Well whoopsin-a whoopsin

Welcome home, Artemis II!

So They Give It a Word

Chord:

A man steps out of sunlight,

sunlight that streams like grace,

still gaping at blue sky

staked across the emptiness of space,

into a history where shadows

assume a human face.

A man slips into silence

that began as a cry,

still trailing music

although reduced to the sigh

of an accordion

as it folds into its case.

Stuart Dybek.

Welcome Home, Artemis II!

GOOD MAINS!!!! pic.twitter.com/MAfwyVFEU5

— NTodd - Antifa IT Support 🇺🇦🐸 (@ntoddpax) April 11, 2026

Ngl, I was a bit anxious.  PTSD, you know.

It was so beautiful.  All of it:

Mission commander Reid Wiseman just told mission control: “Great view of the moon out window 2. Looks a little smaller than yesterday.”

Mission control replied cheekily: “Guess we’ll have to go back.”

I reckon we will, Jacki.

PS:

🥹 https://t.co/ZbRwDDCDBX pic.twitter.com/Lmeu7pO9Gn

— NTodd - Antifa IT Support 🇺🇦🐸 (@ntoddpax) April 11, 2026

You just got Litt up!

I was pleased to learn that I am not the only one who thinks Mike Cosgrove looks like Rick Hoffman.

Out of Mind

Oblivion:

I poured a whiskey and soda

watching the tree outside dissolve:

light going backward   pushed to corners

to the white sliver of wood

around the door.

Where was that river seething with light?

I recall the banks menaced by wasps

swollen on summer sap, a cement hollow

stuck with their strange cradles

a woozy stench of damp clay

the blunt poison of water snakes.

I do remember someone

close warm flesh pushed to the sand

the ocean a dark noise

echoing gulls and a wail of forlorn love

moonlight like yellowed keys

on his antique piano

music across the water    our song

tides pulled awful and endless

as the spine of memory.

The light is lost

my glass is hollow:

the door is luminous

like a firefly at midnight.

Rachel Sherwood.

#throwbackthursday

Can you guess what this is?  (2020)

Hang on to your hopes, my friend

That's an easy thing to say.

The missile to launch a missile was almost a secret.

Venus and the Ark:

Old and withered, two Ph.D.’s

from Earth hobbled slowly back

to their empty balloon, crying alone

for sense, for the troubling lack

of something they ought to do,

while countless fish slapped

and the waters grew, green came

taller and the happy rats sped

through integrated forests,

barking like dogs at the top

of the sky. But the two men,

that last morning of death, before

the first of light, watched the land

of Venus, its sweetless shore,

and thought, “This is the end.

This is the last of a man like me.”

Until they saw, over the mists

of Venus, two fish creatures stop

on spangled legs and crawl

from the belly of the sea.

And from the planet park

they heard the new fruit drop.

Anne Sexton.

All Rise

Selfie time!!! My crew snapped this photo of me and my bestie @Astro_Christina using one of the solar array wing cameras on our Orion spacecraft!

When we're not taking selfies, we take pictures of the Moon and Earth and record what we see for scientists back home. -Rise pic.twitter.com/NPa6FPM2fe

— NASA Artemis (@NASAArtemis) April 8, 2026

I love this crew's fun spirit.

Speaking of which, that shot reminded me of the Spirit of 76 mission during Gemini, so called because Gemini 6 and Gemini 7 conducted the first rendezvous in space.  During those days, interservice rivalry was a pretty big part of astronauts' jokes and gibes (still is?), and the crews on this mission were mixed: Schirra, Stafford, and Lovell were Naval Academy grads, whilst Borman was a West Pointer...

...so naturally Wally and Tom had to prank Frank with a BEAT ARMY sign in their window (a couple weeks earlier, the Army-Navy game ended in a 7-7 tie).

Now Artemis II also got some rendezvous practice with the ICPS (interim cryogenic propulsion stage), but the rocket stage did not express as much 'tude...

شیراز

Been listening to a lot of Ali's stuff of late.  This one is I think my absolute favorite: the visual and auditory beauty is so great that I can't even get mad that it's shot in portrait.

Apropos of this recent news item:

Iranian musician Ali Ghamsari has been performing outside the Damavand power station— which supplies a significant share of Tehran’s electricity — in a symbolic protest against US threats to civilian and energy infrastructure.

A few years back:

After the Iranian authorities banned musician Ali Ghamsari from performing “until further notice” for refusing to remove a female singer from his most recent concert in Tehran, he announced on his Instagram page that he “wasn’t sorry at all.”

I fervently hope he and his people can continue making music.

ξένος

The Stranger:

Moonlight cold

and untouchable

like mercury

cascades through

an open window 

to the mirror.

Who is staring at me

in the glass

with my own eyes?

How many years

I evaded

their gaze

favoring the darkest,

obscurest waters,

rain-muddled rivers,

the cracking

windowpanes

of fractured sleep.

I heard my footsteps 

as though they were 

another’s

haunting me no end

in dreams

where I’m lost

in a labyrinth,

chased through sleep

in frenzied circles.

Now the moon wells up—

silvery rivulets

in the mirror.

The stranger emerges

over and over

out of the glass.

Melissánthi.

Overview Effect

Earthset captured through the Orion spacecraft window at 6:41 p.m. EDT, April 6, 2026, during the Artemis II crew’s flyby of the Moon. Image Credit: NASA

We sure can do great, illuminating things when we put our minds to it.  Costs for the SLS and Orion, et al, are higher than I would like, but much better spent this way than on blowing up people and things in Iran (and Venezuela, and...).

Godspeed, crew of Artemis II.

Selah.

I'm not a human, I am a dove

I'm your conscience, I am love.

Ἄρτεμι, καὶ χαρίεν φῶς ἑὸν ἀνδρὶ δίδου

Prayer to Artemis:

Goddess of culverts and lighthouses, goddess

                     of burrows and coves and safety in narrow escapes,

stand where you stand and shine

                     like kindness on our children.

From you they learn right and wrong, and how to wear capes

                     for hunting or self-concealment, how to find

a turtle’s egg-cache, or a rabbit warren,

                     how to distinguish a dangerous

impulse from a lovely whim,

                     when to keep a flower or a friend,

and where it’s safe to swim.

                     It’s hard work, I know, to shine all the time,

but it’s never pointless.

                     Sometimes it’s divine.

Diotimus.