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Tuesday, August 2, 2005 |
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I have installed Mac's OS X, at last. I spent the afternoon learning the ins and outs; dragging myself into the 21st century, finally. The learning curve isn't steep at all, it turns out, once you wrap your mind around it. In addition to finding and learning iTunes MP3 conversion, I'll go to Radio Userland on Wednesday and see about upgrading to their system 10 blogging software. I tell you this so that if feral suddenly goes silent, you'll know it's because everything blew up in my face and I can't get here from there. In other news, a friend brought me an unwanted bathtub today and we dragged it into the courtyard. Now I can fill it with water that has heated in the miles of garden hoses all day and maybe have my first actual bath bath in almost a year (followed I imagine by a quick rinse in the clean water of the indoor shower). I can't wait to try it out.
Life is good. |
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From today's Wiredonline: They Sing the Comet Electric (by David McCandless) : 02:00 AM Aug. 02, 2005 PT "Dissident scientists advocating a controversial theory of the universe are having a field day in the wake of NASA's Deep Impact comet collision earlier this month. Scientists promoting the Electric Universe model say their predictions for the comet mission appear to have been more accurate than NASA's. The Electric Universe theorists, collected at Thunderbolts.info, believe that electricity, when factored properly into astrophysics, plays a greater role in the cosmos than the standard gravitational model, which says electrical forces are insignificant on a cosmic scale. Proponents of the Electric Universe model say they can explain many of the bizarre phenomena and mysteries in cosmology, from a swath of anomalies seen in the solar system to unusual surface features on Mars and Jupiter's moon, Titan. The theory can also sweep away the need for theoretical "dark matter" and "dark energy." Comets are a cornerstone of the model, visible proof of the legitimacy of the theory as they traverse eccentric orbits around the sun. According to the model, comets are not inert balls of ice and rocky dust particles aggregated into a "dirty iceball" as standard comet theory holds. Instead, they are solid, asteroid-like rocks, containing little ice. Negatively charged with electricity, their motion through the positively charged solar wind triggers electrical discharges. These, not vaporized ice, produce the characteristic comet glow and tail. ..."
Click here for the whole story. |
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August is National Pain Awareness Month. www.painconnection.org/NationalPainAwareness/default.asp ***  Harold Bloom wrote about Uncle Walt in the Wall Street Journal recently--"Whitman's America" appeared in the 29 July edition, page A12, according to poeticsbloggerextraordinaire Ron Silliman. You can't read it online unless you're a subscriber, so look for an old hard copy lying around or email me and I'll send you the text. It's pretty good. Also thanks to Silliman for reminding me that July 27 was Stanley Kunitz's 100th birthday. C'est formidable! I posted an homage last year, and a poem. Here's another (whoops--I think it might be the same one, but I can't find my earlier post to compare...):  The Layers by Stanley Kunitz I have walked through many lives, some of them my own, and I am not who I was, though some principle of being abides, from which I struggle not to stray. When I look behind, as I am compelled to look before I can gather strength to proceed on my journey, I see the milestone dwindling toward the horizon and the slow fires trailing from the abandoned camp-sites over which the scavenger angels wheel on heavy wings. Oh, I have made myself a tribe out of my true affections, and my tribe is scattered! How shall my heart be reconciled to its feast of losses? In a rising wind the manic dust of my friends, those who fell along the way, bitterly stings my face. Yet I turn, I turn, exulting somewhat, with my will intact to go wherever I need to go, and every stone on the road precious to me. In my darkest night, when the moon was covered and I roamed through the wreckage, a nimbus-clouded voice directed me: "Live in the layers, not in the litter." Though I lack the art to decipher it, no doubt the next chapter in my book of transformations is already written. I am not done with my changes. (Source: The Body Electric: America's Best Poetry from The American Poetry Review, edited by Stephen Berg et al. [NY: Norton, 2000], p. 354.) *** I picked up my pickup at the mechanics' yesterday and left the Aerostar behind for electrical repairs. They've finished with it already and it's a good thing--by the time I got home in the Isuzu it was overheating. So I'll swap it over for the van later today. For what I've been spending every month for auto repairs in the past year I could make payments on a brand-new vehicle or pay my debts or move to North Carolina or open a bookstore. Larks in full voice out there this morning. Clouds and haze. Air sweet and moist. My brother's in excellent spirits. He got a new VHS tape in yesterday's mail--he's wearing out his half-dozen taped episodes of Star Trek, so I ordered four more used from Amazon last week--and between that and the new Levi's I bought for him in town yesterday he's one happy camper.
A dead wren. |
