George

Songs with Astronomical Themes No. 9: Stardust, by Hoagy Carmichael

It’s been called one of the greatest songs ever written: No. 9 in our Songs with Astronomical Themes series, “Stardust,” by Hoagy Carmichael.

stardust

The song, written by Carmichael in 1927 with lyrics added a couple of years later by Mitchell Parish, is one of the most-recorded pop numbers in history, covered by a who’s who of bands and singers: Louis Armstrong, Dave Brubeck, Django Reinhardt, Tommy Dorsey, Glenn Miller, Frank Sinatra, Doris Day, Nat King Cole, Mel Torme, Ella Fitzgerald, Harry Connick Jr., Barry Manilow, Willie Nelson, Rod Stewart . . .

Here’s Nat King Cole’s version, originally recorded in 1956:

The structure and melody are unusually complex for a pop standard; the tune wanders all over the place, with the phrasing alternating between slow and fast. Carmichael says the inspiration for the song came to him one night on the grounds of his alma mater, Indiana University in Bloomington; he dashed off to find a piano and jot down the tune, and thus was born “Stardust.” If you go to IU today, you can see a plaque commemorating the very spot where Carmichael is said to have dreamed up the tune.

Carmichael, by the way, also wrote the tune to “Heart and Soul,” that annoying little ditty that’s often played as a duet by kids sitting at a piano. This one:

Songs with Astronomical Themes No. 8: “Sail to the Moon,” by Radiohead

No. 8 in our Songs with Astronomical Themes: Radiohead’s lovely “Sail to the Moon,” from their 2003 album “Hail to the Thief.”

Gustave Doré - A Voyage to the Moon from The Adventures of Baron Munchausen, 1868

(Illustration by Gustave Dore, “A Voyage to the Moon,” for, I think, Theophile Gautier’s French edition of “The Adventures of Baron Munchausen,” 1868).

Wiki tells me that “Sail to the Moon (Brush the Cobwebs out of the Sky)” was written by Thom Yorke of Radiohead for his infant son, Noah. The title of the album, “Hail to the Thief,” refers to the 2000 US election stolen by President (cough) George W. Bush.

Here it is, though not with any kind of official video:

Comet ISON Update

David Eicher, editor of Astronomy magazine, gives this clear-eyed update on Comet ISON, the latest “Comet of the Century.”

His prognosis: It’s still too early to tell exactly how spectacular Comet ISON will be, but rest assured that it’ll be bright, a “naked-eye comet from mid-November through year’s end.”

Here’s a nice view of Comet ISON from the Hubble telescope, April 10, 2013:

Comet Ison from Hubble, 4:10:13

Comet Review in The Free Lance-Star

Thanks to Andi Russell of The Free Lance-Star (Fredericksburg, Va.) for a glowing review of The Night of the Comet.

I’m honestly impressed when a reviewer can so neatly sum up a book and say “This is what it’s about,” as Russell does here. I know myself from trying to write book descriptions–of my own books, even!–how difficult this can be.

The Free Lance-Star

Sept. 1, 2013

Dad’s Head is in the Stars
BY ANDI RUSSELL/THE FREE LANCE–STAR

AUTHOR George Bishop paints an intimate portrait of an unraveling family as Comet Kohoutek comes crashing through their lives in his second novel, “The Night of the Comet.”

This nostalgic and heart-achingly relatable tale is told from the perspective of a high school freshman growing up in southern Louisiana in 1973.

Fourteen-year-old Alan Broussard Jr., or “Junior,” is experiencing his first serious crush. But just as he begins to navigate the mysteries of the heart, he starts to glean from his parents that love isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. Junior and the rest of his family’s conflicting feelings of hope and disappointment are prevalent through much of the story.

Junior’s dad, Alan Sr., is a high school science teacher whose fascination with what scientists are calling “the comet of the century” embarrasses Junior and his older sister, Megan. As Kohoutek gets closer, though, anticipation starts to build throughout the small town. Alan becomes a local celebrity of sorts, and the comet demands more and more of his time.

During the evenings, Junior looks out of his new telescope (a birthday gift from his dad) across the canal and into the home of his crush, Gabriella, and her high-society family. The new neighbors have also caught the attention of Junior’s mother, Lydia, an already-restless housewife who has always dreamed of a glamorous life.

Bishop’s lovely prose will likely bring readers to empathize with each member of the Broussard family. They will feel Junior’s confusion, Megan’s impatience, Lydia’s unhappiness and Alan’s isolation.

Part coming-of-age story, part family saga, “The Night of the Comet” is sweet and sad, heartbreaking and uplifting. It also provides a wealth of information on astronomy and the stars. The night sky looms in the background, like another character in the story.

Occasional and avid stargazers alike should relish Bishop’s take on the coming of Comet Kohoutek and how it affected one small town.

The release of the novel is timely, as many astronomy enthusiasts are currently tracking sun-approaching Comet ISON, which some reporters have already dubbed “the comet of the century.”

The scientific community appears to believe it is too soon to tell whether ISON will dazzle or be a dud. After reading this book, I know I will be paying close attention.

Andi Russell is a designer with The Free Lance–Star.
THE NIGHT OF THE COMET
By George Bishop
(Ballantine Books, $25, 316 pp.)

Songs with Astronomical Themes No. 7: “The Planets” by Gustav Holst

No. 7 in our Songs with Astronomical Themes isn’t a song but an orchestral suite, “The Planets,” by composer Gustav Holst (1874-1934). This selection is the seventh and last movement, “Neptune, the Mystic.”

Here’s a picture of Gustav:

holst

Despite his name, he was an Englishman. He came from a very musical family; his great-grandfather, grandfather, father, and wife were all musicians.

(Gustav’s brother Emil, however, moved to America, changed his name to Earnest Cossart, and became an actor. He appeared often as a butler in Hollywood films of the 30s. In 1942, Earnest acted alongside Ronald Reagan in “Kings Row,” the film in which Reagan’s character wakes up from surgery to find both his legs amputated and cries, “Where’s the rest of me?!”–a line that Reagan later used as the title of his autobiography.)

Okay, back to Gustav. As a boy he suffered from asthma, poor eyesight, and neuritis in his arms that made playing the piano difficult for him. His mother introduced him to Theosophy, which is how he became interested in mysticism, Eastern religions, and astrology.

In college he studied Sanskrit, and during his “Indian Period” he set a number of his works to Sanskrit texts.

“The Planets,” begun when Gustav was 40 years old, is based on astrology, not astronomy; the seven movements correspond to the seven planets used in astrology (Mars, Venus, Mercury, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune).

Although Holst didn’t think the composition was one of his best, it became instantly popular and won him lasting fame.

Here’s an album cover from a 1970s recording of “The Planets”:

theplanetsbizarrecover-500x500

The movement here, “Neptune, the Mystic,” has a definite mystical sound to it, especially with the ethereal women’s choir that comes in about halfway through. In fact, to anyone who’s ever seen any film or TV show that deals with space or science-fiction, this movement is likely to sound awfully familiar. If the piece isn’t quoted exactly, it’s certainly imitated, so much so that when we try to imagine what “space” sounds like now, I believe we unconsciously think of Holst’s “Neptune.”

“Neptune” was one of the first pieces of orchestral music to have a “fade out” ending, and I’ve always loved Holst’s instructions for how performers are to achieve this effect:

The women’s chorus, he writes, is to be “placed in an adjoining room, the door of which is to be left open until the last bar of the piece, when it is to be slowly and silently closed.”

So here it is, Gustav Holst’s “Neptune, the Mystic,” from “The Planets”:

Listen to The Night of the Comet on the Radio!

Radio Boy

Now you don’t even have to buy the book. You can listen to The Night of the Comet this month on National Public Radio.

The Radio Reader, Dick Estell, is reading The Night of the Comet on his syndicated show, hosted by public radio stations all around the country. It begins today with the first of 23 episodes. Dick does a great job with the books he chooses, so you can be sure it’ll be a good read.

Check listings for your area at The Radio Reader’s station schedule, here.

You can also listen online; check The Radio Reader’s internet schedule, here.

Comet ISON Update: “We Shouldn’t Be Scared of the K-Word”

A recent article from Discovery.com, “Will Comet ISON Be Another Kohoutek PR Disaster?”

Comet Kohoutek is the star of my new novel THE NIGHT OF THE COMET. Discovered in 1973, Kohoutek was hyped as the “comet of the century,” and it ignited a brief worldwide craze for all things cometary.

This year’s Comet ISON has also been called another comet of the century, a “dream comet.” It was spotted last September by a couple of amateur astronomers, and is expected to be at its brightest around Thanksgiving-time. Here’s its projected orbit:

Comet_ison_Dec1_17_341px

Recently, however, astronomers have begun scaling back their predictions for ISON. It might not really be another comet of the century, they caution, wary of being burnt again as they were by Kohoutek, which turned out to be one of the most disappointing comets in history, a complete dud.

But no matter how big or small of a showing it makes, astronomers say Comet ISON will still be a treasure trove of science, an “extraordinary event.”

Says one astronomer, Casey Lisse of the Applied Physics Lab at Johns Hopkins University:

“We shouldn’t be scared of the K-word.”

Songs with Astronomical Themes No. 6: Blue Moon, Sung by Elvis

In honor of our own blue moon this week, here’s No. 6 in our Songs with Astronomical Themes series: “Blue Moon.”

Blue Moon Sheet Music
The song was written by Richard Rogers and Lorenz Hart, the duo that wrote dozens of Broadway musicals and hundreds of popular songs. “Blue Moon” went through several incarnations, with different titles and lyrics, before this version was written and recorded in 1935.

Elvis Presley’s rendition, released by Sun Records in 1954, is one of my favorites. Have a listen. It borders on the bizarre, with the clop-clopping electric guitar, the over-the-top reverb, and and Elvis’s weird falsetto cooing at the end of each verse.

A blue moon, by the way, as in “once in a blue moon,” is an extra full moon in a season–commonly, the second full moon in a single month. So it’s a rare event, occurring every two or three years. A blue moon, however, is rarely blue.