Interesting, Wrangler.
I was also struck by the profile of Sayaka Murata in the April 14th issue. I've not heard of the concept of defamiliarization before. Making the familiar strange. I like that idea and have started to practice it. Isn't that what makes Brokeback Mountain, the story, so shocking and effective? You take a couple of gay men and put them in a different environment, like rural Wyoming, and voila! You have a mindbending story.
I've often tried to visualize what Earth would look like for space creatures looking down on us. A bunch of beetles scurrying around on round rubber feet, I imagine. A few birds, some large with shiny metal feathers, and a few snakelike things slithering along tracks.