Eureka ~

"Eureka (1848) is a lengthy non-fiction work by American author Edgar Allan Poe which he subtitled "A Prose Poem", though it has also been subtitled as "An Essay on the Material and Spiritual Universe". Adapted from a lecture he had presented, Eureka describes Poe's intuitive conception of the nature of the universe with no scientific work done to reach his conclusions. He also discusses man's relationship with God, whom he compares to an author. It is dedicated to the German naturalist and explorer Alexander von Humboldt.[1][2] Though it is generally considered a literary work, some of Poe's ideas anticipate discoveries of the 20th century.[3] Indeed a critical analysis of the scientific content of Eureka reveals a non-causal correspondence with modern cosmology due to the assumption of an evolving Universe, but excludes the anachronistic anticipation of relativistic concepts such as black holes.[4][5]

Eureka was received poorly in Poe's day and generally described as absurd, even by friends. Modern critics continue to debate the significance of Eureka and some doubt its seriousness, in part because of Poe's many incorrect assumptions and his comedic descriptions of well-known historical minds. It is presented as a poem, and many compare it with his fiction work, especially science fiction stories such as "The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar". His attempts at discovering the truth also follow his own tradition of "ratiocination", a term used in his detective fiction tales. Poe's suggestion that the soul continues to thrive even after death also parallels with works in which characters reappear from beyond the grave such as "Ligeia". The essay is oddly transcendental, considering Poe's disdain for the movement. He considered it his greatest work and claimed it was more important than the discovery of gravity."

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eureka:_A_Prose_Poem

"In 1848 Poe wrote a cosmology. The most remarkable thing about it is that it anticipates in many respects the account of the origins of the universe we associate with modern physics. Poe said the universe was born out of the explosion of an infinitesimal point. He proceeded to this conclusion by means of intuition and his own kind of reasoning, which, like everything about him, is so elegant as to seem suspect. He deduced that the irregular distribution of matter, in the form of stars, was the work of  gravity. In such a universe gravity would therefore cause the universe to fall in on itself, to contract again to an infinitesimal point which would again explode.

What the fate of the universe might be remains an open question in contemporary physics, of course, and theories about it like Poe's are entirely respectable now, with the difference that, being Poe, he was persuaded the universe is at present contracting toward its end. He saw in the rhythm of it all a great beating heart. In his hands this is a frightening image. Still, the theory is consistent with theories now, that our universe may be only one in a series, in any case not a unique event. We know now about the accelerating expansion of the universe. Poe would have loved dark matter and dark energy, even though they come at the cost of his ultimate vision of the narrowing perimeters of reality, so often imagined in his greatest tales."

Marilynne Robinson "Cosmology"
When I Was a Child I Read Books

EARTH ~

We're on the home stretch of rebuilding the roof, setting on the spruce purlins for nailers, and getting the last leg of steel roofing up and anchored on. I'm curious to see if between Sweetheart and me we can rig up a ramp system to slide the seventeen foot sheets six-feet up the ramp and then climb onto the scaffold and pull the sheets up and onto the roof. More husband and wife team stuff. We do it all the time with stone, logs, and snow, why not steel? Seven years ago on the back roof we pulled up 18 footers, but we had boy wonder Carson with us then. Nothing like a young lad. I'll have to see after I build the ramp, and lock it in at a comfortable angle onto the scaffold, then watch how the material slides and how well we can maneuver ourselves ground-to-roof. We're still pretty quick. If it becomes obviously nuts, Greg will come down and help give us a lift. Nothing like a friend. I've even thought of grabbing the first stranger going by: walking, bicycle, scooter "Hey, want to help us a moment and give this sheet a lift?" The ever grounded feeling of common community.

Getting up high with the last pieces of 16-foot spruce purlins. It's a Sunday morning, maybe nearing on 11AM and the roof asphalt must be 110 degrees. I mean hot.

I love the new jiffy handsaws, so I keep mine close by hung on a temporary nail. As I need to lop off a short end piece to fit in the purlin I do it from the high staging with my trusty handsaw. No nailguns on this job.

The old steel ridgecap we'll remove from the house roof I'll be putting right onto the stone hut's ridge. You can see it needs a new one. I built this hut 25 years ago, all laid up dry except for the gable end. I started on it the day our son Carson was born. The stone all came off our land, hauled by old jeep and wheelbarrow to the site. The windows came from a friend stopping by before moving to Arizona. He unloaded what he owned to lighten his load for the journey.The old barn board door came from barn boards I found in a barn and brought home and built as a door. The chapel style window came from a chapel. That's a second run of cedar shingles on the roof. The first were white and worthless for roof work but what are you going to do when no money? Years later bought red cedar from British Columbia and cut in that star. So many basics in New England. It's only when you head down to Baltimore and remember that Edgar Allan Poe termed the Transcendentalists "frogpondians", it's all together perfect. I chuckle way high on the roof staging thinking of this.

Here's old friend white pine seen from the scaffold, directly east of the house, over the river. No one lives anywhere near it. The land over there has been heavily logged twice since we've been here forty years, and no one has taken the tree. Looking now at the tree it seems to have two out stretched arms, an arched back, and it's singing.

This is what a day off from the roof job looks like. Fellow worker Sweetheart.

At the west gable of the house, where the steel roof will finish up.

The safe passageway, kept mainly clean, of an obedient scaffold.

We're working through two layers of asphalt shingles and setting in 3/4 inch spruce strapping. I've even stripped the first layer of shingle tabs to get closer to solid footing. You want a 3-inch screw to go along here and there with the regular ringshank nails, and you want to try to remember where the chestnut 4 x 4 beams are below. Sink a screw or a nail into one of those as much as you can. At best they were set in where the setting-in was best. Farmers built this place. Otherwise, it's a full one inch softwood deck under the shingles. It'll grab.

There's always a place to hang a saw.

photos © susan & bob arnold