synch-ro-ni-zing

Sturgeon moon

This top photo is the full "sturgeon moon" at the end of the day Tuesday, August 28, in other words, last night.

I love the Native American names of the full moons. You can see the list of 2007 full moons and more information about why they're named as they are here. I'll at least list them for you:

January - Full Wolf Moon
February - Full Snow Moon
March - Full Worm Moon
April - Full Pink Moon
May - Full Flower Moon
May 31 this year there was a "Blue Moon" (when there is more than one full moon in a month; there are around 41 months with two full moons every century) - "Although the name suggests that to have two Full Moons in a single month is a rather rare occurrence (happening "just once in a . . . "), it actually occurs once about every three years on average."
June - Full Strawberry Moon
July - Full Buck Moon
August - Full Sturgeon Moon
September - Full Harvest Moon
October - Full Hunter's Moon
November - Full Beaver's Moon
December - Full Cold Moon

The rest of the photos are earlier, of the total lunar eclipse early yesterday morning, the same day, between 5 and 6am. (I posted three of these in a triptych on my photoblog.)

I knew the total lunar eclipse was coming, and I almost forgot to go outside to watch. But then I opened my computer to do my blogroll and emails, and my default Internet home page is http://www.msu.edu/, and there was a reminder to watch the total lunar eclipse on top of one of the MSU parking ramps. Thank you!

Bishop sat on my lap in the front yard while I sipped coffee and snapped away with the auto timer. How fortunate there wasn't a cloud in the sky.

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Kiva

Thanks to DrowseyMonkey I heard about Kiva.

Young Matt and Jessica Flannery and Premal Shah from San Francisco started this microfinance distribution company, thinking they could use the Internet, as eBay does, to connect people who are impoverished and need funds to get their small businesses going or expanded. The idea is that a 0% / no collateral loan allows more dignity for the recipient and the lender than donations.

Kiva works with microloan partners that help screen qualified borrowers, which number around 15,000 now. Currently the loan repayment rate is 99%. Collections usually happen monthly when the partner visits the entrepeneur. When the lender's (yours) loan is repaid, you can decide to receive it or reinvest it with another entrepeneur. The partners keep journals, which help keep you informed about the entrepeneur's progress.

For example, Malika is a single mother in Tajikistan. She is raising a daughter. Malica, 46, has high school education. Malica sells women’s shoes. Her daughter sells in a small store at the central market, while Malica travels to sell on the markets nearby. Two years ago, when Malica received her first loan to expand her business, she did not own the store. Gradually growing the business, Malica opened the small store. Today, Malica continues to collaborate with MicroInvest. She asks for another loan to continue expansion of her business.

You can donate as little as $25, which goes to an entrepeneur of your choice. Look here to see more of how it works.

If you browse their site, you'll see that they address issues of loan defaults, embezzlement and other risks. Just like any project that involves humans, it isn't 100% perfect. I couldn't find information about how much commission Kiva gets.

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fascinating chaos

freewillastrology.com for LEO this week:

LEO (July 23-Aug. 22): Many of us don't always know what we feel. At times we may have a vivid sense that we feel "something," but we're not sure what it is. That's why musicians, writers, actors, and other creative people play such a crucial role in our emotional lives. Their work can help us articulate the mysteries unfolding within us. But here's the problem:

There are some artists out there who aren't very smart or original; they express only the most hackneyed and superficial feelings. If we look to them for illumination, we're cheated. So your next assignment, Leo, is to home in on the enigmas that are swirling within you by seeking the guidance and inspiration of only the very best artists: those who have cultivated a high level of proficiency in their heroic struggles to find meaning in the fascinating chaos that surrounds us.

This is just what I need right now, because I'm learning to paint!

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Wha’ do ya’ know?

My favorite line in the film “The English Patient” (which I saw five times in the theater, because of Ralph Fiennes, Juliette Binoche, Kristin Scott Thomas, Naveen Andrews, Colin Firth, Willem Dafoe, Director Anthony Minghella, Author Michael Ondaatje, the landscape, Gabriel Yared’s music, John Seale’s cinematography, the passion, the skin/sand continuum, need I go on?) is when Binoche’s character Hana says to Fiennes’ character Almásy, when he asks if she knows Heroditus’ histories:

“I don’t know anything.”

Almásy’s been burned unrecognizably. He’s on his death bed - an old one in a dusty shell of a Tuscan monastery. Hana is his hospice nurse, and she’s feeding him plums like a mother bird, first peeling the fruit from the skin with her teeth, then placing the peeled fruit in his mouth. “It is a plum plum,” he says, chewing. Her innocence and honesty are a revelation.

I’ll be 51 Wednesday, and I can say with glee, I don’t know anything. (Not that I’m innocent.)

I don’t know if you feel like this, but every day, my thoughts tend toward: Huh? I didn’t know that, or, What’s that all about? Information overload, sure. We’re bombarded. It’s one reason I seldom read the newspaper. It’s also why there is a stack of magazines opened to unfinished articles on my table. I want to be informed, but come on.

But that's not all of it. It's not just that I don't know files of information. I don't want to close files. Because if you "know" something, you're not open.

The nice thing about being over 50 is that you don’t care so much any more whether you know anything. When I was 29, I knew everything. I had to. My reputation depended on it, I thought.

I wonder how many twenty-somethings like Hana can really say, honestly, “I don’t know anything.” But let me tell you, there’s freedom in those words.

I guess where I am now at the start of my 52nd year is that I want to know more about a couple of things only, not a little about a lot. I’m surrounded by PhDs at work, and they are good examples of people who have a long attention span and drill down to the core in their area. When you read 150 books on one topic or author, write a book about it, teach it, write articles and maybe more books the rest of your life, you might begin to know something about something.

I didn’t choose that path. Maybe I could have (am I kidding myself?), and sometimes I wish I had.

But I have no regrets. I’m not so much interested in head knowledge as I am in direct knowledge now. I want to know people and experience the human exchange. I want to learn to paint. I want to know how things work. I want to understand what makes the shadow on the moon without looking at a diagram.

I wonder if I have the attention span. It’s way too easy to put things on a shelf before they're "done."

Well, here’s to another year chewing on what I’m fed, like a baby bird.

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What is literary writing?

A THING of beauty is a joy for ever:
Its loveliness increases; it will never
Pass into nothingness; but still will keep
A bower quiet for us, and a sleep
Full of sweet dreams, and health, and quiet breathing.

- John Keats, from Endymion

While I was reading the final Harry Potter book, The Deathly Hallows, I was having a conversation with Peter about what constitutes a “literary” novel. I had made an observation that, even though the Harry Potter books are extremely entertaining, they are not literary writing.

So I had to answer the question (both his and mine), What is literary writing?

My stumbling answers included:

It has to be universally relevant.
It has to be artistic.
It has to have aesthetic value.

I then turned to the help of an essay I found online by John Oldcastle titled “What is literary writing?”

Among the answers he offers, does it have:

artistic merit?
creative genius?
the expression of man’s noblest qualities?
creation of aesthetic satisfaction?
great themes of love, death, war and peace?

The Harry Potter books certainly address love, death, war and peace. And there are some very noble characters. There is also a certain genius in JK Rowling’s creativity.

But also in his essay, Oldcastle includes this quote by William Faulkner:

The aim of every artist is to arrest motion, which is life, by artificial means and hold it fixed, so that a hundred years later, when a stranger looks at it, it moves again since it is life. Since man is mortal, the only immortality possible for him is to leave something behind him that is immortal since it will always move. This is the artist's way of scribbling 'Kilroy was here' on the wall of the final and irrevocable oblivion through which he must someday pass.

So will the Harry Potter books stand the test of time? I think they might. But is it the writing itself that will, if they do?

What of all the people, and they are many, who enjoy the movies without ever reading the books?

This is where I think the answer lies. I think the world Rowling created is phenomenally intriguing. In fact, she launched a phenomenon. Who could have imagined our technology-crazed world, ages 6 to 80, reading a book, reading seven books, waiting in line at midnight to buy books?! Her genius was in creating a world that we can all relate to, a main character who is a nobody, who sleeps under the stairs, and becomes the greatest somebody, because of how he uses his circumstances.

But beyond the story, I do not feel an aesthetic satisfaction when I read her books, and that is the main reason I would not call them literary. I don’t read a passage, close the book and my eyes and savor the moment in words. Her words do not lift me to another plane.

The story? YES! The story is exciting, invigorating, thrilling! (Sorry for the redundancy.) I am delighted to envision each scene. And that is why I, personally, enjoy the movies more than the books. I believe the filmmaking craft of the movies, especially “The Prisoner of Azkaban” and “The Order of the Phoenix,” is brilliant. In fact, it goes beyond the craft of the books, in my opinion.

Are JK Rowling’s words going to stand the test of time? Or, is the phenomenon of the Harry Potter story going to do that? Or both?

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Farm Day 2007

There were babies.

There were little kids.

Big kids.

There were games.

A parade.

There was food . . .

. . . and conversation.

There was some work . . .

and music . . .

and best of all, some cuddling.

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Farm Day prep

I'm taking a few minutes from preparations for Farm Day tomorrow to give you a peek.

Don will place these hay bales around the bonfire pit with cozy blankets for a soft sit.

The stairs got sanded, but not painted. Oh well. Maybe for next year.

I took some of my my mom's vintage '50s tablecloths to make into bathroom accessories: sink skirt and curtains. And I sewed them on my vintage Singer sewing machine, which my daddy bought me when I was a teenager.

It was already old when he bought it. I'm not quite as old as all that.

Our friends were throwing out this little table when they moved. Don liked it and grabbed it, and I painted it.

Lesley drew and colored the little picture of her dad's tractor there on the table.

Lesley will be home in a couple of hours! As will Bootsie and Donica! They're riding together from the airport. And tomorrow the rest of the gang, including Peter who will pick up some goodies in town for us.