I am reminded of the fact that this sort of music once literally gave me nightmares. I hated rock music with a passion as a child, and even more so psychedelia—mine was a deep sense of unease and ominous foreboding at their dischordant, hazy strains, as though chaos and destruction were beckoning dimly over a not far enough away horizon, a shapeless formless dread that couldn’t quite be put into words

On the other hand, Syd Barret is considered by many to be a genius, and I am always interested in sampling genius when I find it.

One of the things I have always found so fascinating about the (physical) universe is its sheer immensity—I memorised the speed of light as a child, prone as I was to contemplating the ming-boggling vastness of the distance between stars, and the amount of time it takes light to travel between them (not to mention the theoretical time it would take us to travel to them).

Light-years, the distance light travels in a calendar year, is a fascinating concept—can one even begin to get one’s head around the concept that some parts of our night sky are visible now as they were 14 billion years ago?—so long and far have their persistent rays traveled to our distant shores—almost as old as creation itself.

Bearing this is mind, I suspect God, an eternal child with an infinite playground, has long moved on from making supergiants—although they were quite the rage 14+ billion years ago, and is now near infinitely amused by His newer creations, a fascinated observer as they choose their tea at the supermarket.

I thought of Astronomy Domine, a song that I once liked but not so much now. It’s by Pink Floyd. There is an interesting performance and interview on YouTube. Actually the interview is the best part. First an introduction by the interviewer and then it starts again at 5 minutes or so. It really is quite amusing:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wfGCX3iqnLo

No wait, let me back on, this is *very* cool.

I tend to thumb my nose at scientists, thinking they spend too much time with their calculators to appreciate the heart in God’s creation, but unless I knew mentally how outrageously beyond splendid some of His creations are, I would not be able to gasp at His Glory in so many ways. Once again I take my hat off to them.

Here I am deciding what sort of tea to buy in the supermarket, while He’s out in His infinite Playground making supergiants for fun. Thanks for the perspective, (not to mention the very kind link to my article).

Sumangali

Sharani, I haven’t blogged about the moon, and am not exactly sure why that is.

The only connection with the moon I can think of is Yukio Mishima, whose final Sea of Fertility tetralogy was named after an area of the moon, and deliberately intended to convey both the appearance of beauty, and underlying barrenness that is the physical moon’s surface.

anyway, what i said, i think, was….great post. i always lern something new from you, sugar! seriously, i knew ZIP about rugby…astronomy..a bit, but you reminded me of the real joy from just looking…