As a symbol of achievement, the moon has had two lives. The ancient object of speculation, it existed as the ultimate natural phenomenon which was a purely visual object. Subject to study and to criticism, the moon allowed itself only to be looked at. When the actual touching of the moon became possible, it started its new existence as a trophy. Daily, a line of visitors dutifully moves past a display in the National Air and Space Museum which houses a sliver of moon rock worn to concavity by a multitude of index fingers. "We can put a man on the moon but we can't find a way to stop male pattern baldness" is a familiar mantra of the uneasy. Having attained a figure that was once the ultimate unattainable, there is nothing left but disappointment in near-miracles (The reader is free to convert the above text to a parable concerning modern art development from the mid 20th century to the present).
