It would have been nice, of course, to have been in the path of the yesterday’s eclipse. In the morning, as I saw people gathering in towns along the way, I thought it would have been even nicer to have the shared experience. That sentiment changed as the eclipse occurred and my TV roared with the shouts and cheers and applause of the observers. Their response seemed inappropriate to the event, which, in my mind at least, called for an awed and reverential hush. In 1969 a magazine, Time perhaps, asked a number of famous writers what the first man on the moon should say. Vladimir Nabokov replied: “I want a lump in his throat to obstruct the wisecrack.”
