So who else went out to watch the lunar eclipse?
It had begun when I left work this evening, and so the first surreal little touch was looking around the streets in the middle of town and seeing people, usually in just ones and twos, standing outside buildings staring quietly into the night sky as the shadow came from the moon's south pole and ate up its disc.
I zipped home via the bottle shop, because I'd read a friend's blog post about watching the thing from a hilltop with a bottle of wine and that gave me my own idea. I bought a bottle of twelve-year-old Glenfiddich single malt, transferred a quantity of it into a hipflask I got as a present a few years ago, and went out to an oval near where I live to watch the sky. Said oval is right on the edge of town, with the last of the houses along one side and just bushland on the other, so it was far enough out of the light haze of the town proper for the moon to properly show.
This is the first lunar eclipse I've seen properly from start to finish, and it rocked. I sprawled on my back in the dead centre of the oval, taking the occasional nip from the flask and watching as the silver-white disc was crawled over by the Earth's shadow and turned into a glowing coal. What was wonderful was that it was so much clearer than it is on normal nights that the moon is a sphere. That probably sounds stupid, but to me the moon in most lights always looks so flat, like a bright cutout. Looking at it in that coppery light, casting shadows over it that I'd never seen before, really brought it home. It's three-dimensional, it's a sphere, it's another fucking planet hanging in the sky close enough for me to see its mountains and craters. Holy shit.
After a while, in which I'd been lying there trying to work out if it really were brightening or if I were imagining things, suddenly there was a sliver of brilliant white light at the edge of the disc that grew and spread out. As if some kind of dazzling nuclear reaction were erupting from under the surface, or as if a brilliant new planet were hatching from the old shell. I watched the sliver grow to a crescent, the crescent grow to a half-circle (it looked like an acorn, believe it or not, the bright new half being held in the cocoon of the old), the half-circle grow and then it was the full moon as I've always known it, just with a little bite taken out of one side. The bite grew smaller and faded to a bruise, the bruise faded and brightened, and then it was just another early-spring moonlit night with my shadow on the grass behind me once again. What a damned fine thing to watch.
(I wondered a couple of times what part of the world was casting the very edge of the shadow I was watching on the moon. If someone were standing watching the sun dip under the horizon, would that mean their shadow would appear on the moon's surface for a moment? Probably not, but it's cool to think it would.)
I also ended up sharing the oval with a couple of dozen kangaroos, who wandered down out of the hills for some easy grazing. They weren't at all interested in the eclipse and only paid fitful attention to this weird human who was lolling about in the middle of the field. They also declined my offer of Scotch, so I finished the flask myself and was more tipsy than I've been for a while as I walked home. (I even stopped at the servo and bought a steak pie, and I'm sure those aren't so delicious when you're sober.)
Someone tells me the next one of these is due in 2011. Who's up for a moon-viewing party?
It had begun when I left work this evening, and so the first surreal little touch was looking around the streets in the middle of town and seeing people, usually in just ones and twos, standing outside buildings staring quietly into the night sky as the shadow came from the moon's south pole and ate up its disc.
I zipped home via the bottle shop, because I'd read a friend's blog post about watching the thing from a hilltop with a bottle of wine and that gave me my own idea. I bought a bottle of twelve-year-old Glenfiddich single malt, transferred a quantity of it into a hipflask I got as a present a few years ago, and went out to an oval near where I live to watch the sky. Said oval is right on the edge of town, with the last of the houses along one side and just bushland on the other, so it was far enough out of the light haze of the town proper for the moon to properly show.
This is the first lunar eclipse I've seen properly from start to finish, and it rocked. I sprawled on my back in the dead centre of the oval, taking the occasional nip from the flask and watching as the silver-white disc was crawled over by the Earth's shadow and turned into a glowing coal. What was wonderful was that it was so much clearer than it is on normal nights that the moon is a sphere. That probably sounds stupid, but to me the moon in most lights always looks so flat, like a bright cutout. Looking at it in that coppery light, casting shadows over it that I'd never seen before, really brought it home. It's three-dimensional, it's a sphere, it's another fucking planet hanging in the sky close enough for me to see its mountains and craters. Holy shit.
After a while, in which I'd been lying there trying to work out if it really were brightening or if I were imagining things, suddenly there was a sliver of brilliant white light at the edge of the disc that grew and spread out. As if some kind of dazzling nuclear reaction were erupting from under the surface, or as if a brilliant new planet were hatching from the old shell. I watched the sliver grow to a crescent, the crescent grow to a half-circle (it looked like an acorn, believe it or not, the bright new half being held in the cocoon of the old), the half-circle grow and then it was the full moon as I've always known it, just with a little bite taken out of one side. The bite grew smaller and faded to a bruise, the bruise faded and brightened, and then it was just another early-spring moonlit night with my shadow on the grass behind me once again. What a damned fine thing to watch.
(I wondered a couple of times what part of the world was casting the very edge of the shadow I was watching on the moon. If someone were standing watching the sun dip under the horizon, would that mean their shadow would appear on the moon's surface for a moment? Probably not, but it's cool to think it would.)
I also ended up sharing the oval with a couple of dozen kangaroos, who wandered down out of the hills for some easy grazing. They weren't at all interested in the eclipse and only paid fitful attention to this weird human who was lolling about in the middle of the field. They also declined my offer of Scotch, so I finished the flask myself and was more tipsy than I've been for a while as I walked home. (I even stopped at the servo and bought a steak pie, and I'm sure those aren't so delicious when you're sober.)
Someone tells me the next one of these is due in 2011. Who's up for a moon-viewing party?
VIEW 10 of 10 COMMENTS
Thank you for that, that was very interesting to read. I always like finding out about all the layers of skill and detail that lie behind something very everyday like saying "coffee, thanks", handing over money and getting stuff to drink in exchange. I'm trying to apply it now to my own buying experiences, although I'm too sleepwhacked to do a good job of it right now.
I've been putting of my caffination because I have work to do, and now I'm starting to get a headache. I hate Saturday, the good coffee is closed.
The Brinkman performance was excellent. I now have the full book and CD too, as well as another "lit-hop" CD with some other poetry/rap fusion. Let me know if you want to listen/read. (I know that making that offer is a rather delicate thing since it would involve a lot less anonymity, so emphasis on no pressure, but I'd also hate you to miss something you wanted to hear for want of me making the offer.)
I'd love to take you up on that. I have some serious personal things to work out in the next few months, which provide the culmination of nearly a year's work. When that's done, I'll more than likely drop my veil of anonymity.
Also, I think I may have got you busted by the local media with that link I posted: http://the-riotact.com/?p=5851 . Sorry about that.
Think nothing of it. The only thing worse than being talked about, et al.