Friday Flames | 4.12.24
A weekly synopsis of what we figured out about lunar profundity, neural implants, a fool's trilogy, bad-weather friends, and survival of the nicest.
Now that the mania has died down, we can say each of our eclipse experiences was revelatory (and the opposite of 2017, when Doug saw the full magilla in Kansas City). This time he stayed home in 98.7% totality, watched the light go very eerily dim (like the sun had three fuses left), and entertained neighborhood kids with his colander.
Magda, on the other hand, did not think she was a big eclipse fan until she watched totality on Monday, in a cemetery in Ohio.
In 2017, she sent the kids to school with eclipse glasses and the admonition not to look directly at the sun without them NO MATTER WHAT AND DON’T TAKE THEM OFF EVEN IF ALL THE OTHER KIDS DO. She watched the moon turn the sun into a beautiful but sorta ordinary crescent and left feeling mildly amused, but not particularly awed.
This time, her brother’s house was in the path of totality. So she flew in for it, and they chose the cemetery because it would be quiet and not busy, with plenty of open space for gazing upward. As the eclipse began, the animals in the cemetery—squirrels, birds, a fox, bats, and two deer—came out to watch, as if the humans were responsible for darkening the sky and stopping the wind.
And when totality started, Magda thought it was the strangest, most moving thing she’d seen in her life. It was like being on a new planet, in a new universe. The sun was gone, hidden, while the moon asserted itself. It felt timeless. She felt timeless.
And now she’s already thinking about traveling to see the next totality in 2026 and making plans for 2045. She never expected to find the experience so meaningful, and now she’s wondering what that means for her eclipse-chasing future.
Embers in the News
Here are some of the links that peeked through the noisy news cycle this week:
Survival of the nicest Evolutionary biologist Jonathan Silvertown concludes that the natural world relies on cooperation as much as it does on competition.
Look brain, no hands! Tom Oxley, founder of brain implant startup Synchron, tells how the Stentrode lets people control digital devices with our thoughts.
Thales figures The solar eclipse predicted by the Greek philosopher Thales in 585 BCE ended a long war and launched his rep as the first person to fathom nature.
“Bad-weather friend” In early retirement, Lyn Story uses Nextdoor to help strangers in need by offering them free rides all over Fort Worth, Texas.
This week on the podcast
Author and Scary Mommy creator Jill Smokler went deep with us about her apprehensions about eldercare, why her marriage failed, and the challenge of adapting her skills and strategies to her new venture, She’s Got Issues.
Currently reading
Magda is reading Beautiful People: My Thirteen Truths About Disability by Melissa Blake. Blake writes like the journalist that she is, with easy, clear, friendly prose, solid organization, and a point. Magda feels like a lot of the memoirish nonfiction she's read lately has tried really hard to establish how wronged the author has been, but this memoirish book just feels matter-of-fact and inviting.
Doug hit the mother lode on his last trip to the library when he found Richard Russo’s two sequels to Nobody’s Fool: Everybody’s Fool and Somebody’s Fool. Now, the North Bath Trilogy feels as fully formed as Updike’s Rabbit series, populated by Russo’s offbeat, vivid characters bouncing off each other in the smalltown Rust Belt.
Currently watching
Doug finished The Curse and is still parsing one of the most astonishingly far-out series endings of all time. You will not see any of it coming. He was also inspired by Good One, in which Mike Birbiglia provides a behind-the-scenes peek at the fearless, haphazard process behind his comedic (and prolific) storytelling.
Magda still isn't over the eclipse, honestly.
Currently cooking
Magda made this lemon blueberry layer cake and frosted it with cream cheese ermine frosting, not the cream cheese buttercream in the recipe. It came out moist and with the right balance of tartness and sweetness.
Despite now living on his own, Doug hasn’t yet figured out how not to make enough food for an army. So he made this beef Wellington and spaced out the slices all week long. Then he followed up with one of the most exquisitely simple desserts of all time: Trefoils and whipped cream.
Next on the podcast
We’ve each got an adventurous weekend ahead, so stay tuned for an exciting recap of the end of our son’s college search, and whether Doug successfully took a new relationship to the next level.
Thanks for reading, and it’s hard to get over the moon.
Magda and Doug