Andromeda (M31)

The closest spiral galaxy to our own is the Andromeda Galaxy, known more formally as Messier 31 or M31. Although other galaxies are closer to us, Andromeda is probably the closest galaxy that actually resembles our own Milky Way. It can be seen as a faintish smudge in the sky with the naked eye, and even in urban areas it is visible with telescopes/binoculars. When photographed with a large telescope, it is 6 times as wide as the full moon. Andromeda is about 2.54 million light years (14,931,708,447,886,365,000 miles) away from us, meaning that light takes 2.54 million years to travel from Andromeda to earth and we are seeing Andromeda as it appeared 2.54 million years ago--we are, in fact, as with all other space objects, looking back in time when we view Andromeda. This is part of the reason why astronomers and astrophysicists concern themselves with extremely distant objects (and Andromeda is very, very, very, very close to us, comparatively speaking)--the more distant in space you look, the further back in time you look, and thus you can learn more about the conditions of the earliest moments of the universe.

Andromeda (M31), from NASA's Astronomy Picture of the Day series

Andromeda is more than twice the size of the Milky Way, but telescopes and observatories can still capture it in all sorts of interesting ways. Below is Andromeda in infrared (the red parts--interstellar dust, mostly, sites of future star formation) and X-ray (the blue points--some binary stars in the final stages of stellar evolution) wavelengths.

apod.nasa.gov

É a promessa de vida no teu coração

("It's the promise of life in your heart.")

Going south yonder a bit for today's embedded YouTube video with Elis Regina singing "Aguas de Marco," one of the better-known bossa nova songs. This recording is probably sometime 70s or early 80s (she died in 1982). It's entirely Brazilian Portuguese, but basically, "Aguas de Marco" means "waters of March," referring to the end of summer and beginning of fall in the southern-hemisphere Brazil. The lyrics don't really tell any sort of story but are random words and images associated with the fall rains of Brazil, from "É pau, é pedra" ("it's stick, it's stone") to "São as águas de março fechando o verão É a promessa de vida no teu coração" ("they're the waters of March closing the summer; it's the promise of life in your heart"). Quite corny in English but remarkably beautiful in Portuguese, and the piano backing in this version makes me smile. Lyrics (in Portuguese, as copied from the original YouTube video) are below the video.



É pau, é pedra, é o fim do caminho
É um resto de toco, é um pouco sozinho
É um caco de vidro, é a vida, é o sol
É a noite, é a morte, é um laço, é o anzol
É peroba do campo, é o nó da madeira
Caingá, candeia, é o Matita Pereira

É madeira de vento, tombo da ribanceira
É o mistério profundo, é o queira ou não queira
É o vento ventando, é o fim da ladeira
É a viga, é o vão, festa da cumeeira
É a chuva chovendo, é conversa ribeira
Das águas de março, é o fim da canseira
É o pé, é o chão, é a marcha estradeira
Passarinho na mão, pedra de atiradeira

É uma ave no céu, é uma ave no chão
É um regato, é uma fonte, é um pedaço de pão
É o fundo do poço, é o fim do caminho
No rosto o desgosto, é um pouco sozinho

É um estrepe, é um prego, é uma conta, é um conto
É uma ponta, é um ponto, é um pingo pingando
É um peixe, é um gesto, é uma prata brilhando
É a luz da manhã, é o tijolo chegando
É a lenha, é o dia, é o fim da picada
É a garrafa de cana, o estilhaço na estrada
É o projeto da casa, é o corpo na cama
É o carro enguiçado, é a lama, é a lama

É um passo, é uma ponte, é um sapo, é uma rã
É um resto de mato, na luz da manhã
São as águas de março fechando o verão
É a promessa de vida no teu coração

É uma cobra, é um pau, é João, é José
É um espinho na mão, é um corte no pé
É um passo, é uma ponte, é um sapo, é uma rã
É um belo horizonte, é uma febre terçã
São as águas de março fechando o verão
É a promessa de vida no teu coração

"Aguas de Marco" was written by Antonio Carlos Jobim, the most famous bossa nova composer. You can read about it here and about Elis here.

My buddy Emile

Another of my classes this quarter is Self, Culture and Society-2, the second of a required three-quarter (aka all year long) course all undergrads have to take in order to graduate. There are three or four other classes you can take to fulfill this graduation requirement, with titles like "Power, Identity and Resistance" or "Classics of Social and Political Thought," but they all fall under "social sciences core," aka a full year of basic social science/philosophy texts, with a bit of a difference focus depending on the class. "Self," as SCS is usually referred to, is a focus on conceptualizations of individuality vs society and the like. Last quarter we read some of the basic socio-economic texts, namely Smith and Marx and Weber. This quarter so far we've read Durkheim and we later will read Levi-Strauss, Foucault's Discipline & Punish, and a short little thing by Sahlins.

The Durkheim we're reading is Elementary Forms of Religious Life, which is actually pretty interesting. The Wikipedia article on it can be found here, but basically it is Durkheim examining how religion and society work--basically, to Durkheim, religion is simply an expression of society, of humanity's need for communal living and processes that help amplify this communal living, this sense of society. To do this Durkheim looks at some of the most elementary types of religion he knew at the time, namely that of American Indians and Australian Aboriginals and similar.

Of course, the assertion that religion is/can be society, and vice-versa, can be terribly unsettling to some people, whether because they want to despise religion or because they want to believe in some creator god who cares deeply about them. Religion fascinates me as a socio-cultural thing, mainly because rituals, and the idea of creating my own as an author, have always had a kind of deep imaginative hold on me. Much of creative writing, after all, is world-building, and what could be more fun than creating whole new societies and religions and bizarre rituals? I've always been an over-describer and this is probably part of the reason why. Of course, religion as some arbiter of truth, of life or death, has little hold on me, probably because too many of these rituals and stories are too ridiculous to actually believe literally.

Anyway, a kid in my class today really did seem alarmingly unsettled by all of this. I'm fairly certain he's devout Roman Catholic (Facebook stalking can be productive in this regard, plus he mentions his devoutness from time to time in class), which only amps up the hilarity. My professor is a sociologist with a thick Turkish accent and a propensity for saying things like "I am a sociologist--I hate people" and the like, and his general style of leading discussion is to be as much of a devil's advocate as possible. This entertains most of us most of the time, but when you're set on trying to disprove Emile Durkheim like this kid has been for the past few classes, I'm sure it's just annoying. This kid could be more of a devil's advocate himself if he could tone down the "prattling," as another classmate of mine put it today, and just ask some succinct questions instead of hinting that Durkheim has terrible methodology and doesn't know anything.

Thursday is our last class on Durkheim, and then it's on to Levi-Strauss. A few first-year friends of mine took from the beginning of school this year to referring to authors by their first names; thus, last quarter there were Adam and Karl and Max, and this quarter so far there's been Emile and, soon, Claude. I've enjoyed Emile, for the most part, even if not the 70-page sections I was assigned a few times in the past couple of weeks, and my Levi-Strauss experience is basically nonexistent, so I guess I'll have to see how it goes with Claude in the next two weeks.

Masjid Qubbat as-Sakhrah

One of my classes this quarter is Islamic Art and Architecture, 650-1100, which is a focus on the very early Islamic art and architecture (no duh). Currently I'm supposed to be writing 800 words about two different scholarly articles on the Dome of the Rock (in transliterated Arabic, according to Wikipedia, it is Masjid Qubbat as-Sakhrah--literally something like "the dome mosque of the rock") in Jerusalem. Interestingly, the Dome of the Rock isn't a mosque at all, just a ginormous octagonal domed structure built over a rock with some bizarre religious associations to Jews, Muslims, etc. The area of Jerusalem it sits on, the Haram al-Sharif, is almost empty aside from the Dome of the Rock, so of course this is a monument meant to be overwhelming, visible from afar, etc.

It was built in about 691 or 692 and seems to be the first serious, monumental piece of so-called Islamic (the "Islamic" tradition is not so unified as other traditions, since it spans centuries and all sorts of different sub-cultures) architecture. Why exactly it was built remains something of a mystery; most of the mythological explanations ascribed to it (that it was the site of a "Night Journey" to Heaven that Muhammad made, etc) were done so several centuries after the fact. The articles I've been reading and analyzing about it in the past few weeks basically suggest that it's something of a statement to the new Islamic power in the region, drawing on some Byzantine/Sasanian (Persian) tradition but also, as the second article I'm reading asserts, some pre-Islamic Arab mytho-historical aesthetics. Yeah.

Still, it is a glorious-looking building.

Very nice.

Friday's high: 13

It's always comforting to see that the National Weather Service has issued a wind chill advisory for my corner of the world. Thursday night into Friday is supposed to be in the single digits, with wind chills from -20 to -29.

Mmm, toasty. Nothing quite like the first real, plains-Midwestern, sub-zero freezing of the year. I'm only glad that it wasn't last Friday, when I was watching the sun rise over Lake Michigan. It's probably time to break out multiple layers of clothing or something like that.

Yum! (Click on image to enlarge the agonizing details, if you like, courtesy of weather.com)

7:20 am

Lake Michigan this morning, as the sun peeked through the clouds. An end to this long week of exhaustion at last.

Enjoy the day.

Snow globe

I'm still plenty alive--just spent the past two days in a bizarre snow globe world that is Chicago whenever it snows here. It's gray, slightly claustrophobic, and snow blows everywhere--definitely a snow globe.

Almost done with the second week of the quarter, so things are clucking along. I was so glad to leave New England and come back here, despite the lack of natural beauty; there is so little to hold me in my family house anymore. I will be back there in March briefly for spring break. I will probably also be back for the summer, although who knows.

I've been getting up at 5:30 every morning this week, thanks to Kuviasugnerk/Kangeiko, the university's winter festival that includes 6am calisthenics. It's bizarre and kind of pointless and exhausting, but my house always does it, and does well at that, winning for like 15 years in a row. The prize for best house participation is money, so it's nice to do something absurd, get a long-sleeved t-shirt out of it (if you go all 5 mornings), and get some money to use for house funds. Of course, this means almost perpetual exhaustion for a week, but I drink lots of tea and go to bed early and wait for it to be over.

I'm applying for a job with the admissions office as a tour guide and general "visit coordinator," aka admissions student shill. A pleasant shill, fear not. The pay is not great ($9/hr), but prospective students are funny and weirdly touching, the networking with admissions counselors is good, the constant public exposure is good for me, and any type of cash to help staunch the bleeding my bank account is doing is good. I figure even if I only work like 5 hours a week, that's 45 dollars a week, or roughly 450 dollars a quarter, enough to keep me from hemorrhaging money and provide extra cash for food or books or whatever. Assuming I'm hired, of course--it's insanely competitive, and I was ultimately denied last year after making it to the final round of interviews. I was a know-nothing first-year last year, though. Even one year has aged and wised me almost beyond my own recognition.

That's about it. It's past time for me to make my daily trek 5 blocks to the gym. Today it will have the added bonus of keeping me awake until about 10pm, when I'll finally be able to go to sleep. I've already been awake for long enough today to feel like my eyeballs will pop out of my head.

A presto.