformed Moon, even though it's duller, would be more romantic, since it shows how much humans love life, that we'd spread it to a new world."

 

The Magic Eight-Ball says: "The 20th of July is an auspicious date on which to discuss the Moon."

Choir of One

 

“He really does have a beautiful singing voice, doesn’t he?” my wife said as Fly Me to the Moon ended.

“Who is it?”

“Are you kidding? It’s Vic Makropolus. Haven’t you ever heard him before?”

She picked up the CD case and handed it over to me. It was a fairly old-fashioned design, just a photo of a plain-looking man in an evening suit on an empty stage, under a spotlight. In white serifed letters above his head it said, IN CONCERT: VIC MAKROPOLUS.

The Impossible Dream began coming from the stereo. There was no denying he had a powerful, compelling voice. He had a strong, rich, baritone voice that was good to listen to.

“Yes. Yes, he’s good. Is he new?”

“He only started recording this year, as far as I know. I think this is his first album. He’s been popping up on my feeds, though.”

I read the text on the CD case. For some reason, the phrase “in concert” caught in my brain.

“Funny about that term, ‘in concert’. It implies more than one person singing, yet it’s normally applied to a single person singing.”

“You’re right. It’s like calling one person singing a chorus.”

“Although with pipes like his, this fellow is a choir of one.”

“You see why he impressed me.”

“Oh, indeed. He’s the kind who would have knocked ‘em dead in the old days, before amplification. Even now, a voice that strong stands out.”

He went into Nessun dorma. We fell silent. We had no choice.

The Magic Eight-Ball says: "Listen."