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  The Dark Side of the Moon: GQ on Buzz Aldrin

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Author Topic:   The Dark Side of the Moon: GQ on Buzz Aldrin
Robert Pearlman
Editor

Posts: 42981
From: Houston, TX
Registered: Nov 1999

posted 12-22-2014 02:00 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for Robert Pearlman   Click Here to Email Robert Pearlman     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
The January 2015 issue of GQ magazine has a feature article profiling Buzz Aldrin.
"So how was it? How was...the moon?" You have no further questions. Because he went to the moon. And now he's sitting here, at your table in a dark and crowded D.C. restaurant. It's disorienting. The moon! The crescent and the eclipse, the waxing and the waning, the cheese—the lunar glow hanging right there, night after night on the periphery of your busy coming and going. No matter what your age, gender, politics, nationality, social or financial standing, every single person inhabiting the planet Earth has the same reaction to him. Holy crap, Buzz Aldrin, you went to the moon!

You smile at him, your face opening the way every single face in the entire world opens when it encounters him. Because he is: Buzz Aldrin. And we are: mankind.

He takes note of your smile, and just as quickly looks past you. It's the same way with everybody. It's your pregnant anticipation: I can't wait to hear the amazing synthesis of moon wisdom you are about to bestow upon me.

He has no idea what to do with that. None. He's turning 85 this month. He went to the moon when he was 39. Mankind has been coming at him with your same smile ever since. What do you expect him to do with that?

David C
Member

Posts: 1014
From: Lausanne
Registered: Apr 2012

posted 12-22-2014 06:20 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for David C     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
Pretty good article. I'm sure many here will take issue on some of its finer points, but as good as I've seen in the general media.

rjurek349
Member

Posts: 1190
From: Northwest Indiana
Registered: Jan 2002

posted 12-22-2014 07:11 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for rjurek349   Click Here to Email rjurek349     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
I was pretty honored to see the cameo appearance of "Marketing the Moon" atop Buzz's display case. I had to do a double take with that one, and then a smile cracked across my face....

neo1022
Member

Posts: 281
From: Santa Monica, CA
Registered: Jun 2013

posted 12-22-2014 08:00 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for neo1022   Click Here to Email neo1022     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
Really fine profile article. I like that it captured Buzz as he in in 2014 -- aging, divorced, hustling, and still struggling with the unique pain of being a man who is known almost entirely for one thing he did 45+ years ago, but who defines himself by constant movement and improvement.

More than anything, I appreciated its empathic portrayal of what it's like to be on the receiving end of such adulation. Very much the Buzz I was lucky enough to spend a completely accidental (and surreal) evening chauffeuring through the Arizona on a trip to Flagstaff...

All times are CT (US)

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