Dear kind reader,
How is your August going so far? We’re only a week in and already the autumn is bearing down on us with with ferocious determination. Enjoy any free time available to you, connect with friends and family, go on excursions and have adventures! This is the month for exploration and expansion.
For those of you are interested in star-gazing, this weekend are about to enter the peak period for observing the Perseid meteor shower. The moon is slimming to a crescent so there will be a dark background for the celestial display. The meteors are a result of the train of rocks and ice behind the 16-mile-long comet, Swift-Tuttle, which has a 133-year orbit of our sun. The earth passes through its wake once a year, as you can see in this video:
I’ve developed an admiration for astronomy over the last ten years or so because I find it vastly inspiring. When news on Earth is disheartening, I scan the latest updates from my astronomy feeds and remember the people around the world who are making incredible discoveries. Much of this work is the result of international cooperation and is fuelled by humanity’s desire to understand our place in the cosmos.
I followed the launch of the James Webb telescope with keen interest, and have been amazed at the images it has been sending back to us since last summer. Look at the difference between the Hubble Telescope’s 2008 image of the Southern Ring Nebula — approximately 2500 light-years away — and the recent image of the same nebula from the James Webb Webb’s Near-Infrared Camera (NIRCam).
It’s hard to remember that the Hubble was launched back in 1990!1 Scientists began seriously discussing a successor by 1995 but construction didn’t start on the James Webb telescope until 2004.2 It was launched on 25 December 2021 and reached it halo orbit at the L2 Lagrange point (1.5 million km from Earth) on 24 January 2022, where it can observe stars free from the shadows of the Earth and the Moon. The telescope will help scientists figure out what the early universe looked like, and how and when the first galaxies evolved.
I’ve also been intrigued by the recent news about gravitational waves, but I first paid attention to gravitational waves back in 2015 when their first direct detection occurred at the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO). To quote directly, ‘Gravitational waves are 'ripples' in the fabric of space-time caused by some of the most powerful processes in the universe - colliding black holes, exploding stars, and even the birth of the universe itself.’3
I’m no physicist — my pal Dr. Jessamyn Fairfield is far more qualified to speak about this subject — but I recommend watching this detailed video by Dr. Becky Smethurst, an astrophysicist at the University of Oxford, where she discusses what has everyone so excited by the data gathered about these phenomena. I swear, it’s not gibberish!
What’s most incredible about this information is that it’s the result of decades of observations from arrays around the globe, thanks to steady and important research by hundreds of scientists working in cooperation.
If you ever feel stressed or despairing about the world, just remember there are many people working together to deepen our understanding of the fundamentals of our universe.
And now, for something completely different!
I went to see Barbie,4 the movie, after dodging spoilers for a couple of weeks.
I chose this teaser trailer deliberately, because it’s also the opening sequence in the film, and I think it signals something quite interesting. The towering image of the hypersexualised Barbie, looming like a plastic kaiju over a barren landscape populated by bored girls, is a mythic creature born from the parthenogenetic imagination and connects to a deep archetype in the human psyche: Venus herself.
Venus, the Roman goddess of love, is based on the earlier Greek goddess Aphrodite (who evolved from the Phoenician goddess Astarte, who was influenced by the East Semitic goddess Ishtar, who in turn was probably inspired by Inanna, the Sumerian love goddess). Yet Inanna, like other goddesses such as the Indian goddess Durga (and perhaps our own phantom queen, the Mórrigan), was also associated with war; so sex and destruction are closely linked. Inanna also undertook a powerful pilgrimage into the underworld to reckon with her shadow sister, experience death, and return a whole and transformed person.
It’s appropriate that the first break in Barbie’s perfect world occurs when thoughts of death and ageing enter her consciousness.
Aphrodite was born, fully formed, after the castration of her father, Uranus by his son Kronos (note: Kronos did this to save his siblings and at the urging of his mother, Gaia). Kronos threw his father’s genitals into the sea off the coast of Cythera, and Aphrodite emerged as a result of this violent act, when her father’s foaming semen gestated in the embryonic waters.
Venus (and her counterparts) often have to contend with the unwanted attention of powerful men, but she also symbolises the astonishing power of unearthly beauty to bewitch and overpower. For a goddess it’s a permanent boon but for mortals it is fleeting, and for actresses it vanishes rapidly.
Margo Robbie’s portrayal of Barbie is a miraculous feat: she’s charming, naive, compassionate and develops agency after a rite of passage. As a ‘sterotypical Barbie’ she is designed to be manipulated, played with and discarded, but there is no return to shallow existence after understanding that the depth of human joy comes from accepting it is tied to pain and loss.
It’s also worth remembering that Robbie produced the film. She pitched and sold the movie on the strength of Gerwig’s reputation as a funny and inventive filmmaker.5 This is a project originally based by a doll invented by businesswoman Ruth Handle (although she copied her design from the German Bild-Lilli doll, which was based on the character Lilli, from the West German comic strip created by Reinhard Beuthien back in 1952). Venus abounds.
Gerwig keeps her hourglass film on track despite some wobbles, but I found it amusing that the best musical number featured the Kens (led by sterotypical Ken, Ryan Gosling), which gloriously morphed into a dream sequence clearly influenced by the iconic ballet set-piece between Gene Kelly and Cyd Charisse in Singing in the Rain (1952).
Now that’s a scene glorying in the erotic Venus attraction.
I could dig into Barbie a little more and dissect a few of its weak points, but overall it’s a smart take on an iconic doll that tries to highlight the power and disempowerment of the Barbie doll. The real woman of the film, Gloria, played by America Ferrera, gives a powerful speech about the impossible, contradictory standards for women in society. Yet, the last line is remarkably flat-footed — I get what Gerwig is hinting at, but I think it’s an unfortunate last stumble in the film.
And whatever about the initial shadow cast by Barbie in the film, it’s hard to forget that Mattel is a multi-billion dollar company that’s benefiting from the re-branding of one of their biggest assets as a feminist icon. Gerwig pokes fun at the company, but they are happy to take a few licks in order to boost their profits and keep their plastic goddess on the altar of a new generation of girls.
Venus is a complex symbol, so perhaps any mapping of her aspect results in a beautiful contradiction.
May you dance with her benign energy and slip away when her temper changes.
It’s been visited, repaired and upgraded four times by astronauts in that period and continues to be a working telescope. Initially, NASA expected to decommission it around 2006.
It was a collaboration by NASA, the European Space Agency (ESA), and the Canadian Space Agency (CSA).
Directed and co-written by Greta Gerwig — who wrote the screenplay with Noah Baumbach.
As reported in this Collider article.
Wow! How cool is Dr Smethurst! Thank you Maura. X