Starry Night and birth
Kimmie toiled like an ant, ferrying furnishings, patterns, and fabric down to her new sewing-room (I helped move the cutting-table and arrange the furniture once it was inside the "bunker"), while I read The Origins of Scientific Thought and Rubicon.
It was back to Origins for me because de Santillana is still the best source (in my library anyway) for insight into not only ancient astronomy, but the underlying attitudes and principles, as well as the conflicts between rival theories. I felt myself getting closer to critical mass with chapter 17, but still not quite there.
Today, near the end of my writing session, I finally decided to plunge in and start writing. I wrote 80 words--a single paragraph to get the damn thing going.
My last step of preparation was to open Starry Night, the astronomical software I bought 2 years ago, and direct it to take me to Alexandria, 2 October 48 BC. It's fantastic: the program opens with an image of the sky here in Vancouver at the current date and time. I have daylight mode switched on, so it shows blue sky with a few puffy clouds. When I input the place I want to go to, my monitor became the window of a spacecraft as I flew about 1,000 km above the earth, the atmosphere giving way to the clean black of space and its countless stars--all in their correct positions and brightness. I saw North America swing below me, the Atlantic Ocean, the Iberian peninsula, and then I crossed the terminator as North Africa came into view along the broad curve of earth's surface. When I arrived over Alexandria, Egypt, the descent started, and I watched the stars shift in perspective as I dropped to the surface, with the silhouettes of trees on the black ring of the horizon. It was 9:07 p.m. local time.
Next I input my target date. The stars and planets rearranged themselves as the program catapulted me 2,000 years back in time. Now I was standing in Alexandria, looking at the night sky that someone at that time saw when he looked up. Crucial, I felt, since I was about to enter an ancient observatory to meet with one of the great astronomers of that period.
My feeling of inspiration, even of awe, provided me with the impetus to start my chapter:
The birth of a new chapter.
It was back to Origins for me because de Santillana is still the best source (in my library anyway) for insight into not only ancient astronomy, but the underlying attitudes and principles, as well as the conflicts between rival theories. I felt myself getting closer to critical mass with chapter 17, but still not quite there.
Today, near the end of my writing session, I finally decided to plunge in and start writing. I wrote 80 words--a single paragraph to get the damn thing going.
My last step of preparation was to open Starry Night, the astronomical software I bought 2 years ago, and direct it to take me to Alexandria, 2 October 48 BC. It's fantastic: the program opens with an image of the sky here in Vancouver at the current date and time. I have daylight mode switched on, so it shows blue sky with a few puffy clouds. When I input the place I want to go to, my monitor became the window of a spacecraft as I flew about 1,000 km above the earth, the atmosphere giving way to the clean black of space and its countless stars--all in their correct positions and brightness. I saw North America swing below me, the Atlantic Ocean, the Iberian peninsula, and then I crossed the terminator as North Africa came into view along the broad curve of earth's surface. When I arrived over Alexandria, Egypt, the descent started, and I watched the stars shift in perspective as I dropped to the surface, with the silhouettes of trees on the black ring of the horizon. It was 9:07 p.m. local time.
Next I input my target date. The stars and planets rearranged themselves as the program catapulted me 2,000 years back in time. Now I was standing in Alexandria, looking at the night sky that someone at that time saw when he looked up. Crucial, I felt, since I was about to enter an ancient observatory to meet with one of the great astronomers of that period.
My feeling of inspiration, even of awe, provided me with the impetus to start my chapter:
Slaves carried torches to light their way. The moon, just five days old, was a thin crescent sinking in the Milky Way which rose like a pale column of smoke from the docks to the zenith.
The birth of a new chapter.
posted by paulv at
3:55 PM
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