Orion and Modern Man

One evening in the dead of winter, I went on a walk. I was on a break from graduate school visiting my parents who live away from the glare of city lights. As I was making my way that night, I looked up into the sky to locate my old friends—those constellations of stars I had been taught to recognize as a young boy. Most of them were there that evening, quietly making their way across the heavens: the always-faithful Big Dipper, Cassiopeia in her regal splendor, and Cepheus her jealous husband. And then, suddenly, my survey of the skies was arrested by the sight of Orion the Hunter. Continue Reading »

Music of Light

Jonathan Ree’s delightful I See A Voiceglances at Enlightenment-era efforts to work out analogies between color and musical harmonies.Newton’s Optics was key. He argued that “just as all different tones can be located on a single scale running from the highest to the lowest . . . . Continue Reading »