"Spirits of the Dead" by Edgar Allen Poe

Thy soul shall find itself alone
'Mid dark thoughts of the grey tomb-stone;
Not one, of all the crowd, to pry
Into thine hour of secrecy.

Be silent in that solitude,
Which is not loneliness- for then
The spirits of the dead, who stood
In life before thee, are again
In death around thee, and their will
Shall overshadow thee; be still.

The night, though clear, shall frown,
And the stars shall not look down
From their high thrones in the Heaven
With light like hope to mortals given,
But their red orbs, without beam,
To thy weariness shall seem
As a burning and a fever
Which would cling to thee for ever.

Now are thoughts thou shalt not banish,
Now are visions ne'er to vanish;
From thy spirit shall they pass
No more, like dew-drop from the grass.

The breeze, the breath of God, is still,
And the mist upon the hill
Shadowy, shadowy, yet unbroken,
Is a symbol and a token.
How it hangs upon the trees,
A mystery of mysteries!
The Complete Poetry of Edgar Allan Poe (Signet Classics)

Poem: Further In by Tomas Tranströmer

On the main road into the city
when the sun is low.
The traffic thickens, crawls.
It is a sluggish dragon glittering.
I am one of the dragon's scales.
Suddenly the red sun is
right in the middle of the windscreen
streaming in.
I am transparent
and writing becomes visible
inside me
words in invisible ink
which appear
when the paper is held to the fire!
I know I must get far away
straight through the city and then
further until it is time to go out
and walk far in the forest.
Walk in the footprints of the badger.
It gets dark, difficult to see.
In there on the moss lie stones.
One of the stones is precious.
It can change everything
it can make the darkness shine.
It is a switch for the whole country.
Everything depends on it.
Look at it, touch it...
The Great Enigma: New Collected Poems

Cocteau Twins - From the Flagstones

“Mystery has its own mysteries, and there are gods above gods. We have ours, they have theirs. That is what’s known as infinity.”
Jean Cocteau
Box Set 1

First Trans-Pacific Flight 79 Years Ago Today

Oct. 5, 1931 Clyde Pangborn crash landed in a field outside of Wenatchee, Wa. It was the first time in human history that anyone had flown across the Pacific non-stop. It was incredibly difficult and dangerous. Pang was an amazing pilot, who started in the early days of barnstorming, and became a hero in WWII:

When the war broke out in Europe in late 1939, Pangborn joined the Royal Air Force and assisted in organizing the R. A. F. Ferry Command. He recruited pilots throughout the United States and Canada for the Ferry Command and Eagle Squadron. From 1941 through the end of the war in 1945, Pangborn served as Senior Captain, Royal Air Force Ferry Command during which time he made approximately 170 trans-ocean flights (crossing both the Atlantic and the Pacific). In 1942 he brought the first Lancaster heavy bomber to the United States for tests and later returned with the same aircraft and demonstrated it to United States Army Air Force and major aircraft builders throughout the U. S. and Canada. During his tour with the Ferry Command, Pangborn flew almost every type of multi-engine aircraft used during the war.

Clyde Pangborn is buried in Arlington National Cemetery.

Nina Hagen Visiting the Black Mansion Today

Yes, that's right folks. Today we're hosting the one and only Nina Hagen in the Black Mansion. She's agreed to perform for an experiment on the effect of sound waves on chupacabra behavior during the waning phase of the moon. Keep scanning the skies for UFOs, as we're pretty sure there will be a few in the area today.
Nunsexmonkrock

Oct. 5- Anniversary of Clyde Pangborn's Historic Non-Stop Trans-Pacific Flight

Oct. 5, 1931 was the first time an aviator ever flew non-stop across the Pacific Ocean. That aviator was Clyde Edward Pangborn, native of Bridgeport, Washington, along with his not very able co-pilot, Hugh Herndon. And he did it without any sort of spells, charms, or other magical intervention.  From Wikipedia:

With their eyes on a $25,000 prize, Pangborn and Herndon next decided to attempt the first nonstop trans-Pacific flight. They flew from Siberia to Japan in preparation. In the spirit of documentation, Herndon took several still pictures as well as some 16mm motion pictures, which included some of Japan's naval installations. Because of the photography, combined with their inadequate documentation to enter the country (a fact they hadn't been aware of), the men were jailed. They were eventually released with a $1000 fine, but they were allowed only one chance to take off in Miss Veedol; if they returned to Japan, the plane would be confiscated and the men would return to prison.

Other complications hampered the flight. Pangborn and Herndon's maps and charts were stolen by a Japanese nationalist group who wanted a Japanese pilot to be the first to complete the endeavor. They also had extremely precise calculations for their flight, leaving no room for error; Miss Veedol had to be overweighted with fuel, way beyond the manufacturer's recommendation (650 gallons stock was expanded to 950 gallons), and they would need to abandon their landing gear after take-off to reducedrag.

Pangborn and Herndon finally took off on October 4, 1931 from Sabishiro Beach, Misawa, Aomori, Japan. Their destination was Seattle, Washington, just under 5500 miles (8500 km) away, a distance exceeding Charles Lindbergh's flight from New York to Paris by 2000 miles. Immediately after take-off, a problem arose: the device intended to jettison the landing gear partially failed. The gear was ejected, but the two root struts remained. Pangborn was forced to climb out on the wing supports barefoot at 14,000 feet in the air to remove the struts.

Due to fog in both Seattle and Spokane, Washington, Pangborn and Herndon landed in Fancher Field in East Wenatchee, Washington on October 5, 1931, after 41 hours and 15 minutes of flying. A memorial to the historic flight is located near the landing site, and a propeller damaged from the landing is on display in a Wenatchee museum. The regional airport, Pangborn Memorial (EAT) in East Wenatchee, also honors his accomplishment.

The Miss Veedol was trucked to Seattle where her landing gear was replaced. Pangborn and Herndon left from Seattle and continued to New York to complete their world flight. Although news of the flight did circulate, Pangborn did not receive much financial benefit as a result; however, he continued to fly as an airmail pilot, air racer, and a test and demonstration pilot.

Fans of Awsomeness Check Out the Sea Mouse

The weird little critter called the sea mouse (Aphrodita aculeata) has iridescent spines that are changing nanotechnology. It seems that nanowire can be made by passing the metal through spines from dead sea mice, making nonowire cheaper, and longer than heretofore possible. And how cool are these spines?

The iridescent threads or setae that emerge from its scaled back are one of its unique features. Normally, these setae have a red sheen, warning off predators, but when the light shines on them perpendicularly, they flush green and blue. The setae are made of millions of submicroscopic crystals that reflect and filter the faint light of the ocean depths.

They go around looking like neon lights in the undersea mud. Burrowing into the mud is how they find their food. They eat other sea worms.  Watching them burrow is pretty cool, too.
Check out this nice video of the Sea Mouse burrowing:

The Deep: The Extraordinary Creatures of the Abyss