Then sounded the voice of the trumpet, with syllabled fire,
Troubling their line. Commands were shouted. The measured
Sweep of oars smote the ocean. Their ships each one
Clearly took shape before us. The right wing loomed
Foremost, well-ordered; after it galley on galley
Swept proudly, and as they approached us a thundering shout
Stormed at our ears: "O sons of the Greeks, advance!
Free now your native land, set free your children,
Your wives, and the temples of your fathers' gods,
The tombs of your ancestors - now you fight for them all!"
Swift from our decks there arose a responsive clamour -
A babel of Persian speech. There was no time now.
Bronze-beaked and swift, fiercely dashed ship on ship;
First with its stroke was a ship of Hellas that sheared
From a Phoenician galley her figurehead;
Locked then was foe with his foe in the fury of fight!
At first the torrent of Persian vessels sustained
The shock, but when the multitude of our galleys
Jammed in the rocky narrows, and none could help
His fellow, but each with bronze beak tore the other -
Shivered then were their oars, and the cunning Greeks
Hemmed them about and smote them on every side.
The hulls of our ships rolled over, the sea was hidden
With wreckage and slaughtered men; the shores and the reefs
Were choked with our dead. With wild oars went in flight
Each ship unfoundered of our Barbarian fleet.
From The Persians, a tragedy by the Greek poet Aeschylus. Told from the perspective of a Persian messenger reporting to his queen Atossa ...
Friday, September 5, 2008
Thursday, September 4, 2008
The Night Sky
Have you ever been out in the deep country, late at night, and looked up at the celestial dome utterly dumbfounded? For city-folk and even suburban-folk such as myself, one’s first view of this spectacular stellar panorama is literally breathtaking. Laying on a hill in the grass on a warm summer’s evening, staring up at the countless stars truly makes one philosophize, or at least ponder his own insignificance in this great cosmos given to us.
I was always fascinated with the night sky. As an avid devourer of science fiction and physics books from a young age, it seemed only natural to want to know more. My uncle taught me some constellations, pointed out some planets. He even gave me rudimentary lessons on relativity. In college I took two courses in Astronomy and aced both.
Then, for some reason, I grew away from one of my strongest passions, and did not return for a couple of years. Then, sensing, I suppose, a deficiency of some sort, quite abruptly I realized I wanted to resume stargazing. No, I had to resume it! I bought a field guide for astronomers and dragged my then significant other with me up to my parents’ weekend home in the deep country.
That first night, out in the field together, our attention solely on the dome above us, we began hunting constellations. Kind of tricky, at first, when you’re looking at a sky filled with over three thousand of them. But what a thrill when we spotted our first one (I think it was Cassiopeia or Cepheus, not sure). Even my girlfriend, who had zero interest in astronomy, was hooked. We must’ve been out there for two hours, picking constellations out of the field guide and searching the night sky for them.
I spent the remainder of that weekend poring through the field guide. I learned how to estimate distances in the sky. The width of your pinkie, held at arm’s length, is about one degree of distance. Your middle three fingers is five degrees, the width of your fist ten, your pinkie and index fingers outstretched about fifteen, your pinkie and thumb twenty-five. I also memorized the distances, in degrees, from the stars in the Big Dipper for comparison’s sake. But more importantly, I began reading my old astronomy books again.
I was always fascinated with the night sky. As an avid devourer of science fiction and physics books from a young age, it seemed only natural to want to know more. My uncle taught me some constellations, pointed out some planets. He even gave me rudimentary lessons on relativity. In college I took two courses in Astronomy and aced both.
Then, for some reason, I grew away from one of my strongest passions, and did not return for a couple of years. Then, sensing, I suppose, a deficiency of some sort, quite abruptly I realized I wanted to resume stargazing. No, I had to resume it! I bought a field guide for astronomers and dragged my then significant other with me up to my parents’ weekend home in the deep country.
That first night, out in the field together, our attention solely on the dome above us, we began hunting constellations. Kind of tricky, at first, when you’re looking at a sky filled with over three thousand of them. But what a thrill when we spotted our first one (I think it was Cassiopeia or Cepheus, not sure). Even my girlfriend, who had zero interest in astronomy, was hooked. We must’ve been out there for two hours, picking constellations out of the field guide and searching the night sky for them.
I spent the remainder of that weekend poring through the field guide. I learned how to estimate distances in the sky. The width of your pinkie, held at arm’s length, is about one degree of distance. Your middle three fingers is five degrees, the width of your fist ten, your pinkie and index fingers outstretched about fifteen, your pinkie and thumb twenty-five. I also memorized the distances, in degrees, from the stars in the Big Dipper for comparison’s sake. But more importantly, I began reading my old astronomy books again.
Some random facts I learned?
Stars come in all colors except green.
The solar system is moving towards the star Vega, one of the three bright stars in the Summer Triangle, at about 12 miles per second.
Jupiter has more than double the mass of all the other planets, making the solar system really the Sun-Jupiter system, with a couple of loose pebbles and gas balls thrown in.
The star Betelgeuse, one of the shoulders in the constellation Orion, is pretty much the biggest single thing any of us can see. Its diameter fluctuates, reaching at greatest extension a radius of almost 5.4 times the distance of the Earth from the Sun. That’s about 500 million miles.
The Moon recedes from the Earth at about one inch a year.
Eventually I got another telescope for Christmas, a 60mm refractor, and did the best I could with it. After some practice I was able to track Venus, Mars, and Jupiter. My proudest moment was the first time I glimpsed the rings of Saturn in that shaky thing. I think me and a friend spotted the Orion Nebula one very cold night, but I can’t be sure.
One of the best things you can do for yourself is to go outside a few hours after sunset, maybe with a pair of binoculars, and just look up at the sky. A sense of wonder mixed with humility will slowly wash over you. Guaranteed.
How about two trick questions? Okay!
1. How many full moons can be stacked up from the horizon to the zenith, the point directly overhead?
2. What is normally the brightest object in the night sky?
Wednesday, September 3, 2008
Stress
Had a really amusing thought in the midst of an absolutely horrible Friday, but unfortunately I keep forgetting to tell anyone. Not that anyone would understand it, but I think it’s pretty funny.
Last Friday I had the awful stress of having to coordinate between my company’s insurance brokers, my wife, and my wife’s HR department to get her and my daughter off my medical benefits and onto her own through her company, due to financial reasons. Well, one financial reason, really; the costs of the family plan for my benefits were skyrocketing 640 percent per week beginning September 1st. With a baby on the way and my wife out for the next eight weeks at reduced pay, that just ain’t gonna cut it. Both sides were pressuring us to get this done as soon as possible, the day before preferable, but they made it seem to us that Friday was the immovable deadline.
So I’m calling this one and that one and that one and this one are calling me. At one point I actually had my wife on my cell and my insurance agent on the desk phone. Add in the daily grind of my department that’s purposely kept one body short to cut back on expenses, and I had quite a miserable day that Friday. Only the promise of the long holiday weekend kept me going I suppose.
I decided to make a break around one o’clock and headed out to the library in the town where I work. The promise of a writing project gave me impetus to get out a few research books. I took it as a pleasant diversion, and, despite twenty minutes’ fighting traffic both pedestrian and automotive, I hit the library and had a pleasant fifteen minutes searching down the books I needed.
Then, back out into the heat and humidity, racing back to my car to get back to work and clock back in before my allotted hour was up. Suddenly, I had the perfect image for my day. And, come to think of it, I think it sums up my life this whole long hot summer:
It’s as if Henry Rollins had been constantly an inch or two behind me, flexing and twitching mad, every minute of the day, shouting "STRESSSSSSSS!!!!" in my ear with that ragged throaty growl of his, whenever I least expected it.
That’s it. That’s my personal image of Stress. What I’ve been coping with for at least three months. Why I’m so ready to chuck it all in and join a monastery. Oh, wait, can’t – baby, wife, child, and all. House, mortgage, credit card debt, too. So I can’t throw in the towel. At least in a join-the-monastery kind of way. Need to figure something else out.
Since none of my six or seven readers know who Henry Rollins is, this picture sums him up nicely.
Now I’m chuckling in my car thinking about this as I’m driving back to work, trying to figure out how I’m going to remember to tell it to my wife, and how I’m going to explain who Henry Rollins is to her. When all of a sudden the car’s compartment is filled with this incredibly loud, incredibly surreal squealing noise. I thought for a split-second – “Is that my car making that noise?” – because it’s the sound of shrieking tires. But it’s not me, I’m not pressing the brakes, and I can’t see what’s happening, I’m actually halfway through an empty intersection.
Only it’s not empty. Motion catches my eyes. Peripherally, to my left, just a foot or so beyond my driver’s side door, is one of those flat-bed trucks that hauls the trailer with all the lawn mowers and such. It ran a stop sign and was now inches from plowing into me. I cut the wheel harder to the right, almost jumping up on the curb, and I see the driver of the truck cut his wheel to the left and skid to a stop. Heart palpitating, I complete my turn and wind up at a stoplight the next block up. I look into my rearview mirror, and I see the truck has pulled over. Something like six or eight guys get out and they all start unloading the trailer like nothing happened. The light turns green, and I head back to work.
Rollins: STRESSSSSSSSS!!!!!!!!!
[By the way, my friend Rich and I saw Mr. Rollins with his eponymous band at the Limelight in NYC c. 1991 or 1992. The concert was phenomenal. The Limelight was (is?) a multi-level club that was converted from a church. Rich and I watched Henry from about twenty feet up, looking down on him, as he raged, wailed, prowled like a tiger in a cage, and threw patrons who dared challenge his machismo right off the stage. It was awesome … ]
Last Friday I had the awful stress of having to coordinate between my company’s insurance brokers, my wife, and my wife’s HR department to get her and my daughter off my medical benefits and onto her own through her company, due to financial reasons. Well, one financial reason, really; the costs of the family plan for my benefits were skyrocketing 640 percent per week beginning September 1st. With a baby on the way and my wife out for the next eight weeks at reduced pay, that just ain’t gonna cut it. Both sides were pressuring us to get this done as soon as possible, the day before preferable, but they made it seem to us that Friday was the immovable deadline.
So I’m calling this one and that one and that one and this one are calling me. At one point I actually had my wife on my cell and my insurance agent on the desk phone. Add in the daily grind of my department that’s purposely kept one body short to cut back on expenses, and I had quite a miserable day that Friday. Only the promise of the long holiday weekend kept me going I suppose.
I decided to make a break around one o’clock and headed out to the library in the town where I work. The promise of a writing project gave me impetus to get out a few research books. I took it as a pleasant diversion, and, despite twenty minutes’ fighting traffic both pedestrian and automotive, I hit the library and had a pleasant fifteen minutes searching down the books I needed.
Then, back out into the heat and humidity, racing back to my car to get back to work and clock back in before my allotted hour was up. Suddenly, I had the perfect image for my day. And, come to think of it, I think it sums up my life this whole long hot summer:
It’s as if Henry Rollins had been constantly an inch or two behind me, flexing and twitching mad, every minute of the day, shouting "STRESSSSSSSS!!!!" in my ear with that ragged throaty growl of his, whenever I least expected it.
That’s it. That’s my personal image of Stress. What I’ve been coping with for at least three months. Why I’m so ready to chuck it all in and join a monastery. Oh, wait, can’t – baby, wife, child, and all. House, mortgage, credit card debt, too. So I can’t throw in the towel. At least in a join-the-monastery kind of way. Need to figure something else out.
Since none of my six or seven readers know who Henry Rollins is, this picture sums him up nicely.
Now I’m chuckling in my car thinking about this as I’m driving back to work, trying to figure out how I’m going to remember to tell it to my wife, and how I’m going to explain who Henry Rollins is to her. When all of a sudden the car’s compartment is filled with this incredibly loud, incredibly surreal squealing noise. I thought for a split-second – “Is that my car making that noise?” – because it’s the sound of shrieking tires. But it’s not me, I’m not pressing the brakes, and I can’t see what’s happening, I’m actually halfway through an empty intersection.
Only it’s not empty. Motion catches my eyes. Peripherally, to my left, just a foot or so beyond my driver’s side door, is one of those flat-bed trucks that hauls the trailer with all the lawn mowers and such. It ran a stop sign and was now inches from plowing into me. I cut the wheel harder to the right, almost jumping up on the curb, and I see the driver of the truck cut his wheel to the left and skid to a stop. Heart palpitating, I complete my turn and wind up at a stoplight the next block up. I look into my rearview mirror, and I see the truck has pulled over. Something like six or eight guys get out and they all start unloading the trailer like nothing happened. The light turns green, and I head back to work.
Rollins: STRESSSSSSSSS!!!!!!!!!
[By the way, my friend Rich and I saw Mr. Rollins with his eponymous band at the Limelight in NYC c. 1991 or 1992. The concert was phenomenal. The Limelight was (is?) a multi-level club that was converted from a church. Rich and I watched Henry from about twenty feet up, looking down on him, as he raged, wailed, prowled like a tiger in a cage, and threw patrons who dared challenge his machismo right off the stage. It was awesome … ]
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