* Plan Z is looking ever more probable. (You wanted a war, Nancy.)
* The MOAB is coming. (DECLAS?)
* Aaaand Baltimore is back in the news yet again. (And on the 17th no less.)
* Our growing-season got off to a 2-month late start this year, and ...
* Our growing-season just ended yesterday.
* Lightning strikes near north pole?! (Solar storms breaching our weakened magnetic field.)
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Speaking of which...
One of the criticisms of comparative mythologists' claims that the stories of the ancients describe cataclysmic celestial events is that those myths can, supposedly, also be chalked up to ignorant-but-imaginitive ancestors trying their hand at theoretical physics in their curious, story-telling way. Sir James George Frazer's book, The Golden Bough, contributed greatly to such views, and still influences opinions today.
Theoretical physics?! Well, ok, theoretical astro-physics, in this case. But, consider our own Big Bang Theory. Is this not our modern effort to explain the beginning of everything? Likewise Persephone to the ancients: A story to explain how the origin of seasons.
But that's precisely the problem: What came before? And, what I mean is that, if you're going to explain where the universe came from, then that implies that there was something before. And, where our 'modern' 'science' hypothesizes a singularity, which is supposed to be the ultimate answer to every child's obvious question: "Where did that come from, Daddy?" "A singularity, son." "A what?" "Literally nothing. It just appeared out of nowhere." At which point, most children just assume that there is far too much for them yet to learn before they can even understand that answer, but the clever child comes face-to-face with the fact that his father might just not be as smart as he is. I mean, after all, even he, the child, can see what a load of nonsense that answer is. So he starts looking elsewhere for answers. And both father and son are happier with that outcome.
So, if the Greeks have a myth of Persephone, the spring, then one must ask one's self why they would presume that it had not always been that way, just as our own scientists of our own time have not presumed that our universe has just always been this way? Both assume there must have been a beginning. But why?
Now comes a pretty big nail in the coffin of the already rapidly dying notion that our ancestors just told tall tails for no particular reason, and that nail comes in the form of evidence that the ancient Assyrians recorded unusual aurorae, rather than just ignoring them, or assuming that it was just business as usual. But, unusual aurorae are going to be just that: Unusual. Ergo, worthy of noting. But that's my point. They saw a before, and an after, and they were different. Was it the same with the seasons? Did they experience a before and after, prompting them to 'invent fables' to explain the change?
BUT! (say the critics) They actually recorded the aurorae as best they could. They didn't fabricate any fanciful tales of giants bleeding all over the skies.
EXACTLY! (say the defenders) The Assyrians were not only literate, but, in their own minds, smarter than their ancestors. They recorded everything. Those stories (which they, too, knew of) didn't come from the Assyrians, or any of their neighbors, but merely through them. Their ancestors didn't write. They created the stories as mnemonic devices, kind of like our 'My Dear Aunt Sally' that every schoolchild learns. That way, they could pass on their observations and records to future generations while preserving their integrity. And it worked! Later generations did preserve those stories. We see this most notably in the Grimms' Fairy Tales, the Kalevala, and the Norse Eddas. We even witnessed and recorded in our own time (more or less) how modern, literate scholars, like Snorri Sturluson and Elias Lönnrot sought out the last remaining 'singers' (that's important) of these stories, and finally wrote them down. And, good thing, too, because there were no more singers to carry on the tradition.
Thus, where our first ancestors saw nature as a titanic struggle between competing minds, their children viewed nature as a balancing-act among universal forces.
And this article reinforces that view because the ancient Assyrians saw, and recorded, some pretty amazing, celestial, perhaps even catalysmic (to those nearer the poles) things, and in a form somewhere between how their ancestors would have recorded them, and how we would.
This will also have an impact on the dating of other events and records.
I'm excited about this.
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The Arctic Snow Cruiser
My mother, sensing that she had a budding nerd in her home, made the brilliant move of gathering up decades worth of old Popular Science and Popular Mechanics magazines for me by scouring local garage sales and yard sales.
It was in the pages of one of the 1930s Popular Science magazines that I first read all about the Arctic Snow Cruiser.
What never did appear in any of those magazines was the sad fate of the machine.
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From my playlist
Well, what shall we listen to tonight?
How about those oh-so memorable, Wagnerian, 'Wall of Sound' tunes from that criminally insane, convicted murderer, Phil Spector?
Sure, why not? After all, the musical community is pretty top-heavy with loons. If we excluded all the nuts, fruits, and flakes, there wouldn't be much music left. And maybe that ought to teach us something.
What's more, you don't even need good speakers for this because the Wall of Sound was designed to sound good on the little, monaural speakers of the transistor radios of the time.
And you will definitely hear the similarities among these songs.
The Righteous Brothers - You've Lost That Loving Feeling
Tina Turner - River Deep, Mountain High
The Beach Boys - God Only Knows
Not actually Phil's work, but heavily influenced by it.
The Beach Boys - Sloop John B
Also heavily influenced by Phil, but actually a Bahamian song, not the Beach Boys'.
The Beatles - Let It Be
Wait ... WHAT?! Yep! The whole album is as much Phil's work as The Beatles'.
The Righteous Brothers - Unchained Melody
My personal favorite ...
Walker Brothers - The Sun Ain't Gonna Shine Anymore
Yes! Lip-synching lest audiences hear what the bands sound like without the Wall of Sound.
And, since it's about that time of year...
The Ronettes - Sleigh Ride
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