Can it be?

CHDKable camera, tripod en route from Vermont (early Christmas presents). I believe I have spotted Canopus nineteen minutes of latitude (22.5 miles) south of where it is impossible to see. Monterey Peninsula stops in time, and the fog held off for at least the forty miles across the bay to allow me to make it out--I used beta and eta Columbae as pointers.

If I can figure out the weather and the mechanics (should be in the same position four minutes earlier every night) I might even get a picture. I wouldn't hold my breath, but I am fairly elated for three in the morning.

(Just watch me find out tomorrow it was a boat or something. Seemed too steady for that; I got a good fifteen minutes of observing in.)

[Edit: I was going to teach myself how to calculate star transit times, but Wolfram Alpha seems to know how to do that. What I saw was in the right portion of the sky at the right time...]

Stargazing:

The stars you can see at night depend on the time of year and the time of night, of course, but also on your latitude. Burlington's at about 44°28' north, about halfway between the equator and the North pole. As you go south, you can see things closer and closer to the south celestial pole, within certain defineable limits.

Santa Cruz is at 36°59'--I'd been able to figure out it's farther south than what I was used to but I hadn't known the details until this morning.

Canopus, the second-brightest star in the north sky is theoretically visible from lat. 37°18', The existence of Monterey and the hills behind this probably wash it out, or did last night--I figured out I could get painfully close. I guess I should check out other locales (up the coast) which leave the south view as free as possible and check on some celestial mechanics.

On the plus side, I've never gotten better views of Canis Major, and I've been figuring out some of the smaller constellations around it. (Lepus and Columba last night).

105 words, 11/15/09

The sun is low in the horizon blasting directly onto the eleven maples lining Gault Elementary: one block of peak foliage in the middle of November thousands of miles from (and a month later than) my formative autumns.

As I round the corner and my chin swivels up, my jaws close in astonishment, clicking together as if to grip this scene in my teeth, as though I am (it occurs to me) an expectant dog, trying to grasp the situation that has presented itself beyond my nose.

I keep a leaf to burn in meager re-enactment. Should I rend it with my teeth first?

November

     You cannot yet say that the year is ending; there is a lot of life yet outside in the fields and meadows; the goats and cows are grazing hurriedly before they are locked away in the barn to impersonate the manger in Bethlehem; the white campion are still blooming, the Virgin Mary's tears, the ragwort still glitters of gold, and the cinquefoil is still of a mind to flower. As far as the ground is concerned, that is all prepared; it is all turned, plowed, and softened, and now takes in moisture and air, scents and aeration, sighing and disappearing into the loose topsoil. The morel still drips in the woods, the golden chanterelles slowly dry, white mushrooms draw unnameable fairy rings on the forest floor, and there are flushed old men everywhere hewing wood, collecting it, and tossing the fragrant firewood onto carts. Surprisingly, there are even more animals than during the summer; clusters of partridges whirr out of every furrow, the hare weaves through the woods, the wings of the grouse beat heavily, and the white tails of the deer gleam in forest clearings. So, as I have said, there is still enough life to it, but sooner than anyone expects it is gloomy twilight, lights glittering here and there, and an unaccustomed orphanhood settles over the world; a wagonload slowly scrapes towards the village and a lone man heads somewhere rapidly and silently, his hands in his pockets. The year is not ending, but the days are.

*

     It is a futile splendor; autumn is dark, but even so it is still well-outfitted. Were that not the case, the last colors of autumn could not blaze so pathetically; the crimson of the dogrose, and the rich red of the bunchberries, and the scarlet of the tops of the cherry trees, the dark yellow of the larch and the firm golden color of the fallen chestnut trees (look, the dark brown of the chestnuts themselves are peeking out from their ruptured cases). And without the darkness, the proper and most glorious light of autumn would not shine out so strongly; the light in the windows at home.

     It is said that nature lays itself down to sleep in the autumn. This nears the truth, but it lays itself down to sleep the way we do, dragging its feet, undressing itself with lackadaisical enjoyment, still of a mind to talk about what happened today and what will happen tomorrow, and before it falls asleep, it intermingles memories of time gone by with plans for the coming day. The summer foliage has not yet fallen, and the hard heads of next spring's buds already stud the twigs and branches. And now we can go to sleep, for even sleep is forward motion.

*

     Through all of this, I have saved for the last the true annual breakthrough of autumn. It is the discovery of one's own down blankets. It is the annual return to bed. You never sleep more gratefully and toss and turn less than when the days are short. All poets laud things, but I don't know if any one them would sing the praises of an ordinary warm bed instead of the bust and heavenly phenomena. Enough already has been written about dreams, but who as yet described the smooth comfort of the pillow and the faithful cupped hand of the groove underneath us as we sleep? Let us therefore add praise of human bedding to the praises of autumn, whether it be good for the sleeper, gentle for the infirm or strengthening for the weary; and may the hare find a good oven, the stag a dry hollow, and the sparrow a good nest under the eaves, amen.

1937

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Autumnal

     These are still golden and cerulean days, for there is nothing more golden than the November sun. But November's true hour is not in the break of day swathed in food or even the golden noon, but at twilight. Twilight, redolent of potato tops, the cool gloom which reaches out coldly for you, the thieving darkness, flickering with the light of someone's far-off fire. Homewards, homewards! How pretty are the walls, the lamp, the armchair and the books! You only really notice the glory and perfection of human dwellings in these long hours of darkness--how they glow! ¹

*

     But there are such short days; another of autumn's gifts. The darkness comes on so quickly that you don't even notice it at first, and then you are already planted in it as in some dampening, thick matter, in which everything slows down, even time itself. People even start to live and speak more slowly; they do not think about exploiting advantages, pulling off any quick schemes or getting up to things behind anyone's back. They rest as though fettered, and the things they say to each other are somehow more private and softer than those they speak under the influence of the sun. I think that even if murderers and traitors were inside like this that they would be similarly enlightened. Devilish notions are just the sort that come up if people withdraw from the light into darkness to conceal themselves. But this darkness is not a mask behind which anyone can hide, but like a moss which grows over him. It is, if I may say so, the moss of timelessness, for timelessness is dark. It is for just this reason that people talk about serious and private matters at times like these. I think that the council of ministers should keep hours from time to time; they should assemble in the growing dark, lit only by the burning tips of a few cigars. One minister after the other would fall into a quiet melancholy. "Boys," the prime minister might softly say, "I've had it up to here with this politicking. You know, if we stopped lying once in a while and just said what we really wanted..." "Yes indeed," someone else might sigh, "I sometimes feel like governing is a hell of a responsibility. It weighs a person down. If only it just...worked without all these machinations and contrivances...if only people were more transparent..."

     "I think so too!" a third would say.

     "What we could accomplish if we all believed in each other!"

     "Yeah," a fifth would say, "but politics is such rubbish. If we just only thought more about our huge responsibility and less about politics..."

     "So," the prime minister would ask, "can I turn on the lights yet?"
"Not yet--we're doing such a good job!"

1926

*

     It can truly drive a man crazy when a coal cart goes rattling down the street. Nothing clangs and rattles so terribly as coal; perhaps they have made it out of some sort of especially resonant wood, like primitive drums.² Half of our municipal psychoses must certainly have their origin in a rattling coal cart. The pedestrian regards the coachman with a murderous hate without the slightest bit of effect, and the two stiffs up above jouncing along on the pile of coal, and looks to escape this clanking beast either ahead of it or behind it or around the corner (of course in vain), for wherever he may turn, he finds himself in the active radius of at least one coal cart with its coachman and helpers.
     This wild hatred of the city dweller vanishes in a trice, however, when he comes upon a coal wagon in the winter. Then and only then does it seem to rattle triumphantly, and clang righteously, boasting of its fully-laden nature--even the shovelers leap about somehow solemnly, as though the crushing din exhilarated them. And then the cart stands before your gates, the horses stuff their noses into the bags of oats, and exhale deeply, the two stiffs climb down and set up their lunch pails on the softened sacking, and the coachman spits magisterially and unloads coal with a wide, ringing shovel, and the coal is already rattling and drumming down into the cellar, the coal dust rising as though from a mine, and thank goodness is there ever a lot of it, that will do for me until spring, and that is coal for you, sir, black and shiny as pitch.
     But if you went out tomorrow and saw one on the street, you stare at that rattling coal cart with murderous hate; you'd flee before it, seething and spitting, that people suffered such a clangor on the streets! They should just ban them and be done with it!

1925

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1The Czech word for "they glow," září, is the same for the month of September, and etymologically created. It is my assumption that the coincidence is intentional. (Czech months are based on old Slavic etyma instead of being borrowings of the Roman months)
2 Čapek has an adjective here which is probably directly translated as "Negro (drums);" I'm cautious enough to bowdlerize it a bit but literalist enough to need to footnote it.

October, or On Animals

     Every season has its signals, on earth as well as in the heavens. Certainly the bird is a harbinger of spring, or indeed anything that flies; Cupid himself is winged in the spring, and all of the animals that bring in spring have wings, whether they are larks, swallows, butterflies, or, as stated, Love itself. Summer is the season of the elements, the sun, wind, water and earth, and therefore pertains to elemental beings, such as nymphs and rusalkas and vodníks and he bird of fire and the Noon Witch and the Wild Girl, ethereal, bare, nude creatures which cannot be conceived of in inclement or bad weather. And finally autumn shows itself in thickly-pelted beasts, covered in sorrel coats or those of chestnut brown, like the autumn leaves, like every ripened thing of autumn; it is the time of stags, fawns, boars, and foxes, the time when the men stop scaring the girls and start hunting hairy beasts instead. All Souls' Day signifies the mark which reminds us that the year is moving into a time focused on the home and hearth; like the souls of the departed, the imps of the home, pig-sticking, fire crackling, and books.

     I have never shot an animal as long as I have lived, but whenever I meet a squirrel in the October woods, or a fox or a stag and fawns, I have the feeling that I have somehow stepped into another world, into their world, for October involves them more secretly than any other time of the age. In summer coming across a buck is like coming across a pretty girl; may God keep you, girl, you needn't fear me. But coming across a deer in autumn is like coming upon a god or something altogether ancient; you hold your breath and stand still so as not to commit sacrilege; you are ashamed to give your astonishment its true name, which is reverence.

*

     I tell you, every stag is something like the stag of St. Hubert, when its stands, head raised, crowned with a massive and shaggy cloud of antlers, ears pricked up, frozen in noble watchfulness, it is as if there actually were something like a cross glowing atop its head. Yes, if I were a holy Christian man, I would certainly see a glowing cross there as well, but since I am a confused man of little faith, I see no cross, but some sort of large and unclear sign. O hunter, do not aim at the buck's forehead, for that would be a sin, aim for the heart instead, and fire, your heart constricted with horror and passion. Do not disturb the crown on that animal's head and do not break the symbol off its forehead; and when you hang those antlers on the wall, do it like a conqueror placing he stolen crown of a vanquished king into safekeeping. For even a stolen crown is an subject worthy of its own reverence.

*

     This did not happen to me, for my vocation can be described as being somewhat more puerile and uncertain--but there was this solid, firm man, keen as a knife and hard as stone, I tell you, there are few molded from such clay as this. So right in front of him in an October glade there appeared twenty, fifty, a hundred of the lightest and unhurried deer, with royally-antlered stags on guard; and there that man held his breath and almost trembled in awe or reverence and whispered that it was something out of a myth, something out of the past; he stood there so long and then left so quietly, more quietly than he would ever have trodden in a chapel or any holy place; and a good hour after this apparition he spoke in hushed tones like never before. I bear witness to you, that beasts in October have carry some great and godly secret with them.

*

     It is perhaps because of this that hunters, when they return from waiting, speak in exceptionally loud and boisterous tones, to shake off that strange and silencing magic. "Here's what happened," one cries at full volume. "A deer approached me, a hundred and fifty paces off; I watched it for an hour and I couldn't get a shot. God, boys, you should have seen it!" "And I had one for half an hour; right when I got to the spot it was right across the glade." "I had mine in the heart from seventy paces, but that's not much of a shot. What a time we had today. God, I wish I'd gotten the buck I saw yesterday!"

     Yes, for the most beautiful deer are always the ones that got away. Obviously St. Hubert saw his most beautiful buck, the one with the cross, from a hundred and eighty paces; know that otherwise he would have certainly bagged it and the burning cross on its forehead. Right in the heart.

1927

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[Seasonally appropriate. Outstanding. I had to skip about thirty/forty pages what with the months of inactivity, but I've gotten back on track. This thumb injury's been good for something...no footnotes today, St. Hubert and the rusalka can be found on Wikipedia, I'm sure.]

Golden Land

     It is gold, red, violet, green. Again, it is golden, purple, blue and brown like brown ocher, sienna or sepia, the red of cinnabar, carmine, Venetian or Puzzuoli red, sulfur yellow, chromium yellow, Indian yellow, terracotta, mottled greenish-blue, yellowish green, blue, dark purple. Take a train through the woods of the Carpathians and stare like a madman at what October can do. When the sun is shining on it, the whole poplar burns like a yellow flame, the beeches spout their narrow orange flames into the sky; I don't know which plant burns the red of the forge. Gold, red, violet, green. Sacred, sacred, sacred! Our Father, who art in heaven--it is beautiful.
    It is sentimental, but I cannot help it; if one looks at nature in its sacred moments, the the other events seem suppressed and muted. The bureaucracy certainly does not look as nice as walnut leaves. When a government falls, it doesn't make the same sound as a chestnut falling out of a tree and plonk! its little eye peeks out from its green casing. And currency values do not fall as elegiacally and majestically as the beautiful golden foliage. Gold, brown, orange, red.
    Bless me, O beautiful fervor of old things. Face to face with nature like this, sir, and it awakens it you unusually conservative feelings (and do not try to deny it). May the durability of old things and pragmatic advice be praised. May what is not epochal and groundbreaking in humanity be praised, what is not yesterday's or tomorrow's, but what is eternal and unchanging. Namely: youth and maturity, rest, love, a good table, religion, heroism, sleep, and other old and wise matters. My handwriting cannot compete with you, O burning groves, but face to face with you I am content with my few gray hairs, my fatigue, and my strength. For everything is in order, as it has been for ages. Gold and green, white and black.
    And I will tell you, what it especially pretty now in October are the villages. They are bundled up in their golden and red apples, yellow lindens and chestnuts in a gentle and almost playful way. Red and gray roofs, and overhead some wise smoke. God, how grandly, how thoroughly the year proceeds in such a village! How firmly and sacredly each season nestles in here! Here with us in the cities a person scarcely realizes that things are transpiring, that things are changing. Spring and summer, autumn and all, they take on and put off an overcoat, put the umbrella in the corner, and take out their gloves. That is all. We have not stopped time, but we have concealed its tracks somewhat. We age, but without rhythm. Another year of life gone, but there were no four seasons; there was just the one year.
    Gold, red, cerulean, brown. Dried leaves. The enormous extravagance of nature, which shaped, crenelated, corrugated, and furrowed each of those beautiful leaves, and now it casts them off, crumbles them, and pulps them down. Then it begins to shape them, scallop them and furrow them all over again. That is as it should be. It's good when it is as it should be. Green, gold, and red. Dried leaves.
    There are still golden and violet flowers at the periphery, still tender and trembling honey mushrooms smelling sweetly in the damp clay, and the last apple still shines red on the branch. Lord, when I get old, when I really get old, give me the tenacity of flowers and fruit. Give me golden and violet blossoms, until I bloom in quiet and bright stars; grant that I bear solidly firm and red apples which will last through the winter. And when there is a new generation of growth, when the cherries are all eaten, when we've gotten to the last apples, they do wither, but they will await a new age, tough and dark. Let me once raise a few tough red apple trees that will survive to next summer, amen.
    Gold, red, broken brown. Lord, thank you for the beautiful course of the year.

1922

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[No one can say the man's not aggressively sentimental. Nevertheless, there's a niceness here. Perhaps it's a bit close to "Topsoil" in content, but these were originally published eleven years apart instead of two days.]