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Q: What’d you do this afternoon?
A: I ate a salad and a sandwich and read while listening to Suede on the stereo.
A Raga For Every Weather
I may have given thought to ragas, the main musical format of classical Indian music, more than most folks who don’t hail from the sub-continent, but I wouldn’t call myself an expert. Yes, I did have a phase of buying every Ravi Shankar album I could find. And yes, I did at one point own a sitar (even learned how to string it). But that’s not why I bring up ragas.
I bring them up because some of them roughly correspond to the time of day. Think of it, soundtracks for your morning. Or your afternoon. Or evening. For me, it might be Mogwai. Except Mogwai really only works if you find yourself on a rainy day, with the occasional sun ray slashing through the clouds. We all have music we put on, depending on the weather, or whether we’re going out, but do we have music we play for a specific time of day?
It’s afternoon as I write this, and so I found an afternoon raga to put on: Bhimpalasi. This also happens to be my favorite raga, mainly because of the title. It’s bhimpin’. If it’s afternoon where you are, use Spotify or some other internet device to listen to it.
It starts out meditative. Most ragas do. Ravi runs through the ascending notes, then the descending notes. This is how he’s going to climb up and down through the song, for roughly the next ten minutes. The music is bright, the beat a steady pace. Not too fast, but not slow. Perfect for the afternoon, which is when you really want to hit your groove. The steady climb after lunch to the quitting hours. This mood and musical attitude could easily stretch itself out another hour or two, and I wouldn’t mind. Buddha box style.
The Guardian put out few podcasts last year (in the Guardian Culture Podcast) that tried something similar. There was one that was designed to be listened to while searching for Christmas presents, another designed to be heard first thing in the morning with a cup of coffee, another should be listened to at 5:30pm while shopping at the grocery store. I haven’t tried these yet, mainly because I haven’t thought of it. If you do, let me know what you think. Because even if we don’t listen to things designed to be heard at a specific time, we rarely listen to nothing.
Gripes About Tennis Grips? Not Here.
I started playing tennis again. Since it’d been a while, around fifteen years, since my last lesson, I took a refresher course. Turns out, they have a new-fangled way of holding a tennis racquet these days.
When I first learned how to swing a racket, the continental grip was all the rage. Think about it like this: a tennis racket handle is a rectangle with the corners taken off, so if you look at it from the bottom it looks like an octagon. If you hold the racket in front of you (so the frame is all you see, not the strings) the continental grip would the right bevel run right into the crook of your thumb. It’s like holding an axe.
Well, I was told people no longer did that. Now, everyone learns the semi-western grip, which has the racket twisted 90 degrees in your hand. This makes it easier to hit topspin, to play back on the baseline and drive the ball over the net.
At first I was annoyed. Then, I realized this is kind of awesome. This means that tennis is evolving. It’s a changing sport, with fads and techniques that work, but are far from finished. Which means it won’t become the checkers of racquet sports. And may mean that my great-great-great-great grandchildren will think it’s cool I played tennis, and not quaint.
(Source: enormousorange)
The Moon Is Not Made Of Cheese.
(Source: enormousorange)
(Source: enormousorange)
The Night Before Christmas, I Discover a Black Hole.
Cygnus X-1
It was the night before Christmas, and after dinner and family fun time, I took my copy of the National Audubon Society Field Guide to the Night Sky outside. It was a clear night. Where my parents live, there isn’t a lot of light pollution.
I cracked the book to the section on the December sky. Start with what you know, right? The Bigger Dipper was below the horizon. Orion was behind a neighbor’s house. Cassiopeia was clearly visible directly above me. It was more of an M than a W.
Using the charts, my eyes traveled south to three bright stars in a triangle, then three more stars trailing down the middle to the horizon. Cygnus, the Swan. Also known as the Northern Cross. Cygnus was setting, meaning it was pointed upside down on its flight below the horizon. From this perspective it looked like a bungee jumper, legs close together, arms straight out wide. The star at the top, the head of the jumper, that’s Deneb. According to my book, that’s part of the Summer Triangle, with Vega and Altar. Reading those names out loud felt so sci-fi.
There are four stars that make up the body of the jumper. Next to the third star down is Cygnus X-1, famed X-ray source and possible BLACK HOLE. A black hole. In the night sky. I can point at it. I can point it out.
When I got back inside and warmed up, I did a little further research. Cygnus X-1 has an event horizon, or point of no return, of about 16 miles. It’s 6,100 light years away. Which means, you can travel 35,859,614,776,420,012 miles to visit it, just make sure you don’t go the last 16.
Using the internet (cheating), I discovered Kepler 22-b is also in Cygnus. If you haven’t been following astronomical news, it’s a recently discovered planet that revolves around a star like our sun, and has a possible life-supporting orbit. It’s twice our size, and only 600 light years (3,527,175,223,910,165 miles) away. Neighbors, really.
At some point in the future, you can point to Cygnus at then tell your great-great-great-grandkids that a rocket ship is on its way there.
And then you can point out the BLACK HOLE.The next night, I took my wife outside to show her Cygnus X-1. While I was explaining the location of Deneb, and the walk down to the black hole, we saw a shooting star. Technically, it was an Ursid.
(Source: sharkspacesuit)
Stargazin’
This past summer, out in the wilderness of Wisconsin, I made a sort of confusing discovery. There were a dozen of us at a bonfire, all college educated to some degree. It was a perfect night, and the stars were out, Milky Way dripping its way across the sky.
But when we put our heads together, we could only identify three constellations between us: Cassiopeia, the Big Dipper, and the Little Dipper. That’s it. If we were lost at sea in the Age of Discovery, we’d have no idea how to get home. That’s a lame way to say we couldn’t navigate by the stars, but you know what I’m talking about.
The next day I swore to correct this, and went into three book shops to find a collection of star maps. I know, I know, there’s an app for that. Even the bookstore people pointed it out. Well, I don’t want an app, I want knowledge.
A few bookstores later, I found it. The National Audubon Society Field Guide to the Night Sky. Armed with this book, and a hopefully a few clear nights to come, I will be reporting on my discoveries.
Watch this space.*
*no puns are ever intended, unless I find them clever after you bring them up to me.
What’s in a name?
I’m a lifelong Packer fan (first time caller, long time listener, God Bless the Packers), but I’ve decided that I really like this name for a football team: Giants. New York Giants. It’s like being called the Denver Mountains. And why not take your name from the impressive, awe-inspiring Manhattan skyline? I think flying into New York and seeing the skyscrapers packed together for the first time is the best preparation we have for when we finally visit the giants of Jack’s bean stalk.
(Source: enormousorange)
I Keep Forgetting To Water This Thing.
(Source: sharkspacesuit)
(Source: enormousorange)
