The Elements, KABOOM!
Hope your holiday was a fabulous celebration.
Green is Barium, #56. Red is Strontium, #38 or Lithium, #3.
We had our annual fireworks at the camp where I grew up in the summers. On a warm July evening that was wonderfully dry for a change we laid on our backs on a ball field by the lake and watched the pyrotechnics blossom and bang. Thwunk…. up up up, up, and then, POW, cascading stars, fizzing streaks of brilliance burning into our eyes.
Silver is Titanium, #22. Blue is Copper, #29.
Shock waves of sound echoed off the ridge behind and rolled off toward the mountain. Thwunk… Thwunk...again and again while the kids jabbered and the adults oooohhed and ahhhhed on cue. Boom, KABOOM… showers of light, gargantuan flowers in the deep cobalt blue of twilight.
Orange is Calcium, #20. Yellow is Sodium, #11.
As I closed my eyes after the explosions I could still see the image in negative on the backs of my eyelids and I wondered what makes that flash flash purple. (A careful mix of Strontium and Copper I discovered later).
White is Magnesium, #12 or sometimes Aluminum, #13. Is that coincidence, those numbers, that light color? Magic or just chemistry or both…
The fireworks ended my week on the lake. Seemed fitting. It's a special place. My father's first summer there was 1936. Boys' camp. I have five brothers. On and on, my two sons are there...generations…As my brother Kevin and I drove away to bring me back to Burlington and to deliver him to the airport to return to California, we passed a familiar farmer's field in a little lowland depression by the road. I glanced and we came to a sudden stop, parked the car and got out in the blackness of a moonless summer night. The Summer Triangle and Milky Way shone above. In the field before us was a hatch of thousands upon thousands of lightning bugs madly twinkling in the featureless darkness. It was as though the brightest stars in the Milky Way had descended to sparkle one flash at a time across the backdrop of pure black nothingness. With complete arrhythmia, in absolute silence, the sparks of tiny bug butts transformed the emptiness of a peaceful Vermont night. I have witnessed very little as sublime and simple as our half hour in the darkness. A few cars passed and we screwed our eyes shut to preserve our night vision. The fireflies were having their moment and we were fortunate to be witness.
The next day I got to work to find an email from a friend which contained a composite image from the Hubble Space Telescope and the Cassini Probe showing auroras on Saturn. They are huge, bigger than the Earth and they last for days. Stiff solar winds were creating ion storms lighting up the poles on our big ringed neighbor.
Incandescence, bioluminescence, and massive auroras… It's all about light my friends. Whether it's oxygen being excited or luciferase (from the Latin, "Lucifer"-- bringer of light) or burning Barium, we are surrounded by photons. It's why I do what I do--pushing light. Cheers to a summer of light and luxury, lassitude on a reasonable scale and magic everyday. Life is a wonder.
Please visit the website, www.HAVOCgallery.com. The Elements project is in full swing. Who wants Strontium?
Who needs K?
