Mum being here means we've done some touristy things we haven't done yet, like going to the Natural History Museum and the Johnson Space Center (NASA). The history museum has an exhibit on at the moment about the Civil War. I learned all kinds of things about it which I didn't know before, and most of which I've forgotten since. But it made me engage with some of the issues...I mean, I know that slavery is awful, but I think having African-American friends has made it real to me how strange and unthinkable it is that that people group was systematically dehumanised and brutalised, based on a worldview that somehow made that ok...and the economic pressures helped too... and I know that economic pressures are making slaves of people right now...I don't really know what to do with that. I guess as someone who is comparatively pretty wealthy, I can use my dollar as my vote. I'm gonna research more about that.
There was a lot of info in the Civil War exhibit about medicine in the field; more people died from illness in the field hospitals than on the battle field.
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[Mono Chant, Morning Hymn, Alleluia]
[costume change]
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Ok, I'm back. So at the Museum they had a Civil War amputation kit - a small saw, and different sizes of scissors and knives. If you got shot in the Civil War you either got left to die or you got whatever limb it was amputated. Cheery.
Going to NASA absolutely blew my mind. I was looking at objects that had left this world. They had a big shuttle, plus spacesuits, and capsules that the astronauts pretty much put on like a large costume and got sent out into space. One spacesuit was dirty, because of all the dust ON THE MOON. We got to see the Mission Control Room from the sixties. The computers in that room? One megabyte large. No calculators. People were floating out there in space in lethal conditions with two digital pictures' worth of memory as their support system. The rest was sheer brainpower. We sent people to space on ONE MEGABYTE!!!! I don't leave home without Google Maps!!! It's amazing what we can achieve with the right political pressures.
So that's about all right now. I'm getting more and more unpleasant to be around - way too busy and stressed - will never try to do two shows at once again. Am feeling very strange about Christmas coming up. Actually more than anything I'm going to miss Boxing Day shopping with my sisters. It won't be Christmas without Claire running in the Myer door at 7am mocking the people who fight over the cheap wrapping paper, and then giving in to her inner bargain-hunter and buying the cheap wrapping paper for herself.
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[Lonely Goatherd coming through speaker in our dressing room, Mother Abbess singing along]
[apply lipstick for party scene]
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