Transit of Mercury

Transit of Mercury by Jay

            On November 9, 1769 Captain James Cook of H.M.S. Endeavour and astronomer Charles Green were on the Coromandel Peninsula in what is now known as (appropriately enough) Mercury Bay recording the Transit of Mercury.   The Coromandel’s weather is unpredictable and can go from being bright and sunny one moment to dark and torrential rains the next.  I had the good fortune to live there from 2000 – 2001 not far from where Cook and Green recorded their historic observations.  I remember visiting Shakespeare Cliff where there is a memorial located commemorating the important event where it was thought they made their recordings.  It has since been proven that they actually observed the transit from the beach, and according to Sydney Parkinson, Endeavour’s artist, another observation seems to have been made from the ship. 

            Though a poor astronomer as well as being mathematically incompetent and technically deficient, I am fascinated with science and theory not to mention history.  1769 was a big year for transit viewing.  On June 3 -4, interested spectators could get a view of Venus passing across the disc of the sun as long as they had access to a telescope.  A few months later on November 9, 1769, Mercury made its transit. This is extremely rare for the transits of Mercury and Venus to occur in the same year.  Captain James Cook and Charles Green as well as other members of the crew were luckily able to view both transits.  The day seemed perfect for viewing.  According to the gentleman scientist, Joseph Banks, this was “fortunate circumstance as except yesterday and today we have not had a clear day for some time” (Banks’ Journal).  Fate seemed to be with the expedition for astronomical viewing, for the weather was predominantly clear for observing both transits, Venus from Tahiti and Mercury from New Zealand.  Unfortunately, on the day of the Mercury transit, tragedy occurred.  It seems there was a dispute over the trading of cloth between Lieutenant John Gore and a Maori named Otirreeoonooe.  Details are vague, but it seems that Gore became incensed when Otirreeoonoe took off in the canoe with the cloth the lieutenant had given him without giving him his own whereupon Gore shot and killed him.  When Cook found out, he was frustrated and upset that one of his own officers (Gore was actually third in command of the ship at the time) had resorted to killing a man for stealing a piece of cloth.  It had been an eventful day marred by the bloody incident.

            I had no such worries last Monday when I took out my Nikon and homemade solar filter (courtesy of my creative wife Tina) when I woke up shortly before 7:00 A.M. to observe this year’s Transit of Mercury here in Pineville, North Carolina.  I was ready for the ingress which occurred between 7:12 and 7:16 though I was unable to get a good view due to the trees blocking my view in the back yard.  It wasn’t long though before I was able to get a clear view and shot of the tiny and innocuous looking planet passing before that majestic ball of hydrogen and helium.  Throughout the day I was able to take about 115 pictures at various times.  Unfortunately, I missed the egress, for I had inadvertently touched the viewfinder button so that I was unable to see the sun through the lens.  Because I was unfamiliar with the camera and only had a few minutes to catch what would be a tiny “tear drop” or “black drop” effect, I missed out on what would have been some fascinating pictures.  However, I was satisfied with the pictures I had taken – not bad for an astronomical novice.  If only Captain Cook and the royal astronomer Charles Green had had the technology that I, in my ignorance, had so carelessly used, I’m sure they would have made a much better “go of it” than me! 

Enjoy the pictures!

 

 

 

 

Change and the Old Hubbardston Mailman

By Craig: When my son was five years old I bought a brand new truck. He went with me to the Ford dealer and was excited about sitting in a shiny big red truck. It was a lot different from the vehicle that he was use to traveling in. He had known only the black Jeep Liberty that I had bought shortly before he was born. It was the only vehicle that he had ever known except for my beat up old Dodge Dakota that I had been driving since the early 90s, but he hardly ever got to ride in it. The salesman let me take it for a test run and my son was excited to say the least. The same could not be said about the salesman who was reluctant to be on a test drive with a talkative five year old sitting in the backseat. After the test drive I told the salesman that I would be back the next day, much to his chagrin. My son asked me if we could take the truck home, and I told him that we would the next day if it was still there. The next day I was true to my word and returned to the dealership with my son and wife and drove out of the lot in the shiny red truck that my son had kept asking about. However, as we were pulling out of the lot a funny thing happened. My son became serious and asked me why we were leaving the Jeep behind. I told him quite succinctly that the Jeep no longer belonged to us. I had sold it to the dealer. For a few seconds he was quiet. I thought it a natural question for him to ask, but what happened next surprised me...although it probably shouldn't have. He started to cry. When I asked him why he was crying he could only say two words over and over. "The jeep" The jeep" and then "I want the jeep!" He really liked the big red truck, but he never thought that he would have to say goodbye to the old Liberty which in his mind was the only vehicle that he associated with his existence. In his mind the Jeep was to be with him always. It always had been. Why should things change? He was comfortable and familiar with the Jeep. I tried to talk to him about change but it is difficult to reason with a five year old. Eventually he forgot all about the Jeep and when I recently reminded him about that day he laughed.

When I was a young boy I had a habit of waiting for the mailman to come. Was something coming for me today? I don't know what I expected. Most of the time the mail consisted of nothing but boring bills addressed to my parents, or lame advertisements and promotions offering a sweepstakes. Those sweepstakes mailings always puzzled me. First of all nobody I ever knew won. Secondly, they were almost always published on a thick cardboard, and made to look real important and enticing to the person receiving them. Sometimes they were sent by a car dealership in an attempt to get you to come to their lot by offering a chance to win a NEW CAR! Other times a magazine publisher would try to get you to subscribe to different magazines with free subscriptions knowing that at the end of your trial period you would forget to unsubscribe and they would send you a bill. Even though I never subscribed to any of the magazines I use to like separating the stamps of the magazines I wanted  from their perforations and sticking them on the postcard. Why I did this I cannot say. I never had the money to subscribe to magazines when I was a kid, and even if I did there were probably other things that I would have spent my money on. I guess it was something to do. The mailman usually arrived after I got home from school. He was a middle aged man I only knew as Mr. Meagher. He always arrived in a light colored car, the make and model I have long since forgotten. He was a pleasant fellow and would always smile. Even though it has been nearly 40 years I can still see his hand reaching through the window and opening the mailbox, stuffing the mail in and closing it again before driving off to the next house. It was a daily ritual, except, of course on Sunday. He performed this action of opening, stuffing, and closing in one fluid motion as if he were born to do it. It was inveterate to his being. I couldn't fathom anyone else doing it the way he did it, although this notion of mine was of course ridiculous. He was just one of thousands of mail carriers, but to me in my isolated world he WAS the mail carrier. Anyone else in the role would have seemed preposterous to my juvenile brain. One day, a new dark colored car pulled up to the mailbox. I was naturally taken aback and suspicious of this new turn of events, but when I saw Mr. Meagher's familiar hand and smiling countenance I realized what had happened, but it still wasn't right. Where was the light colored car that had always carried Mr. Meagher to our mailbox? It had been a constant in my life. Never changing...always the same...forever and ever. As I sit here today and reflect back on this time I don't think I ever recall seeing Mr. Meagher outside of that car? It is as if he were born in it. As if the only parts of his body that existed were his head... and his hand, that was needed for opening the mailbox.

I am not even sure why I write sometimes. Usually I write in a sort of stream of consciousness and jot down my thoughts and reflections that sometimes have no order or fluid motion to them. They are also mostly irrelevant things, fragmented memories from another lifetime that are always changing... Unlike an old mailman that seemed to represent order and a stability at a time when the world of youth was still filled with wonder, and a seemingly endless infinity ahead... which I now know to be specious.

A Lost Moment in Time: Grizzly Adams (1977)

By Craig: "My name is Mad Jack and if anyone knows the story of James Adams that would be me." So says the character Mad Jack played by grizzled actor Denver Pyle at the start of every episode of the 1970s classic The Life and Times of Grizzly Adams. I can remember watching this TV show when I was a kid and it was one of my favorite programs. They were simple stories that usually contained a lesson in morality. The main character of course, was Grizzly Adams himself, played by the late Dan Haggerty. He was a big man with a big heart who was accused of a murder that he did not commit. Fleeing his home he left for the mountains where he adopted a bear cub named Ben and built a cabin with the help of the trapper Mad Jack. Adams also had a native American friend Nakoma. In an early episode Adams tells a young boy how he became blood brothers with Nakoma after saving his life one day. The boy wants a blood brother of his own, and at the end of the episode is introduced to Nakoma's nephew. It is symbolic of peace and friendship and how easy it is to get along with people of another culture without the judgmental and preconceived notions that surround it.

I have started to watch these episodes again nearly 40 years after I first saw them. The first thing that I thought about was how this series would never make it on television today. The episodes are too slow moving. There is not enough violence to entertain a modern audience. People today require action and a fast pace. The attention span of today's Ritalin induced audience would be gone in the first five minutes. "Where are the guns? the ass kicking tough guys (and girls) and the cars crashing through police barricades?"  As if this vapid nonsense isn't enough, today's audience also requires there to be shows where certain people have their lives minutely examined and filmed so people can judge them. Who gives a damn about what the Kardashian's are doing? I don't. Oh well...I guess that is what our constricted, fear induced world has come to...watching bad guys with guns fight good guys with guns, and celebrating the arrogant pampered existence of reality TV stars that do nothing but engage in unfettered consumption. For my part, I'll go back to 1977, a time when I was nine years old...watching the adventures of a quiet, unassuming mountain man living among the wild animals and the peaceful forest of a an age that has long since passed.

The Quest for Universal Stability

By Craig: I try not to pay attention to the news. It is wrought with violence and mayhem. Every day the headline has to do with some mass shooting or murder. There is always a war going on at some place on the globe where thousands, if not millions of people are victimized by mankind's inability to get along. This is nothing new. There have always been wars caused mainly by greed, differences of religion, jealousy, or simply lust for power. People also engage in violent acts out of desperation and a longing for some sort of recognition or notoriety. "I WANT TO BE REMEMBERED" some desperate character might think before engaging in some dastardly act. Sometimes the news is hard to ignore. These days, technology makes it easy for people to find out about some disaster only moments after it has occurred no matter where it is on the earth. This instantaneous access to news and what is happening on the other side of the globe, or outside of a persons own neighborhood has created a certain type of individual that is paranoid about their own fragile situation in life. These type of people tend to overreact and create environments that really have nothing to do with their own reality. This environment attaches itself to the persons persona and sticks to it like a parasite. People naturally break up into camps with people of similar thinking. I like to think of myself as a lone wolf. Unfortunately, however, I tend to migrate toward one of the prevailing camps. I am no different than anyone else no matter how hard I try to be. I am human and therefore clannish.

Recently, France was attacked by a rabble of cowards that had, or have no conscience. Human life to these savages means no more to them than if they were squashing fruit flies. I cannot fathom how people like this can exist. Is it some kind of genetic trait carried on from generation to generation? Is the human race evolving at different rates within itself? Environment surely has something to do with this aberration, but there are people brought up in the same environment as these terrorists and they do not randomly attack people in the name of some god? Why can't people just get along with one another? Why must some people try to impose their radical views and beliefs on people with differing opinions or beliefs? I guess these are the age old questions which might never be answered. Realities are the sums of a persons experiences and what that person is exposed to. Plato talked about dancing shadows on the cave of a wall. A fire burns deep inside a cave where a prisoner is chained facing a wall. The fire is behind the prisoner, and he is chained so that he cannot see the fire or the things happening behind the fire. He can only see the wall in front of him and the shadows of objects that are behind him. To this person his reality is the shadows on the wall. If he is released and turns around he will be shocked at what he sees. He might be afraid of this new reality and return to his comfortable shadow world. As Thomas Paine once said "A long habit of not thinking a thing wrong gives it a superficial appearance of being right." Perhaps it is so with these savage people? Their philosophy of what is right is a pestilence...it is a plague on the rest of society. Most people go about their daily lives trying to live a comfortable existence the best way that they can in a world where ethics and morality varies with the individual. Historically there is no difference in what is going on in the world today than what was happening 200, 500, and 1000 years ago. What is it exactly that human beings seek more than anything else? Is it power? profit? love? lust? I say nay to any of these. I believe that most humans seek a sort of tranquil state of stability, or a satiation of sorts. Isn't that what the rest of the cosmos seek? I don't know.

The universe is chaotic and unstable. One just has to look at the stars to see this. A star is composed of elements that act in a constant state of  violent interactions with one another. Hydrogen atoms collide with terrific force generating fusion which splits them apart. Heavier elements follow suit until the star eventually either burns itself out or explodes in a cataclysmic final burst called a supernova. Gases from these dead stars eventually collect together and it is thought that they form stellar nurseries which create new stars. Comets and asteroids composed of heavier elements also play their respective roles in randomly colliding with embryonic planets as well as ones already in the state of formation. What force is it that causes these transient particles to interact the way they do? We know about fusion, gravity and inertia, but what is the natural state that these particles unconsciously seek? Is it the state of stability? They interact with each other because they have to interact with each other. It is the universal way. When all elements no longer have to interact with each other this is called Universal Stability. It is a term I will use to describe the ultimate attainment of cosmic harmony. It remains to be seen if this harmony can possibly exist when the natural order of things seems to be one of change and flux.

So, this being said, I gravitate toward how humans and other conscious and sentient beings and organic organisms relate to this. If we are composed of the same star material than we should be no different in how we behave and act than the inorganic elements found in nature. The natural state of things seems to be the eternal  quest to find a perfect balance. It is perpetual and never-ending because the universe is infinite. There has to be something beyond that something. Little cosmic bubbles that interact with each other on a grand scale, some contracting, some expanding. As I sit here and write this in a sort of stream of consciousness I can't help but feel how irrelevant I am in relation to the cosmos, but at the same time relevant because I occupy a minuscule part of it.

The Miami Dolphins, Wonder Bread, and Space
By Jay

I have never been a fan of football though I enjoyed playing pickup games of the flag variation when I was younger.  However, as a child I did collect cards of all types, and some of the very first cards I remember having were football cards.  My father used to deliver bread for a company called Genest Bakery up in New England, and back in the early 1970’s Wonder Bread released a set of football cards with many of the star players of the day.  He would bring us piles of these cards.  Two of them I remembered the most were Bob Griese and Larry Csonka.  Both cards had a red border, and both players were stars for the Miami Dolphins – at the time, the best team in professional football.  Growing up in Massachusetts where it is cold and snowy for a good portion of the year, Miami Florida seemed a world away. In my mind, it was a hot, sunny tropical paradise totally remote from the climate I was used to.  It seemed so far away.  At the time I thought I would have just as much of a chance taking a trip to the moon as to ever seeing Miami.  I remember looking at the Bob Griese card.  He was smiling broadly into the camera with a blue sky and clouds in the background.  Because I knew very little about the sport at that age, I thought he looked more like an astronaut than a football player – as if he had just descended from the upper reaches of the atmosphere.  Larry Csonka was squinting as if he were melting under the heat of the hot Miami sun.  Oddly enough, I associated these cards more with the sky and space than I did with football.  My imagination saw the sky as a major component in both pictures though you are unable to really see it in the Csonka photo.  However, Its presence is still distinctly felt.  The entire background is nothing more than a bleary brightness.  It is probably the stands filled with fans from over four decades ago, but the camera and light have obscured them into a blob of blurred bubbles.  Whoever was there or whatever was there will never be known, not that this fact holds any relevance to what is intended to be captured in the photo, which is simply Csonka’s face for the purpose of the card.  As he gazes slightly upwards, he almost seems to be searching for something.  Is he witnessing Griese’s capsule as it descends from the stratosphere?  Perhaps he’s contemplating the first manned mission to the crushing furnace of Venus?  Childish silly thoughts, really.  In reality, he was probably on the sidelines studying the plays on the field. 

It would be nearly forty years before I would begin regular visits to Miami for cancer treatments.  Little did I know in 1974 that my fate would be linked with that bright and hopeful city – so distant to a child of six who lived in an area where the sky seemed perpetually gray over a landscape blanketed in snow.  I suppose Miami still holds the same mystical element it held to me all those years ago, but in a much different way.  

A Lost Moment in time: Reduced to Pixels

By Craig: Life is short. So says the old maxim. We are lucky to live our three score and ten before passing into eternity. This can't be so bad since millions of people have passed before us, some go out kicking and screaming, while others choose to go out with very little fan fare. I suppose it doesn't matter how it ends with you for we all must one day cross that lonely threshold. I often contemplate what life really means. What is the substance of life? Why are we here? Why do we choose to live a certain way? I never really come up with any substantial answer to these questions. I suppose it is the way we are programed through our natural disposition, and the things that we have experienced during the linear path of our existence. Sometimes I become obsessed with an old photograph that gives me pause for further reflection about life and time.

The photo under inspection was taken in Maine during the summer of 1976 when I was eight years old. It is a closely cropped image of a man standing in profile on a beach. A silhouette, curved and shadowy from a time slowly disappearing from living memory. He is observing the sand pyramid that my father is building. My brother and I can be seen playing in the sand around the pyramid, perhaps digging trenches that will connect to my father's sand art.  The identity of the man is unknown. It was taken from such a distance that the facial features and other possible identifying marks have been permanently eradicated. The only thing that we can infer from the man's profile is the fact that, perhaps, he is not fond of exercise. He appears to be of middle age, and since 39 years have elapsed since this photograph was snapped it is almost a certainty that the man, whoever he was, has succumbed to time. For a few minutes...or perhaps seconds of his life he is engrossed in my father's artwork...Artwork, that has long since disappeared under countless high tides. At the top of the image the ocean can be seen lurking, stalking unconsciously, the temporary action that is happening on the beach. The top of the photograph has begun to deteriorate. It gives the illusion of a giant city rising from the ocean.  Other figures can be seen in the background, mute witnesses of an event now lost in time and threatened by an eroding oblivion of what it has been reduced to, and what we are reduced to for the succeeding generations...Pixels.

William Goldman's Magic and Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer

William Goldman’s Magic and Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer

         By Jay:   For as long as I can remember I’ve always been a fan of horror fiction as well as horror films, not the gruesome ax wielding maniacs killing unsuspecting teenagers at a summer camp type stories, but rather stories with a subtle supernatural gothic theme – ghost stories in the realm of a Washington Irving tale.  Some of Irving’s supernatural stories are among the best in American Literature: “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow”, “Rip Van Winkle”, “The Adventure of the German Student” and “The Devil and Tom Walker” to name a few.  They are tales told in his matchless beautiful prose.  I am generally not a fan of (for lack of a better term) psychological “horror” though there have been some great examples of these types of stories.  I think the very best of these is Magic by William Goldman, which was first published in 1976.  The story revolves around a magician / ventriloquist named Corky Withers who seems to be afraid of success.  He flees from his agent in New York City, and seeks peace of mind at a remote lake in the Catskills (the setting for many of Irving’s supernatural tales) where an old crush named Peggy Ann Snow and her husband Duke lets out cabins during the vacation season.  As the novel progresses, the relationship between Corky and Peggy grows, for Peggy is having marital problems with Duke.  Without giving away the rest of the plot, Corky is quickly becoming consumed by his dummy, which he calls Fats.  His agent eventually tracks him down, and from there on out, the “horror” begins.  The novel is elegantly crafted with a lot of dialogue mixed with vivid descriptions.  Goldman later adapted it into a screenplay, and it was made into a movie in 1978.  Magic is a vastly underrated novel that needs wider exposure so that it can be appreciated by modern audiences.  It is not the typical ventriloquist / dummy story of a split personality, though on the surface, the plot may seem so.  There is much more to Corky’s personality.  His insecurities, fears, and sense of loss as time passes in a cold and distant world are feelings that everyone can connect with.

            However, I knew nothing of Goldman or his writing in December, 1977 as a nine year old while watching the Rankin and Bass Christmas special Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer.  In those far off days before cable, home video and the internet, it was extremely important for a kid to catch the holiday specials when they aired, which was usually at 8:00 p.m. EST about three weeks before Christmas.  They only played it once, so if you missed it, you were out of luck until next year.  And by then, you might be too old to care.  My brother and I were very diligent in getting our Rudolph fix.  We knew that when it came on, it would only be a matter of weeks before our greedy little hands would be tearing open presents under the Christmas tree.  It got us in the so-called spirit of the holidays, and we were not going to let that pass.

            And so it was that Rudolph aired, and we sat glued to the tiny black and white television with our five year old brother probably enjoying the special for the first time.  As it neared the end, we were somewhat disappointed because we knew that it would be another long year before we would get to see it again; however, there were plenty of other Christmas specials that would be airing in the days to come.  As the final credits rolled, my brothers left the room, and I was all alone sitting on my bed curled up under my blanket.  I mildly wondered what was coming on next though I knew that it was almost bedtime, for it was a school night, and nine or nine-thirty was usually the limit. 

            I kept my eyes glued to the television as a few commercials played followed by a brief fuzz out as the t.v. did in those distant days.  And then…

           

“Abracadabra I sit on his knee!

Presto!  Chango!

And now here’s me!

Hocus pocus we take her to bed!

Magic is fun!

We’re dead!”

It was Fats speaking bathed in a dark background – the creepy dummy promoting the upcoming film “Magic” with Anthony Hopkins!  I wasn’t scared.  Horror films have never scared me even at the age of nine.  However, I was intrigued and deeply fascinated.  I had to know about this story.  Who was the dummy?  What was the dummy?  Had it taken on a life of its own?  Was the ventriloquist a raving madman?  These and other questions obsessed me for weeks.  I asked my parents if I could see the movie.  Of course, this request was struck down due to the ‘R’ rating and my father’s chronic aversion to anything that has to do with the macabre.  Though I was a nine year old anomaly, I’ve often wondered how many other kids had the living bejesus scared out of them when a creepy and sinister looking dummy talking about death suddenly appeared on the screen right after the showing of Rudolph! 

            Anyway, after a few weeks I forgot about the trailer, and it was not until I was sixteen years old that I actually picked up a copy of Magic in a bookstore and read it for the first time.  Shortly thereafter, I was fortunate enough to catch the movie on television.  You can no longer find the book at Barnes and Noble or any retailers that I know of (at least where I live).  You’ll be lucky to find a dog-eared copy in a used bookstore.  However, fortunately there is the World Wide Web right at your fingertips, and there are plenty of copies available for pennies from various dealers worldwide.  I find it strange how watching a kid’s Christmas special back in 1977 led to a lifelong appreciation of a work (both novel and screenplay by Goldman are outstanding) that I believe is one of the best psychological “horror” stories of the latter part of the twentieth century.