As We Speak

Annular Eclipse Of The Sun

...is happening, right now. I wasn't aware that it was even happening -- was just settling in to eat a Dog Bowl of Couscous and Garbanzo Beans, and catch up on Season 4 of The Wire, when I noticed an odd cast to the sunlight outside; a phone call from a friend about something completely unconnected to the periodic passages of Sun and Moon clued me in ("Why don't you know about this?").

Eclipses occur every 177 days, 4 hours, observable from somewhere on the Earth, and are all predicted by the slow gravitational-orbital dance of our M-Class star, Sol, and our Moon. Today's free light show has a specific name, too: SE2012May20A, and you can find out whether you missed anything, here. For this eclipse, the greatest region of Totality occurs in a band which runs just north of the San Francisco Bay area.

Years ago, I, uh, ingested psychoactive chemicals (all part of the Yout Scene in those times long ago) and climbed a small mountain in order to be the highest thing in three counties, and watch the sun go down. I have the scars on my corneas to prove it. I won't be reenacting that little slice of stupidity today.

Now, if we were in Darkest Kinjubistan, a hundred years ago, we could fool the natives into believing we were Gods by using the Eclipse as a sign of our power. Or, so Hollywood would have us believe.

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