Standing in the shadow

 

Photo by Canadian photographer Andrew Yee in Toronto

I told the Resident Fan Boy I'd scout ahead for a view of the partial lunar eclipse, seeing as we'd gone up prematurely the night before. 

Out on the roof before 9 pm, unmistakeable, the shadowy red/black orb with a gleaming white-gold top.

I texted: "YES!", seconds before our hall neighbour suddenly appeared in the bright rectangle of the doorway.

"Can you see the eclipse?" she inquired.

I gestured excitedly to the south-east, just beyond her viewpoint.  "Are you kidding? Just come and see!"

(To be fair, it seems most people aren't sure about their compass directions.)

As she texted and phoned her parents, the Resident Fan Boy and younger daughter arrived, and I guided them a little further along the fenced walkway, where there was a gap between two trees.  Younger daughter gasped.

About half a dozen people turned up, with their phones alight, alas, but they soon turned them off.

As the western horizon darkened, the stars pierced the indigo sky overhead. Younger daughter murmured, "I'm looking for Orion."

"Oh, that's a winter constellation; you don't see him in the summer."  I pointed to the north-east.  "See that 'W'?  That's Cassiopeia."  I turned to the high west.  "And that's the Big Dipper.  Can you see the handle?"

We waited for the peak of the eclipse, the stars multiplying and burning brighter. Then the RFB and younger daughter, shivering a bit in their summer tops, withdrew. 

Wrapped in my fleece jacket, I leaned on the narrow walkway's rather rickety railing, gazing eastward at the shadow of our planet across the moon, and listening idly to the small mob of relatively youthful friends mis-identifying the constellations.

Jigsaw justification

I've been wasting time on an online jigsaw puzzle site, but I justify it with the education I'm getting.  I find myself drawn to the artwork ones, a lot of which are pretty damn twee, but there's also a plethora of Manet, Monet, Dürer, Botticelli, and Van Gogh.  

Especially Van Gogh. 

Tons of Van Gogh.

What fascinates me is how the bits of the puzzle - as I pull them together without referring to the organic original image, thank you very much - are just almost indistinguishable blobs and slashes of colour, or images that I fancy are there.  The closer I come to completing it, the colours become stronger and the elements clearer, and the lines more exact.  Are my eyes doing the work of bringing the art into focus? Or is it my brain filling in, much as it does when I'm listening to far-off familiar music, that I can't fully hear?

The finished picture is almost unrecognisable from what I have imagined at the beginning.

Is that how great artists work? Placing the lines, strokes, and colours just so, to let the viewer knit them together?

I came across a Van Gogh I didn't know.  It was brilliant - clusters of strong colours, looking like a bouquet of bright flowers.  As I worked, it became a scene of workers in a yellow field, with oranges and greens and a golden sky.

The painting turned out to be The Red Vineyards near Arle - and apparently, it's the one work for which there's a record of Van Gogh making a sale.  It's now in Russia.

I love it.  

Perhaps I'm not wasting my time.

(Yeah, I probably am.)

Drawn like a moth

Garrison Keillor, who has taken gentle, Minnesotan swipes at Unitarians for years, put this up on his blog/newsletter/column/whatever it is this morning:

How many Unitarians does it take to changed a lightbulb?  -- "Unitarians believe that incandescent and flourescent and neon are equally valid paths to light, and if, in your journey, you feel the need to change your lightbulb, we will come to your home and recite a poem about radiance and perform a dance about the rising of the sun."

I grew up Unitarian, and still consider myself one.  

He's not wrong.

However, I won't be coming to your house to dance around your lifebulb.

Although I do have one that needs changing...