You never know how much you really believe anything until
its truth or falsehood becomes a matter of life and death to you.
C.S. Lewis
31 January 2016
Liberate.
This extreme psychic vulnerability confirms that we’re
entering a new and quite terrifying era of censorship. Once we had ideological
censorship, designed to elevate a particular political outlook by suppressing
others. We had religious censorship, designed to protect a certain belief
system through crushing blasphemy. Now we have therapeutic
censorship — censorship which aspires to squash or at least demonise
anything that any individual finds aggressive, uncomfortable, or wounding to
their worth. It is a tyranny of self-regard.
This censorship is more insidious than the old censorships.
It is vast and unwieldy and can turn its attention to almost anything:
magazines, clothing, monuments, jokes, conversational blunders. It’s as if
students feel they deserve their own personal blasphemy law to protect them
from scurrilous comments or images or objects. We have a generation of little
Jesuses, threatening menaces against anyone who says something that stings
their psychic health.
Campus censors can’t be held entirely responsible for this
therapeutic censorship. In fact, in many ways they are the products of a
culture that has been growing for decades: a culture of diminished moral
autonomy; a culture which sees individuals as fragile and incapable of coping
without therapeutic assistance; a culture which treats individual self-esteem
as more important than the right to be offensive; a culture that was developed
by older generations — in fact by the fortysomethings and fiftysomethings now
mocking campus censors as infantile and ridiculous.
Yes, we should mock these little tyrants who fantasise that
their feelings should trump other people’s freedom. But we must go further than
that. We must remake the case for robust individualism and the virtue of moral
autonomy against the fashion for fragility; against the misanthropic view of
people as objects shaped and damaged by speech rather than as active subjects
who can independently imbibe, judge and make decisions about the speech they
hear.
The Safe Space is a terrible trap. It grants you temporary
relief from ideas you don’t like, but at the expense of your individuality,
your soul even. If you try to silence unpopular ideas, you do an injustice both
to those who hold those unpopular views, and also to yourself, through
depriving yourself of the right and the joy of arguing back, taking on your
opponents, and in the process strengthening your own mental and moral muscles.
Liberate yourself — destroy the Safe Space.
Thank you, Kurt.
Thank you, Kurt.
Symphony.
Schall, Vendeur de fromages de chevre, Paris, 1935
A silence fell at the mention of Gavard. They all looked at
each other cautiously. As they were all rather short of breath by this time, it
was the camembert they could smell. This cheese, with its gamy odour, had
overpowered the milder smells of the marolles and the limbourg; its power was
remarkable. Every now and then, however, a slight whiff, a flute-like note,
came from the parmesan, while the bries came into play with their soft, musty
smell, the gentle sound, so to speak, of a damp tambourine. The livarot
launched into an overwhelming reprise, and the géromé kept up the symphony with
a sustained high note.
Émile Zola
Lifeblood.
For the kings and queens of England, a trumpet fanfare or
crash of cymbals could be as vital a weapon as a cannon. Showcasing a monarchy’s
power, prestige and taste, music has been the lifeblood of many a royal
dynasty. From sacred choral works
to soaring symphonies, Music and Monarchy looks at how England’s
character was shaped by its music.
"Crown and Choir"
"Revolutions"
"Great British Music"
"Reinventions"
Wondered.
'This is the place of my song-dream, the place the music
played to me,' whispered the Rat, as if in a trance. 'Here, in this holy place,
here if anywhere, surely we shall find Him!'
Then suddenly the Mole felt a great Awe fall upon him, an
awe that turned his muscles to water, bowed his head, and rooted his feet to
the ground. It was no panic terror— indeed he felt wonderfully at peace and
happy— but it was an awe that smote and held him and, without seeing, he knew
it could only mean that some august Presence was very, very near. With
difficulty he turned to look for his friend. and saw him at his side cowed,
stricken, and trembling violently. And still there was utter silence in the populous
bird-haunted branches around them; and still the light grew and grew.
Perhaps he would never have dared to raise his eyes, but
that, though the piping was now hushed, the call and the summons seemed still
dominant and imperious. He might not refuse, were Death himself waiting to
strike him instantly, once he had looked with mortal eye on things rightly kept
hidden. Trembling he obeyed, and raised his humble head; and then, in that
utter clearness of the imminent dawn, while Nature, flushed with fulness of
incredible colour, seemed to hold her breath for the event, he looked in the
very eyes of the Friend and Helper; saw the backward sweep of the curved horns,
gleaming in the growing daylight; saw the stern, hooked nose between the kindly
eyes that were looking down on them humourously, while the bearded mouth broke
into a half-smile at the corners; saw the rippling muscles on the arm that lay
across the broad chest, the long supple hand still holding the pan-pipes only
just fallen away from the parted lips; saw the splendid curves of the shaggy
limbs disposed in majestic ease on the sward; saw, last of all, nestling
between his very hooves, sleeping soundly in entire peace and contentment, the
little, round, podgy, childish form of the baby otter. All this he saw, for one
moment breathless and intense, vivid on the morning sky; and still, as he
looked, he lived; and still, as he lived, he wondered.
'Rat!' he found breath to whisper, shaking. 'Are you
afraid?'
'Afraid?' murmured the Rat, his eyes shining with
unutterable love. 'Afraid! Of Him? O, never, never! And yet— and yet— O,
Mole, I am afraid!'
Then the two animals, crouching to the earth, bowed their
heads and did worship.
Sudden and magnificent, the sun's broad golden disc showed
itself over the horizon facing them; and the first rays, shooting across the
level water-meadows, took the animals full in the eyes and dazzled them. When
they were able to look once more, the Vision had vanished, and the air was full
of the carol of birds that hailed the dawn.
As they stared blankly. in dumb misery deepening as they
slowly realised all they had seen and all they had lost, a capricious little
breeze, dancing up from the surface of the water, tossed the aspens, shook the
dewy roses and blew lightly and caressingly in their faces; and with its soft
touch came instant oblivion. For this is the last best gift that the kindly
demi- god is careful to bestow on those to whom he has revealed himself in
their helping: the gift of forgetfulness. Lest the awful remembrance should
remain and grow, and overshadow mirth and pleasure, and the great haunting
memory should spoil all the after-lives of little animals helped out of
difficulties, in order that they should be happy and lighthearted as before.
Kenneth Grahame, from Wind in the Willows
30 January 2016
Mysteries.
Vermeer, The Geographer, 1669
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Publications of archival documents and other sources notwithstanding, mysteries continue to surround Vermeer’s artistic career. Who
was his master? Did he have any pupils? What caused his death, at the age of
forty-three, leaving behind paintings of his own and others he may have been
selling, no drawings, a house full of children, and huge debts? Did he rely on
a camera obscura, or other novel optical devices, to compose his paintings?
These unanswered questions do not prevent wondering admiration for his work,
however. When its home, the Mauritshuis in The Hague, was under renovation
recently, the “Girl with a Pearl Earring” travelled the world. On exhibit
in Japan in 2013, it drew over a million visitors. The “Mona Lisa of the North”
is as widely known, and often viewed, as it is reticent as regards the
conditions of her creation or raison d’être. A student once described his
encounter with the “Girl with a Pearl Earring” as tantamount to
meeting the love of his life and forgetting to ask her name. She is as engaged
with our seeing her as she is absolutely oblivious to it, and in this sense she
is an appropriate emblem for Vermeer’s work as a whole: what we know, and what
we think is familiar, is forever vexed by its remaining unknowable and
inaccessible.
Posed already in the late nineteenth century, the question of whether or to what degree Vermeer depended on such optical devices as a camera obscura in his studio has recently been the focus of intense speculation. His many ladies in light, caught in the act of doing nothing particularly dramatic – donning a pearl necklace, pouring milk, writing, reading or dozing at a table – are so many portraits of moments in time. His paintings are characterized by thick silence, keen attention to the qualities of light, and optical phenomena that are symptomatic of the use of viewing lenses. Indeed, the absence of any narrative flexion whatsoever in so many of his paintings encourages studying them as renderings of conditions of light and spatial configurations – taking them at face value, as it were, seeking clues to how they were made rather than, for example, why. There is so little documentary evidence to go on that the paintings themselves serve as (mute) testimony to speculation about them.
Posed already in the late nineteenth century, the question of whether or to what degree Vermeer depended on such optical devices as a camera obscura in his studio has recently been the focus of intense speculation. His many ladies in light, caught in the act of doing nothing particularly dramatic – donning a pearl necklace, pouring milk, writing, reading or dozing at a table – are so many portraits of moments in time. His paintings are characterized by thick silence, keen attention to the qualities of light, and optical phenomena that are symptomatic of the use of viewing lenses. Indeed, the absence of any narrative flexion whatsoever in so many of his paintings encourages studying them as renderings of conditions of light and spatial configurations – taking them at face value, as it were, seeking clues to how they were made rather than, for example, why. There is so little documentary evidence to go on that the paintings themselves serve as (mute) testimony to speculation about them.
Rescue.
This week marked Holocaust Remembrance Day as well as the 71st anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau.
When much of the world closed its eyes to the terrors of Nazi Germany, one American couple risked everything to save Jewish children from an unimaginable fate.
50 CHILDREN: THE RESCUE MISSION OF MR. AND MRS. KRAUS tells the dramatic, previously untold story of Gilbert and Eleanor Kraus, a Jewish couple from Philadelphia who followed their conscience, traveling to Nazi-controlled Vienna in spring 1939 to save a group of children. Amidst the impending horrors of the Holocaust, they put themselves in harm’s way to bring what would become the single largest-known group of children allowed into the U.S. during that time.
CONNECT
When much of the world closed its eyes to the terrors of Nazi Germany, one American couple risked everything to save Jewish children from an unimaginable fate.
50 CHILDREN: THE RESCUE MISSION OF MR. AND MRS. KRAUS tells the dramatic, previously untold story of Gilbert and Eleanor Kraus, a Jewish couple from Philadelphia who followed their conscience, traveling to Nazi-controlled Vienna in spring 1939 to save a group of children. Amidst the impending horrors of the Holocaust, they put themselves in harm’s way to bring what would become the single largest-known group of children allowed into the U.S. during that time.
CONNECT
Everywhere.
As for poets
The Earth Poets
Who write small poems,
Need help from no man.
The Earth Poets
Who write small poems,
Need help from no man.
The Air Poets
Play out the swiftest gales
And sometimes loll in the eddies.
Poem after poem,
Curling back on the same thrust.
Play out the swiftest gales
And sometimes loll in the eddies.
Poem after poem,
Curling back on the same thrust.
At fifty below
Fuel oil won't flow
And propane stays in the tank.
Fuel oil won't flow
And propane stays in the tank.
Fire Poets
Burn at absolute zero
Fossil love pumped backup
Burn at absolute zero
Fossil love pumped backup
The first
Water Poet
Stayed down six years.
He was covered with seaweed.
The life in his poem
Left millions of tiny
Different tracks
Criss-crossing through the mud.
Water Poet
Stayed down six years.
He was covered with seaweed.
The life in his poem
Left millions of tiny
Different tracks
Criss-crossing through the mud.
With the Sun and Moon
In his belly,
The Space Poet
Sleeps.
No end to the sky-
But his poems,
Like wild geese,
Fly off the edge.
In his belly,
The Space Poet
Sleeps.
No end to the sky-
But his poems,
Like wild geese,
Fly off the edge.
A Mind Poet
Stays in the house.
The house is empty
And it has no walls.
The poem
Is seen from all sides,
Everywhere,
At once.
Stays in the house.
The house is empty
And it has no walls.
The poem
Is seen from all sides,
Everywhere,
At once.
Gary Snyder
Wonderment.
STRAND
[We] live with mystery, but we don’t like the feeling. I
think we should get used to it. We feel we have to know what things mean, to be
on top of this and that. I don’t think it’s human, you know, to be that
competent at life. That attitude is far from poetry.
SHAWN
An experience of total immersion in mystery that I once had
was reading the first half of Heidegger’s Being and Time. You know, it was
really totally up to you to sort of create this world in your own head, and
whether what was in your head was what was in Heidegger’s head—who could
possibly guess?
STRAND
Well, when I read poetry I can’t imagine that what’s in the
reader’s head is ever what was in the poet’s head, because there’s usually very
little in the poet’s head.
SHAWN
You mean . . .
STRAND
I mean, I think the reality of the poem is a very ghostly
one. It doesn’t try for the kind of concreteness that fiction tries for. It
doesn’t ask you to imagine a place in detail; it suggests, it suggests, it
suggests again. I mean, as I write it. William Carlos Williams had
other ideas.
SHAWN
But do you suggest something that you yourself have already
pictured?
STRAND
I’m picturing it as I’m writing it. I’m putting together
what I need to have this thing be alive. But sometimes it’s more complete than
at other times.
SHAWN
When you say that when you write language takes over, and
then you follow it, you’re implying that the experience of writing is one in
which at least to some extent you’re in a passive role. Something is coming to
you from somewhere, and you’re receiving it. But where is it coming from? Is it
just the unconscious? That would be psychoanalysis. It’s coming from somewhere
else, isn’t it? Or . . .
STRAND
I don’t know where it comes from. I think some of it comes
from the unconscious. Some of it comes from the conscious. Some of it comes
from . . . God knows where.
SHAWN
I think the “God knows where” part is quite . . .
STRAND
Poems aren’t dreams. They just aren’t. It’s something else.
People who write down their dreams and think they’re poems are wrong. They’re
neither dreams nor poems.
SHAWN
As you write, you’re listening for something. But then you
at some point take an active role in creating the poem.
STRAND
I get caught up in where it’s going because I don’t know
where it’s going. I want to know, I want to push it ahead, a little. I add a
few words, and then I say, Oh no—you’re on the wrong track.
SHAWN
But the type of poetry you’re describing can be frustrating
to the reader. A lot of people I know would have to admit that their basic
model for what reading is would be something like the experience of reading The
New York Times. Each sentence is supposed to match up to a particular slice of
reality. If that’s a person’s expectation about reading, then your poems might
be . . .
STRAND
Well, sometimes poems aren’t literal representations of anything. Sometimes a poem just exists as something else in the universe that you haven’t encountered before. If you want a poem to say what it means, right away, clearly—and of course the poet who writes that kind of poem is usually talking about his or her own experiences—well, what happens when you read that kind of poem is that it puts you back in the world that you know. The poem makes that world seem a little more comfortable, because here is somebody else who has had an experience like yours. But you see, these little anecdotes that we read in these poems and that we like to believe are true, are in fact fictions. They represent a reduction of the real world. There’s so much in our experience that we take for granted—we don’t need to read poems that help us to take those things even more for granted. People like John Ashbery or Stevens do just the opposite—they try to explode those reductions. There’s a desire in Ashbery, for example, to create perfect non sequiturs, to continually take us off guard. He creates a world that is fractured. It doesn’t imitate reality. But, looking at it from another point of view, you could say that it’s simply a world that is as fractured and as unpredictable as the world in which we move every day. So there’s an element of delight in these people who rearrange reality. We usually hang on to the predictability of our experiences to such an extent . . . and there’s nowhere else where one can escape that as thoroughly as one can in certain poets’ work. When I read poetry, I want to feel myself suddenly larger . . . in touch with—or at least close to—what I deem magical, astonishing. I want to experience a kind of wonderment. And when you report back to your own daily world after experiencing the strangeness of a world sort of recombined and reordered in the depths of a poet’s soul, the world looks fresher somehow. Your daily world has been taken out of context. It has the voice of the poet written all over it, for one thing, but it also seems suddenly more alive—not as routinely there.
STRAND
Well, sometimes poems aren’t literal representations of anything. Sometimes a poem just exists as something else in the universe that you haven’t encountered before. If you want a poem to say what it means, right away, clearly—and of course the poet who writes that kind of poem is usually talking about his or her own experiences—well, what happens when you read that kind of poem is that it puts you back in the world that you know. The poem makes that world seem a little more comfortable, because here is somebody else who has had an experience like yours. But you see, these little anecdotes that we read in these poems and that we like to believe are true, are in fact fictions. They represent a reduction of the real world. There’s so much in our experience that we take for granted—we don’t need to read poems that help us to take those things even more for granted. People like John Ashbery or Stevens do just the opposite—they try to explode those reductions. There’s a desire in Ashbery, for example, to create perfect non sequiturs, to continually take us off guard. He creates a world that is fractured. It doesn’t imitate reality. But, looking at it from another point of view, you could say that it’s simply a world that is as fractured and as unpredictable as the world in which we move every day. So there’s an element of delight in these people who rearrange reality. We usually hang on to the predictability of our experiences to such an extent . . . and there’s nowhere else where one can escape that as thoroughly as one can in certain poets’ work. When I read poetry, I want to feel myself suddenly larger . . . in touch with—or at least close to—what I deem magical, astonishing. I want to experience a kind of wonderment. And when you report back to your own daily world after experiencing the strangeness of a world sort of recombined and reordered in the depths of a poet’s soul, the world looks fresher somehow. Your daily world has been taken out of context. It has the voice of the poet written all over it, for one thing, but it also seems suddenly more alive—not as routinely there.
Good riddance, Beatles.
On this day in 1969, The Beatles mercifully performed in public for the
last time on the roof of their Apple Records headquarters in
London.
I know that I'm in the minority in my feelings about this band, but I remain in good company ...
The Beatles are not merely awful. They are so unbelievably horrible, so
appallingly unmusical, so dogmatically insensitive to the magic of the art,
that they qualify as crowned heads of anti-music.
William F. Buckley Jr.
29 January 2016
Edgar Allan Poe's "The Raven" was published on this day in 1845.
Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and
weary,
Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore—
While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly
there came a tapping,
As of some one gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door.
“’Tis some visitor,” I muttered, “tapping at my chamber
door—
Only
this and nothing more.”
Ah, distinctly I remember it was in the
bleak December;
And each separate dying ember wrought its ghost upon the
floor.
Eagerly I wished the morrow;—vainly I had
sought to borrow
From my books surcease of sorrow—sorrow
for the lost Lenore—
For the rare and radiant maiden whom the angels name Lenore—
Nameless here for
evermore.
And the silken, sad, uncertain rustling
of each purple curtain
Thrilled me—filled me with fantastic terrors never felt
before;
So that now, to still the beating of my
heart, I stood repeating
“’Tis some visitor entreating entrance at
my chamber door—
Some late visitor entreating entrance at my chamber door;—
This
it is and nothing more.”
Presently my soul grew stronger;
hesitating then no longer,
“Sir,” said I, “or Madam, truly your forgiveness I implore;
But the fact is I was napping, and so
gently you came rapping,
And so faintly you came tapping, tapping
at my chamber door,
That I scarce was sure I heard you”—here I opened wide the
door;—
Darkness
there and nothing more.
Deep into that darkness peering, long I
stood there wondering, fearing,
Doubting, dreaming dreams no mortal ever dared to dream
before;
But the silence was unbroken, and the
stillness gave no token,
And the only word there spoken was the
whispered word, “Lenore?”
This I whispered, and an echo murmured back the word,
“Lenore!”—
Merely
this and nothing more.
Back into the chamber turning, all my
soul within me burning,
Soon again I heard a tapping somewhat louder than before.
“Surely,” said I, “surely that is
something at my window lattice;
Let me see, then, what
thereat is, and this mystery explore—
Let my heart be still a moment and this mystery explore;—
’Tis
the wind and nothing more!”
Open here I flung the shutter, when, with
many a flirt and flutter,
In there stepped a stately Raven of the saintly days of
yore;
Not the least obeisance made he; not a
minute stopped or stayed he;
But, with mien of lord or lady, perched
above my chamber door—
Perched upon a bust of Pallas just above my chamber door—
Perched,
and sat, and nothing more.
Then this ebony bird beguiling my sad fancy into smiling,
By the grave and stern decorum of the countenance it wore,
“Though thy crest be shorn and shaven, thou,” I said, “art
sure no craven,
Ghastly grim and ancient Raven wandering from the Nightly
shore—
Tell me what thy lordly name is on the Night’s Plutonian
shore!”
Quoth
the Raven “Nevermore.”
Much I marvelled this ungainly fowl to
hear discourse so plainly,
Though its answer little meaning—little relevancy bore;
For we cannot help agreeing that no
living human being
Ever yet was blessed with seeing bird
above his chamber door—
Bird or beast upon the sculptured bust above his chamber
door,
With
such name as “Nevermore.”
But the Raven, sitting lonely on the
placid bust, spoke only
That one word, as if his soul in that one word he did
outpour.
Nothing farther then he uttered—not a
feather then he fluttered—
Till I scarcely more than muttered “Other
friends have flown before—
On the morrow he will leave me, as my Hopes have
flown before.”
Then
the bird said “Nevermore.”
Startled at the stillness broken by reply
so aptly spoken,
“Doubtless,” said I, “what it utters is its only stock and
store
Caught from some unhappy master whom
unmerciful Disaster
Followed fast and followed faster till
his songs one burden bore—
Till the dirges of his Hope that melancholy burden bore
Of
‘Never—nevermore’.”
But the Raven still beguiling all my
fancy into smiling,
Straight I wheeled a cushioned seat in front of bird, and
bust and door;
Then, upon the velvet sinking, I betook
myself to linking
Fancy unto fancy, thinking what this
ominous bird of yore—
What this grim, ungainly, ghastly, gaunt, and ominous bird
of yore
Meant
in croaking “Nevermore.”
This I sat engaged in guessing, but no
syllable expressing
To the fowl whose fiery eyes now burned into my bosom’s
core;
This and more I sat divining, with my
head at ease reclining
On the cushion’s velvet lining that the
lamp-light gloated o’er,
But whose velvet-violet lining with the lamp-light gloating
o’er,
She shall
press, ah, nevermore!
Then, methought, the air grew denser,
perfumed from an unseen censer
Swung by Seraphim whose foot-falls tinkled on the tufted
floor.
“Wretch,” I cried, “thy God hath lent
thee—by these angels he hath sent thee
Respite—respite and nepenthe from thy
memories of Lenore;
Quaff, oh quaff this kind nepenthe and forget this lost
Lenore!”
Quoth
the Raven “Nevermore.”
“Prophet!” said I, “thing of
evil!—prophet still, if bird or devil!—
Whether Tempter sent, or whether tempest tossed thee here
ashore,
Desolate yet all undaunted, on this
desert land enchanted—
On this home by Horror haunted—tell me
truly, I implore—
Is there—is there balm in Gilead?—tell me—tell me, I
implore!”
Quoth
the Raven “Nevermore.”
“Prophet!” said I, “thing of
evil!—prophet still, if bird or devil!
By that Heaven that bends above us—by that God we both
adore—
Tell this soul with sorrow laden if,
within the distant Aidenn,
It shall clasp a sainted maiden whom the
angels name Lenore—
Clasp a rare and radiant maiden whom the angels name
Lenore.”
Quoth
the Raven “Nevermore.”
“Be that word our sign of parting, bird
or fiend!” I shrieked, upstarting—
“Get thee back into the tempest and the Night’s Plutonian
shore!
Leave no black plume as a token of that
lie thy soul hath spoken!
Leave my loneliness unbroken!—quit the
bust above my door!
Take thy beak from out my heart, and take thy form from off
my door!”
Quoth
the Raven “Nevermore.”
And the Raven, never flitting, still is
sitting, still is sitting
On the pallid bust of Pallas just above my chamber door;
And his eyes have all the seeming of a
demon’s that is dreaming,
And the lamp-light o’er him streaming
throws his shadow on the floor;
And my soul from out that shadow that lies floating on the
floor
Shall
be lifted—nevermore!
Edgar Allan Poe
Christopher Walken reads ... here.
28 January 2016
Outlaw.
Few figures in British history have captured the popular
imagination as much as the outlaw. From gentleman highwaymen, via swashbuckling
pirates to elusive urban thieves and rogues, the brazen escapades and the
flamboyance of the outlaw made them the antihero of their time - feared by the
rich, admired by the poor and celebrated by writers and artists.
In this three-part series, historian Dr Sam Willis travels the open roads, the high seas and urban alleyways to explore Britain's 17th- and 18th-century underworld of highwaymen, pirates and rogues, bringing the great age of the British outlaw vividly to life.
Sam shows that, far from being 'outsiders', outlaws were very much a product of their time, shaped by powerful national events. In each episode, he focuses not just on a particular type of outlaw, but a particular era - the series as a whole offers a chronological portrait of the changing face of crime in the 17th and 18th centuries.
Part 2, Pirates ...
Happy birthday, Pollock.
Pollock, Convergence, 1952
Jackson Pollock was born on this day in 1912.
I don't use the accident. I deny the accident. There is no accident, just as there is no beginning and no end. I have no fears about making changes, destroying the image ... because the painting has a life of its own. I try to let it come through. It is only when I lose contact with the painting that the result is a mess.
Jackson Pollock
Rogue.
A huge alien world orbits 600 billion miles (1 trillion
kilometers) from its host star, making its solar system the largest one known,
a new study reports.
Astronomers have found the parent star for a gas-giant exoplanet named 2MASS J2126, which was previously thought to be a "rogue" world flying freely through space. The planet and its star are separated by about 7,000 astronomical units (AU), meaning the alien world completes one orbit every 900,000 years or so, researchers said. (One AU is the average distance from Earth to the sun — about 93 million miles, or 150 million km).
Astronomers have found the parent star for a gas-giant exoplanet named 2MASS J2126, which was previously thought to be a "rogue" world flying freely through space. The planet and its star are separated by about 7,000 astronomical units (AU), meaning the alien world completes one orbit every 900,000 years or so, researchers said. (One AU is the average distance from Earth to the sun — about 93 million miles, or 150 million km).
27 January 2016
Records.
On January 26th (1978), the barometric pressure dropped to 28.46
inches of mercury at Columbus, 28.68 inches at Dayton, and 28.81 inches at
Cincinnati. These readings set new records for the lowest sea level pressures
ever recorded at each station. Even more impressive was Cleveland's record low
pressure reading of 28.28 inches, which remains the lowest pressure ever
recorded in Ohio and one of the lowest pressure readings on record within the
mainland United States (not associated with a hurricane).
Happy birthday, Carroll.
Lewis Carroll was born on this day in 1832.
A boat beneath a sunny sky,
Lingering onward dreamily
In an evening of July —
Children three that nestle near,
Eager eye and willing ear,
Pleased a simple tale to hear —
Long has paled that sunny sky:
Echoes fade and memories die:
Autumn frosts have slain July.
Still she haunts me, phantomwise,
Alice moving under skies
Never seen by waking eyes.
Children yet, the tale to hear,
Eager eye and willing ear,
Lovingly shall nestle near.
In a Wonderland they lie,
Dreaming as the days go by,
Dreaming as the summers die:
Ever drifting down the stream —
Lingering in the golden gleam —
Life, what is it but a dream?