Make it weird
As the season of sweet indulgences approaches, consider the Uranian impulse, and stage your own surprising traditions
Dear word explorer,
These dark evenings and chilly nights bring the satisfaction of wearing a fleecy robe and enjoying a warm drink while reading, watching TV, or perhaps, playing a video game. It is a quiet pleasure, but one I do not take for granted, as my constitution makes me ill-equipped for damp, freezing condition and a constant series of overcast, dull skies. Over the years I’ve learned to enjoy the opportunities for study and helpful introversion brought on by long nights, and to offset any moments of maudlin by cultivating bright conditions.
Bring on the cheery lights! The spicy hot toddies! The abundance of comfy throws! Long ago I jettisoned the cultivated cynical sneer about cosy chic. Winter is the era of trials with a glimmer of hope. I embrace whatever gets me through the season. I don’t decorate for holidays that much, but I admire the enthusiasm of others for jolly ornaments.
I’m all for a balance between including the dark folkloric icons (e.g., Krampus and Befana) along with the light-infused (e.g. Saint Lucia, Yule). Our mythology reminds us there are monsters lurking in the shadow-thick woods, so we need the beckoning candle in the window to guide us through our winter trek.
And in Galway, we have the arrival of the Christmas market.
I slipped into the city on Saturday, in the magic period between afternoon and evening, after the sun had set, and the exhaustion of parents with energetic kids had reached their limits and they begin prodding their sugar-soaked prodigy homewards.
Yet the crowds persisted, and I could only tolerate the press of puffer jackets and jangling upbeat tunes for so long, and I ducked out shortly after enjoying the coloured lights and inhaling the scents of Glühwein and Nutella crepes.
I’ll return during a weekday when the desperation to have a good time is not ratcheted to fever pitch.
For those of you who like holiday songs but don’t enjoy the typical classics, I heartily recommend sampling some of the offerings on the online independent ‘radio station’ SomaFM (they also have an Android and Apple app).
I enjoy Soma’s eclectic curation all year round, but at this time of the year they shine with idiosyncratic playlists such as ‘Jolly ol’ Soul’, ‘Xmas in Frisko’, ‘Christmas Rocks’, ‘Christmas Lounge’, and ‘Christmas Department Store’.
I’m not quite at the point where I’ll listen to these selections, but when I do I marvel at the sheer diversity of songs composed to laud the winter season from all over the world. There are foreign language or genre-busting covers of your favourite songs that will blow your mind, plus bizzaro tunes from indie geniuses.
It’s an excellent example of how you can take a holiday and tweak it to reflect your rarefied tastes. It can be reindeers in doc martens if you want, or a Krampus in a tutu.
No surprise that my tastes can be summarised as: make it weird.
Which leads me to news from our strange cosmos…
Uranus is the planet everyone snickers about because of its funny association with a rude body part, but its nature is to surprise.
The planet is barely visible to the naked eye, if you know where to look, but it wasn’t until 1781 that German-born astronomer and former musician William Herschel first observed it properly — using a home-made telescope in his back yard in England — and cautiously announced it as a new comet.
Once it became clear it was a new planet in our solar system the news rocketed around the globe heralding a massive paradigm-shift in how humanity viewed its place in the cosmos.
Up until this, anything beyond Saturn was considered the celestial realm, the home of gods and angels. In an act of opportunistic toadying, Hershel tried to name the new planet Georgium sidus (the Georgian star) after King George III, who had named Herschel “The King's Astronomer” for this breakthrough.1
Astronomers began working on better and more powerful telescopes, including Herschel, who was aided in his work by his sister Caroline.2 Since the glass star ceiling has been smashed, astronomers around the world were keen to be the next person to name a brand-new (to us) planet. It was an exciting time as the boundaries of science were being pushed across many disciplines.
But Herschel’s proposed name… that didn’t work. Outside of Great Britain, George III’s reign was less than popular, and it was an era of political revolution. French astronomers referred to the planet simply as ‘Herschel’. Other suggestions were Hypercronicus (‘above Saturn’) and Cybele, who was Saturn’s wife. Swedish astronomer, Erik Prosperin, liked the name Neptune, which would be bestowed upon the eight planet when it was discovered in 1846.
Somehow, decades after the great naming debate dragged on (let’s remember it was the era of letter-writing), German astronomer Johann Elert Bode’s constant agitation for the name of Uranus won out.
It doesn’t make sense. Uranus is a Greek god, while all the other major planets were named after the Roman equivalents. Caelus is the Roman version of Uranus. They are primordial entities, the forefathers of more famous offspring who revolted and replaced them. Uranus has been strange from the beginning.
Just to give you an idea of its distance from us: light takes 2 hours and 40 minutes to travel from the Sun to Uranus, and for us that takes a snappy 8 minutes and 33 seconds.
Uranus is an ice giant surrounded by 13 rings and 28 moons, but the ‘tilted giant’ rotates at a nearly 90-degree angle from the plane of its orbit. So it appears to spin sideways and to orbit the Sun like a blue rolling ball. It has extreme seasons, with 21-year long winters, plus, one of its moons, with the ordinary name of Margaret, has a prograde orbit — that means she follows her Dad’s direction, albeit in a highly irregular fashion. Her siblings all opt for a retrograde orbit.
It’s funny that I discussed NASA’s Voyager space probe programme recently, because back in 1986 Voyager 2 flew by Uranus, and much of what astronomers know about the planet dates from that swift encounter.
About a week ago astronomers made the shocking announcement that it has just been discovered that while Voyager was analysing the weird ice giant 38 years ago, the planet was experiencing a freakish solar storm which means most of the data Voyager collected was inaccurate for normal conditions.
Uranus, you oddball, you continue to perplex us!
So, for 40 years we have had an incorrect view of what Uranus and its five largest moons3 are normally like, according to Dr William Dunn of University College London.
“These results suggest that the Uranian system could be much more exciting than previously thought. There could be moons there that could have the conditions that are necessary for life, they might have oceans below the surface that could be teeming with fish!”.4
2024 is tracking to be one hell of a weird year!
But, bring on the cosmic narwhals from the moons of Uranus!
We welcome you!
The British fought the European retitling of the planet, and the Nautical Almanac referred to Uranus as Georgium Sidus until 1850.
I don’t want to get side-tracked by the Herschels, but they are an inspiring family. I’d recommend reading The Story of the Herschels, a Family of Astronomers.
The big five are: Miranda, Ariel, Umbriel, Titania, and Oberon, the ‘literary moons’ named after Shakespearean characters.
Pallab Ghosh reporting on the BBC web site.
That's a lovely essay, I like the season, and approve of your approach, the darkness is hard on folk, and we keep our 'christmas tree' up all year, not zig and zag style as it takes decoration to be Christmassy. I have fought hard to not say that I love the planet you wrote about, and my laughter this morning contemplating is like a drain... Or sewer.
Not one for fairs, the sweet smells are off putting,
I've also become staggeringly old (despite lingering immaturity, school boy humour, and youthful enthusiasm) and look at some things and go - It's not a book or comic....
Margaret is a great name for a moon! Maggie for short.