The Story of the First Man in Space - Conko

October 25, 2017

The Story of the Russian Cosmonaut // ft. Odesza

This is a story about the first man in space. Inspired by the intro to Odesza’s album ‘A Moment Apart’ which they super smoothly swiped from the movie ‘Another Earth’. This lully little story is quite open to interpretation and I wouldn’t like to impose my own ideologies onto anybody but at the very least I hope you enjoy the story/unbelievable kick the absolute codswallop out of a bag of chips remix 2006 music.

I didn't know whether to put Odesza's album at the start or end of this blog. I also don’t really understand why exclamation marks and question marks are at the end of a sentence by then it’s too late to let you know that this is a suprising question?!

//Have you heard the story of the Russian Cosmonaut?

So the cosmonaut – he’s the first man ever to go into space.The Russians beat the Americans

He goes up in this big spaceship, but the inhabitable part of it is very small.

See, the Cosmonaut is in there. And he’s got this portal window, and he’s looking out of it, and he sees the curvature of the earth.

For the first time. The first man to ever look at the planet he’s from. And he’s lost in that moment. And all of a sudden, this strange tapping is coming out of the dashboard.

Tap.

He rips out the control panel, takes out his tools, trying to find this sound –
trying to stop this sound. But he can’t find it. He can’t stop it. It keeps going.
A few hours into this, it begins to feel like torture. A few days go by with this
sound and he knows that this. Small. Sound. will break him. He’ll lose his mind.

But what’s he going to do? He’s up in space. Alone. In a space closet.
He’s got 25 days left to go, with this sound. So the cosmonaut decides that the
only way to save his sanity, is to fall in love, with this sound. So he closes his eyes,
and he goes into his imagination, and then he opens them.

He doesn’t hear tapping anymore. He hears music. And he spends the remainder
of his time sailing through space in total bliss. In peace.

////

A couple of hours before Hurricane Ophelia came to take the clothes off our washing lines I was walking home early from work. Fresh af walk home with orange awthumb colours and weird atmosphere as nobody knew wagwan with the sky or if they would see a trampoline fly. Anyway, walking towards me on the footpath was a young mom with two or three kids reluctantly clinging on to the back of a pram like little plastic bags stuck to the branch of a tree. As I walked towards them I went all Brian O’Driscoll and sidestepped the whole fam and then handed-off one of the kids to the face. That didn’t happen. The whole familia did however stop in their tracks to look back as they were missing a kid. About 10 metres back was this little 3 year old stood in the middle of the footpath just staring at all the Autumn leaves blow on the footpath. The kid was in absolute awe; jaw-walloped, double-drop ped, completely wide-eyed and in a trance by some tree leaves doing some magical dance for him. He was so fixated by such a mundane occurrence he couldn’t hear his mother yelling his name. It was just a bunch of orange and yellow leaves swirling around.

///

Like the Russian Cosmonaut or the little wizard child (whom I haven’t ruled-out the possibility of being a midget), we are born into a fucking amazing planet, no matter what your surroundings or scenario there is some amazing shit to take in. We are born into a magnificent world full of millions of flavours for the eyes, mouth, hands, nose and ears and there's flying animal airplanes above our heads.

Unfortunately things aren’t always going to be rosy for the little wizard child, the Russian astronaut or yourself. Catastrophe’s will happen, people you love will die, things will tap in your spaceship and shampoo will get in your eyes.

A high percentage of mental illness usually manifests itself from life's complexities. Even more so, it's things that we have absolutely no control over that frustrate us to the point of insanity. Complexity, and things we have no control over dilute this beautiful world we live in. Sometimes it can be something very mundane and simple like putting your last penny into a vending machine and the thing gets fucking stuck; that can push you over the edge (fuck you, your crew, your vanishing busses and your vending machines too, busáras) or it can be a catastrophic event like. It all depends on your mindset.

So there will be pain and suffering. I suppose it’s how capable you are of embracing, and learning to love, the tapping in your spaceship. There’s flying animal airplanes over our head with fluffy ghost costumes that float by in front of this insane colour changing mood ring called the sky; but the driver in front of you keeps switching lanes and keeps jamming on the brakes too fucking hard. You can play masterpieces like Beethoven's 5th Symphony (Nas - Illmatic) on a device that fits in your pocket but you’re losing your sanity because of the baby crying three rows down. Little things that you have no control over can control you.

The tree that bends with the wind stands longest

This may possibly be a v hard outlook to adapt, especially if your head is currently wobbling and there’s a few chemical imbalances with your head jellyfish. I also think it’s very healthy to not become too floaty and you definitely should approach things that make you uncomfortable; otherwise feelings can come suppressed, but if you can, do try to enjoy or adapt to life's imperfections.

Life is going to be full of ups and downs. Everything is. Embrace the downs, and if you feel like you get more downs than others, try to embrace that too. If humans were always happy and never frustrated we would never have had the motivation to evolve or improve our current situation, and we’d still be wondering around fields like absolute numpty's wiping our arses with our hands or nettles. Magnificent things like Newgrange or 'I cant believe it's not butter' would never have been created, or Russian astronauts would never have made it to space if nobody before had had their head wobbles. So big ups to all the previously unhappy people that sacrificed their sanity to make create something from their suffering.

Here's what music Odesza made with the tapping. One of the albums of the year.

ENJOY

If you are in a bad state of affairs and the tapping is becoming way too much and you have no control over it whatsoever, there are so many options and I promise no matter how specific you're own individual case seems, there are people to help. If life is too much right now and you need an intervention, please ring Samaritans.

Samaritans

· 116 123 (UK)

· 116 123 (ROI)