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Monday |
| He adjusted the contrast and tint, blacking out the moon or losing it in light. "If they could land a man on the moon you would think they could do it in color," he complained. My mother didn't share his enthusiasm: "There's no color on the moon." She was right, in a way. The moon is black as coal. It only looks white because given enough light anything will shine. Think of asphalt at noon, black, hot, and blinding. "Albedo," Jerry lectured, "is the measure of how much light an object reflects. The moon has a very low albedo. 7 out of 100." |
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| The above excerpt is from a
scene in my short novel BUZZ
where a newly married couple is bickering while
watching the first moon landing. Without giving
too much away, the moon is a metaphor for the
unattainable and the letdown that comes from
finally getting what you want. I didn't write it
with that intention, but looking back now that's
what it says to me. Please buy my book
and tell me what you think it
means.
Tonight was a much ballyhooed lunar eclipse, a so-called blood moon. The view from Kaupo, Maui was pretty good and I enjoyed trying to photograph it with my mediocre iPhone 4S camera pointed through binoculars. It was a mostly frustrating challenge but getting even this result was satisfying--perhaps moreso than if I had the proper gear to make a more technically proficient image. The struggle made it interesting as I was so invested in the process. There's a blood moon in my memory, too. The summer after 7th grade I played on my town's traveling baseball team. After our last game we had a giant sleepover at my friend BJ Lafemina's. He lived right on the water and at its totality the moon hung there red and ripe, bigger than the whiffle ball we batted around till dawn. It was the first time I stayed up all night. That night is clear in my mind for another reason, as well, because shortly thereafter we moved from our bucolic bayside hamlet to a considerably worse situation. Everything changed, and it wasn't just a phase... |
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