the king zucchini

N: At the end of Friday, put to bed the week’s worries.

A Poetic Defense for Pluto

All the planets out to Saturn, since they’ve been known since antiquity, were originally believed to be woven into the same cloth that cloaked the earth at night. Then Copernicus, then the telescope, then the agreed pronouncement they are a lot further out than are expected, some more than others. So when Neptune and Uranus were discovered, all anyone could think of was “That’s a long way out.” Far into the arctic of space. So far, that all we believed was “cold.” Poor Pluto didn’t stand a chance. Banished to these outer realms, the frozen corners of the solar system, beyond where our imagination went by itself. All the great aliens come from Mars, or another Earth-like planet. Neptune, Uranus and Pluto were doomed to frigid exile.

But it’s not fair, because it’s always midnight on Pluto. And where its always midnight, it’s always the perfect place for a gumshoe with a sordid past to set up shop. An urban vigilante, who, for the right price, sometimes none at all, will right the wrongs of the city.

You may no longer be a planet, Pluto. But you’re an all-night-diner away from a film noir revival.

The Components of A Good Meal

- A week of eating at home, preferably working through a big pot of chili or casserole.

- An unexpected encounter with a friend who’s heart is heavy with nothing.

- A restaurant never ventured in before because the exterior was too humble, the neighborhood mid-scale, the parking nonexistent.

- A weakness for broth.

- A dish your mother could write a recipe for by just tasting it. It reminds her of her grandmother.

- A portion just large enough to be finish-able.

- A friendly and industrious restaurant owner who clears your dishes and leaves mints behind.

- A short walk afterward.

EPIC MUSICIANS AND MUSIC MAKERS NEEDED

On long trips through space, music will be hugely important. You’ll be able to listen to things for days, weeks, months! Years! The three minute pop song will be replaced by the three hour pop song! So get ready, musicians. Get ready, studio geniuses.

You might think it’s a little early to get started. We just decommissioned the space shuttle, and James Cameron decided he wanted to go to the bottom of the ocean, not the Moon.

But buck up, young space-loving futurist musician! Nearly every year we’re shooting out satellites to explore the particle seas of space. We have watchful eyes circling planets and moons. The Voyagers are outrunning the solar wind at the heliopause. Our telescopes are discovering new solar systems like they’ve just been marked down.

And every day, some young pup picks up a Ray Bradbury sci-fi collection or learns who Chuck Yeager is.

N:
MAGIC WORDS

MALABAR!
MALOMAR!
MENABAR!
MIRAMAR!
MOLARBAR!
MULBALAR!

WARNING: DO NOT READ OUT LOUD.

WARNING: IF YOU READ THEM OUT LOUD, DON’T READ THEM IN THIS ORDER.

WARNING: IF YOU DO, MAKE SURE YOUR ARMS AREN’T RAISED, YOU’RE NOT HOLDING A WAND, AND YOU’RE NOT OUTSIDE ON A HILL BY A FLAGPOLE WITH THE THREAT OF LIGHTENING.

And whatever you do, DON’T MUTTER THEM UNDER YOUR BREATH.

Taurus From the Beach

Notes from the night at Waldo’s, Vero Beach, FL:

Stargazing to the southeast/east.
Constellations we identified (stars we called out by name):
Orion (Betelguese)
Canus Major (Sirius)
Gemini
Auriga
Taurus (Aldebaran)

Within Taurus, I read there are a handful of open clusters, one nebulae, and no galaxies. During winter, it’s an obvious triangle overhead, with vectors extending out to two “distant” stars forming the horns.

Taurus is one of the oldest constellations, and has an endless appendix of what it meant to different cultures. It was important because thousands of years ago it was in the east during spring, the ancient’s new year (and the inspiration for our April Fools’). Aldebaran is the bright reddish star that represents the bull’s eye. Alderaan was Bail Organa’s planet that was blown up by the Death Star.

Speaking of things that used to be, the Pleiades are known as the Seven Sisters, even though only six stars are visible to our modern eyes (trick: If you look just to the side of them, they look even brighter then when you’re staring right at them, which makes me think our eyes are weird). Anyway, the ancients in Egypt and Sumer could see seven stars, but slightly-later Greeks could only see six. They had a few theories about what happened, but they all involve what happened to the seven sisters in mythology.

Over drinks, and about an hour, we noticed the stars had shifted.

Q: Is my deodorizing soap and deodorant canceling each other out?
A: Depends on the flavors.

The universe is falling apart. It’s crumbling, splintering at the seams. And it’s happening at an alarming pace.

How do I know? Every day, early in the morning or late in the afternoon, when the sun comes into my house sideways, I can see it. Dust. Stardust. Space pollen. Molecular castoffs. On my floor, under my bed, on my shelves. I feel like if I let it go a few days we’d be drowning in universal dandruff, buried alive.

Or, I could spend five minutes walking around with a dust rag. And live another day.

Q: What’d you do this afternoon?
A: I ate a salad and a sandwich and read while listening to Suede on the stereo.

A Raga For Every Weather

I may have given thought to ragas, the main musical format of classical Indian music, more than most folks who don’t hail from the sub-continent, but I wouldn’t call myself an expert. Yes, I did have a phase of buying every Ravi Shankar album I could find. And yes, I did at one point own a sitar (even learned how to string it). But that’s not why I bring up ragas.

I bring them up because some of them roughly correspond to the time of day. Think of it, soundtracks for your morning. Or your afternoon. Or evening. For me, it might be Mogwai. Except Mogwai really only works if you find yourself on a rainy day, with the occasional sun ray slashing through the clouds. We all have music we put on, depending on the weather, or whether we’re going out, but do we have music we play for a specific time of day?

It’s afternoon as I write this, and so I found an afternoon raga to put on: Bhimpalasi. This also happens to be my favorite raga, mainly because of the title. It’s bhimpin’. If it’s afternoon where you are, use Spotify or some other internet device to listen to it.

It starts out meditative. Most ragas do. Ravi runs through the ascending notes, then the descending notes. This is how he’s going to climb up and down through the song, for roughly the next ten minutes. The music is bright, the beat a steady pace. Not too fast, but not slow. Perfect for the afternoon, which is when you really want to hit your groove. The steady climb after lunch to the quitting hours. This mood and musical attitude could easily stretch itself out another hour or two, and I wouldn’t mind. Buddha box style.

The Guardian put out few podcasts last year (in the Guardian Culture Podcast) that tried something similar. There was one that was designed to be listened to while searching for Christmas presents, another designed to be heard first thing in the morning with a cup of coffee, another should be listened to at 5:30pm while shopping at the grocery store. I haven’t tried these yet, mainly because I haven’t thought of it. If you do, let me know what you think. Because even if we don’t listen to things designed to be heard at a specific time, we rarely listen to nothing.

Gripes About Tennis Grips? Not Here.

I started playing tennis again. Since it’d been a while, around fifteen years, since my last lesson, I took a refresher course. Turns out, they have a new-fangled way of holding a tennis racquet these days.

When I first learned how to swing a racket, the continental grip was all the rage. Think about it like this: a tennis racket handle is a rectangle with the corners taken off, so if you look at it from the bottom it looks like an octagon. If you hold the racket in front of you (so the frame is all you see, not the strings) the continental grip would the right bevel run right into the crook of your thumb. It’s like holding an axe.

Well, I was told people no longer did that. Now, everyone learns the semi-western grip, which has the racket twisted 90 degrees in your hand. This makes it easier to hit topspin, to play back on the baseline and drive the ball over the net.

At first I was annoyed. Then, I realized this is kind of awesome. This means that tennis is evolving. It’s a changing sport, with fads and techniques that work, but are far from finished. Which means it won’t become the checkers of racquet sports. And may mean that my great-great-great-great grandchildren will think it’s cool I played tennis, and not quaint.

Stargazin’

This past summer, out in the wilderness of Wisconsin, I made a sort of confusing discovery. There were a dozen of us at a bonfire, all college educated to some degree. It was a perfect night, and the stars were out, Milky Way dripping its way across the sky.

But when we put our heads together, we could only identify three constellations between us: Cassiopeia, the Big Dipper, and the Little Dipper. That’s it. If we were lost at sea in the Age of Discovery, we’d have no idea how to get home. That’s a lame way to say we couldn’t navigate by the stars, but you know what I’m talking about.

The next day I swore to correct this, and went into three book shops to find a collection of star maps. I know, I know, there’s an app for that. Even the bookstore people pointed it out. Well, I don’t want an app, I want knowledge.

A few bookstores later, I found it. The National Audubon Society Field Guide to the Night Sky. Armed with this book, and a hopefully a few clear nights to come, I will be reporting on my discoveries.

Watch this space.*


*no puns are ever intended, unless I find them clever after you bring them up to me.

What’s in a name?

I’m a lifelong Packer fan (first time caller, long time listener, God Bless the Packers), but I’ve decided that I really like this name for a football team: Giants. New York Giants. It’s like being called the Denver Mountains. And why not take your name from the impressive, awe-inspiring Manhattan skyline? I think flying into New York and seeing the skyscrapers packed together for the first time is the best preparation we have for when we finally visit the giants of Jack’s bean stalk.