Brock - Another fine mess: life on tomorrows moon

Pope Brock is the sky-gazer and writer our culture needs at this moment. This book is deft, funny, profound in its implicationsand also a grave prediction about the mess that may soon be transferred from Earth to the moon. A beguiling and original story by a writer whose wisdom is only matched by his wicked comic timing.

SARAH BRAUNSTEIN, author of The Sweet Relief of Missing Children

Whenever Im reading a Pope Brock book I always fall for the writing and then for him. This book about the moon is his most deliciously, comically personal one. Though the reader finds herself in happy contemplation of crisping ex-lovers with lasers from a future lunar workplace, or perhaps having imperfect sex in perfect spheres of water, or simply socializing on the moon with well-adapted sociopaths, nevertheless we also get to know the fiercely earthbound heart of Pope Brock. His is a vision both funny and horrifying, a Seussian galaxy of rumpus absurdity and straight-talking hard truths. By the end of it one thinks, Ah, Humanity but right upon that one thinks, Thank goodness for Pope Brock.

LEIGH ALLISON WILSON, author of From the Bottom Up

Pope Brock turns out to be the perfect armchair cosmonaut to ponder the possible pleasures and pitfalls of life on the moon. Another Fine Mess is a very funny and provocative rumination on the big move to off-planet real estate.

MARK HASKELL SMITH, author of Naked at Lunch

An inspired observer with a poets heart, his investigation into our lunar future is informed, wry and sublimely readable.

CATHY GALVIN, founder of the Word Factory, London

Most heavenly, thanks to the wryly hilarious tone A delight.

JANET MASLIN, New York Times, from Janet Maslins 10 Favorite Books of 2008 for Charlatan

Brocks work made me think.

RALPH RANALLI, Boston Globe for Charlatan

Brock has a gift for making a reader shift sympathies [he] knows how to tell a good story.

ANDREA HIGBIE, New York Times for Indiana Gothic

Pope Brocks historical reach almost feels like innovation.

ANDREW LEVY, Chicago Tribune for Indiana Gothic

Another Fine Mess

Copyright 2017 by Pope Brock

All Rights Reserved

No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without the prior written permission of both the publisher and the copyright owner.

Illustrations by John Cote

Book design by Selena Trager

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Brock, Pope, author.

Title: Another fine mess : life on tomorrows Moon / Pope Brock.

Description: First edition. | Pasadena, CA : Red Hen Press, [2017]

Identifiers: LCCN 2017011349 | ISBN 9781597090407 (softcover : acid-free paper) | ISBN 9781597095075 (ebook)

Classification: LCC PS3552.R612 A6 2017 | DDC 814/.54dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017011349

Elements of appeared originally in Meridian

The National Endowment for the Arts, the Los Angeles County Arts Commission, the Dwight Stuart Youth Fund, the Max Factor Family Foundation, the Pasadena Tournament of Roses Foundation, the Pasadena Arts & Culture Commission and the City of Pasadena Cultural Affairs Division, the City of Los Angeles Department of Cultural Affairs, the Audrey & Sydney Irmas Charitable Foundation, Sony Pictures Entertainment, Amazon Literary Partnership, and the Sherwood Foundation partially support Red Hen Press.

First Edition

Published by Red Hen Press

www.redhen.org

My great thanks to those who have helped me on this strange odyssey which, however slim the results, took me almost as long as the original Greek one. Im particularly grateful to a number of experts who generously shared their time and thoughts with me: Dr. Bernard Foing, a principal-project lunar scientist with the European Space Agency; Dr. Paul Spudis of the Lunar and Planetary Institute in Houston; Prof. Madhu Thangavelu of the Department of Astronautical Engineering at the University of Southern California; Dr. Patricia Santy, former flight surgeon and psychiatrist at NASAs Johnson Space Center; James Wesley Rawles, former US Intelligence Officer and survival-retreat consultant; Dr. Gioia Massa, veggie scientist at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida (thanks to Patricia Henley for the introduction); Hans-Jurgen Rombaut of the Rotterdam Academy of Architecture; Rick Steiner (not the professional wrestler), marine conservation specialist with Oasis Earth; and Prof. Edward Gleason, manager/astronomer of the Southworth Planetarium at the University of Southern Maine.

My gratitude (inadequate word) to the gang at the University of Nebraskas MFA in Writing Program, where I teach, who gave me so much love and help with this project over the long haul, and to my writing group in MaineSarah Braunstein, Annie Finch, and Kristin Ghodseefor their friendship and fantastic advice.

Without the professionals in my corner I probably wouldnt be writing this page at all, especially of course Kate Gale, Mark Cull, and the dedicated crew at Red Hen Press. Thanks also to my agent, David Black of the David Black Literary Agency, for his unshakeable faith in his client, and to Jennifer Herrera for her smarts and skills.

John Cotes inspired illustrations have taken this book to another levelyoull see what I meanand dogged expert Terry Hill made the other pictures possible (the world of obtaining permissions is grueling, mysterious, and perverse).

Thanx and a tip of the Hatlo hat to my aunt, Mary Jane Brock, who remembered that garden out back as if it were yesterday.

To Maureen Tobin, I wish I had listened to you sooner.

Finally, and most of all, my love and gratitude to Sarah Wright.

For Dillon, the poet voyager, and for Hannah, who saw the stars in the ceiling

If dreams were thunder

And lightning was desire

This old house would have burned down

A long time ago.

John Prine

I was slung in my favorite deck chair, drink in hand, having a gawk at the night sky. Andromeda, Pisces I trawled the constellations, mind abandoned, still aware in some curve at the back of my brain that the world is coming apart at the seams and were all fucked, and enjoying the gentle paradox of it, the clink of the ice in my glass and the slumber of the dog.

By and by I found my gaze resting on the moon. There it was, the great provider: breeder of wonder, werewolves and all those songs. The place where beauty meets philosophy, where hope and despair alike are lost.

Gnawing through the romance though was a little something Id read not long before. An astrophysicist had claimed that the moon could save our planet. Not immediately: this would be in about 4.5 billion years when the sun explodes and roasts us in wrath and fire unless we get out of the way..

Im gazing up at the night, not quite in a reverie thanks to the gnats, but thinking yes, well, lovely. Imagine the parades. Still, to get that opportunity the human race would have to last (long pause, phone math) 22,500 times longer than it has already. At that point I heaved myself up and went inside for more booze.