terribilis ut castrorum acies ordinata*

I listen to this soundtrack on the regular at night.

* There seems to be a typo in my copy of the book: castrorum = of the military camp; castorum = of the beavers (which, in context, is rather fitting, iykyk).

quasi liber et pictura

The Signals:

Twinwalled faces
and legs
and frontier dresses
tall limbs gazing
at border garrisons
of erotic women
as they fold themselves
in two
in four
at eighteen
and whisper
in the ears
of the northern wind
wonderful breast
I went to Skopelos to Skopia
to every shipyard
almost feverish
to the shop of love
to the library the grocer
the movies the lift
everywhere the signals
the written notes

of erotic conspiracy

Yiorgos Chouliaras.

Speaking of the Enterprise

Veteran astronauts Fred Haise and Gordon Fullerton completed the fifth and final glide test aboard Enterprise OTD in 1977. The Approach and Landing Tests (ALT) took place between February and October 1977 to test the Shuttle's flight characteristics prior to its first spaceflight in 1981.

— NASA History Office (@NASAhistory) October 26, 2026

Haise was the LMP on Apollo 13, and retired after the ALT phase was complete.  Fullerton was on the support crews for Apollo 14 through Apollo 17, and went on to pilot STS-3, then command STS-51-F.

Anyway, it was exciting times.  We were on the verge of a new era of routine spaceflight, or so I thought...

One Must Never Place a Phaser Set to Kill on the Stage if It Isn’t Going to Go Off

RIP Walter Koenig https://t.co/W7eEOG6mrp

— St. Olaf Stories (@StOlafStories) October 26, 2026

Guess I'll be watching some Trek and B5 this week (but not tonight, WNBA finals).  Warp speed, Mr Chekov.

PS - Walter did, in fact, write plays.

You're Throwing Your Whole Education Away

Can't embed this one due to its "sensitive nature", so I went with another favorite that also has a line that I utter (in myriad forms) surprisingly often.

PS - Watched M*A*S*H, Alien, and Top Gun this weekend in honor of Tom Skerrit (and lots of late, lamented costars).

秋の風

some words are better left to silence autumn wind Basho

— Basho Society (@BashoSociety) October 25, 2026

He Says When You Gonna Make Up Your Mind?

I have, in fact, begun a long-overdue re-read of Left Hand of Darkness.  In it, Le Guin explores a world called Gethen by its denizens (Winter by the alien humanoids) wherein gender ain't a thing.  I had a chuckle over this passage last night:

A man wants his virility regarded, a woman wants her femininity appreciated, however indirect and subtle the indications of regard and appreciation. On Winter they will not exist. One is respected and judged only as a human being. It is an appalling experience.

Strange reading this in the Year of our Lord 2026 as I see on my timeline how much men are showing their asses over rape and other appalling things they inflict upon women.

<exits singing, You say that things change my dear>

Deus sive Natura

I like this little timeline serendipity.  

Brought to mind one of my old science heroes, Johannes Kepler.  His work trying to understand the mind of G-d through understanding his Creation, reading the Divine Plan in the geometry of the Heavens, had a gravitational influence on my own worldview.  Same for the likes of Spinoza.

And since I recently revisited The Name of the Rose, it also brings to mind Bacon (both Roger and Francis), as well as opposing philosophies characterized by venerable Jorge.

In the movie¹, there is a brief scene where a novice (or some monk at any rate) is reading aloud to blind Jorge, and we hear reference to Ecclesiastes 1:17-18:

17 And I gave my heart to know wisdom, and to know madness and folly: I perceived that this also is vexation of spirit.

18 For in much wisdom is much grief: and he that increaseth knowledge increaseth sorrow.

To a certain extent, I concur.  Knowing and being aware of shit does surely increase my sorrow in our benighted epoch, as we are often at the mercy of MAGA idiots, anti-vaxxers, climate change deniers, et al.  Yet the verses actually are a declaration that pursuit of wisdom is meaningless and futile, and that's where I get off the bus.

Instead, I hop on what Francis Bacon espoused in Novum Organum (The New Instrument or True Directions Concerning the Interpretation of Nature):

I

Man, being the servant and interpreter of Nature, can do and understand so much and so much only as he has observed in fact or in thought of the course of nature. Beyond this he neither knows anything nor can do anything.

II

Neither the naked hand nor the understanding left to itself can effect much. It is by instruments and helps that the work is done, which are as much wanted for the understanding as for the hand. And as the instruments of the hand either give motion or guide it, so the instruments of the mind supply either suggestions for the understanding or cautions.

III

Human knowledge and human power meet in one; for where the cause is not known the effect cannot be produced. Nature to be commanded must be obeyed; and that which in contemplation is as the cause is in operation as the rule.

William (again, in the movie) at one point expresses it thus to Adso (who really needs to pee): in order to command nature, one must first learn to obey it (naturae enim non imperatur, nisi parendo).  In the book, the idea is not presented in such a pat manner, but rather is expounded upon a number of times, like this:

[Roger² Bacon] spoke clearly and calmly of the Antichrist, and was aware of the import of the corruption of the world and the decline of learning. He taught, however, that there is only one way to prepare against his coming: study the secrets of nature, use knowledge to better the human race.

Which brings to mind Proverbs 18:15: The heart of the prudent acquires knowledge, And the ear of the wise seeks knowledge.  And from where I sit, to be an instrument of G-d's peace, one must be an instrument of learning.

In conclusion: G-d is in the rain.

1 - LOL, I couldn't find a parallel scene or reference in the book, so I asked Google to help me, and the fucking thing hallucinated an entire passage.  Brother William laughs.

2 - Eco plays some of his usual games to sneak in anachronistic ideas.

There's no comfort in the truth

Pain is all you'll find.

The Body Keeps Score

Intrusion:

After I had cut off my hands
and grown new ones

something my former hands had longed for
came and asked to be rocked.

After my plucked out eyes
had withered, and new ones grown

something my former eyes had wept for
came asking to be pitied.

Denise Levertov.

Above the Kármán Line

80 years since our view of the world changed:

On October 24, 1946, a V-2 rocket captured the first-ever photo of Earth from space.

While these grainy, black-and-white images might not look like much today, they were a huge deal at the time, because no one had ever seen Earth from space before.

The V-2 rocket launched from the White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico. It carried a 35-millimeter motion picture camera that captured a new frame every second and a half. The rocket soared to an altitude of about 65 miles before falling back to Earth.

Both the rocket and the camera were destroyed after crashing into the Earth at a speed of about 340 miles per hour. But the film survived because it was protected inside a steel case. Scientists had to drive out into the New Mexico desert to retrieve the film. When they saw the images for the first time, the scientists were literally jumping up and down with joy.

The only good use of rockets.

Selah.

The Circuit

And this reminded me of Logan's Run.

I was JUST thinking about you

The Shirt:

The shirt touches his neck
and smooths over his back.
It slides down his sides.
It even goes down below his belt—
down into his pants.
Lucky shirt.

Jane Kenyon.

PS - Reminded me of an old Brut ad.

Entrance of the Night

Happy Birthday, Earth!

The Book of Jubilees shows us the pattern: it was exactly fifty jubilees, 2450 years, from creation to the entry into the promised land. And this motif was well caught by Ussher. This is why his figure of 4004 BC for creation was so important to him. By his time it was known that Jesus was born in 4 BC or earlier, since Herod died in that year. His date for creation meant that there were exactly 4000 years from creation to Christ. Moreover, he calculated, Solomon’s temple was completed in the year 3000 from creation, so that there were exactly 1000 years from the temple to Christ, who was the fulfilment of the temple.
...
Although he was hardly a scientist at all, properly speaking, in this aspect of his work he was scientific. From his biblical figures he had determined that creation took place in the year 4004 BC. But how did he know the month and the day? He was sure that it was in the autumn, probably because the Jewish New Year falls at that time. He knew it was a Sunday, for it was the first day of the week according to Genesis. He looked in the ‘astronomical tables’ for the autumnal equinox of the year 4004 BC, and the first Sunday after the equinox was 23rd October. It was on that day that light was created, the first act of creation. All this was quite scientific. The tables used were almost certainly the Rudolfian tables of Kepler and Brahe, and Ussher’s use of them was very accurate, within half a day.

I'm no scientist, either, but I'm guessing the real age of our planet is probably closer to a Day of Brahma (4.32 billion years) than 6000 years, although I hear the jury's still out on science.

<exits singing, Old now is earth and none may count her days>