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Carl Sagan
This nOde last updated January 27th, 2003 and is permanently morphing...
(2 K'an (Lizard) / 17 Muwan (Owl) - 184/260 - 12.19.9.17.4)

"We are a way for the universe to know itself.  Some part of our being knows this is where we came from. We long to return. And we can,  because the Cosmos is also within us. We're made of star stuff."

  - Carl Sagan

• film _Contact_ (vhs/ntsc)based on Carl Sagan's only fictional book
• compiled _The Sounds Of The Earth_ copper 12" 1977 aboard the Voyager spacecraft
• abstract breakbeat track _Tevatron_ MP3 (192k) by String Theory off of _Made/String Theory_ split 12" on SKAM #003/004 (2001)
  • samples: "this is the place where science was born. it's why we're here..."; "the ancient Greeks explained that this band of brightness in the night sky was the milk of the goddess Hera, squirted from her breast across the heavens. we still call it 'The Milky Way'" - all by Carl Sagan from tv series _Cosmos_
• post rock sadcore track _Carl Sagan_ MP3 (vK) by Paul Newman off of _Frames Per Second_ on Trance Syndicate (1998)
• video _Cosmos Episode 1: The Shores Of The Cosmic Ocean_
• video _Cosmos Episode 2: One Voice In The Cosmic Fugue_
• video _Cosmos: Persistence Of Memory_    
• video _Cosmos: Encyclopedia Galactica_
• track _For Carl Sagan_ MP3 by Tarentel off of _From Bone To Satellite_ on Temporary (1999)
• title of release refers to the most famous editing sequence in motion picture history in _2001: A Space Odyssey_ DVD (1968) directed by Stanley Kubrick

"All the elements of the Earth except hydrogen and some helium have been cooked by a kind of stellar alchemy billions of years ago in stars, some of which are today inconspicuous white dwarfs on the other side of the Milky Way Galaxy. The nitrogen in our DNA, the calcium in our  teeth, the iron in our blood, the carbon in our apple pies were made in the interiors of  collapsing stars. We are  made of starstuff."

- Carl Sagan, _Cosmos_ 

• "every atom in every person was once part of a star..."   - from the film _Gattaca_ (vhs/ntsc)
• "every man and every woman is a star"  - Aleister Crowley - third law of Thelema
  • track _We Are All Made Of Stars_ MP3 (160k) by Moby
  • ambient house track _Lights In My Brain MP3 by Ultramarine off of _Every Man & Woman Is A Star_ on Darla (1992)

In his book,  _The Dragons of Eden_,  Carl Sagan proposed that one of the reasons that we seem to fear dragons is that our proto-human ancestors retained this fear of reptiles and dinosaurs in their DNA make-up.  And this fear has been transmitted from one ancestor to another. Freud and Darwin also spoke of dragons and their impact on our dream states.

"It is of interest to note that while some dolphins are reported to have learned English -- up to fifty words used in correct context -- no human being has been reported to have learned dolphinese."

 -- Carl Sagan

sagan /say'gn/ /n./

[from Carl Sagan's TV series "Cosmos"; think "billions and billions"] A large quantity of anything. "There's a sagan different ways to tweak EMACS." "The U.S. Government spends sagans on bombs and welfare -- hard to say which is more destructive."
 - _The New Hacker's Dictionary_ by Eric S. Raymond 

USING THE PSEUDONYM "Mr. X", Sagan wrote about his pot smoking in an essay published in the 1971 book "Reconsidering marijuana." The book's  editor, Lester Grinspoon, recently disclosed the secret to Sagan's biographer, Keay Davidson.    Davidson, a writer for the San Francisco Examiner, revealed the marijuana use in an article published in the newspaper's magazine Sunday.

"Carl Sagan: A Life" is due out in October.

"I find that today a single joint is enough to get me high ... in one movie theater recently I found I could get high just by inhaling the cannabis smoke which permeated the theater," wrote Sagan, who authored popular science books such as "Cosmos," "Contact," and "The Dragons of  Eden."

In the essay, Sagan said marijuana inspired some of his intellectual work.

"I can remember one occasion, taking a shower with my wife while high, in which I had an idea on the origins and invalidities of racism in terms of gaussian distribution curves," wrote the former Cornell University professor. "I wrote the curves in soap on the shower wall, and went  to write the idea down.

Sagan also wrote that pot enhanced his experience of food,  particularly potatoes, music and sex.   Grinspoon, Sagan's closest friend for 30 years, said Sagan's marijuana use is evidence against the notion that marijuana makes people less ambitious.

"He was certainly highly motivated to work, to contribute," said Grinspoon, a psychiatry professor at Harvard University.

Grinspoon is an advocate of decriminalizing marijuana.

Ann Druyan, Sagan's former wife, is a director of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws. The nonprofit group promotes legalization of marijuana.

Sagan died of pneumonia in 1996. He was 62.

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