your solsticial io fhtagn-bug!

terrifying solstice carols from the h.p. lovecraft historical society, in fairness, might be an acquired taste.

a scholar of my acquaintance had been compiling a comprehensive playlist, lo, these many years.

alas, he has disappeared, and his three research assistants (a post-doc and two graduate students) have been consigned to the custody of the state after suffering what have been described by professionals as a psychotic break, the sudden and late onset of intractable paranoid schizophrenia, and acute dementia, respectively, in improbable proximity to the time of the disappearance of their professor around the equinox last spring.

the last communication i received from him was a wrinkled and creased postcard postmarked june 21 of this year (but not received until september 23). his penmanship, usually so bold, precise and fluid, was crooked, halting, jittery, heavily scored into the paper stock, ink- and ichor-smeared and barely legible, as though he were hurried, harried and quivering as he wrote. the best i could make out, it was a provisional draft of the core of his playlist (although there did seem to be some mathematics which i could neither read nor, i should presume, in the case that i could read it, comprehend). i could only tell it was from my acquaintance the scholar by the subject matter, postage, and the familiar fashion he addressed me in the salutation.

if you, dear reader, are a research ethnomusicodemonologist, and have been having a hard time securing that faculty position, well, there appear to be some openings in that department over at miskatonic.

these are the songs listed on the missing scholar's distressed postcard. it is possible the indecipherable maths pertained to their organization or order; it is possible that writing, or hearing, or singing them in the order presented here was the proximate cause of my acquaintance, the scholar's vanishing and of his assistants' mania. i do not know. enjoy!

We wish you a scary solstice:

Carol of the old ones:

alternate with lyrics: here

I saw mommy kissing Yog Sothoth:

hot inflation eternal recurrence and the barycenter!

long exposition (which you know or can surmise):

i haven't been much of a youtuber, until recently. you know of the long history as media-shunning luddite, and as consumer of liberated material subject to ownership claims. laggard on the mobile device and broadband, as a dialer-up, my consumption was minimal, focusing on audio for maximum value per transmitted unit of memory. i thus obtained months worth of educational books on tape of the university lectures on x, many of which i've studied or heard attentively during many long hours staring at the emails of corporate vice presidents and recognizing words.

since broadband i've discovered and consumed a bunch of video courses in the same vein, either about music (history theory personalities etc) or, broadly, cosmology: astronomy, astrophysics, relativity, big bangs, black holes, particle physics and string theory.

significant portions of the latter category were excellently reintroduced, at a somewhat superficial level but with much more recent, expensive and mind-blowing animated visualizations of more or less the same data, in neil degrasse tyson's recent reboot of carl sagan's "cosmos".  =>aside: i am dismayed by one episode of the original, and much of the reboot, for the otherwise estimable hosts' unwarranted, defensive, patronizing and didactic lectures and digs concerning subject matter beyond their domain, plausibly intending better to delineate the boundary, but tyson exhibits about as much grace as penn jilette. as to sagan, well, what else would you expect of a scorpio astronomer with a taurus ascendant and sagittarius moon, given the podium?<=

and i have toyed with tedtalks. they routinely have a high pith quotient and top-shelf a/v, ultimately, though, amount to just another channel of edutainment. sort of like much npr programming, it is deceptively deep and informative, all the while smugly bolstering the status quo and soporifically lulling one to "stay tuned" (to the exclusion of other applications of attention, obviously).

unsatisfied with my dated (everybody is really excited about what they're going to learn when the large hadron collider at cern is turned on in, like, the two thousand and oughts) material, i turned to youtube.

nova delphini 2013!

"I'll tell you a little later on . . . how Delphinus for yourselves if you're under clear skies," he said!



Discovered (by Koichi Itagaki) yesterday; from the SLOOH Telescopes in the Canary Islands. (via Ma -- thanks, Ma!)

It is early yet here near the nation's capital, and the nova is just approaching naked eye visibility, but I cannot see anything in the appropriate area of the sky (determined via StarWalk) except the slightest glimmer of what must be Altair, off to the side, through the haze.

Bob Berman, the narrator of the above video (who also touts an app), says tomorrow the show will feature the immanent flipping of the magnetic poles of the Sun, somewhat out of the its appropriate chronology: "the Sun has been weird, lately." I think he also mentioned some distant supernova also currently being observed.

Exciting times, indeed, in the ol' Hubble Volume!

anthropic principle & the multiverse(s)

This is the best of all possible times to appreciate the particular
cognoscibility of the anthropic principle among the multiverse(s).

Or is it?

persistence of true grim & frostbitten small world

1. Dali / Disney short film "Destino," set to Opeth track, "I feel the dark":

 

And a couple other things, while we're feeling grim and frostbitten (and, perhaps, anticipating frost, permafrost and the other colder modes of water, to be in significant decline).

2. A compelling op-ed by (former?) Republican meteorologist Paul Douglas describing his "climate change epiphany."

These are the Dog Days of March. . . The scope, intensity and duration of this early heat wave are historic and unprecedented. And yes, climate change is probably a contributing factor. "Climate is what you expect, weather is what you get." 129,404 weather records in one year, nationwide? You can't point to any one weather extreme and say "that's climate change". But a warmer, wetter atmosphere loads the dice, increasing the potential for historic spikes in temperature and more frequent and bizarre weather extremes. You can't prove that any one of Barry Bond's 762 home runs was sparked by (alleged) steroid use. But it did increase his "base state", raising the overall odds of hitting a home run. A warmer atmosphere holds more water vapor, more fuel for floods, while increased evaporation pushes other regions into drought.

3. From UCSD's "Do The Math": Exponential Economist Meets Finite Physicist, portrays a dialogue on economic growth (and energy), perhaps revealing several economic articles of faith withering under well-elucidated laws of physics, as recounted by the prevailing physicist.

So I can twist my head into thinking of quality of life development in an otherwise steady-state as being a form of indefinite growth. But it’s not your father’s growth. It’s not growing GDP, growing energy use, interest on bank accounts, loans, fractional reserve money, investment. It’s a whole different ballgame, folks. Of that, I am convinced. Big changes await us. An unrecognizable economy. The main lesson for me is that growth is not a “good quantum number,” as physicists will say: it’s not an invariant of our world. Cling to it at your own peril.

4. Finally, hone your discourse and disputation with this handy guide to logical fallacies.

to win fluences

102 word submission on who or what influenced my direction in life as requested by alumni magazine editors for the spring issue via alumni affairs mass e-mail, unprinted.

The two influences that most fix my position, as a hungry,

variously-credentialed vortex of statistics and transactions with

the capacity to

generate and move capital

in American modernity, are

the Commerce Clause of the U.S. Constitution,

by operation of which, over the past century,

(we the)

citizens have been rendered mere

consumers in the language of policy, and

Advertising, which gives

(we the)

consumers the miracle of perspective, teaching us

how to evaluate the relative merits of things

and be free. Hallelujah!

Existentially, an agent of doubt, I’m influenced

by Saturn, Neptune

and Mercury; politically: Uranus. Thanks for

the opportunity to share.

ungnostic syncreedo?

i have spoken shahada.
i have confessed the Nicene Creed.
i have sought refuge
in the Buddha, the Dharma and the Sangha.

i have eaten the transsubstantial host;
held the sword facing the corners
naked amid a cathedral of trees
at the solstice
invoking Ra, Jah, Gaia, Kali,
Panpersephone Tetragrammaton
Michael-Samael-Goddesses!

i have initiated novices,
and audited (or thought I did),
paced twelve or more steps
in processions of processes.

i've taken guided meditations:
with americans and asians
sat through faddish imitations with
transcendental intimations.

i have followed psychoanalyses
through their logical fallacies,
chased wishes into abysses
to emerge washed clean.

i have soared from shore to tor
to bower to shore again,
in eyries of the sun
as camel, lion, snake, child.

wax off

full moon suspended
upon slim naked branches
hold the sky aloft

yea

ask and ye shall get,
but first, be quiet.

determine necessity
without willing then
will concisely, or

do not ask: ye shall
take what ye get.

A Spy on the Street Where You Live, pt. 3

But what can I say . . . to make it clear? How can I say that to her, when the groveling started sixteen years ago—or thirty two, if my stars really do point at her—was ineffective then, and has, it would seem, continued, to resurface now? How can I say that, which every brokenhearted singer has ever sung, that every adult has recognized for the screen-kiss kitsch it is, as a vehicle for commercial culture and greater need, to this stranger whose company I crave with a thirst I’d say anything to slake? Never trust a junkie or a crooner: My mama done told me, they’ll both do anything for another hit.

And, how, after all, if she won’t return my calls, who gave up writing weeks ago, who won’t be getting in touch, nor speak to me at all? If the sun refused to shine, perhaps she would return my calls; or if the moon plunged into the sea, perhaps she would call me. Of course, if that happened, phone service would likely be adversely impacted, not to mention low-lying coastal areas, and we, refugees, going nowhere.

If it were but a matter of faith,
if it were measured in petitions and prayer . . .
but it is not, nor do I care.

Barring the fools’ unforgivable sin of rushing in and talking out loud; even choosing not to tell her about it, how can I even think I crave such things, and continue to think of myself as a person? No: Must struggle, must ramble on; must . . . resist . . . compulsive . . . romantic . . . hyperbole.

A Spy on the Street Where You Live, pt. 2

And there’s Lerner and Lowe’s Fair Lady, herself also a figment from Ovid as Pygmalion’s Galatea, but, back then, she didn’t have a street, just the pedestal.

The audience of the modern musical, for dramatic development, had to be shown that Eliza Doolittle was not only sophisticated in ladylike civilized artifice, but also filled with the feminine graces known to prompt poets’ odes and lovers’ praises, through the introduction of a rival suitor to the Professor’s as yet unspoken devotion.

Rival suitor sues to see her, and succeeding, has found a reason to sing of enchantment pouring out of every door, has cause for singin’ in the rain, and dancing in the street.

People stop and stare; they don’t bother me,
For there’s no where else on Earth that I would rather be.
Let the time go by, I won’t care if I can be here on the street where you live!

This is before the rain, of course. Properly validated, Liza falls for the Prof.

Excised from the arc of plot, this recorded and rerecorded song is simply everyman’s love song. Again, the lyric is not about the beloved, whose presence merely imbues the setting, but a report on the state of mind and heart of, or simply part and parcel of the art of, the singer. As always, at first, I’ve just seen a face and can’t forget the time or place of that first sight. Then, with or without overtures or encouragement, merely because I want to hold your hand and can’t stop my brain, or maybe because I’ve been watching . . . every breath you take, the residence of the beloved is discovered. Then the wooing, the suiting starts, or the stalking—the difference lies in her consent—with the overpowering feeling that any second you may suddenly appear.

A Spy on the Street Where You Live, pt.1

A Spy in the House of Love, or Stalker on the Street Where You Live

It is only a woman that can make a man become the parody of himself.
--French Proverb, the Rev. T.F. Thistleton-Dyer

Under . . .

I cannot step out of my home without asking myself whether I’m only going out in the hope of seeing her, here on the street, and knowing that if I do or do not see her, I’ll be looking for her anyway, and judging and chiding myself for it. Let me tell you a little about what I know of me and this fervent furtive infatuation.

Conditioned by love songs to be the perfect American romantic id, in addition to being the paranoid monomaniac ego of me, I am attuned to poignant phrases pertaining to the street where she lives, or some synonymous heterologue, distinct as a singular wandering star in the collective romantic meme-pool of popular music, an ersatz zodiac of coupling if not graveyard of the language and dreams of modernity.

This has been powerful imagery for me since before she moved onto my street.

There ought to be a lot of love songs dealing with this theme, but I can only think of two, and another scenario, to which I add this, my words and tone, my own inept tune.

But soft! What light in yonder window breaks? It is the East!

Not even a love song, but some higher-art embodiment, in perhaps its most perfected form, this is certainly the archetype, the articulation of romantic love that has most imbued the cultural discourse; has so imbued this discourse, that Romeus and Juliet are commonly invoked as exemplary lovers, despite their tragic non-consummation. As if they’d got hitched, bought land, and made it fruitful across the long gloss of their bliss.

Yonder window, wherever it is, irresistibly attracts the romantic speaker’s attention, displacing the governor of the dome of the sky, the prime indicator of direction and time throughout human history. That window becomes the East, and Juliet is the sun. Wither she goest, so the speaker’s heliotropic heart and attention, perpetually dawning.

overheard at eleusis, ii

overheard at eleusis, i

pedantic, i am bitter, vii

mutant sonnet (extra feet)


when i was young and lived across town from my beloved,
at night i would walk out and look at the sky and know
that star-swathed moon-graced planet-strewn arch above
gazed down on my beloved as she slept or dreamed below.

older, i and my distant beloved spoke on telephones.
i imagined we both closed our eyes, as i did, to float
in dazzling cavernous meditative space, although alone,
conjoined in echoing chord, each voice donating a note.

and later, my far beloved i addressed through letters.
while composing, and while awaiting reply, that space
now mediated by no moon nor wire where we, together,
mutually contemplate, abide, converse, an implied grace.

learned sufi poets call beloved their coy elusive gnosis,
find in every moon face tone intimation of the divine,
scry their lifelong jubilant quest with grim obsessive focus;
see in my composite beloved divinity similarly sublime:

no secret sacred ethereal space exists for us to meet,
beloved, idealized fantasy no mortal woman could be.
by the same token, those, who have at times animated
my muse-beloved, they were no gods, offered no satori.

and these, the words fanatic i address fantastic her:
beloved, floating in the graceful luminous airs of
transcendent contemplation, these graceless words are
not love poems to women; they are clumsy prayers.

music of dying stars

You've certainly heard the music of dead stars before, but have you heard the music of 241 suddenly- and violently-dying stars?

Here is the "Supernova Sonata" from Alex Harrison Parker (and available on Vimeo).

The music is cool, although with somewhat fewer movements than a traditional sonata. The video is cool (presenting about two weeks, real universe, for each second of video). The frequency of the supernovae is astounding.

Check out the creator's explanations, here.

lectures from Radio New Zeland!

A modest sampling:

Galileo Lectures - The mystery of the first stars

Brainstorm Interviews - Neuromancing

Smart Talk Panel Discussions - Innovation and (Economy, Food, Education)

Talking Heads Lectures - Language, Memory, Continuity

Darwin Lectures - The storytelling ape

E = mc² Lectures - Einstein

Martin Lord Rees' view of the impending future

Sir Paul Nurse discusses two notions of creavolution

and a lot more! Listen listen listen, learn learn learn.

(see also)

Separately, in other news, Thomas Breuer says nuclear power is not compatible with democracy, insofar as democracy requires open societies, which, in turn, cannot provide the level of security that the magnitude of the uninsurable risk presented by operation of a nuclear reactor demands, while Michio Kaku seems to get a little . . . schadenfreude-y . . . whilst predicting doom (and hawking his new book of near futurism).

great heavens and awesome orreries!

orrery - n., an apparatus that illustrates the relative positions and motions of the planets of the solar system. (definition courtesy of WordNet).

this shockwave/flash orrery (not to scale), from dynamicdiagrams.com, is beautiful, spectacular and flexible: click on it; look at it.
look at your birth date; look at your birth date in an old-fashioned geocentric solar system, or at today, or whenever; see the zodiacal signs; set date; change speed; regard the myriad moons charging around! . . . or learn.
(also note the application name suggests it is a five-year-old design)

nasa's eyes on the solar system (which requires installation of a plug-in) is also quite breathtaking, albeit with a bit of a learning curve. be careful you don't get lost.

astrologorrhea ii, the place to start is the natal chart

i am interested in such bodies of incredible and debunked lore

(not aether, phrenology and phlogiston so much as i ching, tarot, bibliomancies and allegedly diagnostic panels and batteries of psychological tests . . . just kidding, those panels and tests probably go with the phlogiston).

my standard more-or-less-real-science comparison for the potential insight of astrology (specifically the birth chart) is the myers briggs personality type indicator, or kiersey temperament sorter, which you have likely encountered as part of some team-building program somewhere (total quality managers and their ilk believe learning about the MBTI encourages more personalized management, and fosters collegial sympathy), and which purports to classify personalities according to four descriptive axes into one of sixteen types. (there too, the serious literature reveals a dynamic rather than static system, but still: four axes, sixteen types).

um. the place to start is with a natal chart. this will be an image, most likely a circle with a cross through it and lots of symbols and probably lines everywhere.

astrologorrhea i, the sincere horoscopist

[this is a kind of long email for an idle comment over happy hour with two ladies from the office whom i have observed, separately, to favor modes of textual communication that tend toward somewhat greater brevity, with the concomitant implicit expectation that it be read; (we join it now in progress) . . . knowing the imposition such an uninvited dissertation may be, i welcome your response, lack thereof, or whatever in between, as, acknowledging that expectation, i'll also admit other expectations sympathetic with any point on that spectrum. so.]

(having invited no response, he got none; live and learn! -ed.) that said,
welcome, Dear Reader, to ruminations on how one might learn about astrology.