Ever wonder what the sun would sound like if it spoke English? Yeah, neither have I, but you can actually hear the sun talk in this audio recording of the interview below:
The following interview was made possible by NASA’s Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO) and Stanford’s Experimental Physics Lab, who collaborated to translate the sun’s answers to my questions from vibrations (vibes) into human language.
It’s been a few days since the eclipse. How are you feeling?
[according to SOHO’s Michelson Doppler Imager data, the sun rolls its eyes]
No different from the last 5 billion years. Hot. Can we level up the questions?
Sorry, I’m a little nervous. The closest I’ve come to talking to a celestial body was bumping into to Heidi Klum at Balthazar in 2017.
Are her hands like, gigantic in person, or does the camera add testosterone?
No, they’re genuinely enormous. Like, she would one hundred percent be the first person I’d ask to open a stubborn jar of kimchi.
Did you feel a bulge when you bumped into her?
That’s a fucked up question, Sun.
I’ll take that as a yes.
What surprised you most about this particular eclipse?
You people have gained a lot of weight. I’ve haven’t seen so many flesh tanks splayed out on earth staring up at me since all those whales got beached in New Zealand.
Do you have any idea how much effort has been invested into creating body positivity by businesses that want to profit from obesity ?
I thought body positivity was over. Everyone seems to be into tradwives and tanning again, so I figured I could let it rip.
Only basic people are into tanning.
Burn.
Really?
Mate, if you can’t make a dad joke about UV radiation induced DNA lesions, what can you joke about. Other than fat people.
How about you tell me what you learned about humanity from how different people experienced the eclipse.
Everyone looks stupid in eclipse glasses. Those things look like some frothing 7-year-old pulled them out of a box of Cheerios and then wailed about how shit they are.
To be fair, the total addressable market for eclipse glasses probably isn’t that big.
I find it insulting. Here I am, putting on this epic show - for free, I might add, and there’s a billion people looking at me through murdered-out cellophane and cardboard sponsored by some soda company that will end up in a Staten Island landfill next to H&M underwear. Taylor Swift wouldn’t have that shit at her concerts.
Have you thought about talking to her people about a collab? If she did a concert during an eclipse it would probably cause world peace. Or at least make a lot of money.
We have totally different fan bases. Like, the people who gear-up for eclipses are either the super rich who have the time and means to buy all sorts of single-use swag and fly to the middle of nowhere to obsess about something fleeting or they’re unemployed townies who have nothing better to do.
Sounds a lot like Swifties tbh.
Yeah, ok, fair point.
Any inspiring observations about mankind?
Everyone becomes a mouth breather for 4 minutes. Like, literally every single human being - PhD in physics, janitor, whatever - looses control of their jaw muscles and just lays there slack jawed staring at me entirely obscured by that useless rock.
Hold on now, you can’t really call the moon useless.
Relatively speaking, it is.
Is that a physics joke?
Don’t try to sound smarter than you are, mate. The moon is basically just a glorified night light so that you don’t pee on yourself when you’re camping.
I live in New York. I don’t camp. What about tides?
Tides are stupid. How much better would the world be if you knew exactly where there water would be at all times? No more boats getting stuck, no more swimmers getting ripped out to sea, no more beached hypodermic needles in the Rockaways.
No more axial tilt or climate stability-
You googled that, didn’t you. Literally while I was – you are literally on NASA’s website right now, you performantive cu-
I shouldn’t have to fact-check the sun.
You’re just pissed because you can’t tan. You look like veal with pneumonia.
Will you please just say one wise thing about humanity so that I don’t feel like I interviewed a bitchy teenage girl?
BORING. Ok, fine. The zone of totality for this one was super interesting from a socio-economic perspective. Like, the best places to watch that mopey fuckface photobomb me were the worst places to live if you like sashimi served on crystals, pretentious mezcal cocktails, and unelectable third-party presidential candidates, and those are the people who lose their mind during eclipses.
How would you describe these crystal sashimi mezcal people?
You know, those really good looking woo woo people who have third generation family money who live in Topanga or Truckee or Tulum and lay out nine thousand dollars worth of crystals and painted rocks that look like an eyeball from above and wear white kimonos and sit in a circle and close their eyes and hold hands and chant something culturally appropriated in Hindi and then look up at me during syzygy and cry. Those people are fucking idiots. Like, I’m not going to give you extra points for that nonsense. Nothing magical is going to happen as a result of the rock art formation you’ve spent a week making while other people are on Zoom calls or bussing tables or filling cavities. I don’t do special favors for people who host long-table 5-course vegan dinners with upcycled napkins and hand-written hieroglypic name cards in front of ceramic plates with my face on them that you made in the kiln next to the fig tree in your back yard with all of the free time you have because you don’t work. I’m gonna give you the same sunburn that I give everyone else. In fact I might give you melanoma for being so annoying.
Those people can tan. It’s built into their trust fund. Why do you have an Australian accent, by the way?
For the vibes, mate.
That makes sense. Anything else you’d like to tell people?
I’d like DJ to stop sampling me - they sound ridiculous. Also, I’m sorry couldn’t blind Trump when he looked at me last time. It would take a thermonuclear device to get through those leathery squintflaps and burn his tiny scowling corneas.
The Ozzie accent was a deft move. I’m surprised you didn’t work my favorite detergent brand into the solar anti-Tide rant. What about that solar sycophant Akhnatan ? Did the sun even approve the name Ra™️? The vegan dig now has me craving Osso Bucco. I’m going to have to order out.
Oh, and the Summit Cruise ( never been on one) is worthy of a mini series. “my Herpes got Chlamydia !”