I'll be alone, dancing, you know it, baby

Anthem of my generation.

We’re Floating in the Moonlit Sky

The Streets of Air:

All night waiting, in an empty house
under dry electric moons, they cast
no shadow, a man striding impatiently
sucking a dry pipe, waiting
an empty sacrificial vessel waiting
without patience to be filled with God. 

He said,
                —There was a scratching at my door
the noise of some one fingering the latch
once, but I opened and only found the night
empty of sound, empty—
                                            The images of drouth
in a parched land growing, acacias in the sand
with thorns and thornlike leaves that cast no shadow,
dry leaves silently moving in the sun. 

A wall rose there, of hewn enormous stones
laid without mortar and a gateway, barred
and skies closed in.
                                  But you shall hear the thunder
of bursting walls, the gates of night swing wide,
and journeys will be set toward the thunder. 

Your path shall be the empty streets of air. 

Malcolm Cowley.

You Might Get What You’re After

Ah, The Burning of Washington:

Following the defeat of American forces at the Battle of Bladensburg on August 24, 1814, a British army led by Major-General Robert Ross marched on Washington, D.C. That evening, British soldiers and sailors set fire to multiple public buildings, including the Presidential Mansion (White House), United States Capitol, and Washington Navy Yard.

Here's a before and after picture of the White House:

Damn the bastards to Hell who did this.

<exits singing, I'm an ordinary guy...>

Sometimes a Cigar Is Just a Good Smokeshow

 
Note to self: do not repeat yesterday’s mistakes.

...

Silence:

     I have known the silence of the stars and of the sea,
And the silence of the city when it pauses,
And the silence of a man and a maid,
And the silence of the sick
When their eyes roam about the room.
And I ask: For the depths
Of what use is language? A beast of the field moans a few times
When death takes its young.
And we are voiceless in the presence of realities—
We cannot speak. 

Edgar Lee Masters.

First Earthrise

Above is the first image of Earth from the distance of the Moon, taken by Lunar Orbiter 1 on August 23, 1966 (2008 reprocessed version).  And to think that just a couple years later, Bill Anders would take his famous shot during the Apollo 8 mission.

There was another lunar event on this date, just a few years back:

Why India Celebrates National Space Day on August 23

India celebrates National Space Day on August 23rd to honor the historic success of Chandrayaan-3—India's third lunar mission—which successfully soft-landed on the Moon's south pole on August 23, 2023. This achievement made India the first country to reach the Moon’s south pole, and only the fourth country ever to achieve a soft lunar landing (after the US, USSR/Russia, and China).

Prime Minister Narender Modi’s Official Statement:

“From now onwards, 23rd August will be celebrated as National Space Day in India. This will inspire generations to come.”

The more the merrier...

A drop upon the windowpane

The sea awaits the dawn.

Will You Call My Name?

But Not Forgotten:

I think, no matter where you stray,

That I shall go with you a way.

Though you may wander sweeter lands,

You will not soon forget my hands,

Nor yet the way I held my head,

Nor all the tremulous things I said.

You still will see me, small and white

And smiling, in the secret night,

And feel my arms about you when

The day comes fluttering back again.

I think, no matter where you be,

You'll hold me in your memory

And keep my image, there without me,

By telling later loves about me.

Dorothy Parker.

When you're gone

How can I even try to go on?

 

Getting to Be That Time of Year

"Darkness":

There were four angels round my bed, I
With burning candlesticks outspread—
Two at my feet, two at my head.
They tricked the darkness of its dread,
          My four angels,
          My bright candles.

There came a man of vision clear,
He said: "The angels are not here,
They are phantoms born of fear.
I speak, and they will disappear—
          Those four angels,
          Those bright candles." 

Out they went, and there instead
Rolled the universe outspread
In tumbling terror round my head;
So that I go afraid to bed,
          With no angels,
          With no candles. 

Ruth Manning-Sanders.

I'd give the moon if it were mine to give

Settle down there, George Bailey.

Colore di pioggia e di ferro

Colors of Rain and Iron:

You said: death, silence, solitude,
like love, life. Words
of our provisional images.
And the wind rose light each morning
and the season colored with rain and iron
passed over the rocks, over
our mewed-up murmur of the damned.
The truth is distant still.
And tell me, man cleft upon the cross
and you with hands thick with blood,
how shall I answer those that ask?
Now, now: before another wind does rise,
another stillness fills the eyes,
before another rust flourishes.

Salvatore Quasimodo.

Empty, Incomplete, and Searching

Big day for V probes!

First:

A Titan-Centaur rocket carrying the Viking 1 spacecraft launches from Complex 41 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station on Aug. 20, 1975. Viking 1 touched down on the red planet on July 20, 1976, becoming the first truly successful landing on Mars. Viking 1 was the first of a pair of complex deep space probes that were designed to reach Mars and to collect evidence on the possibility on life on Mars.

Second:

Voyager 2 launched on Aug. 20, 1977, about two weeks before the Sept. 5 launch of Voyager 1. Why the reversal of order? The two were sent on different trajectories, and Voyager 1 was put on a path to reach its planetary targets, Jupiter and Saturn, ahead of Voyager 2.

Both lovely missions, although I've always been more enamored of the latter because it visited my favorite planet, Jupiter.  I guess I was also more aware of the Voyager spacecraft since they launched and started sending photos and data when I was a bit older.

I took a summer astronomy class at the University of Toledo when I was a lad, which was held in the school's planetarium.  Really fun all around (got to see sunspots through a telescope and filter!), but I was most captivated when we watched the Great Red Spot spinning on a huge projector screen, thanks to Voyagers 1 & 2.  That was even before Cosmos.

We live in a pretty cool universe, and at a pretty cool time when we've gotten a chance to know it a little bit better.  Hope we continue to survive as a species so we can learn more...

#throwbackthursday

Sadly, that classic ballcap is somewhere in the Sound thanks to a rude gust of wind on the ferry.  If I ever see an orca wearing it, I'll be so pissed. (2015)