Today, August 21, 2017, marked an event that was advertised for a month as "The Great American Eclipse" on many television stations in America. Certainly eclipse mania seemed to take many people, and speaking for myself, it was very fun to see.
Out here at western Washington we got about 90% occlusion as we were just outside of the full occlusion zone. I would have loved to go to Oregon for this but the traffic was horrendous.
My dad and I decided we had a good spot out in his driveway and set out to enjoy ourselves. I snapped this without telling him I was going to:
Surprise, Dad! Selfie!
My dad decided that he was going whole hog on this event and set out to create a pinhole camera so that we could observe the eclipse without using shades.
He self-describes as a pack rat. We talked about whether or not that qualifies as hoarding, but as I myself have strong hoarder tendencies that I fight continuously, I have to say that for him, no, it doesn't. But because he's such a pack rat, and almost never throws any previous project away, he had enough materials to build this:
The SHTPV (Super High-Tech Pinhole Viewer) & my Dad
I decided to call it the Super High-Tech Pinhole Viewer, or SHTPV. I wish I had pictures of the build process, because it was reportedly quite involved. He was busy with it in his shop for days. It is composed primarily of frames that he used to use to weather seal his front door windows in winter as they used to be single-pane glass. They were upgraded (I think) somewhere around 2001. That is wrapped in black plastic and is in turn mounted on a dolly with two support legs. It has an adjustable pole at the end to provide support.
I love this man. He's so inventive and creative, and doesn't get enough praise for it. I need to work on that.
We took several photos throughout the morning. Right now I'm just putting those up but I might edit this post later with more refined versions of these pictures.
Eclipse 001
Eclipse 002
Eclipse 003
Eclipse 004
Eclipse 005
Eclipse 006
Eclipse 007
Eclipse 008
Eclipse 009
Eclipse 010
Eclipse 011
Eclipse 012
Eclipse 013
I got a total of 117 shots of this, these were the best 13. Below I've included some other interesting photos that I took during the event.
I took two pictures of the sun directly, one with my solar shades over the lens, one without, at different times. (I admit that my solar shades said to not use them with any other optical advice. I ignored the warning.) The shot on the left is about 33% occlusion while the right is at maximum event, about 90% occlusion. The light so overawes the sensor in the camera that it just shows up as a white blob, while the camera itself saw the filter as the focusing barrier.
33% Occlusion - Filtered
90% Occlusion - Unfiltered
I tried to take a panoramic view at maximum event, but I failed to account for the phone's automatic light filtering, and it really just looks like a noon day shot, so I'm not posting it.
In all the event was quite surreal. It seemed that the world go very quiet, very quickly. Many of the birds in our area stopped their singing, and even my dad's cat seemed subdued at the moment. I don't recall hearing much traffic, or even the noise of the neighborhood. It's like we all took a long moment to just stop and look at the sky. The increased shade immediately lowered the temperature around us, and I even got a bit of a chill.
All in all quite the experience. I'm very happy I got to share it with my dad.
And I can't end this without paying some cat tax, so here's Callie, who was super excited that her people were outside:
I made a deal with myself over the weekend. While I don't have a day job, I should treat my writing as my day job. That means wake up early, get ready for "work" and go to "work".
So far I've skipped my first day on the job, and I'm late on day two...
Also as I write this my cat is in my face alternatively demanding more food or thanking me for the food I have already given her this morning. At least I don't have chicken this morning. This cat and chicken... ha!
I've had some very vivid dreams over the last few nights, all of which I was somehow certain would make great story elements, none of which I seem to be able to remember. Alas.
The plan right now is to focus on finishing Lorcan. It's my first, I keep returning to it. Every time I say it's dead and gone I get a new idea and it comes back for a week and then I let it languish for three.
So, to quote a classic song, it's a new dawn, it's a new day. Time to get to writing.
Gold Beach put on a heck of a show this year, and some of the folks around me thought they ought to try and compete. No contest, the show on the Rogue was amazing. But kudos to the indie groups, lots of heart.
My brother came down for the show. It's been a lot of fun having him here to hang out. Gotta work tomorrow, let him explore the place on his own. Should've arranged this sooner. Oh well.
I got little to no views on my writing, which is fair. Blogs are a terrible spot to tell a story when other tools exist, so no more of KotEI here. Lorcan and company will now live on story-based websites.
I'm heading into NaNoWriMo
and will be working on continuing my story with Molly Keating, "The Isthmus Gate." I've got it up on Wattpad and Fiction Press. Pick your poison. I'm presently re-posting the story with minor tweaks to get me to a starting point on Nov 1.
I hereby pledge my intent to write a 50,000-word novel in one month’s time. By invoking an absurd, month-long deadline on such an enormous undertaking, I understand that notions of “craft,” “brilliance,” and “competency” are to be chucked right out the window, where they will remain, ignored, until they are retrieved for the editing process. I understand that I am a talented person, capable of heroic acts of creativity, and I will give myself enough time over the course of the next month to allow my innate gifts to come to the surface, unmolested by self-doubt, self-criticism, and other acts of self-bullying.
During the month ahead, I realize I will produce clunky dialogue, cliched characters, and deeply flawed plots. I agree that all of these things will be left in my rough draft, to be corrected and/or excised at a later point. I understand my right to withhold my manuscript from all readers until I deem it completed. I also acknowledge my right as author to substantially inflate both the quality of the rough draft and the rigors of the writing process should such inflation prove useful in garnering me respect and attention, or freedom from participation in onerous household chores.
I acknowledge that the month-long, 50,000-word deadline I set for myself is absolute and unchangeable, and that any failure to meet the deadline, or any effort on my part to move the deadline once the adventure has begun, will invite well-deserved mockery from friends and family. I also acknowledge that, upon successful completion of the stated noveling objective, I am entitled to a period of gleeful celebration and revelry, the duration and intensity of which may preclude me from participating fully in workplace activities for days, if not weeks, afterward.
It is upon us once more. National Novel Writing Month is here in 31 blindingly fast days. Of course I'm going to try it again. This time I will win. I need a story I can complete in 50,000 words, which is going to be a real challenge for me since I don't seem to get stories going below the 25,000 word mark. I balked on Isthmus Gate because I didn't have the world building done yet. I chickened out on the Barsoomian Jephthah thing, but there's some impetus to go back to that. (It's one of my favorite Bible stories, full of outcasts who suddenly become useful to the powerful and has all the violence and war making you could want in a fantasy adventure.) But maybe what I really want is this:
STARSHIP GENESIS Humanity has survived the environmental and social catastrophes of the early 21st century. It was a narrow thing, but the move to send millions of humans into deep space to seed a distant star gave humanity enough breathing room to fix the problems.
The world is at peace, and more or less serene, but there is a secret. A long time ago, during the most tumultuous years of the changes that saved Earth and humanity, the ark ship Genesis learned that their generations-long quest would be a failure. Their home star was not suited for life. They chose to come home, and told Earth they were coming back.
That message was lost in the chaos, and now no one is listening to those channels.
But Genesis is almost home and a civilization of humans who were taught that Mother Earth was their destiny have come back to a world that can neither sustain them nor welcome them.
I more-or-less copied this from that TV show on Siffy (sorry, SyFy) "Ascension," which had a killer concept but betrays the whole set up 1/3 of the way through the story. Now, conspiracy? Romance? Alien Invasion? All Three?
I consider myself reasonably read. It's very subjective. I do, however, like to joke that one doesn't really need to read the classics, one just needs to watch enough Star Trek.
Enough of this pseudo affiliation with the works of Shakespeare and others is sufficient to bluff most folks that you have actually studied classical literature. As always, one must remember to steer clear of folks who do actually know their shit.
Some examples?
Off the top of my head, Ricardo Montalban's Khan Noonian Singh jumps right out. As he lies dying at the end of Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan (still one of the best Trek movies ever), he quotes Melville:
"To the last, I will grapple with thee... from Hell's heart, I stab at thee! For hate's sake, I spit my last breath at thee!"
Between that and "Call me Ishmael", it's an easy thing.
Lets travel back in time to the Original Series, next. Back to a time when they hadn't sorted it all out yet, when Vulcans were a conquered species (I suspect Amerind similarities), Romulans didn't exist, and Kirk grew up on a colony world, not in Iowa, and had survived a culling by a war criminal painted the likes of Goebbles. "The Conscience of the King" is a strange Trek episode these days, but the war criminal is an interstellar traveling Shakespeare troupe. Man I wish they'd stuck with those instead of space hippies two years later... Check it out.
Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country: General Chang is a freakin' Shakespeare soundboard! I found out years later that Chris Plummer and Will Shatner used to actually do Shakespeare together. I wonder if they had as much fun as it looked like in outtakes. Along with Trek II, VI is one of my favorites. Yeah, everyone's long in the tooth, and there's some wacky, indeed idiotic antics, but it's so damned fun.
And Star Trek VI is where I found myself two nights ago, listening to the histrionic soundboard Klingon spinning in his chair, and I wondered about "Tickle us do we not laugh, prick us do we not bleed. Wrong us, shall we not revenge?"
Up to now, I'd never seen Shakespeare's play, The Merchant of Venice. Sure, Much Ado About Nothing is hilarious (Whedon's version is a treat), Hamlet is the gold standard (Still like Gibson's, despite his bigoted idiocy), but this was one I'd never actually read.
YouTube can be great at turns, awful at other. I followed a Google link referencing my curious phrase and wound up watching the last part of the final act of the Michael Radford 2004 movie, beginning with the court scene with Antonio and Shylock, and felt my mouth falling farther and farther open. By the end I just wanted everyone in Antonio's association to die. I had this yawning hole in my chest as I watched the very spirit of justice be first be mauled by Shylock and then utterly perverted by Portia, and all through this I keep hearing the last echo of Shylock's monologue.
"If a Christian wrong a Jew, what should his sufferance be by Christian example? Why, revenge. The villainy you teach me I will execute—and it shall go hard but I will better the instruction."
Here it is.
I know this play has had multiple interpretations over the years, and scholars spend their entire lives poring over Shakespeare, and a lot of laypersons think it's all old and musty and dead, but that is so poignant.
I'm an apostate, and have committed the unforgivable sin of denying my so-called lord and savior, but I was raised a Christian, and we talked a good game, all of this stuff about vengeance being our god's purview. Yet, who but the meanest (meaning lowest, least) of us actually followed that tenant? Who among us does not long for the most vicious justice when we have been wronged?
So herein is a tale of revenge and hate and justice promised and denied, oaths broken and deception of the vilest sort. Yes, Shylock is wrong to attempt to kill Antonio in his rage, but Antonio is no hero! The man's a vicious bully. And yet he's also a man of denied love, who can't express his feelings for the man he loves. (And yes, especially in Radford's version, Antonio is in love with Bassanio.)
But the perversion of justice that Portia whips out on Shylock is jaw dropping. I couldn't fathom this. I wasn't sure what I was watching, jumping in at the end as I did. I wondered why the court was so easily bamboozled by these two cross-dressing women, and that led to a whole host of other "head-canon" rabbit holes for my thoughts to chase down.
But the sentencing...
I know the start of the story is this whole clever set up between Portia and Bassanio, and him winning her father's favor, and all of this play revolves around the disgusting bride price custom, and that's why Antonio cavalierly signs his bond as "a pound of flesh", but... The perversion of justice that Portia serves out to Shylock just feels like the Nazi kicking the concentration camp victim into the trench.
Yeah, I went full Godwin. Deal.
In the end, like all of Shakespeare, once you get into it and realize that it's all about people, and people never really change, it is vital and real and a whole bunch of flawed people pursuing their goals and trying to come out alive with just a little happiness. It's all of us. And it's a mirror on our society.
And I have a new ending for the play.
...And Portia and Bassanio choked on their wine that night and died.
