I also have to talk to my publicist about an interview/review of Murder of Angels thing, and I have to talk to Ted Naifeh about "Alabaster," and I have to talk to Fiddler's Green about programming. But otherwise, all I shall do is write.
Spooky scored two nice fat pumpkins yesterday (she had to dig for 'em). Now they only have to be carved.
Last night, of course, was the Full Hunger Moon and the last total lunar eclipse until 2008. After Spooky cooked an enormous pot of chicken stew (chicken, carrots, mushrooms, kale, onions, many cloves of garlic, green bell pepper, a pint of Bass, and so forth), we went outside to watch the shadow of the Earth slip across the moon. I had one of Those Moments (the last one was standing in the sea at the base of the Beavertail Lighthouse in Rhode Island back in July), one of those Moments of Utter and Transcendent Insignificance. Here I was, gazing across hundreds of thousands of kilometres of near vacuum, so very small on the face of this troubled blue planet, only a speck of the mass casting such a great shadow. Out there (not up there), the orangeyellowred autumn gloom spread quickly from left to right, swallowing the Mare Humorum and Crater Tycho, then sweeping out across Mare Nubium and Mare Procellarum, finally claiming the Sea of Tranquility, and then, just before totality, there was only a sterling bright rind near Crater Endymion. And I wanted to be standing on those dusty gray plains, those "seas" that have never known water, watching as the autumn-coloured twilight claimed that world. Spooky took some photos with the digital (while I watched through the binoculars), but you can't make out any details. We need a better camera. I need a frelling telescope. Just as the eclipse reached umbra, a bank of clouds swept in from the north and obscured our view. Later, about midnight, the clouds were gone, and we watched as some vast cosmic serpent spat the moon out again.
Later, Spooky read me Moon Mouse by Adelaide Holl (1969; illustrated by Cyndy Szekeres), one of our favourite children's books. And that was our Full Hunger Moon. I fell asleep to Blade Runner, thinking about Daughter of Hounds and how the prologue ends.
There are photos (by Spooky):
The swallowing of the moon.
Da Mau-wus is in da Hau-wus! (and some pink-skinned freak in goggles)
Sophie, who couldn't give a dren
I was going to say something about Dominar G. W. Bush and the New American Gestapo, but this has turned into a longish post and, more importantly, I'm in a good mood I don't want spoil'd.
It's there that no one will stare
At your jaws and your long hair, the claws on your fingers...