Nobody Knows
Take it from me, Mr. Doesn’t-Know-Anything
Indeterminacy rules, to hell with what the statistics and the rule books say
If you believe half of what you read, and a quarter of what you see, you’re being deceived
How far is it from New York City to Cleveland, Ohio? Nobody knows. Some people will tell you it is a specific number. A satellite measured the New York–Cleveland distance as 465.03 miles, or 739.01 kilometers, but that was before the pandemic — in other words, today nobody really knows.
How long is the Lincoln Tunnel? As it happens, we do know the answer to that. The Lincoln Tunnel is about fifteen hundred miles long — or 1,498 miles, to be exact. But if the Lincoln Tunnel is that long, as we have discovered for ourselves by driving through it many times, how can the entire distance to Cleveland, in a completely different, Midwestern state, be shorter? And how can the width of the Hudson River, which the Lincoln Tunnel goes under, be less than half a mile? The answer to that is: Nobody knows.
One thing that nobody knows is the trouble I’ve seen. It’s my own trouble, and even …
Moon Landing
Sad Boy Turns 76
Nick Drake’s ‘Annus Mirabilis’
You confided your secrets to an indifferent world that became interested too late. Now you are a VW ad.
You are 23 and you have not given up, not yet. You are the age of Keats when he had his annus mirabilis and gave us the odes, “Hyperion” and “Eve of St. Agnes” with little fanfare. Did you think you were Keats, or did you think you were over? Maybe you were like Keats: You knew you were over before you were over, a posthumous existence, and that’s when — and maybe why — you peaked.
The first Nick Drake album, Five Leaves Left, had Richard Thompson on guitar; the second, Bryter Layter, a thing of beauty and a joy forever, had strings to cushion the blow, not goopy but lush, like Dusty Springfield, but her records actually sold. Altogether, you would sell fewer than 10,000 copies of both albums while you sauntered the earth. How did you get here, before your quarter-life crisis? Your songs are forever, but Nick Drake hadn’t been born yet. Pink Moon, your 1972 swan song, …
OPERATION FORTITUDE
The greatest military deception campaign in history helped save humanity 80 years ago this month on the beaches of Normandy
Don’t pretend like you know this story already; you don’t
We tip our hats to the mysterious Agent Garbo
In the early hours of June 6th, 1944, a Nazi secret agent, hidden away in a small suburban house in North London, wired a message to his handlers. The agent usually sent long rambling communications, but this one was more succinct than usual — and its implication was clear. The Allies had launched their invasion — D-Day had arrived. Before the largest armada in history had been spotted by the German defenders, this super-spy was warning of its approach.
Astonishingly, however, the spy’s handlers weren’t listening. His message was not picked up for hours — by which time the Normandy landings were already underway. One of the most important warnings in history had been ignored.
Not surprisingly, the spy was furious when he learned of his handlers’ failure. It felt like contempt. “I am very disgusted,” he transmitted. “I cannot accept excuses or negligence.” He warned them that they must listen in the …
