Monolith Is Okay

Such a terrible time I have been giving McNeil about that monolith he loves so much, yet it turns out that Sun Ra loved monoliths too! Why couldn't I just be supportive of my friend's monolith obsession? Why did I need a celebrity monolith spokesman to turn my head around on this? I blame the shallow modern age we live in! The title of Sun Ra's album MONORAILS AND SATELLITES "may refer to the monolith of [2001]," suggests Sun Ra's biographer John F. Szwed, "which Sun Ra elsewhere seems to remember as a monorail, perhaps connecting it with his UFO experience." (Early in the book, Szwed quotes Sun Ra on that subject: "First thing I saw was something like a rail, a long rail of railroad track coming out of the sky.")