Word: spacing
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...SPACE JOG was underexerting in last...
...ANDROMEDA STRAIN by Michael Crichton would probably not be selling as well as it is, if it were not for the nation's current narcissistic delight with its space program. Dealing as it does with a research satellite that returns to earth lethally contaminated, there has rarely been such a right book at such a right time. Only two months ago, I remember hearing someone's garbled version of the proposed Apollo recovery that had our trio of astronauts stepping onto the Hornet and then shaking hands with President Nixon before being packed off into a world of saran-wrapped...
...from Kenneth Anger's incantatory Scorpio Rising) matches the groaning ferocity of Steppenwolf's lyrics ("Get the motor running/Shoot out on the highway/Looking for adventure/And whatever comes our way/Hey darling gonna make it happen/Take the world in a love embrace/Fire all of our guns at once and explode into space") and these disjunct moods clash to disengage the viewer. And isn't there something obscene in playing Jimi Hendrix's "If 6 was 9" while Wyatt and Billy shoot past the shacks of the Deep South's black population ("If the sun refuse to shine/I don't mind...
...Andromeda Strain is more than just a biological tug-of-war, though. To judge by Crichton's example, the role that the clipper ship used to play in 19th century fiction now is handled by the space program (both novelistically and cinematically, for Kubrick's 2001 held much the same appeal). Where Melville and Dana used to fascinate their readers with descriptions of rigging and trade routes, Crichton delivers mini-lectures on space research, micro-biology, and biochemistry. Meanwhile, names like Wald and DeBakey weave in and out of the narrative. Most of this material is, of course, quite elementary...
...President Pusey personally unveiled plans for a Faculty housing project on the site, but opposition from neighborhood residents, many of them Harvard professors, killed the plans. The residents, led by Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr. '38, said the housing would take up the last open space in the area, and cause street traffic and sidewalk congestion...