peterography

Yesterday I took advantage of some recent tick-killing freezes to descend into the woods behind our house to cut firewood. A large red oak died last year, but had the courtesy to remain standing while its wood seasoned, before it fell recently so I could reach it with my bow saw. A chain saw would make much faster work of this but a bow saw cuts both pushing and pulling so it’s great upper-body exercise for all the opposing muscle groups in my arms, back, and chest. I also like its quietude - I can hear the birds and the deer and chipmunks all around me as I saw and I can start early in the morning without disturbing neighbors.

Later in the day I harvested my remaining apples. My wife and I have a tool used to change lighbulbs in our high ceilings - an extendable pole with a sort of spring-loaded basket for the bulb. This was perfect for picking high-in-the-tree apples and filling a utility bucket with them. After dinner I used some of the apples to make apple-cranberry crisp from a Jane Brody recipe I like.

Then I went to Westford, to the Amateur Telescope Makers of Boston (ATMoB) site, to take more photos of Comet 17P/Holmes.

I’m not actually a member of ATMoB. I used to be, back in 1997, when I was shooting comet Hale-Bopp. So I felt a little guilty setting up in their field in pitch blackness at 10PM, surrounded by the disembodied voices of the real members, discussing variable stars and galaxies that they were looking at through fancy, expensive telescopes. No one said a word to me, nor I to them, as I set up my little old Nikon D100 and el-cheapo FJR equatorial mount.

The light pollution was only marginally less than at my house in Chelmsford but I did get a slightly better comet photo than a few nights ago . . .

I then tried to photograph M31 - the Andromeda Galaxy - but the automatic noise reduction feature in my geriatric Nikon D100 camera picked that moment to fail so I got a shot resembling what you might see in good binoculars or a small telescope - you can just make out the dust lanes, but that’s it . . .

. . . still, the thought that I’m seeing light from two and a half million years ago is thrilling. This was the Andromeda galaxy before there were humans. This was the Andromeda galaxy back when there were mammoths and sabre-toothed tigers, and when the ancestors of camels trod the plains of North America. And I just took this picture of it last night.

I’ve never understood how anyone in this universe can stay bored for long. I assume most of my blog readers inhabit the same universe as I do, so don’t you agree that this is a damned interesting one, as universes go?

Take this exploding comet, for instance. Up until a few days ago comet 17P/Holmes was an obscure 17th magnitude snowball orbiting the sun at a distance ranging from about Mars to Jupiter, i.e., pretty far out there. Suddenly on October 25 it exploded, increasing in brightness by a factor of a million literally overnight. It’s easily seen now with the naked eye at prime time by anyone who just turns off their TV, goes outside, and looks up. Tonight I took a picture of it from my deck:

For the technically-obsessed, this was taken with a Nikon D100 at ISO 1000, using a Nikkor 180mm f/2.8 lens, 20 second exposure. That slightly dark ring around the center is not an artifact - it’s really there. The stars are slightly streaked because I was still adjusting my equatorial mount settings when a bank of clouds rolled in and spoiled the party.

This comet is just plain weird - its orbit is less eccentric than most comets; its behavior and appearance are way more eccentric. The usual wackos have been emerging from the web woodwork, suggesting that it’s the fulfillment of a Hopi prophesy, or positing that it’s an alien spacecraft uncloaking itself or experiencing a reactor core explosion.

But I have my own theory. Remember that witch from the Wizard of Oz - Glinda, the good witch of the North? She was never seen slumming it on a broomstick. Instead, she always travelled around in a bubble, and I think the resemblance is striking:

Now, I’m not making any predictions here; all I’m saying is that it might not be a bad idea to apply for membership in the Lollipop Guild.

You know,  just to be on the safe side.

Thank god the blog writers aren’t on strike. Where would we put the picket lines? Second Life? Except for football I don’t watch TV anyway so the Hollywood writers’ strike is no big deal for me. Maybe a long strike will encourage others to junk the boob tube, too, and get a life, even if it’s only a Second Life. (Boob “tube” is an anachronism these days - can someone suggest a more up-to-date alternative?)

My wife spent the weekend up in Orford, Canada at a chamber music conclave. I stayed in Chelmsford to face the remnants of Hurricane Noel by myself. The local Boston media breathlessly warned us to expect high winds, floods, and power outages. So on Friday I cleaned some junk off the top of my whole house generator. I then went to the store to stock up on essentials - beer and coffee – I couldn’t think of anything else I needed. In the end it was a big nothing so I took advantage of the weather to spread some pelletized limestone on my lawn, allowing the rain to wash it into the soil. There was no wind to speak of.

Without my wife to cuddle up to at night I decided to let my cats sleep in our bedroom. I awoke in the middle of the night with the Birman sprawled across my legs and our 20 pound Maine Coon wedged against my hip, leaving me pinned in place like some Gulliver trapped by furry Lilliputians. I wanted turn over but I didn’t want to disturb them so I stayed still. It was better than sleeping alone.

Finally.  We got a freeze last night.   The weather forecast gave fair warning so I took in the last of my basil yesterday and made pesto - mixing it with sun-dried tomatoes as I’ve learned to do in recent years.  

While I ground and pureed the ingredients I watched the Patriots do the same to the Washington Redskins on TV.   Before the game there was anticipation about how the irresistible force of  New England’s league-leading pass offense would fare against the immovable object of  the Redskins’ league-leading pass defense.  The final answer to that philosophical conundrum was: irresistible force 52, immovable object 7.    The Boston Globe’s headline:  “Washington Slapped Here”

A few hours later my wife and I turned the TV back on to watch the Red Sox complete their sweep of Colorado in the 2007 World Series.   I was reminded again of why my interest in baseball has dissipated in recent years.    Near  the top of the 8th inning something came across the newswire about A-Rod leaving the Yankees.   And from then through the top of the ninth, all the Fox announcers could talk about was A-Rod’s contract.  The fact that there was a game going on in the background and the Rockies had pulled within a run of the Sox seemed like an annoyance to them (”Turn off that World Series  game - we’re trying to discuss baseball here!”) 

I got more of the same driving to work this morning.   I had tuned in to a football-talk radio show (WEEI’s “Patriots Monday”)  not really expecting to hear much about the Patriots.  It’s understandable that Beantown is all a-twitter about the Red Sox winning the World Series.  But during my commute the whole conversation was about  Mike Lowell’s free-agency and whether the Sox should sign A-Rod, and how much they should spend to buy or retain this player or that.   If the game had anything to do with a bat, a ball, and bases, instead of lawyers and bank accounts, you’d never know it from that show.

It’s been preternaturally warm this fall.    Today is in the 80’s and at my house we haven’t seen any temperature below 40F.  

“Preternaturally warm” is one of those hackneyed quasi-literary phrases that’s supposed to mark me as an educated writer, and inform you that you’re reading something of substance.  More often it just signifies that the author has spent too much time with genre horror fiction.   

But I like “preternaturally”.  It’s derived from the Latin -  “praeter naturam“ meaning “beyond or exceeding natural”, and it comes from a respectable family:  in theological law, especially among Catholic scholars, “praeter” finds several other uses.

Praeter intentionem  - “outside the moral intention” - doing something harmful in the course of doing something morally neutral or good.

Praeter legem - outside the law  - not regulated or specified by the law  (not to be confused with contra legem - “against the law”)

Praeter ordinem - outside the normal order of things.

As a gardener I’ve watched the growing season grow over the last 40 years.   I can reliably plant crops now that would have died of frostbite before yielding any fruit when I was a teenager.   Yet I have far less time in the fall and winter to work on my fences and terraces and chop trees in my woods without worrying about ticks, because we have such a late freeze and early thaw.

Watching this trend over decades of gardening convinces me that this is not just Al Gore blowing hot air.   Studies at UMass and UNH confirm my personal observations that this is a real warming pattern and not some brief meterological condition.  When I was born the atmosphere had 300 ppm of carbon dioxide; in Ben Franklin’s time it had 276 ppm; today it has 385 ppm and the best scientific evidence points to man’s role in this.   So is it  praeter intentionem,  praeter legem, or praeter ordinem?  Or is it all three?

I cooked several gallons of butternut squash soup this weekend.   Some was consumed by musicians visiting us and most of the rest was frozen for future lunches.   On Saturday the AMC Mountains and Music committee descended on our house to throw a party honoring my wife who just finished her tenure as committee chair.  They brought all the food, drink, and desserts, and even supplied real dishes, glasses and silverware.   My wife is a little embarrassed at the attention but I enjoy any opportunity to party with musicians.

I’m in Rock City – that’s Rock City the bookstore and café, in Rockland Maine. Last year it was called the Second Read, but nothing else has changed. It’s still the classic used bookstore and coffeehouse with little tables upfront where all the local bohemians and a few out-of-state ones such as yours truly, sit and write, sipping fair traded Nicaraguan coffee and espresso and munching cakes and pies and brownies. Latter-day Hemingways prefer caffeine and a sugar high to wine, and laptops to pen and paper, but little else has changed. Glancing around at people’s LCD screens I can see the four line stanzas and double-spaced text that reveals poems and stories in progress.

My own project is postcard poetry. I’ve signed up to write poems on postcards – one a week – and to send each poem to someone on a list of other poets sharing this project. There are over a hundred of us signed up.

I first heard about this from Brent Allard, the exalted leader of Poets Unbound, my poetry group in Nashua. Brent had the inspiration of making his own postcards from photos he took. I take photos – see some at my other website, pnArt.com. So I’ve gathered together a selection of photos that I think will work as 4×6 postcards, and don’t have so much nudity that I’ll get arrested by the Postal authorities.

This is fun but lately I’ve wondered if I should be aiming higher. One of our friends just won a MacArthur “genius” grant for his work in helping veterans overcome the trauma of war. There’s nothing like this to make you ask yourself what the hell you’ve been doing with your life.

And why am I in Maine, just now? My wife is attending a chamber music workshop sponsored by the Bay Area Chamber Concerts in Rockport, and I’m tagging along. They spend the day getting coached and practicing and I sit at Rock City, writing, or visiting galleries and museums along the coast. In the evenings I socialize with them. I love hanging out with the chamber musicians. I remain convinced that there is no better company – no category or class of people more convivial, stimulating, interesting, and just plain nice, than chamber musicians. I have no idea why this seems to be true. Does it have something to do with so many of them being doctors? Like so many other chamber music gatherings, this weekend’s workshop could pass as an AMA convention. (and by the way, the McArthur genius mentioned above is usually part of this crowd, and he’s a doctor!)

My butternut squash vines have died off - victims, I guess, of radical swings in hydration and temperature, so I harvested the squash. Most of them looked ready to harvest anyway - a few still had green veins. Last year I had 15. This year I have 37.

It might seem like a lot but they last a long time. One of last year’s sat in my kitchen at room temperature until March when I finally cooked with it, and it was delicious. Prior to cooking with it I had been using it as a stand-in model to adjust my studio lights before the professional models arrived for shoots. Butternut’s smooth “caucasian” skin, made it a perfect substitute  for my nude models.

Butternut squash is remarkably versatile. I make soups, various baked and mashed squash, casseroles and desserts with it. And I love the seeds for snacks.

Back in my callow youth, before I met my wife, I dated another Jewish woman. When she described Yom Kippur, I said something like, “you mean it’s a really serious, solemn day when you’re supposed to reflect on all your sins and moral shortcomings, and confess and atone for them?  That sounds depressing! Why would anyone want to do that?”

Since that time I’ve attended Kol Nidre (the evening service of Yom Kippur) for over a quarter century, mostly at Congregation Shalom in Chelmsford where I went tonight. “You don’t have to be Jewish to like Levy’s Jewish Rye”, and you don’t have to be Jewish to experience the cleansing benefits of reflection and confession and refreshed resolve.

Sometimes it’s a challenge - tonight I was melting in my suit. My wife suggested I dress casually because of the temperature, but the idea of attending a religious service in anything less than a suit and tie seems disrespectful. The synagogue was packed - I’ve never seen it so full. And I almost immediately acquired a new thought to atone for when a tall, gorgeous young woman wearing what I can only describe as a cocktail dress, revealing lots of beautiful thigh, sat in front of me.

The choir was very good and the cantor sang in an angelic soprano, but her voice was often forced to compete with this year’s solo instrument - a euphonium. To be fair, it was played well, but there was just a little too much of it for my taste. In the past we’ve had a cello, and more sparingly. I like that better.

Behind me sat a family with two little boys who fell asleep and snored in stereo during the rabbi’s sermon.

Rabbi Shoshana Perry’s sermons have gotten better and better. I used to prefer the previous rabbi - Terry Bard. His sermons were abstract and intellectual - he would take some point of Jewish tradition or liturgy and expand on it, discussing its history and meaning, like a college professor. I relate well to that, and when Rabbi Perry took over - 8 months pregnant - I found her sermons too maternal, or (dare I say it?) too female. She would reflect on her feelings while bathing her baby but I’m not a parent and I could only take her word for it all.

She still sermonizes about her personal experiences - tonight she confessed the dark and empty recesses in her thoughts while she’s alone in her car. But she’s much better at expressing their universality, in this case bringing it all around to the core Jewish identity of questioning and wrestling with the ineffable. Unlike bathing babies, this is something I can understand: the questions, the doubts, the struggle. Tonight she made me feel like a kindred warrior.

But I really wanted to talk about confession. Kol Nidre is about confession. And I’ve often said that this is where the Jews and the Catholics have an insight into human nature that most Protestant denominations lack. My family is Lutheran but, as kids, we went to a Congregational church because no Lutheran churches were handy.

It’s not that the Protestants don’t see the benefits of confession and the healing powers of forgiveness. But what the Jews and Catholics “get” is that people sometimes need a little encouragement to face their shortcomings and to confess. So it helps to institutionalize it in a prominent way, which the Catholics do through the Sacrament of Confession and the Jews do through Yom Kippur.

That’s why it was interesting to read in today’s Wall Street Journal that the Lutherans are reinstating it. In Confession Makes a Comeback, Alexandra Alter reports that in many Protestant churches and all over the secular web confession is the new black. I hope this is a fad that sticks.