You don't have to be rich to be my girl

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was the Prince Rogers Nelson of his time.

Serenity

Another Firefly:

In a turning instant, my head
Catches light of a leaping star
Over my left shoulder in a
Green region of space darkened
Into distance beyond distance,
A cold, green star, not rising like
Sons and empires, slow as breath,
In the way of stars, but as no
Darkened water could have mirrored
The partly glimpsed meteor in
Surging reversal of falling—
That sort of rising. They return
Bright rightings of our sinisters,
The mirrors; but this rise of light—
As if in summer nights at still
Moments a death could yet retract,
Or a dim candle gutter on—
Freshens the held air; far away,
Somewhere a breath has been taken.

John Hollander.

Ad astra

“We’ve never been in this vantage point in the history of humankind.” The Artemis II solar eclipse was a lot. In a good way. (54 minutes of totality! That's way longer than we get on Earth.) Explore more from the mission: https://t.co/VTUbJMrjIa https://t.co/TklYxWjjD0

— NASA Artemis (@NASAArtemis) October 28, 2026

What a magical time that was.  And lookie!

Stacked and ready for what's next. 🚀 The core stage of the SLS (Space Launch System) rocket for NASA's Artemis III mission has been joined with the twin solid rocket boosters at @NASAKennedy, bringing us one step closer to testing and flight. Read more: https://t.co/onOoFiy5Md https://t.co/pBikDDy5lL

— NASA Marshall (@NASA_Marshall) October 28, 2026

What magic will Artemis III conjure for us next year (sure hope the contractors have their test articles ready)?

Excelsior!

Tum podex carmen extulit horridulum

When I read Adso's dream, I imagine Hieronymus Bosch.

* Line crossed out in pencil.

The Almanac of Time:

The almanac of time hangs in the brain ;
The seasons numbered by the inward sun,
The winter years, move in the pit of man ;
His graph is measured as the page of pain
Shifts to the redwombed pen.

The calendar of age hangs in the heart,
A lover's thought tears down the dated sheet,
The inch of time's protracted to a foot
By youth and age, the mortal state and thought
Ageing both day and night.

The word of time lies on the chaptered bone,
The seed of time is sheltered in the loin :
The grains of life must seethe beneath the sun,
[The syllables be said and said again :]*
Time shall belong to man.

Dylan Thomas.

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.