Friday, December 15, 2006

Lame Lunacy

There are so many of them, and you hear them so often. I speak, of course, of referrences to the little natural sattelite that reflects the sun, stabilizes our earth on its axis, causes the tides and is the source of blue cheese.

There is, of course, lunacy, a misconstrued concept that exposure to a full moon produces crazy phenomena down here (statistics do not bear this out, but I digress). And there has to be a kazillion songs about this little piece of stellar real estate. I bet I've been in bands playing Moonlight Seranade a million times (exaggeration for emphasis, but I digress again). I also bet that some of you have initiated intimate acts while under the spell of the glow of a full moon.

The lexicon goes on and on about this little orb. One can moon another, although the source of this expression has never been clear to me. The moon, after all, does not have a visible canyon designating a vertical equator running from pole to pole.

The brightness of the moon is the same as earth during bright sunlight. In fact, to photograh it, one must use the same settings as taking a picture in bright sunlight.

Just at moonrise, on the night of a fool moon, the thing appears huge as it peeks above the horizon, an optical illusion that provides for a magnificent backround for paddling.

Still, at the end of the day, the first prize goes to Robin Williams who, in a shakesperian voice once proclaimed, " The moon, like a testicle, hangs low in the sky."

Paddle safe...

DS

2 comments:

Michael said...

Interesting post! When I was teaching in a northern community, a circuit court used my classroom to try the case of two young guys who had broken into the store to steal cigarettes. The case went on and on until it was pointed out that it had happened during the full moon. A sudden flash of interest from the crowd, lots of muttering and then people began to leave. I didn't get it until it was explained to me that there could be no guilt involved. It was caused by the moon. The southern judge thought otherwise and gave them both two months of house arrest. The remaining spectators shook their heads in disbelief - southern justice was an ass once again...

Silbs said...

"The moon made me do it," that's a new defense in my experience. Oh well, isn't the law an ass?