Fly Me Away E.T.

This is a charming animated music video that I just want to share with you, dear bloggereader:





And here are the lyrics, quite apropos to this blog that it begins with a line about time:

Fly Me Away - Goldfrapp

by Alison Goldfrapp and Will Gregory


Drifting out of time
Something on your mind
And I wanna be the
One that you call
When you get down
No matter where you
Are in the world I'll be around

Fly me away on an Aeroplane
High in the sky
Wanna see you again
Wanna know this time,
Gonna tell you what I'm feeling
Gonna know this time,
Gonna get it back that feeling

Miles and miles of sun
Endless roads
twist on
Don't wanna live a life
In a world that's all the same
The crazy little things
That you do are magical

This crazy life
This crazy world
We're living in is
Magical

It is interesting to note that the song is called Fly Me Away,but the video features bicycles.  In Understanding Media, Marshall McLuhan points out that the bicycle, a 19th century invention, was the first aerodynamic technology.  It is easy to assume that it was the automobile that was the technology parent of the airplane, but if you think about it, the Wright Brothers started out by selling, repairing, and manufacturing bicycles.  According to their wikipedia entry, Orville also built his own printing press, and started his own business as a printer and publisher, with Wilbur working as editor, before moving on to bicycles and airplanes.  Here's what the entry says on the subject:

Orville dropped out of high school after his junior year to start a printing business in 1889, having designed and built his own printing press with Wilbur's help. Wilbur shook off the lingering depression caused by his accident and joined the print shop, serving as editor while Orville was publisher of the weekly newspaper the West Side News, followed for only a few months by the daily Evening Item. One of their clients for printing jobs was Orville's friend and classmate in high school, Paul Laurence Dunbar, who rose to international acclaim as a ground-breaking African-American poet and writer. The Wrights printed the Dayton Tattler, a weekly newspaper that Dunbar edited for a brief period.

This is no insignificant detail, from a media ecological perspective!  And it shows that Steven Spielberg knew what he was doing, or at least had excellent intuition, when he included flying bicycles in his 1982 film, E.T.:  The Extraterrestrial.  This clip is a bit on the dark side, but the signature bicycle against the full moon scene is clearly visible in the last 30 seconds:



And here is a still image:

So fly me away, E.T.  Oh, and Goldfrapp?  Phone home!