"The eclipse is next week!" they said.
"Don't forget to wear your glasses!" they said.
Would that it were so simple.
As I have no doubt readers discovered, obtaining eclipse glasses - the little strips of cardboard and plastic that NASA urged were the only safe way to directly view the solar eclipse - was next to impossible the week before the event.
Casey's General Store, Wal-Mart: sold out nearly immediately, with no resupply coming. Monroe Clinic, all gone. No other stores had any in stock. A glance at Amazon found packs of merely five pairs of glasses for $50 or more - not counting shipping, of course, which couldn't guarantee delivery before Monday regardless.
I was nearly resigned to making a pinhole camera out of a cereal box, which I considered an inferior method of eclipse-watching, when the Monroe Public Library, bless them, told me of a public viewing event Monday where free glasses would be distributed and shared.
Through the nearly opaque filtered lenses, the sun appeared as a orange disc in a field of black - when it appeared at all through the dense cloud cover. The once-in-a-lifetime celestial confluence seemed likely to be canceled by reruns of mundane rain showers. The audience on the library's lawn, which grew to a not-inconsiderable size, cheered and booed when clouds rolled out and in.
Occasionally, however, the sun flitted through gaps in the clouds to be dimly witnessed by mortals. As the lunar disc edged across the sun, I felt a frisson; a sense that I was witnessing an omen, the sort that would be historically accompanied by an earthquake and the birth of a two-headed goat. When the clouds dissipated, that sense grew: The sun's half-light lent the surroundings a sickly cast, and an inverted rainbow arced beneath the slivered sun, as though transcribing the edge of a hole in the sky.
Beyond any fanciful or imagined ill portents, the celestial dance placed ordinary objects into their proper context: as cosmic objects whose size and distance from us brush with the edges of human comprehension. We are all as specks of dust on a rock, tumbling through an unfeeling universe, etc., etc.
So, in short, yes, this event that most of us will only witness a handful of times in our lives was probably worth spending $50 to see, but I didn't have to because very nice people devoted to the literacy of our community took it upon themselves to provide a shared educational experience. Support your public libraries, please.
And don't forget to buy glasses ahead of time in 2024.
"Don't forget to wear your glasses!" they said.
Would that it were so simple.
As I have no doubt readers discovered, obtaining eclipse glasses - the little strips of cardboard and plastic that NASA urged were the only safe way to directly view the solar eclipse - was next to impossible the week before the event.
Casey's General Store, Wal-Mart: sold out nearly immediately, with no resupply coming. Monroe Clinic, all gone. No other stores had any in stock. A glance at Amazon found packs of merely five pairs of glasses for $50 or more - not counting shipping, of course, which couldn't guarantee delivery before Monday regardless.
I was nearly resigned to making a pinhole camera out of a cereal box, which I considered an inferior method of eclipse-watching, when the Monroe Public Library, bless them, told me of a public viewing event Monday where free glasses would be distributed and shared.
Through the nearly opaque filtered lenses, the sun appeared as a orange disc in a field of black - when it appeared at all through the dense cloud cover. The once-in-a-lifetime celestial confluence seemed likely to be canceled by reruns of mundane rain showers. The audience on the library's lawn, which grew to a not-inconsiderable size, cheered and booed when clouds rolled out and in.
Occasionally, however, the sun flitted through gaps in the clouds to be dimly witnessed by mortals. As the lunar disc edged across the sun, I felt a frisson; a sense that I was witnessing an omen, the sort that would be historically accompanied by an earthquake and the birth of a two-headed goat. When the clouds dissipated, that sense grew: The sun's half-light lent the surroundings a sickly cast, and an inverted rainbow arced beneath the slivered sun, as though transcribing the edge of a hole in the sky.
Beyond any fanciful or imagined ill portents, the celestial dance placed ordinary objects into their proper context: as cosmic objects whose size and distance from us brush with the edges of human comprehension. We are all as specks of dust on a rock, tumbling through an unfeeling universe, etc., etc.
So, in short, yes, this event that most of us will only witness a handful of times in our lives was probably worth spending $50 to see, but I didn't have to because very nice people devoted to the literacy of our community took it upon themselves to provide a shared educational experience. Support your public libraries, please.
And don't forget to buy glasses ahead of time in 2024.