The sun sure is hot. We seem to be just right protected from that Hydrogen Bomb going off 24/7in the heaven, but never take it for granted that its light is harmless.
At last I look to the moon; it hangs fixed and full in the east, emormously scrubbed and simple. Our own hometown ultima moon. It must have been a wonderful sight from there, when the olive continents cracked and spread, and the white ice rolled down and up like a window blind. My eyes feel cold when I blink; this is enough of a walk tonight. I lack the apparatus to feel a warmth that few have felt --- but it's there.
According to Arthur Koestler, Kepler felt the focused warmth when he was experimenting on something entirely different, using concave mirrors. Kepler wrote, "I was engaged in other experiments with mirrors, without thinking of the warmth; I involuntarily turned around to see whether somebody was breathing on my hand." It was warmth from the moon.
I set fire to paper with a magnifying glass when I was a kid. It takes a lot of patience and a steady hand. Kind of exciting when it happens.
Anybody else read Jules Verne's The Mysterious Island when you were a kid? The engineer, Cyrus Harding, was my hero. He got a fire started with the glass out of his pocket watch.
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9 comments:
As flies to wanton boys are we to the gods; They kill us for their sport.
Aren't there a "DUH!" and "D'OH!" lables?
Wow... when you can start a fire with water, you know you have a bad luck life.
The sun sure is hot. We seem to be just right protected from that Hydrogen Bomb going off 24/7in the heaven, but never take it for granted that its light is harmless.
I confess. I was an ant killer as a boy. The hot mountain west sun and my little magnifying glass were too much of a temptation.
I also burned holes in leaves and in a few tires (oops.)
Doberman dreaming of chicken.
Doberman wakes up from chicken dream.
At last I look to the moon; it hangs fixed and full in the east, emormously scrubbed and simple. Our own hometown ultima moon. It must have been a wonderful sight from there, when the olive continents cracked and spread, and the white ice rolled down and up like a window blind. My eyes feel cold when I blink; this is enough of a walk tonight. I lack the apparatus to feel a warmth that few have felt --- but it's there.
According to Arthur Koestler, Kepler felt the focused warmth when he was experimenting on something entirely different, using concave mirrors. Kepler wrote, "I was engaged in other experiments with mirrors, without thinking of the warmth; I involuntarily turned around to see whether somebody was breathing on my hand." It was warmth from the moon.
Annie Dillard, "Pilgrim at Tinker Creek"
Perhaps they were zombie ants and could give no warning?
I set fire to paper with a magnifying glass when I was a kid. It takes a lot of patience and a steady hand. Kind of exciting when it happens.
Anybody else read Jules Verne's The Mysterious Island when you were a kid? The engineer, Cyrus Harding, was my hero. He got a fire started with the glass out of his pocket watch.
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