2013-09-08
Original: 2013-09-08 on Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal
Transcript
Panel 1:
Speaker (a balding man addressing a crowd from a stage): "I OFTEN IMAGINE MEETING A GREAT PERSON FROM CENTURIES PAST AND EXPLAINING MODERN SCIENCE."
Panel 2:
Speaker: "I WOULD BE NOT A FOOL, BUT THE FACE OF GOD! IMAGINE THE WONDER ON THE FACE OF COPERNICUS OR GALILEO OR ARCHIMEDES AS THEY LEARNED WHAT WE KNOW NOW."
(A thought/imagination bubble shows a robed historical figure being shown a simple diagram of a curve and a point on an x-y axis.)
Panel 3:
Speaker: "BUT THEN, I REMEMBER THAT NO ONE HAS YET LIVED LONG PAST A CENTURY."
Panel 4:
Speaker (now addressing an audience): "ALL OF THOSE PEOPLE ARE DEAD, UNRECOVERABLE BEYOND THE REACH OF TECHNOLOGY, NO MATTER ITS SOPHISTICATION."
Panel 5:
Speaker: "BUT YOU, MY LITTLE ONE..."
(He turns toward a crib/bassinet.)
Panel 6:
Speaker: "YOU ARE NO DIFFERENT FROM THE FIRST HUMANS."
(A baby lies in a crib.)
Panel 7:
Speaker: "YOU AREN'T 200 OR 2,000 YEARS OLD. YOU ARE 200,000 YEARS OLD."
(Close-up of the baby.)
Panel 8:
(The man picks up the baby and holds it.)
Panel 9:
Speaker: "AND I WILL SHOW YOU EVERYTHING."
(He holds the baby up toward a rainbow in the sky.)
Votey:
The man (close-up, exasperated), shouting at the baby: "STOP SHITTING YOURSELF! I'M TRYING TO EXPLAIN HOW RAINBOWS WORK!"
Speaker (a balding man addressing a crowd from a stage): "I OFTEN IMAGINE MEETING A GREAT PERSON FROM CENTURIES PAST AND EXPLAINING MODERN SCIENCE."
Panel 2:
Speaker: "I WOULD BE NOT A FOOL, BUT THE FACE OF GOD! IMAGINE THE WONDER ON THE FACE OF COPERNICUS OR GALILEO OR ARCHIMEDES AS THEY LEARNED WHAT WE KNOW NOW."
(A thought/imagination bubble shows a robed historical figure being shown a simple diagram of a curve and a point on an x-y axis.)
Panel 3:
Speaker: "BUT THEN, I REMEMBER THAT NO ONE HAS YET LIVED LONG PAST A CENTURY."
Panel 4:
Speaker (now addressing an audience): "ALL OF THOSE PEOPLE ARE DEAD, UNRECOVERABLE BEYOND THE REACH OF TECHNOLOGY, NO MATTER ITS SOPHISTICATION."
Panel 5:
Speaker: "BUT YOU, MY LITTLE ONE..."
(He turns toward a crib/bassinet.)
Panel 6:
Speaker: "YOU ARE NO DIFFERENT FROM THE FIRST HUMANS."
(A baby lies in a crib.)
Panel 7:
Speaker: "YOU AREN'T 200 OR 2,000 YEARS OLD. YOU ARE 200,000 YEARS OLD."
(Close-up of the baby.)
Panel 8:
(The man picks up the baby and holds it.)
Panel 9:
Speaker: "AND I WILL SHOW YOU EVERYTHING."
(He holds the baby up toward a rainbow in the sky.)
Votey:
The man (close-up, exasperated), shouting at the baby: "STOP SHITTING YOURSELF! I'M TRYING TO EXPLAIN HOW RAINBOWS WORK!"
Alt text
A nine-panel black-and-white comic, colored, of a balding man giving a grandiose monologue. In the first panels he stands on a stage telling a crowd that he often imagines meeting a great mind from centuries past, like Copernicus, Galileo, or Archimedes, and explaining modern science to them, feeling like the face of God. A small thought-bubble shows him showing a robed historical figure a simple x-y graph. He then reflects that no one has lived much past a hundred years, so all those great people are dead and unrecoverable, beyond the reach of any technology. He turns to a baby in a crib and says, 'But you, my little one... you are no different from the first humans. You aren't 200 or 2,000 years old. You are 200,000 years old.' He lifts the baby up toward a rainbow in the sky and declares, 'And I will show you everything.' Votey panel: a close-up of the same man, now annoyed, yelling at the baby, 'Stop shitting yourself! I'm trying to explain how rainbows work!' — undercutting the lofty speech with mundane parenting reality.
Transcribed by Claude Opus 4.8.