Transcript for the Piece Audio version of Ozymandias drives a Plymouth - (It's just rust and a fin)
(00:00) RF:
Recent news got me thinking about the buried past -
Buried cars melons gold and "Ozymandias" by Shelly -
[Ozymandius - by Shelley]
[The Day The Earth Stood Still music bed]
(00:11) John S. Martin:
I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them on the sand,
Half sunk, a shatter'd visage lies, whose frown
And wrinkled lip and sneer of cold command
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamp'd on these lifeless things,
The hand that mock'd them and the heart that fed.
And on the pedestal these words appear:
"My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!"
Nothing beside remains: round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare,
The lone and level sands stretch far away.
(01:19) RF:
In the gospel according to Matthew there's a story about three servents given gold - two invest it but one buries undergound.
[Route 66 music bed]
In the case of the car - you may have heard that in 1957 the town of Tulsa Oklahoma buried a brand new Plymoth Belvedere - The car was to be unearthed in June 2007 and was intended to show us what their life was like. It's container was even meant to survive a nuclear blast.
[Turning Japanese music bed]
And I read about a simple melon. One day - over 2000 years ago a Japanese man or woman eating a healthy snack threw out a melon rind that still had some melon left on it.
[The Day the Earth Stood Still music bed]
All three lay underground - but only one increased in value.
I'll give you a second to think about it...
several pounds of gold...
an old melon rind
or a brand new 1957 Plymouth Belvedere?
It wasn't the gold - since it was worth the same before and after it was buried -
And anyone who buys a car knows what happens when you drive it off the lot. Aparently it's not much better when you put it underground.
After 50 years of poor drainage and water seepage - it was a huge chunk of rust.
But the melon.
Somehow this little leftover sat in an oxygen free pocket and survived intact. Although it was still garbage after 2000 years it was a valuable accident worth a lot more to scientists.
In hindsite, maybe we should have left the car buried - to imagine it as a little bubble from 1957 - floating unharmed by the merciless passage of time.
As a kid, I remember being at a time capsule ceremony - we were all so full of optomism. Our school had put some things in, there was a letter from the mayor - souvenires from businesses - photographs - it was our gift to the future.
Too bad half the time all we give them are ashes and rust.. pollution and garbage.
[Dust in the Wind under]
We leave them our messes to clean up
Perhaps if we think about it more - rather give our future-selves a surprise - we might try to leave the place a little better than we found it -
we might leave them something they can be proud of while they're growning up, rather than a sudden crumbled hunk of rust.
(04:19) John S. Martin
Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!"
[Music full]
(04:24) Kansas "Dust in the Wind -
"...everything is dust in the wind." (04:55)
INSTRUMENTAL until (05:18)
(5:20) OUT
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