SKYWATCH FRIDAY - Last and First Moon (Lake Erie)

“Toss me a cigarette, I think there’s one in my raincoat.”
“We smoked the last one an hour ago.”
So I looked at the scenery; she read her magazine
And the moon rose over an open field.

Moonrise, November 30, 2009


Moonset, December 1, 2009


Music Option for those with the time and inclination: “America” – Simon and Garfunkel

The hauntingly beautiful melody and lyrics written by Paul Simon create one of the most iconic songs of the late 1960s. It was recorded by the duo for their 1968 album, Bookends, and released as a single in 1972. I always identified with this song, not just because I’m from Michigan, which is mentioned, but for the sense of seeking it so poignantly portrays, something I think we all do at least once in our lives. (Of course, the irony here is that these photos are from across the border, on the Canadian side of the lake!)

Click HERE to listen. Once at YouTube, you can access all the lyrics by clicking on the right where it says "more info."




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SKYWATCH FRIDAY - Dots and Dashes (Lake Erie)

I’ve been trying to locate the poem below, off & on, for years, and finally on Tuesday, I found it; just in time to go with this photo I took for SWF. The tiny dotted clouds paired with the long dashes (more like stripes, actually) of sun and shadow on the water reminded me of the poem. I’m happy to be able to include it here. See how well you do; the rhyming should help you find the answers. And if you can figure out the last line, let me know; I still haven’t got it!

Write Your Own Poem
by Will Stanton.

There is a land to all men known
Where nothing ever stands alone.
Where things are always “something and”
Connected by an ampersand.

Cup & saucer, north & _ _ _ _ _
Dun & Bradstreet, hoof & _ _ _ _ _
Rough & ready, curds & _ _ _ _
Bag & baggage, Bob & _ _ _

Off & running, neck &_ _ _
Black & Decker, hunt &_ _ _ _
Cloak & dagger, bill &_ _ _
Fair & warmer, me &_ _ _

High & mighty, push &_ _ _ _
Lea & Perrins, cock &_ _ _ _

One & only, pick &_ _ _ _ _ _
Horse & buggy, P’s &_ _ _
Come & get it, touch &_ _
Up & at ‘em, yes &_ _

Toil & trouble, ways &_ _ _ _ _
Tar & feathers, pork &_ _ _ _ _
Bread & butter, love &_ _ _ _ _ _
Drunk & disorderly, Mr. &_ _ _

Trial & error, heaven &_ _ _ _
Death & taxes, hail &_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

Credit goes to Tom Carten, at the Things at King’s blog for posting the poem, which he in turns cites as being published in Reader’s Digest. So I must have first seen it in a waiting room somewhere!



To view more skies from all around our beautiful planet, or to join in, visit SKYWATCH. Live links after 2:30 p.m. EST time or 19:30 GMT. And thanks to the Skywatch team for this weekly meme.

SKYWATCH FRIDAY - Skipping Sun (Lake Erie)

On the post before last, I included a sunset with a flock of Canada geese drifting through. Someone mentioned it would be a good Skywatch post, but I thought today I'd show a slightly different shot of it. This is the sun's reflection just before the geese arrived. I like the way the differences in the water surface make it look almost like the sun is skipping across the water like a stone. The second shot was taken last night as I watched the ferry returning from Ohio pass slowly in front of the light, just as the sun slipped below the edge of the lake.




To view more skies from all around our beautiful planet, or to join in, visit SKYWATCH. Live links after 2:30 p.m. EST time or 19:30 GMT. And thanks to the Skywatch team for this weekly meme.

SKYWATCH FRIDAY - Wind and Water (Lake Erie)

High winds whipped up the water all afternoon, and splashed spray up to the sky, as if trying to douse the sun’s fire. At day's end, the molten ball won out, and the waves roared in their defeat all night in the dark.




Feng (wind) Shui (water)


To view more skies from all around our beautiful planet, or to join in, visit SKYWATCH. Live links after 2:30 p.m. EST time or 19:30 GMT. And thanks to the Skywatch team for the weekly meme.

SKYWATCH FRIDAY - The Moving Finger Writes; and Having Writ, Moves On (Lake Erie)

What to make of this giant Z in the sky? The mark of Zorro? Does anyone else remember a masked and dashing Guy Williams deftly etching his monogram on Sergeant Garcia’s ample uniformed girth with a few swift slashes of his sword? Or perhaps the sky is admonishing us to be silent, to forever keep our peace? It’s a mystery worthy of Omar Khayyam himself.



This drawing, by Edmund J. Sullivan, was scanned from my own copy of the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam, which sat on the family bookshelf in my childhood home. However, it isn't the illustration paired with the verse I quoted in the post title (Verse LI, made famous by Edward Fitzgerald's translation). The illustration I chose is actually from Verse L.

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SKYWATCH FRIDAY - October Skies (Lake Erie)

I haven’t kept track, but if feels like most of the days this month have been overcast and rainy. One day, the rain was drawn like a curtain across the Ohio horizon. On another, the afternoon grew damp, and the sun shone like a white giant over the lake. The sunsets, often the only moments of color, echo the autumn colors of the flaming maples and burning bush hedges.





Excerpt from Dylan Thomas’ “Poem in October”

A springful of larks in a rolling
Cloud and the roadside bushes brimming with whistling
Blackbirds and the sun of October
Summery
On the hill's shoulder,
Here were fond climates and sweet singers suddenly
Come in the morning where I wandered and listened
To the rain wringing
Wind blow cold
In the wood faraway under me.

Click HERE for a YouTube video of the entire poem read by Thomas.



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SKYWATCH FRIDAY – Three Views of Pelee Island (Lake Erie)

(click to enlarge)

I haven’t been there, but I’m told that Pelee Island is about a half-hour plus/minus from Leamington by private boat; the ferry takes an hour longer. It has about 300 permanent residents, and a huge summer tourist bump that can be anything from 1,500 to 3,000. It has its own mayor and other officials, and other services necessary to an agricultural community. Because of its southerly location, its mild climate is classified as Carolinian, which makes it excellent for growing. It has a long history of vineyards, as well as soybeans, wheat, and corn. Pelee Island is the largest (42 sq. kms/ 16 sq. miles) of the Erie Islands, an archipelago divided between Canada and the U.S.


Those are the stats, the facts. But for me Pelee is a beautiful phantom land that floats and shimmers in and out of view on the lake horizon, retreating and advancing as the light and seasons change. Some days it’s magnified, almost touchable, some days completely invisible in the mist, like ancient Avalon itself.



Music option:




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Video from YouTube member enieczka

SKYWATCH FRIDAY – End of Day, and a Question (Lake Erie)

There's a beguiling symmetry to this sunset, the way the anvil cloud looks as if it’s holding up the higher heavens above it, even as it rests upon the shifting waters of the lake. Last week for SWF I featured the Moody Blues song, "Nights in White Satin," from the 1967 album, Days of Future Passed. This week I'm reminded again of the Moody Blues, this time their 1970 anti-war concept album, A Question of Balance. The pale circles in the photos are from spray. It was impossible to avoid, as I was standing right at the edge of the breakwall to get the shot, and the waves were splashing against the rocks just a few feet below. I think they add a touch of cosmic mystery to nature's own "album cover art."




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SKYWATCH FRIDAY – Evening Unfurls Its Banner (Lake Erie)

In the deepening dusk, only the highest clouds still catch the setting sunlight, as if saluting the going down of day, and heralding the coming night.



Music option: How long has it been since you’ve listened to “Nights in White Satin”? Do you remember what it was like the first time you heard Justin Hayward’s beautiful, soaring voice, surrounded by the London Festival Orchestra? And how blown away you were by Mike Pinder’s gentle spoken ‘lament’ near the end? If you have a few minutes to spare, here’s a LINK. No distracting video, no live footage, just celestial music. If you’ve never heard it before, this might be the time you’ll remember. Either way, why not treat yourself?




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SKYWATCH FRIDAY - Clouds Drift In Like Waves to the Shore

Along the north shore of Lake Erie, seagulls head off to their nightly roosting-spot against a backdrop of high clouds that mimic the gently lapping of the water beneath.

Click here for Herring Gulls




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SKYWATCH FRIDAY – Storm on the Michigan Side (Lake Erie)

Looking across the lake, I can always see the weather over parts of both Michigan and Ohio. The storm in the top photo, in the far west corner of the horizon, was raining down over some counties in Michigan. Further along to the east (bottom) it sky is still clear over Sandusky, Ohio. It looks like it’s rained here in Leamington, too—the breakwall parapet is wet and shining—but that’s just from waves splashing over.






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SKYWATCH FRIDAY – ’SCUSE ME WHILE I KISS THE SKY

Last weekend my neighbor down the road had a yard sale, and called me up to stop by for a visit. It had been nice in the morning, but by afternoon, ominous clouds began to roll in, and while we chatted we both kept an eye on the sky. I happened to look up just when the clouds parted in the shape of a perfect blue heart. Of course, I’d left my camera in the van, and had to trot across the road for it, and by the time I got back into position, the heart had morphed into this sweet little pair of lips. And that reminded me of the famous (and famously misheard) lyrics from the Jimi Hendrix song, Purple Haze.


Optional feature music for those who want a trip down memory lane: Purple Haze Jimi Hendrix at Woodstock, August 1969 – 40 years ago!

Video by YT member UnivoxSuperfuzz


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SKYWATCH FRIDAY - Puffy Clouds and a Salute to Stan Midgley

Those of you who could bring in Detroit TV in the 50’s may remember George Pierrot’s “World Adventure Series.” The show was broadcast to the TV audience, and live in the theater of the Detroit Institute of Arts downtown. We always watched the early travel/lecture films Pierrot brought in, and if the presenter was Stan Midgley, the funny man with a bike, a jeep, my dad would take us downtown to be in the audience. Stan’s winning combination of breathtaking scenery and hilarious slapstick sight gags were wonderful and entertaining family events.

The butt of Stan’s gags was always himself, using a tag team of cameras and timers (he always traveled alone). My favorite moment was when Stan stopped along Montana’s Going To The Sun highway to film a particularly dramatic view. He pointed out how the puffy clouds looked just like cotton balls floating in the sky. Then a second camera he had on a tripod zoomed out to reveal Stan, finished with the shot with a hand-held camera, picking off real cotton balls he’d stuck on the side window of the jeep: he’d been shooting the cloudless sky through the driver’s side window with cotton ball "clouds" stuck on the glass! Then Stan acted befuddled and embarrassed at being “caught in the act” as he always did when his gags were revealed, while the audience roared.


Yesterday I went out with my camera to look at the sky, and saw these puffy clouds over my roof, looking like they were waiting for Stan to pick them up and stick them on his jeep window again. Later, when I was searching for DVDs of Stan's landmark films (sadly, there doesn’t appear to be any available), I discovered that Stan passed away in 2000. He’s probably up there arranging cotton balls from the other side.


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SKYWATCH FRIDAY – “Big birds flying across the sky, throwing shadows on our eyes” (Lake Erie)

Those of you who are Neil Young fans like me will recognize the title of this post as belonging to the lyrics of Neil’s song, Helpless—the one the begins, “There is a town in north Ontario.” Leamington, Ontario, where I live, isn’t in the north of the province. In fact it’s just a couple of kilometers from the most southerly point in all of Canada, where the land dips below the 42nd parallel north, and is the only point in our long shared international border where Canada is actually south of the U.S.

This sunset seemed to me like two birds’ wings—the dark wing of night advancing towards the east as the wing of day withdraws. Then I noticed how each wing was resting on a small “foundation” of its opposite. It reminded me, even though not circular, of the principle contained in the Taijitu symbol.



Optional music link:
For those who have the time and inclination, here is a LINK to a very beautiful PBS video from the American Masters series, of Neil Young singing an acoustic version of Helpless in concert at Toronto’s Massey Hall in 1971 (a much acclaimed live album) combined with almost dream-like northern landscape images.

Taijitu symbol from Wikimedia Commons


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SKYWATCH FRIDAY – Ice Cream Colors (Lake Erie)

Would you like some Raspberry-Mango Ripple or maybe some Tiger Tail?



The yesterday was the hottest day of the season in the greater Windsor/Detroit area. In fact, I think there was a heat-humidity-smog warning in the Motor City, and probably in the Rose City, too. This morning, along the “cooler” lakeshore, it’s already 28C/82F on the shore of the lake, with a humidity index that “feels like” 36C/97F. It’ll be even hotter in the afternoon. In my previous post, I mentioned I was saving the AC for the truly hot days, and I think this one qualifies. The sunsets have been cooperating by giving us some pretty ice cream colors. Now, if they’d just bring the cool with it!


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SKYWATCH FRIDAY – Home Safely To Me (Lake Erie)

The sails aren’t red, but the sun is definitely setting. I apologize for this photo being a bit fuzzy--the two sailboats were moving at a pretty fast clip, and I didn’t want them to get too far from the light, so I had to work fast. It seemed odd that the boats were heading out so late, when the sun was so close to being down, plus further along the lake it looked like a storm was brewing. Not long after I took this shot the boats turned and hurried back to the marina, so they must have thought better of their plans, too.

POST TITLE TRIVIA
Red sails in the sunset, way out of the sea
Oh carry my loved one home safely to me

Red Sails in the Sunset - Music by Hugh Williams (aka Will Grosz) and lyrics by Jimmy Kennedy; published 1935. The song was written about Portstewart, a seaside town in County Londonderry, Northern Ireland.


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SKYWATCH FRIDAY – The Raveled Sleave of Care (Lake Erie)

As I watched the setting sun illuminate the ragged edge of this cloud, a phrase from Shakespeare drifted into my head: “sleep knits up the raveled sleeve of care.” I went online to find which play it was from (Macbeth) and discovered a linguistic puzzle that will appeal to any SWFers who are also "wordies." If you have the time and inclination, do read on, but it’s entirely optional.


Here, from www.phrasefinder.org, and the archives of the Columbia Journalism School online, Language Corner. Brush Up Your Shakespeare, Act III, Raveled Sleave, with an "A."
Find the misspelling: "Sleep, as Shakespeare wrote, knits up the raveled sleeve of care." No, not "raveled," though it can be spelled differently. The error, a very frequent one, is "sleeve." Macbeth wasn't talking about the arm of a garment; it wouldn't really make sense. He was talking about a tangled skein, of silk or other material, which makes perfect sense. And for that, the spelling - which the original author used, correctly - is "sleave." It's an obsolete word now, but spelling it right is still the way to go. Many readers may dismiss it as just another typo (a NEXIS search shows it's a frequent typo for "sleeve"), but those who know better will smile.

I questioned the notion that a raveled sleeve of a garment wouldn't "make sense." I think part of the question stems from Shakespeare’s use of the word raveled, which, like sleave, is also pretty obsolete these days. So I checked out the definition of "ravel" in several online dictionaries, as well as my own hardcover Webster's, and found something very intriguing: ravel mainly survives in contemporary English usage in unravel, which would appear to be its opposite, but not so according to the dictionaries. Every entry for ravel listed unravel among the synonyms for ravel! Here's a sample entry from www.thefreedictionary.com.

rav·el

v.tr.
1. To separate the fibers or threads of (cloth, for example); unravel.
2. To clarify by separating the aspects of.
3. To tangle or complicate.
v.intr.
1. To become separated into its component threads; unravel or fray.
2. To become tangled or confused. (from www.theefreedictionary.com)

So it seems to me that since both ‘ravel’ and ‘unravel’ can mean the same thing, a raveled sleave might be thought of as part of an unknit garment, while a raveled sleeve might simply be part of a garment in need of repair. In fact, I once had a raveled sleeve on a favorite sweater, back in my student days. But rather than knitting it up (which, admittedly, it made no sense to even try), I just covered it with a pair of iron-on suede elbow patches. In the end, in spite of the peculiarities of the English language, what really matters in this quotation is what Shakespeare wrote, and that was, according to experts, undoubtedly "sleave."





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SKYWATCH FRIDAY – Last Colors of the Evening (Lake Erie)

The first photo is of my back patio. The setting sun tints the weathered wood a delicate pink, and gives the shadows of the willow bush the optical illusion of being green. For the second photo, I turned and captured the sun itself—the source of the beauty.





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SKYWATCH FRIDAY – TWO SUNSETS (Lake Erie)

Spring has arrived here on the north shore, but it’s still being a little shy about it. Days alternate between mild and optimistically sunny to chilly, overcast and rainy. One gray evening a few days ago, the sun found two thin places in the veil of clouds, creating the illusion of two sunsets, one gold and one pink, happening at once, as if we’d been transported to some faraway planet in a binary star system.


For the musically inclined, here is LINK to a beautifully done video montage of inter-stellar images paired with the music of Paul Kantner and Jefferson Starship. The song is the tender rock ballad, "Have You Seen the Stars Tonight" - reprised from the 1970 concept album, Blows Against the Empire, and recorded live at Kantner's 65th birthday in 2006.


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SKYWATCH: BEFORE and AFTER the STORM

A storm swept over the open lake, spattering rain everywhere, and sending the squirrels and birds on shore racing for cover...


...but it blew itself out before too long, and everyone returned, to gather under the bowl of blue.