Thursday April 19, 2007

Reaching for The Stars

I saw a presentation of rock and roll ephemera by video collector Russell Scholl this weekend—he often shows his stuff at Barbes, although Carrie and Charles hosted this affair (thanks, guys)—and I meant to ask him if the Carpenters had ever made a video for their bizarre and beautiful cover of the extraterrestrial anthem “Calling Occupants Of Interplanetary Craft.” I forgot to ask, but then Boing Boing promptly pointed me to the video on YouTube. It’s really great.

To recall, the song—which was originally written and recorded by the Canadian band Klaatu—is based on text written by Albert K. Bender, founder of World Contact Day. The idea was that if we all thought the same thing hard enough—and directed it to the passing occupants of interplanetary craft—we might be able to make contact with aliens. I wrote about this a little a few years ago after I saw Paul Tough give a performance/lecture on the topic at a presentation of John Hodgman’s Little Gray Book Lectures in Philadelphia. That lecture is available here, although registration is required.

Posted by jim at 08:56 AM ||