“I have seen better faces in my time
Than stands any shoulder that I see
Before me at this instant.”
Shakespeare’s King Lear [II.ii.88-90]
It’s Kent, trying to explain why he dislikes Oswald, steward to Goneril, Lear’s evil daughter.
- Fishing Guide to the Stars
For the week starting: 4.15.2010
Mercury starts a retrograde pattern in Taurus, this next few days.
Aries: Ever watch a series of comedians? One after another? If the show has, say, three in a row, the first one, the warm-up warm-up guy, warm-up person, he’s usually got some edge and the least amount of time. The second person, I always like the “Give it up for my good friend, and all-around funny guy, (headliner’s name)!” Good friend, always introduced as a “good friend.”
That warm-up act, be it a band, or the example I was thinking of, a comedy act, it’s always amusing to watch how there’s nothing but warm welcome, and applause and displays of affection.
I wonder about that. There are a few birthdays left over in Aries, but those are going to wrap by the end of the weekend. This next few days is like that warm-up act, you’re just warming up for the headliner. That’s Taurus. I know you don’t like to be billed as the second, but be grateful you’re not the first act, just the last one before the headliner.
Then, too, you’re actually funnier than the headliner. Louder, better, whatever the gig is, you’re more. The trick? How to handle this week? Use that expression, “Please let’s give warm welcome to my good friend,” and introduce your headliner.
Taurus: Yeah, happy birthday coincides with Mr. Mercury going Retrograde in your sign. Bit of a cosmic joke. Mercury being backwards doesn’t spell big trouble. Mercury being backwards — in your sign — spells little trouble.
That’s trouble with a small “t.” Not a big “T.” Little troubles aren’t so bad, really, and it’s not like this has snuck up on you.
The lunar phase is one of growth and positive forward action. The Mercury action just means we’re either going to have to take three stabs to get this down, or we’re going to have to wait a little longer to see fruits of our efforts.
I watched as a buddy of mine, his name is really not “Bubba,” and he was counting on his tax return to help pay his rent. This month. Yeah, funny thing, that. With Mercury now backwards? The good news is the money will get to him. The bad news, for that landlord? Rent’s going to be late. Really late. Like up to three days, three weeks, maybe even a whole six weeks late. Whatever it is, tax return, money owed, rent? Good news? It’s on its way. Bad news? Bubba, it’s going to be up to six weeks’ delay.
Gemini: Newspapers were, almost a hundred years back, the primary source for news and information. Then came radio, top spot for 50 years. Then came TV. In less than 25 years, that medium took the number one spot. Then came the inter-web, and it supplanted all other forms of media. In a shorter time, more stuff, everywhere. It’s on phones, it’s in the bathroom over the urinal, I mean, everywhere. At this rate, what’s next? Data beamed directly into the cerebral cortex? Just plug a wire directly into the main nerve?
I’m not sure I’ll be able to keep up. Then, too, I watched as my father would page through the two daily newspapers. I have that habit, too, on a quiet Tuesday afternoon, from time to time, I’ll get a newspaper, a local Texas paper, and Ill sort through the articles.
Always something good and juicy. I believe that the papers are tending and trending towards tabloid style now — more “yellow” journalism. There’s an information overload, and that becomes more apparent when Mercury is heading into a retrograde pattern. So deal with it.
The ability to filter out information, that’s what’s more important than before. However, as an alternative solution? For Gemini? Think: if you can’t filter out what’s good and what’s not? Just throw as much data at the problem as possible. More numbers, more crunchy.
Cancer: As Mercury beings his retrograde patterns, I’m reminded of what happened the other evening. The horoscopes went through the usual editing and vetting process. Then, as I was up late, I was casually reading them myself.
Typographical error — an omitted space. Then a “yo” with the “u,” which has to be some kind of joke I can’t figure out right now. There was one other missing word. A simple preposition, but it could have meaning. This all happened a few moments after the scopes went live.
What’s the password to log in here? I couldn’t remember. Eventually, I resorted to a text editor and FTP program to fix what was wrong. Then, the following morning, I ran that set of scopes through a spell checker again. Caught three more mistakes. No one noticed. Nothing changed, no one alerted me, and maybe, those errors went unnoticed. Are you as lucky as me?
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Leo: One of the unmitigated joys I have in my line of work? I get to try and find new ways to improve my material, each and every day. No time is this more clear than when Mr. Mercury is in apparent retrograde motion. Just means that I will learn new ways to make mistakes, and I’ll be using the old textbooks more than usual.
I’ve got several grammar guides that I reference from time to time. Look stuff up. Words, definitions, and sometimes, just for kicks, I’ll use an obscure reference text to give me a slight edge. Or maybe make me more obtuse.
Dictionaries and grammar books are part of what I use, almost daily, to help me improve the art, artifice, elocution and education of my task. There’s a style manual that’s been helpful, and there’s a grammar book that’s proven useful. Two tools. Basic, simple, and yet still useful, and I’m not afraid to admit that I’m using these items.
Same for the dictionaries. I have a British-English dictionary that I’ve found to be rather useful, as it has that quaint British spelling. Tools. No fear in using these tools. Try to improve. Even if I can only learn one point about grammar, a simple mistake I’ve made over and over? If I can correct one error, I’m ahead. The joy is always learning. Hint, Leo: always learning.
Virgo: For a while, one of the Apple computers I’ve used, it had a built in link to that Wiki Encyclopedia. I used that online resource a few times, but the data is always suspect, and I’ve found, especially with that source, it never hurts to have a couple of other references to help back up the facts.
Facts, on the inter-web, seems they aren’t always facts.
In this day and age, irony pervades a numerous sources. So I’m a little suspicious of some of the material I encounter on the inter-web. Not always a viable source. That being noted?
The web is useful for information on appearances, places, items of note, and most important, this week? For a Virgo? Ideas. It’s time to go idea shopping. Or idea stealing, Or looking at marketing materials. Or doing whatever you want to call it.
I’d like to call it research, but it’s less about hard research and more about looking for that spark to ignite the Virgo fire. Be careful though, that’s “Virgo Fire,” not “Virgo’s Ire.”
Libra: I was cruising, low and slow, with a buddy. It was a warm, okay hot, spring afternoon. Sun was out. Top was down on the convertible. Rolling through the ‘hood, Social Distortion blaring about a “Ring of Fire.” Just another day, two white boys in a neighborhood that’s not particularly Anglo-populated. Classic rock on the juke box.
A truck pulled in front of us. “I can’t believe you’re not taking a picture of that,” he indicated the tailgate of the truck in front of us. I passed.
Live here long enough and the weird isn’t so weird. It was a Virgin of Guadalupe across the tailgate with curious details, and perhaps, a few adornments that aren’t part of the original myth. Or maybe they are, I don’t know, my Mexican Mythology is little weak. I, personally, would love a saint, all she does is open up her robe and there’s a world of stars there. All on the back of a truck’s tailgate.
No, no picture. It’s just not that unusual, not anymore. The fantastic is almost mundane. It’s matter of being a little jaded. Or, like my buddy, not jaded. Under this type of astrological influence? As a Libra? Be willing to listen to those around you; they offer some good guidance. Unless, of course, you’re like me and no longer amused by such.
Scorpio: Right now, even as you’re reading this? Mercury is opposite you. Retrograde! Mercury usually opposes about once a year and it’s usual for a little less than a month. Only this time? It’s going to feel like it stretches on for forever. This all about how messy the planet can make your communications.
Normally, a Scorpio is precise.
Normally, a Scorpio is all about concise and precise.
Normally.
This isn’t normal.
There’s usually a spring day or two when you run into little bumps. I was chatting with a very special Scorpio client. She was out, near as I can tell, walking the dog or something. March breezes. Maybe beach breezes, could’ve been an incipient tornado, from what I thought it sounded like.
Might not have ruffled that Scorpio’s feathers except I kept asking her to repeat what she was saying. Over and over. I could make out about every third word. You will be chatting, maybe with me, maybe with someone else. Hands-free headset? Bluetooth? I don’t care what color teeth. The background noise, that’s Mercury Retrograde,
Sagittarius: Buddy of mine, used to work in a record store. CD store, actually, but he always called it record store. Why? Traditions that must be honored or something.
We were on the south side of San Antonio, on a street called SouthWest Military. Record store there. He wanted to stop. We did. He started telling me about the two sisters who worked there, how those two girls always made him offers, but since he was dating someone, he couldn’t ever take them up on the offers.
But now? I mean, then, he was single. We wander into the store, the sisters, if, they really were sisters, looked up, one chatted amicably with me, the other one, my buddy made a very lame attempt at a pick-up that just didn’t fly.
We eventually sauntered out, but not before I tried to get a picture of a special Cheech y Chong (signed) Big Bambu Album. My buddy? His attempt at making time, in any capacity, with either of the attractive clerks? Failed miserably.
We got on our way again, and he asked what I thought. “Nice girls, are they really sisters? Did you notice, both had purple blouses and black jeans?” “They said they were sisters, and they also claimed that they never intended to dress alike just happened some days….” His voice trailed off. How good is your Sagittarius (bovine by-product) detector?
Capricorn: Anger is a useful emotion. Anger can move mountains. Rage, though, is like anger, without the limits. Therein is the problem, the “no limits” thing.
Someone will piss you off this week.
Sooner or later, it will happen.
Of that? I am sure. How you deal with it? That’s the question, and that’s why I was working with definitions about anger and rage. Anger is good. It’s going to happen, sure as can be. Following the correct course of action is paramount to Capricorn survival. Give that anger voice. Make sure your point is spelled out, clearly spelled out. Maybe provide supporting evidence. Explanations, diagrams, flow charts, pictures, even. Explain the cause of that anger. Normally, I’d urge you to be concise, but this isn’t a time to brevity. Long and detailed, all the problems, let them be known. Every excruciating detail, which only furthers your case and cause.
The complaint form it’s only got room on one side? Flip that page over and keep writing, Add footnotes, addendum, emendations, all that extra material that so many people want removed these days. Not short, long. Go way long. See, in doing so, you’re building a very effective case and justification for the problem. It’s also how we find a solution. Get angry, yes. Get in enraged? Not without provocation. Figure out the right way to express the problem, what caused the anger. Then patiently sit there while someone has to read through your complaint.
Aquarius: I detected a certain aroma, the other afternoon, I couldn’t quite place it, sort of a spring-like fragrance. Warm and inviting, and yet, a little unsettling. I couldn’t figure out the smell, not a flower, not fecund earth — or compost — being turned.
A few days later, I was pulling freshly-laundered cotton sheets out of the dryer, the sheets still warm to the touch. I caught a whiff of that smell again. Laundromat. It’s the way — for me — the smell and almost too-hot-to-touch feel of sheets, right out of a laundromat dryer.
There’s an old girlfriend, I’m forever grateful, she taught me how to fold sheets. Spring is in the air. While this might be a big deal and big stuff, there’s a pause, a moment, a hint that there’s something better, just up ahead.
There is the Mercury backwards problem, but that’s not a setback. Like me, you come across a certain smell, an unidentified aroma, a fragrance of some sort, time and again. Might take two or three tries to figure out what that symbol is, what it means. That’s the fun of Mercury retrograde.
Pisces: I was reading a technical magazine, a science journal, about astronomy. Physics, really. There was an action image, a picture, of the lead scientist on this one case. “Astrophysics in action!” I’m thinking, a “Careful, men at work” sign would be better. He was a typical scientist-looking guy except that he had a bright, tropical-print shirt. Hawaiian shirt in my parlance.
While that is typical attire for me, almost year-round, I’m no astrophysicist. While we start at the same root, we’ve branched in different areas. I’m sure he doesn’t believe in my art; however, I do believe in his science.
What got me thinking about Pisces was that, “Action shot,” the scientist in colorful garb. Money shot of a scientist. Worked and, to some degree, didn’t work. Spend anytime around the scientist types, and there’s an understanding, Wry wit, but usually, very understated. Attire, the outer plumage, not too important. Comfort is more important, far more important, than looks.
I knew one physicist, he was in a band part-time. Even then, though, he looked like, dressed like, the scientist that he was. That one “money shot” in the magazine, trade journal? Made a bigger splash than the article. Maybe that was the point. Perhaps a good Hawaiian shirt is in order?
