Starry Starry Night February 20, 2013

Vincent Van Gogh’s famous Starry Night

When I was in junior high school, I happened to acquire a small telescope. It was a secondhand 4-inch refractor, and if I think about it now, it was missing the weight to counter-balance the body of the telescope. However, there was nothing else so wrong to keep me from aiming it at the objects in the night sky. Even in light polluted Tokyo where I grew up, I managed to learn how to use it to observe the heavenly bodies. It definitely made me grow into a night owl, but at the same time it gave me a whole new world, literally the universe, I had never known  before.

Later in junior high and high school I got into literature, especially poetry, very seriously. Through that channel my art-oriented friends brought various kinds of visual arts and music to my life. My specialty has been always classical, but they opened up my windows to rock and pops as well. When they were busy trying to memorize the entire “American Pie” to sing at a school concert, I became more fascinated by “Vincent.” I wasn’t aware then that it was about Van Gogh, though I knew of the dispute between him and Gauguin, and its aftermath. It is easy to attribute the tragedy to the fine sensitivity of the artist, but the despair from his sense of isolation is often not so distant.

So, the Starry Starry Night. It’s time to get out and stare at those shiny little things; time to let our minds go far beyond the scientific facts. Before we face to the solitude; before we feel helpless. There is no way that we lose the means of finding the hopes within the universe as the beauty of the night sky is endless. So, for our own Starry Starry Night, I hope you all will join.

Starry Starry Night at Thorpe Vineyard 

Join me as we look up at the starry night sky to get accustomed with the constellations. I’ll talk about Greek and Roman Mythology as well as some of those counterparts found in the East. I’m not sure yet, but am hoping to have some access to a telescope. Do you have one and feel like sharing the fun with others? Let me know. It is planned from sunset to 11pm on these Saturdays: July 6th & 27th and August 10th & 24th, weather permitting. We may be lucky to start the night with the flyby of the International Space Station or catch a few streaks from the Perseids meteor shower in August!