BEAUTY IS IN THE REFLECTED-LIGHT SENSING AND IMAGE-INTERPRETATION ORGANS OF THE BEHOLDER

Just got back from the first annual InterGalactic Beauty Pageant held on Pavonus III, and I think it's safe to say that, conceptually speaking, the Burning Man Festival has met its match. I'll file a more complete report down the road, but for now just a few highlights and general impressions of the first attempt to evaluate and rank the aesthetic attractiveness of all living things in the known universe.

Over three thousand life-supporting worlds were represented, with almost half of them inhabited by sentient beings. The judging was limited to the sentients, largely out of necessity, although there were charges of "cognitive elitism" lodged by some of the more progressive species. The Prime Directive was scrupulously enforced: no voting for any life form from your own home planet.

I'm proud and delighted to report that Earth landed three life forms in the top 100, no mean achievement given the sheer numbers of contestants. Kudos and hats off to: the rose (# 24), the yellow Labrador Retriever (#63), and the oyster (#9, and go figure).

The most attractive three alien life forms according the homo sapien judges were the sznigix, a desert crawling plant on Nifner (Deneb's fifth planet), the tarpatal, an aquatic color spouter from the oceans of Poit (Altair's giant solo planet), and the boccobochuca, an ectoplasmic air skimming creature of Oooohee (the third world in the Rigel system), which, as it happens, is a dead ringer for Sophia Loren.

No time to go into the various judging categories right now (Talent, Means of Locomotion, Best Use of Bodily Fluids, etc.) except to note that for Most Likable, it wasn't even a contest. Oprah Winfrey in a landslide.

Can't wait to show my slides.