“Devise, wit; write, pen; for I am for whole volumes in folio.”
Shakespeare’s Love’s Labour’s Lost [I.ii.96]
- Fishing Guide to the Stars
by Kramer Wetzel
For the week starting: 2.11.2010
Two Valentine notes, image and? Bulk mail deadline for VD is past. Mars is retrograde. Is that like Mercury Retrograde? Yes and no.
Aquarius: “Dear Heavenly Flower,” that’s how I heard the prayer start. Then there’s also the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster. I’m not sure which of these is parody or, for that matter, real. I’ve joked about the First Church of astrofish.net, and as an ordained minister, it would be legal, but I’m not really willing to go that route. Too many problems, and where to draw the line?
Which is part of what this is about. Where’s that line in the sand for an Aquarius? Where’s the mythical sword that etches a line that you either cross, or don’t cross?
“Who’s with me?”
That’s the question, but the answer? The variables, the concern for safety? The countryside, the territory I’m most familiar with, the great American Southwest?
I carry a St. Michael’s medallion, a St. Christopher, a Virgin of Guadalupe, and a rosary. The last 500 years, or thereabouts, been a heavy “Roman Catholic” influence in these parts. Hence the trappings I carry. Not that I believe in it too much, but as tokens, they are safe. I’m not sure who/what is in charge, but with what’s going on in Aquarius? A little divine help is useful. Try what I heard, perfect for Aquarius, “Dear Heavenly Flower,” it might grow on you.
Pisces: Traveling “medicine” shows were a staple of the American West. The “medicine” was as much turpentine as alcohol. The alcohol was the primary active ingredient, which was why the old saying goes, “You could always sell snake oil on Sunday.” Bars were closed.
The Old West didn’t have drive-though, or ride through, package liquor stores. Snake-oil, “medicine,” and various other unregulated formulas were as much about the sales pitch as the snake-oil was about what it did, its purported curative and restorative qualities. For a hangover crowd, too, the alcohol might truly have curative and restorative powers.
Regrettably, those other ingredients might cause some bad side-effects.
I miss snake-oil. The snake-oil salesman, that’s what you’re going to feel like, as Venus enters and then as Venus lines up with Jupiter, in the coming days. The problem being, if it truly is snake-oil that you’re selling? Are you ready to get out of town when your duplicity is discovered? Or are you selling something that has far more redeeming virtues?
Aries: When Rock Guitar Magazine picked the top Rock Guitar solos of all time, two obvious winners were at and near the top: “Freebird” and “Stairway to Heaven.” Both songs open slow, lyrical. Both songs are considered classic, although Freebird has longer histories of abuse.
To me, anyway.
Starts slow, builds to a classical, driving guitar ending. Both songs. You have a week like that. I went through that list of “best rock guitar solos of all time,” and those two were at or near the very top. 1 and 3, I think. Don’t recall. Don’t much care.
Both start slow, finish in a blaze of guitar glory. Like Aries. Personally, and this is just an aside, I figure “Freebird” is the better bet as a the ear-worm theme song. But that’s just personal. Slow start, glorious finale.
Taurus: “Never flush the toilet with your foot.” Only seen that sign in one place, a local mall. Bathroom in a local mall. Struck me as a bit strange. Weird, even. Particularly odd as I reached up a cowboy boot toe and tapped the lever to flush the toilet.
I was careful and I’ve been flushing toilets with my toe for most of my adult life. So I didn’t think it was that odd. I was careful, too, and I didn’t harm any of the plumbing, the equipment, or the facilities. Judging from the permanent nature and placement of that sign? Probably a problem.
As a Taurus, at this moment, you’re thinking that this has nothing to do with flushing toilets and feet. That sign, it’s just a symbol, just an indicator, and my actions, again, just as symbolic. As I see it, imagine you’re like me, teetering over an open toilet bowl, having finished the biological business, and as you button up, you look back, and think about flushing with a toe. Read the sign. It’s a warning label. Mars in his current position makes you unsteady and the one-foot toe-tap? Might be too unsteady. Hate to fall in.
Gemini: There’s a kind of homespun quality to certain signs in my neighborhood. The way I see the sign, it’s always hand-lettered, white-washed brick, or white plaster, and the lettering is carefully painted in red.
A bright red that washes out a little over time, and fades just a bit, darkening the color. Kind of the color of dried TV/movie blood. The two most common phrases are “Breakfast Tacos” and “Menudo.” I’ve wondered about the efficacy of such marketing, the abundant and obvious hand-lettered signs — they seem to work, as those places are still in business, and the breakfast tacos are good.
One place? The breakfast tacos are amazing, and I fail to see how that one place can make any money, considering the size of the breakfast taco. Or the frankly amateur-appearing nature of the signage. One of these tricks works, though, seems to work.
Catches a good business, most near every day. Now, given that Mars is backwards, and in place that’s applying pressure, is there a homespun, frankly kind of amateur looking advertising that might work? Solution to a problem that seems little suspect, at best? Like a hand-lettered Gemini sign?
Cancer: I was poking at something online, and I stumbled across an interesting statistic. The world record for hot dog eating currently stands at 66 hot dogs in 12 minutes. I couldn’t bring myself to watch the video or read the whole story, just too much hot dog abuse.
I used to have a good “hot dog” diet until I discovered exactly what went into the hot dogs I was getting at the convenience store, not just animal parts but various salts and chemicals. Scary list of stuff in there. I will still favor certain kinds of road food, just a little more circumspect about what goes into the food.
One the one side, we’re discussing a hot dog champion, and the other side, I’m like a warning label for contents. There comes a time, though, when a salty, nitrate-laden tube of mystery meat product, slathered in a couple of squirts of cheap, yellow mustard? There comes a time when that’s the right comfort food. I’m not talking about a fancy arrangement, either, I’m suggesting the roadside fare. There’s some kind of comfort food that works.
Stuck someplace between my disdain for unhealthy dietary practices and 66 hot dogs in 12 minutes, there’s some kind of point between the two extremes. That’s what you’re looking for. Balance. It’s a goal, something to seek this week.
The Leo: The first US President to have a phone on his Oval Office desk? Herbert Hoover. Leo. Herbert Hoover had the bad luck to be president when the Great Depression started. He’d been in office, like, eight months or so. Poor guy. As an engineer, he probably liked gadgets and at the time, the phone on the desk was a technical marvel.
He was also a mighty Leo. He’s not well-remembered in history, and it wasn’t like he didn’t try to stem the flow of his economic crisis, it’s just the bad luck of being in the wrong place at time when bad things happen. Poor astrological timing on his part.
There is a minor Leo crisis, too, probably, I’m not for sure, but probably of the economic variety. As in, “Not enough money.” I can’t fix that for you. I can suggest though, it’s time to cut back on certain luxury items. Like a phone on your desk. Simply cut out one, unnecessary Leo extravagance. I’m not saying live in the backseat, I’m just suggesting you cut out one over-the-top luxury for this next few days. Week.
Virgo: I ran into the most bizarre web link. I won’t post it, too weird. It was a popular science web journal — technical stuff for the new generation of scientists and the “author’s bio” image was a fetching, even racy, young lady in a revealing bikini. To this day, sex sells. However, that was the first time I’d seen sex in the technical side of life.
Whether or not that was really the author? It was a good hook. I read through the article, and if I got it, it was about asteroids and water on Mars.
Babes in bikinis are sometimes more exciting than real scientific breakthroughs. Just the way it goes, and that’s one of the facts that the particular editor of that web page had figured out. I still thought the material about Mars was highly engaging.
This is less about Mars, too, and more about using a good hook. What worked on that science page? What usually works for male audiences? Scantily-clad female forms. Need a hook, to get through the coming week. What it is? Varies, but you’ve got to have an idea by now.
Libra: I was at the post office box the other afternoon. Glorious February day here on the south side of town. Sun was out, temperature was just below 70, and I wanted to stop and fetch any mail. Which necessitated a trip to a coffee shop and pleasant exchanges along that route, and then, at the coffee shop, there’s this fetching Libra lass, and there was the usual Libra admiration on my part.
All good. Got a big paper cup of ice tea, and I wound my way towards the downtown post office. Didn’t need stamps, didn’t need anything, and in the PO Box? Nothing. No bills, no bounced checks, nothing. Didn’t matter. I can consider it a wasted day, but look at the time I had to wander the means streets, stop and have a cup of coffee, stretch my legs, look for spring growth in the gray side of downtown’s shadow, meander, ruminate and enjoy.
I thought this was a perfect example of how to handle what happens this week in Libra. No mail in the mail box. Did I waste a trip? Wanted to check it, anyway, so was it really a wasted exercise?
Scorpio: Midnight memories. Memory, in itself, it’s a tricky thing. Doesn’t respond to normal input, no prodding can get me to remember the second ex-wife’s name. However, a whiff of early spring (February in Texas) lavender on the air, as I was walking the trail? Brings back a whole host of memories or a particular girl, woman, really, and summer’s afternoon frolic.
Sit someone down in front of me? I can’t remember a name to save my life. I can, however, recall arcane specifics about charts for years and years. Weird how that works, what triggers memory, what tickles the neurons in such a manner to activate whatever it is that’s buried in there. Little touches.
As Mars plows backwards in Leo? That’s still setting up an uncomfortable dynamic in Scorpio, and one we’d like to forget. Not going to happen. There’s a persistent memory that creeps back. I call them “Midnight Memories” because that’s the time when they play on the big-screen surround-sound in my mind, the Scorpio mind. Two choices: medicate with strong substances (not desirable) or figure out why that memory is surfacing, now.
Sagittarius: Astro-turf originated in Houston, TX. At the Astrodome, the first covered stadium. Home to football, baseball, and the only time I remember being there? The annual AMA TT Races, used to happen in January. The fake, plastic grass? Astro-Turf. Probably trademarked as a name. As a term it also refers to the fake kind of “grass roots” action, supposedly an anonymous poster who really is in the employ of the group that benefits from the “grass roots action.”
There are numerous examples of such abuse. CEO and board member who post anonymously, only to have some diligent web hack trace and track down IP addresses. So much for the anonymous nature of the Net. There’s a bigger caution that goes with this, as well.
Sagittarius, as much as we’re willing to toot our own horn, as much as we’re willing to brag about our good deeds, as much as we’ll just talk for hours about something whether we know anything — or not? Given the Venus/Jupiter slam dance in Pisces? I’d suggest we watch it. Not a good time to be bragging. No matter how great we really are.
Capricorn: I have a tiny espresso cup, I believe it’s part of an after dinner set, but all that’s left is the single espresso cup. One of the regular coffee cups in this set is about three times the size. I use the little espresso cups in the morning so my two cups of coffee feels like about hundred. Old habits die hard.
I was tweaking the Capricorn charts, giving them a good squeeze, and I was looking at the coffee cup. The tiny espresso cup. This one is a little unusual in that the mouth is considerably larger than the base. Not unusual for an old-school coffee cup, but weird for an espresso cup. As I was looking at the astrology chart, I was imaging that, inside this tiny espresso cup, there would be a tiny tornado.
A water spout. A tiny-little cumulus cloud over the cup, maybe about the size of two or three cotton balls. Thunder, maybe lightening. Almost, due to the size, too small to see or hear. Then the waterspout. A tiny twister in my coffee cup. Espresso-sized cup. Even tinier than a teacup.
A tornado in the teacup. No, a twister in a cup of espresso. Strong stuff being stirred up, but ultimately? Not nearly as big a deal as you would think.
Demitasse. A tornado in a demitasse.
