Aquarius Awareness

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 20 January 2019 is the day the sun enters the sign of Aquarius (♒). It is also Penguin Awareness Day, The Feast of Saint Fabian (Pope and Martyr), The Feast of Saint Sebastian (Martyr), Martyrs’ Day (Azerbaijan), Heroes’ Day (Cape Verde), Army Day (Laos), and Armed Forces Day (Mali).

Tonight there will be a total lunar eclipse—the last one this year, and there are no further lunar eclipses scheduled until 2021, so it’s probably a good idea to make this one last. It is also the 29th day of the partial shutdown of the U.S. government, and there is no end in sight. And there’s really no predicting when the next shutdown will be, so I suppose we ought to enjoy the phenomenon while we’ve got it, but things are precarious enough for me right now without having to worry about when or if I will ever see something resembling money again.

Fifty years ago today the Beatles reassembled at Savile Row to start work at their advanced recording studio allegedly designed and built by Alexis Mardas (“Magic Alex”). (Mardas denies having anything to do with the project.) There was nothing usable there so they arranged to borrow equipment from EMI to continue with the ill-fated Get Back adventure.

Up to now nothing had actually been recorded; I mean, there were recordings, but they were just for the documentary that was being made—not proper recordings aimed at eventual release. Things were about to get started for real, however; maybe I’ll actually get some of this down before darkness overtakes us all.