It has been a long winter with too many bouts of cyclothymic lows and too many flutes to make. Meanwhile the threats of nuclear war, Ukraine and Gaza and all of the irritation by the one who shall not be named here and who should be in prison for his many crimes have been living rent-free in my brain, stifling all my creativity and enthusiasm for life - until Spring arrived. In January our radiant floor heater failed just as an arctic blast hit. I spent most of the month bed rotting next to the wood stove. I did get a bunch of fiction reading in while feeling bad that I wasn’t getting a pile of flutes out the door. I am sure many of my readers suffer from similar bouts of ennui. In These Times.
This contributed to our decision to stay home near Seattle this weekend instead of traveling to see the Great American Eclipse. I am still uneasy about flying in the Time of Covid, even with a mask on. I did take a trip by train in November and rented a car while in the Bay Area and found that I prefer to avoid both practices. I remained unscathed covid-wise. The train seats were uncomfortable and the return train was 7 hours late, arriving to Tacoma where Nancy was waiting at 1AM. I was very nervous parking the rental car overnight in an area where everyones’ cars get theor converters removed.
My workload is huge and I am trying to finish the last orders of keyed flutes and am about to stop making my popular Folk Flutes in blackwood after the last 2 orders arrive and the batch of 10 are out the door. I do plan to eventually 3D print these. In the future I will focus on my keyless small handed flutes with rings and slides for about 50% of my time, and spend the other 50% pursuing research such as this glass flute project and making a variety of bagpipes for myself and close friends.
We had 3 eclipse scenarios. The first was to fly to my sister-in-law’s in Denver and then rent a car and drive to my friend Anthony’s near Waco Texas. He has a huge Cuban flute collection that I have been documenting and he lives right on the center-line. He is also a superb chef and I was looking forward to some great Ropa Vieja. The second was to fly to Indianapolis and stay with Grey Larsen and Cindy Kallet in Bloomington Indiana which is also on the center line. This may be the only spot in the Midwest where it is visible if they are lucky. We’ve had Grey’s guest room booked since the 2017 eclipse.
A third scenario was to fly to St. Louis and stay in nearby Kinmundy with Sean the Piper (Sean Folsom) and drive to Grey’s to see it. By the time we decided on this last scenario flights were too expensive and cars were simply unavailable. Since we saw the eclipse in 2017, an annular eclipse in 2012, and I saw the perfect one in 1979 it is not that big of a deal to miss this one. There are three more this decade that would require international travel to either Galicia, Australia or over the pyramids in Egypt. The one on Monday is long at 4+ minutes of totality. The one in Egypt is over 5 minutes. The one in Galicia lasts only 1:17 near sunset. Did I mention the fact that one of these eclipses is in Galicia? We have several musician friends and colleagues there!
So it is no big deal. I am also feeling somewhat smug as it turns out, given the dismal weather predictions for most of the eclipse path in the US and the sudden change of plans for millions of eclipse watchers trying to change their itineraries from San Antonio Texas to Burlington Vermont at the last minute. Grey mentioned to me that Bloomington (population 72,000) was expecting about 300,000 eclipse watchers, causing chaos.
I predict 3.5 million! This is the population of the Greater Seattle Metropolitan area. That is if they can get to Bloomington. They may have to take some of the lesser-used backroads through such towns as Popcorn and Hobbieville. The routes through Needmore and Peerless are less than desireable, frankly and I recommend avoiding Oolitic entirely due to its oolitic reputation! Nobody needs that kind of attitude and I am tired of Ooliticians in general! Its also hard to see the eclipse from the inside of a quarry especially the one described in this artcle, where you will also have to stand in water. However, even with the 300,000 scenario they may have no other choice than to use every available squate meter, even if one’s feet have to get wet!
See https://www.heraldtimesonline.com/story/news/2017/06/22/oolitics-empire-quarry-a-source-of-pride/46754905/
Hopefully most will chill and humbly watch the clouds turn dark. We see this strange cloudy phenomenon on a daily basis when the Sun is eclipsed by the Earth and the duration is a few mintes longer than 4 minutes. Seattle is a horrible place for any kind of Astronomy, and deserves its role as the inevitable the target point when the asteroid Apophis crashes down to earth in 2036. We may get a Tunguska-like event sooner, especially in nearby Bangor, if a certain (unnamed here) dictator (or his Korean sidekick) decides to take his frustrations out on NATO and Biden. The Big Bang Theory comes to Bangor.
They predicted Carmageddon for the eclipse in 2017. There were some stop and go sections on the highways and freeways returning home and elsewhere (I was hosting a paleontological field symposium the days before and after the eclipse). This stp and go owas also the case in 1979. Similar stop and goes frequently happen without any eclipse. Given the population density combined with the weather I suspect many are nail-biting right now and trying to make last minute travel plan changes. Calling out the National Guard and declaring states of emergency does not seem like a bad idea or overreaction at this point in time. I am having more fun observing this unfolding crisis from afar than the chance of watching the clouds turn dark for a few minutes after much fuss at airports and on the highways.
Recall that one of my pending operatic efforts is about an opera that is set during the Great American Eclipse. Adding in something regarding this weekend’s CarmaGeddon could be an added element. Over the winter I developed the storyline for this opera from being kind of stiff at first to a delightful state of sublimity. I was also able to link it directly to my two other operas but this required yet another opera at the end to come full circle. Just this morning while emailing Grey I experienced some synthesis and came up with a good title (see the subtitle above) and added in Juan Ponce de Leon as one of my atral characters. Poncy will become the love interest for one of my main characters in the first and last operas.
To write this, I am actually developing this as a series of four short stories. Out of this I will extract a libretto and set this to music. When I get the time to extract it all out of my head. I would post the synopsis of this 4 opera cycle but have an important phone call with my astonomer “template” in a few minutes at 7AM and a keyed flute to finish later on in the morning before my daughter arrives for lunch. For now here are the titles of the operas:
The Eclipse of Love
MELTDOWN at Bodega Bay
The Subduction of Salvelinus
The Fountain of Quantum Youth