CCXXII - 1440 orbits

It's hard to imagine that something, something hard, solid, real, could be hurled into the air with force enough to resist the eternal, unmovable, ubiquitous attraction of the entire earth's gravitational pull, go all the way around the world, horizon to horizon, span the bowels of space, and keep going, round and round.

(Imagine for a moment you're on a small planet with a diameter roughly the width of Singapore, about one-fiftieth the size of the moon*. There's Roberto Clemente, the consensus greatest outfield arm in baseball, next to you. By one account, he could "field the ball in New York, and throw out a guy in Pennsylvania". Clemente picks up a rock the size of two knuckles, and flat out sends it on an elevated axis into the heavens. With his arm, the little pebble shoots off, and just about makes it, comes around. That's it, that little rock is up there for all time, making the rounds. As befitting a man who can put things into orbit by force of will, Clemente stands proudly admiring his work.)

Well, sixty years ago, they did it. It was technical, theoretical, scientific, industrial, militaristic, nationalistic, ideological, poetic, and absurd, all at once. Thirteen years after the atomic and hydrogen bombs were built and detonated over Japan, here was a new vehicle capable of carrying such weapons over great continents, over vast, vast distances, in minutes, loud, but virtually unstoppable. Enter the cold war, and its legacy, the pervasive threat of massive, irretrievable destruction.

"After refueling, the rocket weighed 267 tons. And the mass of the rocket before the launch was amazingly beautiful. She all sparkled, covered with frost.

On October 4, 1957, at 22 hours 28 minutes Moscow time, the brightest burst of light lit the night steppe, and the rocket went up with a roar. Her torch gradually weakened and soon became indistinguishable against the background of the heavenly bodies.

The first cosmic speed, calculated by Newton, now, three centuries later, was first achieved by the creation of the mind and hands of men.

After separation of the satellite from the last stage of the rocket, the transmitters began to work and the famous signals "Bip ... beep ... beep" flew on the air. Observations on the first orbits showed that the satellite went into orbit with an inclination of 65 ° 6 ', a height of 228 km at perigee and a maximum distance of 947 km from the Earth's surface. For each orbit around the earth, he spent 96 minutes and 10.2 seconds. At 1 h 46 min on October 5, 1957, the satellite passed over Moscow."

(translated from the Russian)
http://www.lidorenko.ru/ns1.htm

* To throw a rock into lunar orbit from the surface of the actual moon, which is surprisingly not actually a small object, you'd need to launch it with an escape velocity of a staggering 8,500 kph (that's vertical, but assume it's got a vector sufficiently angled to go around). It's not small. Given that escape velocity varies proportionally with the radius of an object, assuming constant density, and assuming Roberto f'n Clemente can hurl it at 100 mph (160 kph), of course he wouldn't be able to do it - he'd only be able to put an object into orbit on a much, much smaller moon (about one/fifty-third of the moon). The moon is really big.

CCXXI - a vegemite sandwich

I guess part of the course, the exventure, if you will, of growing older, is that time seems to run a little more imperceptibly. It glides along, just fades away. Well, if there really was one defining hallmark of my time away in Australia, it is that the two weeks have passed in but several long and lovely afternoons, each full and satisfying, but when put together, seem to run and blur into a whole melded series, encompassed in so many long happy sighs and exhalations, shuttings and re-openings of tired eyes, rubbings of cold fingers and stretched yawns, steaming cups of coffee and slow teas of roasted lamb. Yes, it's all passed so shortly. The entirety of the pleasure, convenience, comfort and companionship, is not taken for granted. A great and gentle joy, Adelaide.

There's a certain relaxed attitude here which I like. I really don't think I'll ever be all that crazy about legal work, and to be honest, I'm much happier that way. I suppose being less careful about it means sometimes the work gets roundly picked on, but you know, that's what it is. I don't need to get stressed up and neurotic about the whole thing. It's better for me.

Of my happiest memories, I should think chiefly of these: A hearty "they won't hurt you!" cried from a runner chasing after her over-eager dogs; the twinkle in the eye of an old couple of mining days, talking about cherished times; flinging little rounded stones into a whispering, flowing river from a small clearing near its bank; kick-starting a forty-five year old refurbished chook-chaser and roaring up and down the countryside; listening to U2 on the road, with a quiet cheer in my heart for an old friend; drawing with thick, coloured chalk on a road where we went camping near Lake Bonney, a little, delightful darling of a neighbour tracing after my alphabets, answering with emphatic yes-es! and no-s!, the little, adorable darling; and visiting the old West house, with garden and shed, all fantastic, drinking beer, playing guitar and having tea with old John West and my mum. Now that was a good holiday.

CCXX - misadventure

Samsung transcribes: A Horse with No Name

https://soundcloud.com/ian-ho/horse-with-no-name-1482018 

Who were this were during their attackers her and send the 1st thing the moon scared the asantu 7 the get there 00 hair to do the the What's to to see Beryl vents 7 it there was and the the the the and the the the and the the the the the the the the 1000 go to the the the the alarm

I've been through the desert on a horse with no name
It felt good to be out of the rain
In the desert you can remember your name
Cos' there ain't no one for to give you no pain
(la, la, la la la la la,
la la la, la, la la la la)

CCXIX - Mister Rogers

I've never liked poetry that much. It's so annoying. It has the potential, of course, but so often it's just so annoying. I feel it has an artificial measure and fragmented quality about it. Sentences are supposed to flow from one word to another, one idea to another, one breath to another. Poetry stilts that. And it's ever so cryptic, so much duality, triunality, sometimes it isn't clear that the poet himself has thought clearly of what he is trying to say, nor the words with which to say it. And the imagery is far-flung, melded from the bizarre. Words are employed in unfathomable, painful new ways. Themes of melancholy, loss, bitterness abound. I need to hear a voice speaking, and I don't get that unless I get a hint of the character speaking the poem's lines. I've never liked poetry that much.

But I've never heard a poem by Mister Rogers, and he is a poet to me. I've never been touched by a poet, but Mister Rogers' poem has me.

What do you do with the mad that you feel
When you feel so mad you could bite?
When the whole wide world seems oh, so wrong
And nothing you do seems very right?

Oh, it's you I like. (It's a beautiful day in the neighbourhood ...)

CCXVIII - growing old is like that i think

There comes a time in every sunset when you decide to turn away, from the phosphorescent, coruscant, illumination. It's hard to imagine a sky so lovely, peach, orange, red hues, blue, purple and forest around the corners. Every tuft and nook in the clouds taking an edge of light, blobbing shadows each to their own measure, glow and burble. Even to the eyes, the most direct of senses, it is marvelous, effulgent, unbelievable. If you close your eyes, the memory is magnificent, towering.

Better to end it early, than suffer an ignoble, fading exit. So you turn away, and your step is heavy, slow, grave. Pebbles crunch lightly as they roil and resettle under your feet, grinding into the gravel. Half shoeprints form, crumble. At the intersection, the bustle of traffic, industrial light directed from polished headlamps, little plaintive squeaks of rubber brakes, once again gain your attention.

But there comes a moment, just before you round the bend, when you yearn to turn and see again the lighted sky, catch another sight. It's still there, isn't it? It's still a physical sliver of the world that exists wherever the sun slips just under the spherical horizon of the earth, cloud, elevation, incline, humidity, foliage, etc. permitting. A paltry few seconds ago, it was all there, and magnificence can't just evaporate. It means something to be great, to comprise art, by some law of the universe that is the self-constituted makings of immortality.

But don't check, it's still better to go on, home. Your impression, reverie, nostalgia does the rest, forever in the visual idea. Keep a geist of the glory in your heart, cherished. Remember old friends, past loves, forlorn stuff in forgotten songs. And step forward with balance in your heart.

CCXVII - moments

When i think of you which happens sometimes in a beautiful moment of serenity and often my music is playing i think of you next to me and I'm breathing in slowly and then I'm breathing out slowly and you're there in some form with me and I'm cherishing the moment being there with you and my eyes are open but I'm not looking at anything except you and i in my mind and kinda it seems then my eyes are really closed but inside my eyes are open as well and i know that it could be the case that you're there but it isn't the case and me being all of me at this exact moment being who i am i don't know if I'm enough and all there but i trust in the monent that I'm all there and it's somehow enough of me now and i trust in that me and i see clearly everything as it was as it should be and as it is as it should be even as it is as it always is well you know they say hope springs eternal but to me it always seems to turn back and i hope in so many words i hope it's you even as it is though it isn't really but that's ok because i like to think about you this way you and me here me and you here somehow just being here and that's it that's the moment.

CCXVI - what is life

It's hard to learn about the universe, the grand physics ordering all these swathes of gas, cosmic oddities, powers and chunks of rock, that immense sphere of prolific fusion energy, our star, our ancient blue planet, out of the immaculate conditions of iterative solar and terrestrial formation, the mysterious, bewildering, brilliant start of biological L I F E, its grubby attempts to endure and survive through all the turmoil and skulduggery its host land musters out of its own nature, its tremendous, single-minded persistence, its collective ancestral will to live and will to power, spanning cycles of generations, life and death, its devastatingly wonderful machinery powering evolution of familiae, genera, species, and the meagre skinflint of that ape, homo sapiens' trampling on this earth, and not be blown away, just blown away by it all.

I've said this before, yet this always takes my mind away: one part in two billion of the sun's energy falls on the earth. Out of that sliver of juice, all of life as we have it is given. I honestly can't deal with that knowledge.