SPOILERS FOR 2001

 Following on from those portraits of Saint Jerome working from home, I feel the absence of books acutely in Dr. Dave Bowman's isolation. I read here that Stanley Kubrick and Arthur C. Clarke – wondering how best to depict a superintelligent extraterrestrial onscreen – decided to ask Carl Sagan. They're clearly no fools. Nor of course is Sagan, who advised them to not even attempt such a thing, but instead merely "suggest" the alien. The appropriately unfathomable abstractness which resulted did not stop Kubrick trying to take out insurance against actual extraterrestrials contacting Earth before his film could be released, and thereby showing him up. Lloyds of London refused, however, and according to Sagan they "missed a good bet", which begs the question: "Why did they refuse? Why? WHAT DID THEY KNOW?"

 

 

Utah's Bureau of Land Management have released a statement on the removal of the monolith. (I love that it was discovered while counting sheep.)