GLOU.
That would be ten days’ wonder at the least.
CLAR.
That’s a day longer than a wonder lasts.

Shakespeare’s Henry 6 part 3 3.2.113-4

Ten days’ wonder? I’m guessing at a little less than seven days yet. Steals and deals are available in the Halloween “boo-tique,” at astrofish.net/shop.

Horoscopes for 10.31.2019

Scorpio

With this current Mercury Retrograde patten in full swing? Happy Halloween, happy Scorpio birthday, all of that, but with this pattern in full effect by now?

“Don’t try to out-stupid me.”

It is a challenge, issued to — maybe from — but more likely to Scorpio.

“Don’t try to out-stupid me.”

Best example I can think of? Late in the afternoon, after fishing most of the day on the bay, I was having some luck using thin little pieces of bait on sharp hooks, and I was getting tired of reeling in fish. Not too tired to quit, even though, well, what I did was wind up for a long cast against a far shore, not paying attention to where the hook was, and I managed to snag my shorts and from there, the hook and its bard were buried in the flesh on the back of my leg. Good to know I had a recent tetanus shot. When I say?

“Don’t try to out-stupid me.”

It’s a clear example of me, Mercury, and whatever else doing something stupid, like hooking myself with a sharp hook. Fortunately, my fish pliers have a cutting spot, and I could merely cut the eye off the hook and push it through rather than pulling it out. Still, I hooked myself but good. Happy Halloween, happy birthday and please, don’t try to out-stupid me.

Sagittarius

Get any two Shakespeare Scholars together and there will be a myriad of divergent opinions. Working from the exact same text, compare what the emphasis, authorship, what conclusions are drawn from the exact same piece of text. Like they were in different worlds. Best example? The quote I started with? One computer analysis proves that it was written all by Shakespeare and another suggested that the same play wasn’t written by “Shakespeare” at all. As far as applying this little “fact” to this week’s Sagittarius?

While drawing from the exact same charts, looking at the same stars, any two Sagittarius (Sagittarius?) Any two of us will have very different opinions about this week’s ongoing tales and trials.

So is it a good week or a bad week?

It’s neither. It’s what we make of it. Understand, like that Shakespeare Scholartship, like bass fishing in Texas, there is plenty of room for a variety of opinions, and don’t confuse opinions with facts. While the conclusions might derive from plainly observed facts, the results, the outcome, how our Sagittarius selves perceive the information is subject to change. Yes, we can blame the planets this week. Have a happy and safe Halloween.

Capricorn

Perfect Capricorn quote? “If money will shut you up? I’m all ears.” As Mercury begins its strongest descent into inherent, mercurial madness? There’s an idea, and I heard a Capricorn buddy use that line, and it made me think. It’s perfect for right now. This week, especially. I rolled some astrology charts around, and then I got stuck looking at 1982, then again at 2020. How does that fit in the moment? It doesn’t, but it will. It’s a time when — instead of spending money, or throwing money at a problem? Instead of tossing away cash, “Make it rain, baby!” Instead of showering a problem, a certain situation, with mounds of dollars?

Try, at least internally, to use that expression, “If money will shut you up, then I’m all ears.” There’s a situation, and with the current round of instability loose upon the world we live in? That instability is best met with a good listening face rather than tossing good Capricorn money after bad money, trying to get something fixed that, for the time being, doesn’t want to get fixed.

Listen up.

“What?”

That’s all; just listen up.

Aquarius

One of the best — or worst — Halloweens I ever had part in? I was living in a skanky little trailer park on the south side of the river in Austin (TX). Long before that was a cool, and before certain movie stars were in trailers there, too. It was a warm, almost muggy Halloween, and the neighbors were in a party-party mode. That’s twice as much. Think they started drinking in the morning, and by “candy time,” everyone was toasted, or the crowd that was sitting outside, two trailers down. Loud. Starting to slur. Think they had all originally planned to make the 6th Street bacchanalia, but by the onset of evening, the trailer park residents, part of that party, they were all way too intoxicated, at least one, doubt he could walk. I know, the next morning, one of them was still passed out in the lawn chair in front of the trailer. There was about half big bag of candy left over, and since the drunks scared all the kids away, think it was booze, beer, and then the halloween candy, all of that, and, there’s a kind of mess that only occurs in trailer parks. I participated, in a minor way, think I did a cigarette run, at some point, but I just observed and didn’t partake. Much fun was had by all. It’s memorable halloween for me, as I could remember it, the balmy fall weather, no ACL or F1, no rock stars, none of that. Good times. Can’t duplicate this kind of event, but you can remember what made it so fun. One of the guys, he had a plastic Nixon mask. Seemed like mostly drunken debauchery at the time, but the memories, now, are quite fond. Moving forward? Can’t duplicate this, but we can recall what was good.

Pisces

As the Moon approaches a new kind of fulfillment? Time to research “oracles” for Pisces. Oracles can be a number of different tangents and tools. To some, I serve as an oracle, although, frankly, I don’t see it myself. However, I do have access to a number of different ways of reading an oracle. One buddy looks for a series of numbers then defines a meaning from that, like keeps seeing 711 license plates and signs, then a price tag and then? As a product’s SKU. Numbers people have a definition for that, and they can give a meaning. Not my bag. Or, one friend, “I keep seeing triple 3’s, like 333 or even one license plate was 3333. What does that mean?” I don’t know, but if you search the inter-webs, someone will make up something that you like. That’s not the kind of oracle we’re looking for, though. There’s a shamanistic quality to way this week feels, and the way it’s heading. There’s an inherent Pisces intuition that is stronger, better than most. The problem with the approach of this “Moon conjunct Neptune” (next week)? There needs to be some kind of a gentle nudge in one direction, the most correct direction. That’s the purpose of the oracle. To me, this is clear, I flip up a card, look at a rune, shake the dice, or gaze at the heavens. The personal Pisces oracle is good, but you’ve got to define what tools you’re going to use. Need it by next week.

Aries

I’ll let you in on a little secret, just me to Aries. Little factoid, no one really knows? Just a small revelation that might — somehow — be revelatory for you. Maybe a source inspiration. Maybe a source of annoyance, it is me, after all, and there are days when I do rub people in a fashion that they don’t like. I’ll shrug it off, and not worry too much. When I pick the Shakespeare quote for the week’s introduction?

Sometimes, those are quotes carefully selected from a play wherein that quote carries great symbolism.

But after 30 years of this? Not every week has deep meaning. Or special significance. There are times when I use an almost random method to plug in a quote from someplace in Shakespeare’s body of work, just plucking one out of the thin air.

Difficult to believe?

Consider time and energy involved, plus there’s the ongoing “onion” effect of peeling back layers and layers of potential meaning to an individual body of work. Then, too, some of the quotes have multiple meanings, across various levels. Look, Aries, sometimes this is quite random. Sometimes, this is by thought, analysis, and education. This week? You’re making a totally random choice, but it connects, through no willful connection that we are aware of, to the greater good. Trying to force a connection won’t work. Letting one be made, through no effort of our own Aries will? Works great.

Taurus

Like a sugared-up, ADD child, my Shakespeare Scholarship is merely all-over the place. There is no coherent theme, no grand unifying theory, no, none of that. One day it’s a certain play, other days, it’s a series of plays, one day it’s a single passage, other days? The whole play. Deep in the play, 12th Night, there’s a bit where a character is, OK, from the top, it was a boy actor, playing a girl, playing a boy who is in love with his/her master, and there’s a rather fancy amount of verbal back and forth, in the second act, because the character of a female has to stay true to her womanhood, but she is pretending to be a male (boy), and she/he talks about love, and how women feel as strongly as men.

I was going someplace with the confusion, and with that passage, it’s a fun one done on stage correctly, as there is obviously sexual tension between the characters on stage, yet, no one gets it. I used a quote from the earlier Henry 6 series for this week’s introduction because it meant something at the time, but bowing to convention, I realized that this week’s Taurus needed a quick reminder about that Act 2 confusion in 12th Night. The message, since I never made that clear, the gender bending person never lies, just dances around the truth. Pretty amazing bit of verbal wordplay. I can see the image isn’t getting across. OK, it’s like this: don’t lie. It’s quite all right to dissemble and obfuscate, but don’t outright lie.

Gemini

One Gemini buddy has been a perfect mess for the last week. Not getting any better, either. No, not getting any better at all for Gemini. Except, well, there’s always one. I used to suggest that no one ever get a tattoo when Mercury was Retrograde. But my one Gemini buddy who used to be in charge of a string of tattoo parlors, yeah, he came up with a brilliant idea: the do-over ink.

No, seriously, think about it.

The typical sailor’s scroll with a certain person’s name in it? Had done ten years ago? Both the person and the ink itself, one is gone from the life of Gemini and the other is fading in an indecorous manner? Great time for a touch-up. There are always Halloween specials, and that old ink can be replaced with something new. Opposite from Gemini is Sagittarius. One had the brilliant idea — he has that scroll on his arm, but instead of a certain female’s name, it just says, “Her Name.” True story. Now is the time — Sun’s in Scorpio — now is a really good time to think about a do-over, something permanent, that was fixed, might be kind of broken, and get that re-done, in keeping with this week’s theme for Gemini.

Cancer

The evening sky, with certain planets clearly visible, wheeling overhead? I always think back to skies I’ve seen, like from the rooftop of Colorado, the Rockies. Or in the far northern climes of Alaska. At least once in England, a weirdly clear night in the summer, countryside show, and after dark, once again the brilliant stars, “God’s little lanterns twinkling on and off in the heavens.” Sure. It was a side trip to Austin, and coming home under the cover of the night’s sky, there was that brilliant orb, first visible at dusk.

The planets incline but they don’t dictate,
contrary to popular mythology.

The Moon Children — Cancer planets, especially the natal Sun, but any type of that flavor in a chart? Weird, un-summoned emotions come creeping to the surface. In one neighborhood, there was always this one house, guy went all-out for Halloween. My favorite, so evocative of this time? It looked like a plastic skeleton, just starting to crawl its way out of the grave. The heavens above are forcing something up, some skeleton from the closet of the Cancer’s emotional war-chest of stored memories. Look at the sentiment. Examine it. No need to hold on to it, but yeah, it came creeping up for a reason.

The Leo

It’s a little strange on halloween, to talk about textures, but that’s what this week will be about. Not the texture of the surface of the week, but the sub-structures, the way it feels when you run your hands over the surface of the week, and then you can feel the supporting struts underneath. See? All about textures. Yes, it’s a big costume holiday, and yes, in my world the days after are also celebrations, but once the weekend looks like it might be over? Feel the texture. It’s more about feeling rather than seeing. Yes, you’re The Leo, and yes, you’re more perceptive than most of us, yes, all that stuff, best fixed fire sign ever, yes, all of that, but there’s more. It’s beneath the surface. Just underneath.

Virgo

I never did understand the appeal of certain serial shows, like Game of Thrones. Flip that around, and the poetry of Shakespeare’s Richard II moves me, and part of the underlying themes includes palace intrigue. The play quoted at the beginning, I’ve spent several years casually getting to understand it a little better, but there’s death and mayhem, palace intrigue, and sword fights galore.

Good stuff.

Fun stuff, for me. So — it turns out — the sword and sorcery crowd resembles real, dramatic reenactments, of English history. This is, I might add, history that was written by the victors, and Shakespeare’s histories tend to be loosely based upon certain facts, but, like my own family motto, “Never let the facts interfere with the story.”

Lot of information to here to digest. As your planet — Mercury — starts his new pattern of bedeviled merriment — at the cost of the Virgo sanity? Think about those plays, how the real story is far more interesting than anything that can be made up. So, in the next few weeks, and this next week especially? After All Hallow’s Eve is over? Stick to plain, simple facts. Those facts might be mutable in the coming weeks, but report them as facts, as best your Virgo self can.

Libra

The original idea behind my old site, Bexar County Line, was simple. I had a plethora of inexpensive digital image devices — cameras — and the deal was, the cameras had to cost less than a $100. Good enough to take a decent resolution image but not so expensive that I’d be afraid to tote the camera around. One of them retired to the glove box in an old girlfriend’s car. Miss the girlfriend, not the camera. Cameras are easy to replace. Girlfriends are getting more difficult to replace. The cheap camera obsession started with fishing — always goes back to that — doesn’t it?

The cameras were all, originally, “boat cameras,” as in not afraid to wander out in the wilds, and not afraid to drop the camera. Times change, and by the time that site — Bexar County Line — was a few years old, the images started coming from cell phones and nothing more. I’m not complaining, just observing that the changes, and flowing with the times. Still, as a way to record an image, as an artistic exercise, it’s been good.

I’m not a photographer. Visual arts will never be “my thang,” but that didn’t stop me from proudly attempting to document the images I found amusing. Yes, I know, All Hallow’s Eve, and I understand, but beyond that, in the Dia de la Muertros, which I think is bad grammar but correct spelling, after all that, we get into the meat of the month of November, and Libra has a chance to work with cheap. Like my first idea for that site, just daily, digital image. On the cheap. On the fly. Not too much effort. But, most important, fun, or, like me, artistically rewarding in its own way.

astrofish.net/travel for appearances

“Nothing runs on automatic.” – L.W. “Bud” Shipley, Jr.

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