“O! I have suffer’d
With those I saw suffer”
Shakespeare’s The Tempest [I.i.7-8]
- Fishing Guide to the Stars
For the week starting: 3.11.2010
St. Patrick’s Day — what could be more Texan than a Mexican playing the bagpipes? Outside the Alamo shrine? Even better.
Useless fact: almost 10% of Ireland’s total barley crop is used in/by Guinness.
Pisces: I got this trick from a friend, and her version has been modified to fit this column’s width and depth. In the afternoon, I’ll walk, when possible, and I’ll have an afternoon shot of espresso, when possible. The trick is to down the espresso and before the caffeine really hits my system?
Lay down for a short nap. Power nap, if possible. Then, as the active ingredient in that single shot of espresso, about 70 milligrams of caffeine, as it works into my bloodstream and gets carried to my brain? Then I wake up, very awake, alert and quite refreshed.
There are variations on the theme, but that’s how I’ve managed to work it out. Short nap, long buzz. You have an exceedingly short fuse at this time. Short nap. Coffee, afternoon espresso, maybe just a coke, but something then a short power nap. Leaves you refreshed and clear-headed. Need a clear head to keep from leaping overboard with inane assumptions.
Aries: In Shakespeare’s The Tempest, the opening line for this week, that line is drawn from the beginning of the play where there’s a nasty shipwreck, all hands lost. Only, it’s a magical shipwreck and nothing is lost, it’s like the sailors all got thrown into the washing machine. Soaked and suds, around and around, only to pop out dry, fresh, good as new, on the far side.
No harm, no foul.
Some of the players wind up in a “magically induced” state of suspended animation. Where I’d love my little Aries friends to be for the coming days. Prospero, the main magic guy, he harnesses a spirit named Ariel to do his bidding.
I was thinking of Ariel and Aries, and then, I was thinking of Ariel making everyone on one side of the boat fall into a deep slumber. Safely slumbering while the world changes. If I could be an Ariel, what I would do is make all my fine little Aries sleep through the weekend, and awake, refreshed, in freshly laundered clothing, ready and willing to hit it.
Taurus: I was at the movies, other afternoon, I like me some matinee flavored prices. This one film, I’m not going to mention any names, but there was some degree of conscious, maybe subconscious, humor at play within the film’s script.
Couple of the scenes referenced previous scenes from that actor’s canon. Older films, and some of the audience would be too young to get the joke, unless they were exposed to a great deal of pop culture history. That’s also why I wondered whether the visual clues were intentional — or not.
Anytime a character dies, the actor falls down to play dead? With legs together, straight, and arms unfolded and open wide? Taps that Crucifix imagery, ingrained in our emotional psyche. Intentional, or not, ingrained, or not, purposeful, or not, that image, I always get tickled — not ticked — when a film maker takes a cheap shot like that.
Again, this is where I find humor. Perhaps in context, it was black humor, but nevertheless, humor. Barren and bleak? Maybe. Perhaps there’s an age factor working, too. Old enough to remember the original film? Whether there was a conscious allusion or not, I’m unsure. In that lonely theater in the middle of the afternoon? I giggled. Don’t think anyone heard it, and I might’ve been the only one in there.
Guilty pleasures, arcane viewpoint, and still, there’s something to be said for sneaking out of work for an afternoon, avoiding some responsibility. Can’t recommend it for a whole week, but for a single afternoon? It’s a good idea to abdicate responsible actions. Might find a good film that works on more than one level.
Gemini: “Dead birds, man, all I ever got.” It was a Gemini lad, and he was drawing me an afternoon espresso. His hair was long, done in dreads. His chart is very Gemini, if there are such degrees. We were discussing cell phone photographs, an interest to both of us.
He had a collection on a website for a while, nothing but dead birds. Variations on themes, but that was his forte, that’s what he kept getting. He finally stopped updating because he was tired of the theme.
Didn’t run out of material, just tired of the theme. I run a similar side-project, just digital images, but I’m not limited to dead birds. I tend towards a tourist and geographic boundaries instead.
There is a subtle new “launch point,” fast arriving in Gemini. With that point, it’s time to assess that one project. Goal, hobby, business deal, one of those…. Stop and figure out if it’s something you can keep doing. Want to keep doing. Like my Gemini buddy, he just quit. Stopped updating. No more dead birds. It can be that simple.
Cancer: There’s a local sporting goods chain that grew almost too big for its own good. Got big, expanded, filled up stores with more than just sporting goods. For place that started as a dumpy fishing gear outfit, they now have stores in many Southeastern states with sports, outdoors and much, much more!
They do stretch across the Southern Bass Belt. At some point in corporate expansion, I’m sure the company lost touch with its roots. In one of the newer stores, in Austin, actually, there’s a throwback to the “good old days.” There’s a “worm bar.”
Essentially, it’s a salad bar looking arrangement with various plastic worms arrayed under the sneeze guard. Kind of amusing, kind of lame, kind of appealing in a strange way. The “worm bar” has a retail roots back to the era when the store was less glamorous and catered to a more hunters and carried fewer/no yoga mats.
It’s about roots, roots that might be hackneyed, but roots, nonetheless. I doubt you’re looking for bait on the worm bar. But as tacky as it sounds, since seeing that in the store? Means the board of directors, or somebody in marketing, listened to what the purchasing public wanted. Listen to a little Cancer market research. Like, see where the dollars go. Follow the money. Might lead you right back to the roots.
Leo: In the Elizabethan time, Shakespeare’s era, it was customary for the theaters to close during Lent.
What a quaint little concept.
I’ve thought about giving stuff up for Lent, but then, I’d have to be more than nominally Christian, and really, I’m far too “Universalist” to be that far right. Although, I do like the idea of voluntary abstinence to achieve a goal. Like, prove I could go all day without swearing. Or I could go all day without looking at women — like that.
I’d wager I couldn’t go all day without trying to write down some notes, scattered thoughts I’d like collate and order. Writing. Or maybe snapping a picture with the phone, finding some moment of whimsey in a dull day, some thing aren’t meant to be surrendered.
However, let’s just try testing a little theory, about abstinence and Leo. The Leo. This isn’t “forty days & forty nights,” no, this is more along the lines just this weekend. Abstain from just one “feel good” activity. A little restraint goes a long way in making you feel good. Didn’t say how it worked, it just does.
Virgo: Here’s even more useless trivia: over ten percent of the world’s salt production, that’s world-wide salt production, more than ten percent is used on American roads for de-icing. A month or so ago? In parts of Texas? Sure could’ve used a lot more salt than they had.
I’m native Texan, and as such, our driving in excellent conditions is, at best, suspect. Add precipitation, in any form? It’s not good. I have a firm policy, unless I’m headed to important business like fishing, I try not to be on the streets when there’s moisture — in any form. Snow and ice? Don’t leave the trailer-house. At all. Little apartment, but what’s the difference? Those are my solutions, as usual, your mileage may vary.
The question, now, the point? Can you fact check that statistic? Does the US use more than 10% of the world-wide salt just to keep our roads navigable in the winter? The problem with this weekend is getting bogged down in useless details just like that.
Fact or fiction?
Libra: The national almond foundation is nothing more than a lobbyist front for some nut manufacturer. I haven’t done the research, but it was pretty clear, to me, from the various websites, what the real goal was: get more nuts.
The website suggested the optimal dosage of almonds in a day? The best number was 23. No more, no less, just 23 almonds a day is the perfect number for mental wellness, physical health and improved lifestyle choices. I’m surprised that no Texas pecan manufacturer has picked up and rallied a similar story — problem being — I’m sure, pecans are frequently used as a caramelized topping. All that sugar and butter might not have the desired physical health benefits. Although, I know that Pecan Pie does have many mental health benefits, but that’s not what this is about.
This is about checking up on the supposed source for data. Really, any fats that you might need? I suggest you start digging. Now. In a week, maybe ten days? You’re going to have an “opportunity” to display your knowledge. It’s situation where you’re going to need to have facts, real facts, at hand to prove your point. I’ll give you a heads up and tell you to start pulling that data to support your case?
Pull it together now.
Scorpio: I’m a traditionalist in that I like my plays with five acts, and I like the way there’s the setup, the conflict, the crowning moment, the resolution and then, late in Act IV, a twist. Act five? All about wrapping up the loose ends generated in the first four acts.
Bad guy should be hanged. Or carted off to jail. Good guy gets the girl. Or the good girl gets the guy, whatever. TV, especially hour-long shows, they have ruined the 5-act play standard. While the pacing and tempo is much the same, the first act is less than two minutes, the introduction, the setup. Before that first commercial break.
The rest of the acts follow the way they are supposed to, it’s just that compressed two-minute first act. Sucks, in my mind. Just another art form ruined by TV.
There’s a gem of an idea you’ve got. Here in Scorpio, you’re thinking, you’ve got the lead-in, that first, opening act. Now, the question, is this a real play? Or is this a movie? Or, worse yet, is this just that two-minute compressed first act for a TV show? You’ve got about two minutes to get your idea across and set the players in motion. Make it a good pitch, as you don’t have much time.
Sagittarius: When I was 4 years old, time between birthdays was one quarter of my life — 25%. When I was 40, time between birthdays was like a much smaller percentage– 0.025%. Objectively, time is a linear measurement. Subjectively, time is not linear, but exponential. This is one of those observations, spelled out, about how to see what’s there. And how to tell the difference between what we’re seeing, objectively, and what our Sagittarius senses are perceiving, subjectively.
What we see and what we feel, two different senses. Two — very different — sets of perceptions. One is factual, one is emotional. Tell the difference between the two.
Facts and fictions, facts and frictions, facts and what we think we see (feel). The difference between 4 and 40 is single zero but 36 years. The difference is also one where innocence is gone, yet there’s still a Sagittarius sense of wonder and amazement.
I’m trying to buy a little Sagittarius time, a little chance to act instead of react. Pause instead of our usually correct “shoot from the hip” style. That’s the beauty of getting a little older.
Capricorn: “I tell you what, I’m off like a dirt shirt,” little kid said. I was trailing along behind a group of tourists. The dad looked down, “Off like a ‘dirty shirt,’ I think that’s what you meant.”
The kid looked confused. I kind of liked the “Off like a dirt shirt” bit better. There was almost a cadence to it. I’d clip it some and make it work. Sometimes, language has to be clipped and trimmed to fit in the allocated slot. The one I see most often is the Elizabethan slang, the apostrophe then the letter d.
Like in the opening quote. Got a couple of little planetary squares rapidly approaching as Mercury and Venus square Pluto. Think about that clipped and shortened pronunciation. Think about that archaic yet useful apostrophe. Think about, since Mercury weights in on the mix, think about shortening your communications. Maybe slip in a contraction like that, just to forestall problems with meter and rhyme. A little editing would go long way in making this time a little better.
Aquarius: Tactical mistake. We’ve all made tactical business errors. When I first bought the domain name, my domain name, astrofish.net, I was playing on the “fish net” idea. Over the years, I’ve added other names, but the basic name is still astrofish.net.
Not “dot com” which, at one point, was an asset since there was the ‘dot com bust,’ and as a ‘dot net,’ I didn’t suffer. The problem popped up later. When I first bought the name, it was expensive to buy domain names. That was over a hundred bucks. Compared to the low, low advertised rates now? Anyway, I passed on astrofish dot com because I didn’t want to be associated with certain other sites. Someone eventually bought the name, and I still use the astrofish.org, astrofish.net/xenon/astrofishcouk/ (British spelling) but I don’t have the dot com address.
To this day, one lucky guy is getting spurious traffic from my name since the mistake, well, it’s obvious. What this was, back in the day? It was a tactical mistake on my part. My bad. I blew it. There’s a similar question you’re faced with, even now. Should you go ahead and spend a few extra dollars, just for peace of mind? Do as I say, not as I did. Go for it. Spend the few extra dollars. It’s worth it. Avoid tactical mistakes.
