THE SOUTHWORTH PLANETARIUM
207-780-4249   www.usm.maine.edu/planet
<http://www.google.com/url?q=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.usm.maine.edu%2Fplanet&sa=D&sntz=1&usg=AFQjCNHulkHuLP13bOG2PkNrPazsGWFs2A>
70 Falmouth Street   Portland, Maine 04103
43.6667° N                   70.2667° W
Altitude:  10 feet below sea level
Founded January 1970
Julian date: 2458787.16
2019 - 2020:   XLIII
         "We are such stuff as dreams are made on and our little life is
rounded by a sleep."
                                              -Shakespere


THE DAILY ASTRONOMER
Thursday, October 31, 2019
Salem Moon


[image: 5640255142_b0864d18d5_b.jpg]
Were any of us able to visit Salem, MA, in 1692, we would be surprised, if
not astonished, at how small and unremarkable it appeared.    This 17th
century hamlet has become such a larger than life community in our
collective consciousness that we expect it to be a bustling burg of
shadowed gables and ominous mansions extending to all horizons like a
pre-Revolutionary Los Angeles. The Salem of our imagination is trapped in
perpetual night, its depthless darkness illuminated only by the periodic
lightning flashes of conjured storms.    To go to 1692 Salem was to
infiltrate a mystical realm constantly perturbed by the unholiest of
agencies.   Witch covens gathered along the wilderness fringes summoning
forth communities of the awakened dead to lay siege to the quiet homes that
only through divine grace held themselves fast against the onslaught.

The Salem that Harold Kinkade discovered was quiet and pastoral.    The
town square, a sparsely populated region that hardly deserved that
distinction,  was the center stage of a vast range dabbled by a few
recently constructed houses.     It hardly seemed a likely location for the
manifestation of witchcraft.    The locals looked like ordinary folk, some
kindly, others not as much.    Those whom Harold saw looked upon him with
uneasy curiosity, their expressions not exactly hostile, but certainly not
warm and welcoming.   Any stranger would naturally occasion unease among
the townsfolk, all of whom were keenly aware of their precarious lives
along the nether edge of a dark, wild and menacing continent.     Demonic
entities were known to assume all forms.      For this reason, perhaps,
none of the handful of Salem inhabitants approached Harold on his arrival.
 So, Harold, being less timid, rapidly approached a couple of them.

"Hey, anybody seen John?"

"Is it Goody Proctor, you seek?:" a  middle aged man inquired as his wife
drew slightly closer to him.

"No," Harold said.  "I am looking for John....he's around here, isn't he?"

The middle aged man's countenance darkened slightly and his was a grave
tone. "I know none of that name apart from Goody Proctor who mustn't be
disturbed at present, for these are troubling times"

"Seriously?" Harold said with exasperation.    He turned to the wife.
"Have you seen John in the last hour?"

The woman shook her head quickly and moved to the other side of her husband
as he took a firm step toward Harold.  "My good sir, I beseech thee to
leave us in peace.    We are Godly folk and take not kindly to such
menace."

Harold's face darkened with confusion and fear.     "Um, hello!" he shouted
out to the townsfolk gathering near.  "Anybody seen John?"

The stunned townspeople all looked with fear toward Harold.   Nobody
responded and everyone, even the middle aged man, stepped back.  They all
remained silent and transfixed on the stranger in their midst.

Harold held up his hands.  "Is everything ok?!  I just need to find John
and I thought he might be up here."

"To prayers," an elderly woman murmured, bowing her head reverently.  The
others also bowed and those close together joined hands.

"Ok...." Harold said as the others started chanting softly  "I guess I'll
go look somewhere else."

The sounds of murmured prayers followed Harold as he turned around and beat
a hasty retreat away from the town square.  Only when the stranger vanished
into thin air did the praying stop.

The middle aged man's wife looked up at her husband.  "A devil's servant."

The husband took her hand into his and, while looking at his wife, solemnly
whispered,  "New guy."



"John!"   Harold shouted again, walking down the center stairs.

"Yes, Harold," a rotund man answered cheerfully while rounding the corner
and approaching the stage.

"Oh, there you are!"

"Yes, here I am. What can I do you for?"

"Well," Harold said jerking his thumb toward the stage where he could still
people milling around the props.  "I needed to ask you a question about
the moon, but, you know, I hate to complain because I just started here,
but those people up there weren't much help when I was trying to find you."

"Oh, well, that's hardly a surprise.    You wouldn't find me in 1692 as I
hadn't been born yet.....in fact," John said, looking with puzzlement at
his fingers, "you went looking for me about 280....287..or something like
that years before I was even an impure thought."    John put his arm around
Harold's shoulder as they walked away from the stage, where a young girl
had just emerged from the right holding a strange amulet.     Harold lost
sight of the stage as the middle aged wife started cautiously moving toward
the girl, her eyes fixed on the bizarre -and even possibly enchanted-
object..

"Seriously?" Harold asked weakly.

"Absolutely," John said as he smiled broadly at the flummoxed young man.
"What would you say if someone came into this theater right now in search
of your great-great-great-great grandson?   You wouldn't be much help, now,
would you?"

Harold nodded, his expression suddenly brighter.   He and John stopped next
to the kitchen entrance.   "Ah, ok, you're all hazing the new guy.  I get
it."

"What do you mean?"   John asked, looking nonplussed.

"I mean that you're all playing some mind game with me for your own
amusement.     When my brother first went into the Army, the officers had a
lot of fun watching him search the base for a gallon of squelch juice. Same
thing."   Harold smiled broadly.  'Tell you what:  I'll play along, how's
that?"

John motioned for Harold to follow him into the kitchen.  As Harold
followed he noticed through a crevice between the storage door and the
backstage the backs of three women who had formed a circle around the
girl.      As soon as the girl's arm was raised above them, Harold slipped
into the kitchen and saw no more.
"Look." John said, his tone suddenly hushed as a custodian had just entered
the kitchen through the open back door en route to the well stocked
refrigerator.  "That stage is located in 17th century Salem"

Harold couldn't stifle his laugh.  He pointed toward the yellowed, poster
covered kitchen wall next to him and toward the stage far off in the same
direction.  "That stage, just like this kitchen, both audience tiers and
this whole theater is in 21st century Virginia Beach."

John shook his head quickly.  "Ok, look, I need to explain.   A couple of
years ago the theatre was taken over by  an elderly woman named Agatha
Price.   You haven't met her yet, but when you do, you'll never forget
her.    Before she arrived, the theatre director had a policy in which all
the main actors were required to remain in character when they were on the
stage.   Well, this eccentric, -I say a bit off- old lady did him one
better.  She said that as long as she is in charge, the stage will be
precisely in the same space-time region of whatever play is being produced
at the time."

"Huh?"

John paused as Leo, the chipper Hungarian custodian, wandered close, soda
pop in hand, toward the kitchen door.    They all exchanged brief smiles
before  they saw his frizzled grey mane recede across the threshold.

"Yes, that's what we all said, at least at first.    We were all really
confused.  A couple people went so far as to suggest that it was a really
bad idea."   At this, John looked carefully around and saw nobody, apart
from a pedestrian outside who passed by the window above a nearby sink.
John continued in an even lower voice.  'Those two aren't here, anymore, of
course.   You see, it wasn't just an idea:  it was her policy.     The
first play was MacBeth and just as soon as we constructed the set,  Agatha
arrived at the theater dressed as one of the witches and proceeded to go up
on stage.      She paid nobody else any attention and we all stared at her
like she was a mad women which," he looked furtively around again, "we all
kind of think she is. She was murmuring and touching the fake stones and
waving her hand through the fog machine that someone had turned on.    We
all watched her with fascination.  A few of us had to gnaw a bit on our
knuckles not to laugh.     After about twenty minutes, she finally came
down the stairs and, with a tear in her eye, looked at us and baldly said,
'I didn't think 11th century Scotland would be like that."

"Well, we just smirked at each other as she wiped her face and left the
theater.     To make a long story short, everybody humored her, or, at
least that's what they were doing at first.    When she wasn't there,
people jumped up on the stage and said, 'Hey look, I'm in Scotland' or 'My
cell phone won't work in the 11th century.'   Of course, we intentionally
don't have cell phone coverage anywhere in the theater.    Whenever she was
here, people played along and acted, and sometimes, over acted like the
stage was 11th century Scotland..

John's expression, almost always cheerful, became a bit more serious.
"And, then, a few of the actresses came in one night to rehearse while I
was here.  Of course, they didn't know I was around.   I watched them on
the stage appearing very serious, almost hypnotized as they walked back and
forth along its breadth and depth.   They weren't being facetious and they
weren't just playing along.....when they spoke to each other between
reciting the lines, they retained the brogues -I've heard better- and
talked about the highlands and the gales and other witches...they were
inventing wildly and freely.  It was as if they lost touch with themselves
entirely...

"When the rehearsal ended, the actresses left the stage and, incredibly,
one of them looked at the others with a mixture of excitement and fear and
said,  'Hmmmm....."  After a few moments, one of them said,  "I know,
right?"   She was trying to shrug it off, but her voice cracked at bit when
she said it.     They all left and I was alone looking at the stage with
the stones and castles in shadow and I have to admit I was a bit afraid to
walk up there.

"Some of the actresses must have spoken to the others because the next
afternoon, nobody was making fun of it, anymore.    Whenever a person went
up onto the stage, they weren't acting as though they were there.  They
WERE there."

Harold grimaced.  "Sounds really out there."

"You'd think so, wouldn't you?   I did, too, until the very first
performance.    You know, if you've ever been to a community theatre,
you'll see a local real estate agent, or a high school teacher or a local
mechanic dressed up in costume reading lines.    They smirk to those in the
audience they know and feel keenly conscious about what they're pretending
to do.   Well, on the opening night of MacBeth, everybody on the stage from
Lady MacBeth to the silent soldiers in Duncan's army showed an earnestness
I had never seen before:  no smirks to friends and relatives, not even the
slightest hint that they were pretending to be other people because they
were those people simply because they had experienced -in their minds- 11th
century Scotland.

"During the cast party afterward Ms Price told the actors, all of whom
regarded her with far more respect, 'Ninety-nine percent of people never
allow themselves to experience more than one percent of their mind's
capabilities.'  And," John persisted despite Harold's incredulous
expression,  "during the next production of 'Fiddler on the Roof,' the
stage transformed into 1905  Russia.    All I can say about that is that
after the opening night performance, I overheard the old man McGillicuddy,
who attended shows for years, tell someone, 'I never saw a show with that
much energy.  These people were possessed."

"Attendance increased," John added as they walked back out along the front
row seats. "Reviewers were less unkinder, as much as they are able to be,
and the theatre, which was a bit on the edge financially, is on a firmer
footing now.   So, that was a long explanation as to why that," -he pointed
to the stage where an older man in religious garb was conversing with
townsfolk, "is truly Salem 1692 every second of every day until 'The
Crucible' closes."

"In 2019?"

"Well, yes," John answered quickly as Harold cleared this throat.  "Now
then, Harold, why did you need me?"

"Oh, yeah.    I need help with the moon."

"What kind of help?"

"Bob left me a note telling me to set the moon over Salem in precisely the
correct position.    The moon is down in the workroom, but he didn't give
me any other information.      I tried calling him. but he didn't answer."

"No, he wouldn't," John replied thoughtfully, "He also works in another one
of Ms. Price's theatres in Newport News.  If I am not mistaken, he's in a
Tennessee courtroom in 1920 right now and not callable."

After shaking his head and mumbling to himself, Harold said, "Great.
 But, you see, I don't know anything about the moon."

"You don't know anything?"  John asked weakly.

"Well, I know not to set it on the floor!"

"Hmm," John said, scratching his chin. "I see the problem."

"Hey," Harold said, his face brightening. "Couldn't we call the guys at the
local planetarium?"

"NO!"    John exclaimed.   When he noticed the Salem inhabitants jerk their
heads up in shock, John started whispering harshly.  "Look.    We have a
fixed rule here to NEVER contact the planetarium again. A couple of years
ago one of them tried to con Chuck, the previous theatre company head, out
of some money.   I don't know all the details, but I know it involved star
positions and something about someone dressed up as a Minotaur.   Very odd.
  I didn't really get to know Chuck or what happened because soon after I
started he moved on to Broadway." John said, rolling his eyes.

"Really?  What time period?"

Ignoring this, John continued.  "Planetarium people are shady, no good,
corrupt and altogether untrustworthy.   So, we will just have to cope on
our own."

"How?!"

"We'll see. Come on."

A few minutes later, John and Harold entered the spacious workroom.   As
was true with the stage directly above them, the workroom was not only
extraordinarily wide, but unusually deep.  (For this reason, they could fit
a few houses and other structures on the set.)  The workshop before them,
though nearly full of tools, plaster, wood and other theatre essentials,
 was nevertheless well organized, apart from the small desk piled with
papers at the far corner placed near some saw-dust-coated scaffolding.
Recognizing it as Bob's desk, the two men walked across the stark white
floor toward it.

"There might be something we can use on it," John said, though with a tone
that didn't inspire much confidence in Harold.     Within a few minutes of
rifling carelessly through the paper stack, they found multiple receipts,
unfiled invoices, a few circles printed on the desk, drafts of angry
letters that, fortunately, were not sent,  and various other documents, but
nothing about the moon that they could see.

"Now what?" Harold said, as he looked uneasily at the large cut out moon
leaning against the opposite wall.

"Not sure," John said absently.  "Maybe someone has a book or someth....no,
wait!"
John returned to the desk and roughly pushed the papers off to the floor.
 "I'll command an intern to pick those up later.    Check this out!"

Harold walked over and saw that the circles imprinted on the desk  were
part of the following sequence:

[image: images.png]
*Moon rise*
New   dawn            all day  unseen
Quarter noon         day into night
Full     dusk             all night
Quarter midnight    night into day


"What do those words mean?"   Harold asked, almost mesmerized by the moon
circles.   What with the color and the lighting, they seemed almost three
dimensional.

"Let's think,"   John answered, focusing more on the words than the
circles.  "Obviously telling us moon rise times, isn't it?"

"Yeah, I think so," Harold replied, shifting his eyes from the circles with
difficulty.  "What phase do I use?"

"Doesn't matter....the play is set at different times.    Just as long as
the phase is consistent."

"Only needed at night, I assume."

"No.  You can see the moon during the day, too," John said as he looked
more closely at the desk imprint.  "That much I do know."  He pointed
toward the bottom of the desk. "See the inscriptions about day into night
and night into day?"

Harold shrugged. "Oh, ok."

"Probably should use the full moon, though.  Better effect.  People will be
expecting it."

"I suppose."

"Now, the full moon rises at dusk and, from that other inscription, it is
visible all night.    Rising at the start, highest in the middle and
setting at the end."

"I saw a curved track high above the stage.     I guess the moon would fit
inside it."

"Yeah, I think I've seen it there before."

"So, that's it: early evening rising; midnight high and before dawn
setting?"

"Sounds good to me," John replied, turning away from the desk and moving
toward the prop moon.   John hoisted the moon off the floor and held it
toward Harold.  "You ok with putting it up?"

"Yeah, I think so," Harold assured him as he took the moon into his arms.
As they walked toward the door, Harold said with a smile.  "Good thing Bob
had that on his desk."

"Not surprised, actually.  Bob is something of a sky watcher, you know,
into the moon and all that."

"Fortunate."

"YES, IT WAS FORTUNATE THAT I HAD A MOON CHART ON MY DESK," a sign that had
been posted on the inside of the work room's exit door read.   So startled
were they both when they happened to look ahead at the sign (which they
curiously didn't notice before) they almost ran into each other.    In
shock, they continued reading.  "I HOPE THE INFORMATION WAS HELPFUL.
 THANK YOU FOR TAKING MY REQUEST SERIOUSLY.  THANK YOU ALSO FOR NOT
CONTACTING THE PLANETARIUM CREEPS.    HAROLD, I THINK YOU WILL PROVE TO BE
AN ASSET TO THIS THEATRE.    JOHN, PLEASE PICK UP THE DAMN PAPERS."

"Bob is also into magic, too," John said breathlessly.     As he walked
back to Bob's desk, John turned toward Harold.  "Go ahead with that.  I'll
get this."

"Gotcha."

"Oh, and Harold," John said as Harold opened the door to leave.  "Remember.
  1692 Salem."

"Yeah, right."

Harold didn't require as much time to set the moon as he thought it would.
To his relief, he was only able to set the moon by climbing into the higher
rafters above the stage and didn't have to wander onto it.   As he placed
the moon in its proper place and figured out how to shift its position with
the remote that Bob conveniently placed along it, Harold heard the quiet,
tense chatter, observed women in white petticoats and matching coifs, men
in dark boots roaming between houses.  It gave him pause to smell the
fragrance of stew and the air redolent of pine.     The lighting angle
shadowed the gables and darkened the forest fringes along the back.
 Initially, these sights, sounds and scents were incidental.      Then,
they became intriguing.

Knowing that after all he would have to venture down onto the stage to
check the moon's appearance, he descended the stairs quietly.   The fresh
pine scent became all the more potent, almost entrancing.  The gables, now
seen from below, seemed as eerie as an eldritch forest through the
interplay of shade and interior candle flame.    A kindly townsperson
nodded to him as he placed his feet off the bottom rung and into the far
right of the.....

"Moon is bewitching tonight, is it not?" the older inhabitant said, his
hands clasped behind his back.

Harold looked over "Huh?"

"A cooling breeze comes on high. Devil's breath be it from the darker
woodlands beyond.   Guard yeself from such respirations."

Harold looked over to the man, his kindly visage soft and clear, despite
advancing age.   Beyond him, two stern looking women were regarding three
girls dancing in the distant forest with fear and distrust.   Through the
window in one house, cast iron implements cast spidery shadows by lamp
light.   In another window, an intense young woman regarded Harold through
eyes as pitch black in color as the abundant hair draped down on either
side of them.     At the farthest house, a gray cat crept along a porch and
soon vanished beneath it.

The friendly townsperson offered his hand to Harold, who took it gently.

"Your first visit to Salem, I gather?"

"Yes," Harold said sleepily.  "Yes, it is."



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