Humor by John Christmann
Ascending Order
As I woke this morning before dawn and searched my horoscope for a behavior to wear, I faced this nagging question: What is the difference between an astrologer and an astronomer? And then: How do I get to the Milky Way from here?
This witty flightiness is the true sign of a Gemini, which I am not. But as a confidant and pretentious Leo, I can tell you that an astrologer has a daily newspaper column and an astronomer doesn’t.
You see, an astrologer provides meaning to the observations of the astronomer. Thus, when a stargazer looks to the end of the universe with a giant telescope, the astrologer accurately predicts the astronomer is looking for love in all the wrong places.
But even that doesn’t really explain their relationship.
Astrology can be traced back almost 3,000 years ago to the 1960s when bell-bottomed Babylonians began searching for a new pickup line at singles bars. Prior to this point sexual compatibility could only be divined by an examination of the liver. It is not surprising that trite sayings like “is it hot in here, or is it just your liver?” or “deliver your liver or the Babylonian dies” did little to ensure cultural survival.
Before long, “What is your sign?” became the line of the time.
Of course, astrology was much more than a means to meet members of the opposite sex. It was predicated on the ancient belief that the relative position of celestial bodies impacted day-to-day life. In particular, the position of the stars relative to the Sun at the time of birth was instrumental in determining not only your personality, but, for example, whether you would find love at a singles bar that night.
At the time, astrology and astronomy moved in lock step, like the sun and the moon with Mercury in retrograde. But the science of astronomy soon grew in disfavor when noted Mesopotamian astronomer, Stephenius Hawking, suggested that it was impossible to know the exact position of the sun relative to the stars because stars weren’t visible in the daylight. Hawking went blind making this observation.
As sure as the sun circles the earth, the science of astrology eventually passed on to the Greeks. The Greeks improved the Babylonian system by assigning animals to the constellations that outlined the sky. In Greek, Zodiac means “circle of the animals.” It was also the name of a popular singles bar just outside Delphi.
Unfortunately, animal rights activists took issue with some of the creatures in The Zodiac, claiming for instance, that the sea god Capricorn, who had the body of a goat and the tail of a fish, did not really exist. These pseudo-scientists were eventually struck down by Zeus, thus earning the highly derisive name, Zoologists.
About this time a quack astronomer by the name of Pythagoras announced that the earth was not flat, but spherical. He was run out of town and driven off the end of the earth as a heretic. As a result the science of astronomy languished for centuries until Galileo ultimately gave up his horoscope for a telescope in the 1600s and boldly declared the earth was no longer the center of the universe.
Galileo was forever branded an Aquarius and astronomy as a science was all but forgotten.
So you can imagine how surprised I was to learn that an astronomer from Minnesota, by the Babylonian name of Parke Kunkle, recently suggested that the natural progression of the sun through the constellations is out of calibration due to “a wobble” in the earth’s rotation, necessitating an addition to The Zodiac constellations.
This essentially means that my personality is wrong.
Excuse me, but didn’t we run these Hubble-loving star nuts out of town after they rescinded Pluto as a planet a few years ago? Aren’t these the Bozos that look up into the black sky and “discover” things they can’t see, like black holes and dark matter? Aren’t these the same crackpots who want us to believe the Universe is curved?
The good news is that I may finally fall into some sign characterized as grumpy and forgetful, which, in fact, I am. On hearing this news I was excited to think that my new animal sign might be the head of George Clooney, even if it was placed on the rear of a donkey.
But then this astronomer from Minnesota had the gall to state that the new sign is a snake-carrying weight lifter, and it falls months from my actual birthday. The constellation is called Ophiuchus, probably named after a Mesopotamian singles bar on the Jersey Shore.
I am willing to accept all of this. But as an inquisitive and faithful man of the stars, I still have a nagging question: Should I be making big decisions today?
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