Gulf of Mexico oil slick five days after the April 20 explosion of BP’s Deepwater Horizon drilling platform. (NASA/MODIS Rapid Response Team photo.)
Aloft in Cosmic Magnitude
Aloft in cosmic magnitude
There is a planet made of wood
Its people neither spin nor toil,
For they are living blobs of oil
Along mahogany streets
They ooze
And never travel save in twos
For they get lost without their maps
Since they are really naught but saps.
—Donald Allen Wollheim, ca. 1935
Kyle McAbee says:
Bob Madle, co-founder of the Philadelphia Science Fiction Society and member of First Fandom, taught me a version in 1980 with a slightly different ending. Bob said he got it from Wollheim:
Along mahogany streets they ooze
And never go out save in twos
For they’d get lost without their maps
Being naught but Homo Saps.
The final reference is the abbreviation for “Homo sapiens sapiens.” Bob also told me that the Futurians sang these lyrics at Christmas-time on street corners to tease passers-by.
June 1, 2010, 3:50 pm