There was less cloud cover tonight. It was still cold and windy out in the countryside though.
It was worth it, though, I’d say.
Aurora, Feb. 27, 2023
Patrick
Aurora through the clouds
The aurora forecast was good. The cloud forecast was not. But I ventured out anyway, just to see if there was anything worth seeing.
In short: Yes, but it would have been even better on a cloudless night.
The Land Across
There’s a lot going on. But then there’s always a lot going on in a Gene Wolfe book.
This was my first read of The Land Across, and it’s going to require additional read-throughs for me to pick up on some of the puzzles. But even on a surface level, this book is very “all things to all people”.
Grafton, an American travel writer[1]Well, that’s what he claims to be, and why wouldn’t we believe him?, travels to an unnamed country in Eastern Europe, the land across the mountains, intending to write the first travel book about the nation. Very quickly he becomes entangled in the local law, Kafkaesque bureaucracy, and a conspiracy that grows to include a haunted house, at least one love triangle, a buried treasure, and a Satanic cult. Strange figures come and go[2]For example: was that Dracula?, seemingly at random. Some of the ghostly events turn out to have mundane explanations; others are in fact ghosts.
To quote one of the police officers in the first chapter:
“All maps are wrong. If the [enemies] come, they will be lost.”
—Gene Wolfe, The Land Across
I’ve found a couple reviews of this novel from 2013, when it was published: Charlie Jane Anders wrote about it for io9, and Mordicai Knode’s review for Tor.com suggests further reading—for instance, Flann O’Connor’s The Third Policeman.
I’ve also found this guide, full of spoilers, which I plan to use when I get to my second read of the novel. (This note is mostly for me, but if it helps you out too, I’m glad.)
Guitar Lessons
Leland inherits a guitar from his “uncle[1]More likely his dad.”. Ray—once a touring musician, now a successful oilman[2]He’s the type who would bristle at the suggestion he’s an “oilperson”.—gets a call from a former bandmate, letting him know their deceased friend left his guitar to some kid in his area (“and you might want to check in on it before it turns into firewood”).
Kind of like Viking last week, this one’s a Canadian comedy that becomes less funny in the second half. Where Viking went a little dark, though, Guitar Lessons delves deep into the characters’ flaws, and shows us how they try to fix themselves. There’s a deep lake of drama under the surface laughs. This film has things to say about fatherhood—biological and adoptive—addiction, growing up (for both teens and 50-year-olds), privilege and wealth, relationships, and life in oil country. It’s also beautifully filmed: meditative in its framing. There’s a long sequence of Ray cleaning, repairing, and polishing his old friend’s guitar, wordless. The shots of the countryside and the towns throughout are lovely, too.
I quite enjoyed it.
Viking (review)
Tonight I showed / watched the movie Viking at the Evans.
Five astronauts have been sent to Mars. Meanwhile, back on Earth, the Viking Society gathers five other people—their psychological profiles matched as closely as possible with the Martian astronauts—to try and head off any possible problems on the Red Planet.
But they’re only human, so naturally things go a bit wrong. Some take things a bit too seriously; others, not nearly seriously enough.
I thought the movie was pretty good. It was quite funny until suddenly it wasn’t funny at all anymore. I was amused at the acronym for the analog NASA (ASEA, the American Space Exploration Agency; people in the movie definitely were asea). I think the fact that most of the music reminded me of the soundtrack to the short film “They’re Made Out Of Meat” added to my amusement.
Once the turn from comedy to tragedy[1]Maybe “tragedy” is too strong a word; drama? happened, I was still locked in to the story. The scene near the end in the phone booth felt pretty raw to me.
Smile and say “astronaut”.
Footnotes
| ↑1 | Maybe “tragedy” is too strong a word; drama? |
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Faint, wintry aurora
To the eye it was a faint grey haze. The camera got a little more colour, at least till the batteries died.
Comet chasing
I went out to see if I could get any photos of C/2022 E3 (ZTF) tonight, but the moon is far, far too bright. It was kind of a relief, honestly; it’s ridiculously cold tonight (like, pushing ‑30°C before the wind gets factored in). I snapped a couple photos, but I couldn’t see anything resembling a comet in them.
It wasn’t nearly as successful an attempt as the last time I went comet chasing.
Sunrise; frost
Frosty at noon
I went for a walk at lunch hour today, and I took my camera along. There was a bit of frost still on the trees, and the sky was blue.
Solstice sundogs
It was a little chilly at lunchtime, but at least I saw some wintry rainbows.
