I was tickled to get this Python-inspired postcard back with more Monty on the reverse side!
The finder--who signed it "With Warm Regards, The Northwest Library"--pasted to the back the lyrics to The Galaxy Song. Since my Monty fanhood is of a very limited sort (one movie, seriously; I don't trust him not to be way too irreverent and crass for my tastes, so I haven't explored him further), I had never heard this song.
Just remember that you're standing on a planet that's evolving And revolving at 900 miles an hour. It's orbiting at 19 miles a second, so it's reckoned, The sun that is the source of all our power. Now the sun, and you and me, and all the stars that we can see, Are moving at a million miles a day, In the outer spiral arm, at 40,000 miles an hour, Of a galaxy we call the Milky Way. Our galaxy itself contains a hundred billion stars; It's a hundred thousand light-years side to side; It bulges in the middle sixteen thousand light-years thick, But out by us it's just three thousand light-years wide. We're thirty thousand light-years from Galactic Central Point, We go 'round every two hundred million years; And our galaxy itself is one of millions of billions In this amazing and expanding universe. Our universe itself keeps on expanding and expanding, In all of the directions it can whiz; As fast as it can go, at the speed of light, you know, Twelve million miles a minute and that's the fastest speed there is. So remember, when you're feeling very small and insecure, How amazingly unlikely is your birth; And pray that there's intelligent life somewhere out in space, 'Cause there's bugger all down here on Earth! Thanks to the finder for taking the time! Anna and I looked up
The Galaxy Song on YouTube. (Warning: Preview before watching
with children; there's an animation in the middle that parents will
want to be aware of.)
