Another Moon Photo - We Have More Books Now
We picked up some new books. We wrote part of this in the afternoon, and came back and posted some new books in a grid below, under the picture, You can buy them on our My-Lynx Associates web site, on eBay and on Amazon or the other sites on the right, depending on what they accept from us. Not all of the books are automatically accepted for sale. Some websites restrict our entries based on their own acceptance criteria, except for My-Lynx Associates which we write the rules for acceptance ourselves.
For your aesthetic pleasure, before we get to the business portion of our blog entry of the day: here is another picture (we had an entry earlier in the week) of the recent full moon during last week, which we found especially attractive, because of the high clouds that gave the photos a certain hazy glow. This photo gives the moon a defined circular edge, the focus being the moon, rather than the softer tones of our previous photo. It is almost monochromatic, very little visible color, just various shades of gray, a few stick-like stray tree branches in black and the hazy white moon. The picture was shot with a color setting, but the dim ambient lighting has probably diminished perceptible color to a minimum.
We recently read about something, an anecdote really, about an older woman in one man's family, from somewhere in the "old country" in Europe, who said that one should never sleep in direct moonlight, since it could cause one to go into a kind of altered state, maybe even causing children to sleepwalk.
More than once we have gone to sleep by the light of the full moon, and it can cause one to be restless, perhaps even disturbing ordinary sleep, but that is, from our point of view, more due to the intense light of a full moon, than by the content of the light or any mysterious tidal influence that people like to chat about.
There are some that claim that our contemporary practice of staring at the television at night is an updated, technological way of staring at the moon, since the focus on the screen, and the dim artificial light are somewhat like the days of yore when people would ascend on hillsides to contemplate the rising and movement of the moon in the pre-industrial age. People could socialize in the evening because the light would provide a beacon to guide the steps of people in the later hours of the night, when it was time to return home from an evening's socializing.
In Birmingham, England there was a long standing informal gathering of notables called "The Lunar Society", where members would gather at various venues for learned individuals to gather in the years 1765 until 1813. They would use the full moon night as a cause to gather together and then depart in the later hours when the bright moon would guide them through the pre-industrial darkness. While we in these latter days have artificial light to guide us, we probably do not have the caliber of guests that would meet to discuss topics of natural science and philosophy. Besides the illustrious polymath, Benjamin Franklin, here is a partial list of notables:
* Erasmus Darwin (1731–1802)
* Matthew Boulton (1728–1809)
* James Watt (1736–1819)
* Josiah Wedgwood (1730–1795)
* Joseph Priestley (1733–1804)
* William Small (1734–1775)
* John Whitehurst (1713–1788)
* William Withering (1741–1799)
* Richard Lovell Edgeworth (1744–1817)
* Thomas Day (1748–1789)
* James Keir (1735–1820)
* Jonathan Stokes (1755?–1831)
We would like to think, in a true Romantic fashion, that it was the subtle light of the full moon that stimulated their lively discussions over such a long interval, and perhaps even made them even more illustrious.
Next full moon for record-keeping purposes is around the 29th of March, but since the light does not vary much, the actual time is on the 30th in the early morning hours, so probably the 31st as well, for a total of 3 days of bright moonlight, suitable for a walk in a dimly lit forest path. If we can find a forest in Central Texas. Maybe we will stroll by the local copse of live oaks along a meandering stream that passes through the limestone outcrops. The weather should be mild by the end of the month for a perfect moonlit walk.
For your aesthetic pleasure, before we get to the business portion of our blog entry of the day: here is another picture (we had an entry earlier in the week) of the recent full moon during last week, which we found especially attractive, because of the high clouds that gave the photos a certain hazy glow. This photo gives the moon a defined circular edge, the focus being the moon, rather than the softer tones of our previous photo. It is almost monochromatic, very little visible color, just various shades of gray, a few stick-like stray tree branches in black and the hazy white moon. The picture was shot with a color setting, but the dim ambient lighting has probably diminished perceptible color to a minimum.
We recently read about something, an anecdote really, about an older woman in one man's family, from somewhere in the "old country" in Europe, who said that one should never sleep in direct moonlight, since it could cause one to go into a kind of altered state, maybe even causing children to sleepwalk.
More than once we have gone to sleep by the light of the full moon, and it can cause one to be restless, perhaps even disturbing ordinary sleep, but that is, from our point of view, more due to the intense light of a full moon, than by the content of the light or any mysterious tidal influence that people like to chat about.
There are some that claim that our contemporary practice of staring at the television at night is an updated, technological way of staring at the moon, since the focus on the screen, and the dim artificial light are somewhat like the days of yore when people would ascend on hillsides to contemplate the rising and movement of the moon in the pre-industrial age. People could socialize in the evening because the light would provide a beacon to guide the steps of people in the later hours of the night, when it was time to return home from an evening's socializing.
In Birmingham, England there was a long standing informal gathering of notables called "The Lunar Society", where members would gather at various venues for learned individuals to gather in the years 1765 until 1813. They would use the full moon night as a cause to gather together and then depart in the later hours when the bright moon would guide them through the pre-industrial darkness. While we in these latter days have artificial light to guide us, we probably do not have the caliber of guests that would meet to discuss topics of natural science and philosophy. Besides the illustrious polymath, Benjamin Franklin, here is a partial list of notables:
* Erasmus Darwin (1731–1802)
* Matthew Boulton (1728–1809)
* James Watt (1736–1819)
* Josiah Wedgwood (1730–1795)
* Joseph Priestley (1733–1804)
* William Small (1734–1775)
* John Whitehurst (1713–1788)
* William Withering (1741–1799)
* Richard Lovell Edgeworth (1744–1817)
* Thomas Day (1748–1789)
* James Keir (1735–1820)
* Jonathan Stokes (1755?–1831)
We would like to think, in a true Romantic fashion, that it was the subtle light of the full moon that stimulated their lively discussions over such a long interval, and perhaps even made them even more illustrious.
Next full moon for record-keeping purposes is around the 29th of March, but since the light does not vary much, the actual time is on the 30th in the early morning hours, so probably the 31st as well, for a total of 3 days of bright moonlight, suitable for a walk in a dimly lit forest path. If we can find a forest in Central Texas. Maybe we will stroll by the local copse of live oaks along a meandering stream that passes through the limestone outcrops. The weather should be mild by the end of the month for a perfect moonlit walk.
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