It’s all stars

I recently drove past the Black Rock Desert, and the playa is already dry. Real dry. What’s it all mean, as far as this year’s Labor Day Weenie Roast is concerned? Haven’t the foggiest.

In the meantime, the following appeared in the current issue of Rolling Stone (Charlie Sheen cover), in an article highlighting the summer’s four hottest dance parties: Burning Man, Black Rock City, Nevada. Aug. 27-Sept. 3. Top D.J.s rock mega sound systems all day and all night at camps like the Opulent Temple during the superpsychedelic desert experience. OK, fine. Accurate enough. But I bring it up because of RS’s listing of prices for tickets. $240-$420. Yeah, right.

That brings me to StubHub, one of many ticket dealers online now selling tickets to the The Man for a thousand bucks. This reality inspires me to inquire as to what exactly is the difference between StubHub and crackhead ticket scalpers. Answer—StubHub takes Visa.

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A recent Newsweek cover story reports on a new idea in astronomy, one that puts forth the possibility there is more than one universe, that there are, perhaps, billions of universes, comprising a truly incomprehensible Multiverse. It s a skull-cramping concept, involving string theory, quantum physics, black holes, dark matter, etc. You know, the typical stuff you hear folks gabbing about after a UFC pay-per-view bash.

The reason I bring it up is to point out that there’s something about this idea (and nobody at this time is daring to suggest it’s true or there’s any evidence at all that it’s true) that fits in with the grand progression of man’s grasp of cosmic reality. As in, we used to think there was just one planet, a few hundred years ago. We then found out there was more than one. We used to think there was just one sun. We then discovered there were lots. And just a hundred years ago, we didn’t know if there was more than one galaxy in the universe. Then, the great Edwin Hubble blew everybody’s pudding out their earholes, and proved that all those little smudges in space between the stars were actually galaxies. That led to us now knowing there are billions of galaxies, each with billions of stars.

So in the last millennium, cosmic reality has gone from one planet/one sun to billions of galaxies/a googol of stars. Mercy. And now, there are guys who are stretched out, warped out, and far out enough to suggest there may be more than one universe. If this is true, it wouldn’t be that weird, in that it falls right in line with our growth pattern, if you will. Then again, if it is true, it will undoubtedly be the weirdest thing ever. Weird enough, probably, to make you explode into 74 octillion quarks on the spot.

OK, that’s it for today’s consciousness stretch. Now get back to that busted lawn mower …