there were some nicely nerdy signs i don't remember
so today was a. earth day, and b. a lot of science marches and rallies. boston just had a rally, on account of they opted not to march, and while there seemed to be a lot of people there, i think there would've been more if the weather had been better and maybe a march was planned. that said! we couldn't hear most of the speakers (i went with tamalinn and two of her friends) but there were some good signs - one with a drawing of the earth and "your mother is disappointed", a couple-three with "i'm with her" and an arrow pointing to a drawing of the earth, "no science = no beer", several with a vaccine theme ("remember smallpox? no? thank science" and similar, and "another college student who likes taking shots"), "bellydancers for science", "without science it's just fiction", "the rotation of the [drawing of earth] really makes my day", and one with a drawing of baby groot in the pot and "you really don't want to chop down this tree, do you?" a little kid was holding that one, and while people were politely taking pictures, someone dressed as adult groot walked by. it couldn't have been planned but it was so perfect. there were a bunch of babies, little kids riding on adults' shoulders, and the occasional dog. also a middle-aged couple handing out meteorites in little plastic baggies with little informational notes. so of course we all took one, and now i have a little piece of the tamdakht meteorite, which crashed in morocco in 2008.
i also saw a couple of women wearing pink knitted brain hats, which admittedly looked a little like intestines for the way they were coiled up.
i don't know if anything will come of all the marches and rallies, but it felt good to go out and be with people who are all supporting and protesting the same things. there were even tiny marches in greenland and the north pole. (yes, really.)
afterwards me and tamalinn and her friend r (her other friend had to bow out and go home because she was cold) (it was a cold and damp day) went to harvard square, where we failed to find anything to eat and r went home, leaving me and tamalinn to figure out where we were going to stuff our faces. because tomorrow is shakespeare's birthday, the harvard business association had cake! a white cake with chocolate frosting and a chocolate cake with white frosting, both with "happy birthday william" written on them. of course we had to have some. :D and! i saw my cousin with the four kids! and his four kids! and two other girls who i assumed were friends and/or girlfriends! it was VERY RANDOM but really fun. (i saw the boytwin getting cake and said to tamalinn "that looks like my cousin's kid", AND THEN IT WAS. O.O ) they had a potluck seder for passover which was apparently good except my cousin admitted no one knew how to lead it. well that's because no one ever had to! because they always went to my parents' house.
in other sciencey, outer-spacey news, a couple days ago an astronaut, a cosmonaut, and a little stuffed dog arrived at the international space station. stuffed animals occasionally go into space in the soyuz capsule so cosmonauts and astronauts know when they've left gravity.
i have no science-themed poetry and am disappointed in myself.
i.m. Scott David Campbell (1982-2012)
Streetlights were our stars,
hanging from the midnight
in a planetary arc
above each empty ShopRite
parking lot - spreading
steam-bright
through the neon dark -
buzzing like ghost locusts,
trembling in the chrome
trance of an electrical charge
nested in each exoskeleton -
pulling, pooling
a single syllable of light
from the long braid
of the powerlines
sighing above us as we climbed
through bedroom windows
with our hair combed
and our high-tops carefully untied -
as we clung to vinyl siding,
as we crawled
crablike across rooftops, edging
toe-first toward the gutters
so as not to rouse
the dogs - as we crept down
onto cold drainpipes
through the lightning
in our lungs, leaping at last
into our shadows and at last
onto the lawn,
landing as if in genuflection
to the afterhours fog -
fluorescent
as the breath we left
beside us on the train tracks
as we walked
each toward the others,
toward the barebulb
glow of stardust
on the dumpsters
in the vacant late-night, lost
--Malachi Black, from “Bildungsroman”
i also saw a couple of women wearing pink knitted brain hats, which admittedly looked a little like intestines for the way they were coiled up.
i don't know if anything will come of all the marches and rallies, but it felt good to go out and be with people who are all supporting and protesting the same things. there were even tiny marches in greenland and the north pole. (yes, really.)
afterwards me and tamalinn and her friend r (her other friend had to bow out and go home because she was cold) (it was a cold and damp day) went to harvard square, where we failed to find anything to eat and r went home, leaving me and tamalinn to figure out where we were going to stuff our faces. because tomorrow is shakespeare's birthday, the harvard business association had cake! a white cake with chocolate frosting and a chocolate cake with white frosting, both with "happy birthday william" written on them. of course we had to have some. :D and! i saw my cousin with the four kids! and his four kids! and two other girls who i assumed were friends and/or girlfriends! it was VERY RANDOM but really fun. (i saw the boytwin getting cake and said to tamalinn "that looks like my cousin's kid", AND THEN IT WAS. O.O ) they had a potluck seder for passover which was apparently good except my cousin admitted no one knew how to lead it. well that's because no one ever had to! because they always went to my parents' house.
in other sciencey, outer-spacey news, a couple days ago an astronaut, a cosmonaut, and a little stuffed dog arrived at the international space station. stuffed animals occasionally go into space in the soyuz capsule so cosmonauts and astronauts know when they've left gravity.
i have no science-themed poetry and am disappointed in myself.
i.m. Scott David Campbell (1982-2012)
Streetlights were our stars,
hanging from the midnight
in a planetary arc
above each empty ShopRite
parking lot - spreading
steam-bright
through the neon dark -
buzzing like ghost locusts,
trembling in the chrome
trance of an electrical charge
nested in each exoskeleton -
pulling, pooling
a single syllable of light
from the long braid
of the powerlines
sighing above us as we climbed
through bedroom windows
with our hair combed
and our high-tops carefully untied -
as we clung to vinyl siding,
as we crawled
crablike across rooftops, edging
toe-first toward the gutters
so as not to rouse
the dogs - as we crept down
onto cold drainpipes
through the lightning
in our lungs, leaping at last
into our shadows and at last
onto the lawn,
landing as if in genuflection
to the afterhours fog -
fluorescent
as the breath we left
beside us on the train tracks
as we walked
each toward the others,
toward the barebulb
glow of stardust
on the dumpsters
in the vacant late-night, lost
--Malachi Black, from “Bildungsroman”