HEAVY LITTLE OBJECTS

#97 :: Moon globe

As with all globes, the topography of this Replogle moon engrosses me beyond reason. Not the mountains, craters and pressure ridges printed on its surface, but the way it's put together: chunks of pressed cardboard made spherical are covered with little trapezoids of four-color-process map, all meticulously aligned and made more apparent by the dent I inflicted on it as a kid. I fondled it often, memorizing the names - Mare Crisium, Mare Imbrium, and the one I stared at the most after 7/20/69 - Mare Tranquilitatis. I pored over the craters, picturing them a-crawl with tiny 2001 spacesuits and moon buses - and imagining an Ice Station Zebra scenario played out by rival U.S. and Soviet expeditions, the icy weaponless standoff frozen in tension until someone would pull a top-secret raygun and touch off World War III.