Did I ever tell you the story of how the title "It's Always Midnight on Mars" came about? It was a discussion of the editorial leadership team. Our editor of the time was asking about datelines and time (since we serve cities in both the central and eastern time zones). He asked if we ought to be giving times in our reports in both zones. Claude Duncan, the late and great editorial writer and essayist, asked him "What about Mars?" He had been talking about the rovers up yonder that were at the time in the headlines. When we reported something they were up to, he asked, shouldn't we give the Mars local time? "What time is it on mars right now?" he asked. "It's always midnight on Mars," I said. Later, when I retold the story over some burgers at Coram's, I remarked how that sounded like the title of a Ray Bradbury tale. I decided to write that tale, and it ended up being incorporated into my novel.
Since then, I've used midnightonmars as my Twitter handle and MidnightOnMars as the name of my Etsy store. It's also the handle I used when creating my Myspace, way back in the pre-Facebook era, and when Facebook offered URLs, it's the one I chose.
But the name is also out there in the collective unconscious, and it has been cropping up all over the place. Just do a quick Google search and you'll find all of these. A few to consider:
I love the concept of this graphic novel, and would like to see more. I wish I had had the foresight to purchase that URL.
This photo is also pretty cool:
It's title is "Midnight On Mars." I stole it from here. The Photographer is Shamik Ganguly.
There's even a piece of music by that title.
I'm not sure what my point is, unless it is that maybe I was onto something. Something the rest of the world was onto as well. Maybe sometimes there really is such a thing as "an idea whose time has come."
What time would that be?
Midnight, of course.
Peace.
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