The Space Shuttle Endeavor is being decommissioned, and prepared for her final resting place at the California Space Center. Here she is docked at the International Space Station on May 28th, 2011, during her final mission. For extra poignancy, listen to The Last Watch by Stan Rogers while viewing this picture full-sized, or reading about Endeavor's 19 years of service.
Believe it or not, I've trying to come up with something to post for over a month now. It's just that everything has seemed bland and dull; little has been able to engage me to the point where I wanted to expend the effort required to do more than drop a link into FaceBook or Twitter.
Then tonight I found it. The moment. The love. The joy. The tears. It was something that reminded me of why I haphazardly blog, but more than that, it reminded me of the beauty I had forgotten. I am going to do a more complete post about this, with more songs, and more thoughts on why this moved me to actually cry. But later. For now, here is Stan Rogers' son, Nathan Rogers, covering his father's song, "Free in the Harbour".
Astronaut Soichi Noguchi is currently stationed on the International Space Station, and Twitters pictures from his abode on high with great regularity. One my favorite is below, though the picture of the ISS, the moon, and aurora is a close second.
I will probably never make it into space, but at least I can look at pictures like this and pretend that that is me, flying at 17,000 mph toward the aurora.
Have you ever heard one of those songs that sounds instantly familiar the first time you hear it? Something about the music calls to that dormant portion of your soul that remains hidden from your conscious mind, and the lyrics speak of age-dimmed events that you see only in the clarity of your dreams?
Yeah, poetic wanking aside, Shearwater's Castaways is one such song. I have been listening to it on repeat for the past fifteen minutes and I keep hearing something new in Jonathan Meigburg's vocals. I am not entirely sure that I appreciate the rest of their music the same way, but just based on this one song I know will be attending their show on May 2nd.
You can also download this song for free from the Matador website, here.
This is a true embodiment of One Moment of Perfect Beauty. A Geminid Meteor is captured as it blazes past the Orion constellation. More details over at Astronomy Picture of the Day.
In case you were wondering what a mauzy morning might look like, Flickr user Greg from Maine captured this beautiful shot of a scallop dragger at mooring as the sun rises.
I first saw this over on Boing Boing Gadgets this morning, only to see it featured on Ectomo later this afternoon. However, since I know the few of you who do read my blog probably don't read those sites (and more's the pity, really) I decided to post it here as well.
When I first had the idea for my One Moment of Perfect Beauty category, I envisioned posting anything and everything that to me encapsulates just that. The definition of what a "moment" is being very elastic, I wanted to be able to post songs; poems; pictures; or even video clips such as the one below.
Ah, the wonders of post scheduling. I can now have posts go up at any point in the future, and you will never know when it was originally written! Maniacal laughter should go here, but this isn't a mad science moment.
I just finished watching Vienna Teng's live DVD, Live at the World Cafe, wherein several of her songs made me close my eyes and lose myself in the moment. It also inspired me to try out a new weekly feature here at A Bureaucracy of One.
Actually, if successful, it will the first weekly feature. Youtube is Eating My Brain could best be described as "semi-regular", and that's if we are being kind.
My goal with One Moment of Perfect Beauty is to present something that takes me away from the here and now, and transports me to a timeless place outside of everything. It will be a song. Or a video. Maybe a painting. Maybe a picture.
Whatever it is, my hope is that you will be transported, too.
Thus, it is only fitting that one of the songs that inspired me to do this feature is the first "moment of perfection". Without further ado, I give you Vienna Teng's Green Island Serenade. Just close your eyes and let Vienna's voice carry you to a place where a man sings to his beloved on an island across the sea.