July 10th is Marcel Proust’s birthday; if he were alive, he would be 152 years old. Also, on this date, in 1962, one of the first communications satellites, Telstar, was sent to roam over our world by AT&T, Bell Telephone Laboratories, NASA, GPO (United Kingdom), and the National PTT (France). Due to this satellite, one could broadcast live and simultaneously between Europe and the U.S. But more important to me is that composer and record maker Joe Meek wrote and produced the song Telstar, recorded by The Tornados, also in 1962.
It’s very odd that July 10th is a date shared by Proust’s birthday and a scientific, technical feat such as Telstar. Proust took time and expanded to go back and forth between the present and the past, and Telstar allowed instant communication on Earth. These seem to be separate issues, but they both deal with the idea of time and how we spend our lives reflecting on such an expansion.
Today, and I can’t blame it because it’s Sunday. After all, every day is Sunday to me; I’m listless. I’m reading Anna Biller’s amazing debut novel Bluebeard’s Castle (Verso Books), and I feel I need to do things such as clean up my books, now recently replaced in my office as well as work on my script (which I’m not showing to anyone due to the Strike.) Doing things is good for my mental and physical health, but I’m attached to spending time reflecting on my life. The death of my Mom and Uncle has sent me to tour the inner world of my nervous system, and I’m coming up short in discoveries. Huge walls are blocking me or not allowing me to peek through to see what is the source of my emptiness. I feel a vacancy sign on my forehead announcing one can move right in, but since I’m fussy, no one is jumping into that area.
Dwelling on Anna’s novel and my ongoing reading of Proust’s In Search of Lost Time, I feel closer to sanity, which can work in my favor. Both works depict characters trapped in a structure/time/frame of mind, and it frustrates me that one can make a phone or Zoom call and reach someone instantly. Yet, like the characters in these novels, I’m unable to move outward, but inward there is a pathway to perhaps a better understanding of the world I (choose) to live in.
Great column! I love at the very start of Telstar that musique concrete stuff...