#the message

Today in Hip Hop History:

• "I have a pass to get in [The Gardens] any time I want, but the others all have to pay, which is kind of a drag because Marco never has any money... It turned out there was a special for tickets — buy two and get the third for a dollar. Marco had a dollar, fortunately, so we didn't have to go through any big scenes" (p. 46-47).

This detail struck me the first time I read this book (first Animorphs I ever read, so I'd've been... 6? 7?) and it strikes me now. I'd experienced this exact scene before, and many times since: some of your friends have money for the zoo (the roller rink, the concession stand, the local pool)... some do not. This doesn't stop you from going, it just means you figure out a way to have someone accidentally buy an extra ticket, or get a BOGO deal, or get extra cash from their mom, or, or, or.

Like, this is what class consciousness looks like to a 13-year-old. Some of you have pocket money, some do not. Just be aware of it, look for workarounds, and cover when you can. Cassie tries to smooth the moment over by asking Marco about his haircut, Jake's ready to cover if he needs to, and everyone's happy when there's a deal so the price becomes a non-issue.

Part of what stood out to me, then and now, is the very fact of thinking to include it. Goosebumps, the major competitor series, was explicitly written to have "no divorce, no death, none of that... stuff" (X). Every character in a Goosebumps book, with few exceptions, is an upper-middle-class white kid living in a suburban house with one mom, one dad, and 0 - 2 siblings. Bailey School Kids, Sweet Valley High, Princess Diaries, and My Teacher is an Alien were all more diverse, but none of them dealt with poverty or what were then called (in true classist/heterosexist fashion) "broken" families.

IMHO, this is sci fi realism at its finest. The kids need to go touch a dolphin to turn into a dolphin — but one of them doesn't have $10 to cover admission to the zoo, because his dad's been out of work ever since his mom died. It's just there, in the background, this real experience that real American kids have all the time, one that almost never gets talked about in other children's SF.

AIM mentions that the message "It's too simple for humans to understand.". My guess is that it's data stored in the form of DNA sequences. Most people think of DNA as just genetic material inside the cells, but for years now scientists have been studying it's application in other areas.

With DNA you can storage a lot of information in a very small volume using nitrogenous bases A, T, G, and C (or U instead of T for RNA). This information can be preserved for myriads and wouldn't degrade like our normal methods of preserving information does (paper, HDs, SSDs, tapes, print, etc.). As long as there are humans that can read and write genetic codes, we will be able to decode it. (https://www.science.org/content/article/dna-could-store-all-worlds-data-one-room)

This explains why BOE picked a veterinary, because they have the knowledge to read and decode a DNA sequence. We know that Blood of Eden has the technology for that, and I think that it's mentioned that they had a project to clone Wake.

While this seems to contradict that it's "too simple for humans to understand", I think it's like the "you can't enter a door that you don't have permission" riddle. We can't understand ATGACGGATCAGC...just by looking at it, but it is what defines life on Earth. We understand it by decoding, which require our mind and memories that work on proteins, so there is level of separation already.

I think they are carrying information about life on Earth (and also maybe, other planets that they inhabited) in the form of DNA. Kind of like a Noah's Ark, but with also all the history, music, literatures, internet memes, etc., that humanity produced. That's why the BOE names are all pre-resurrection references.

My theory on how The Angel carries all this DNA information is that someone modified their body by making them like a chimera (with necromancy it seems). That's why they said to Palamedes that "My dead body is designed to deny you answers.". So if he were to examine them, he would find what looks like a bunch of puzzle pieces, each belonging as if to a different puzzle.

Ta-Nehisi Coates, from The Message

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