Astronomy, a star

A constellation of memories

The dog days of August had begun. I was in Michigan for my son Jackson’s birthday. Then we rented a car and headed out to Evanston, Illinois for a job. Jackson is a great guitar player and I’m always curious about his wide spectrum of references. He was listening to some music he thought might interest me. Antoine Boyer and Tim Hensen. And that lead to other music: Yngwie Malmsteen’s Far From the Sun, Iron Maiden and Metallica live in Mexico City. Suddenly I wanted to hear the Blue Oyster Cult song Astronomy. The song had been in my mind of late. In fact, my subscribers may have noticed the vapors of Astronomy trailing through The Melting. The nexus is Sirius the Dog Star, the brightest star in the sky. It lies in the constellation Canis Major the Greater Dog and guides the narrator as she proceeds through parallel worlds.

Call me Desdinova eternal light/ And don’t forget my dog, fixed and consequent. These words drift from one world to another. For those who have read Year of the Monkey one has can make another connection. The lyrics to this magnificent song were written by my dear friend Sandy Pearlman, eccentrically brilliant writer and producer, who sadly died as I was writing the book. His presence is much felt within it.

Astronomy is on Blue Oyster Cult’s third album which leads off with Career of Evil, an old poem of mine that the drummer Albert Bouchard set to music. Bookending the album is Astronomy, the song I most loved. In the seventies, I often stood with Sandy watching BOC play, in anticipation of Astronomy’s opening notes building to an explosion of stars and lasers culminating with Donald “Buck Dharma” Roeser’s transporting solos. His guitar work ever pure, never static, never a false note.

Sandy’s lyrics impressed me deeply. His intellectual scope melded mythology, poetry and science. His offhanded manner in combining lofty concepts with common gestures is unparalleled. A walk with Susie soon to be married, the story of wind and a stunning realignment of human history.

The clock strikes twelve and moon drops burst
Out at you from their hiding place
Like acid and oil on a madman's face
His reason tends to fly away
Like lesser birds on the four winds
Like silver scrapes in May
And now the sand's become a crust
And most of you have gone away…..

Sandy

I had completely forgotten, as Jack and I listened to Astronomy in the car, that he and Sandy shared the same birthday. August 5th. I suppose though I had seemed to have forgotten some part of me didn’t. Sandy Pearlman departed in the summer of 2019, embarking on his own celestial journey. I am all the better for having known him. I often listen to the song, singing along, jumping from my seat when they cry out HEY! Yeah I do that. Leap up in my room alone and miss my friends yet happy to be alive to remember. Sometimes on a clear night I take a walk, thinking about the power of music and friendship, and I never fail to gaze up in search of Sirius the Dog Star, the brightest in the heavens, fixed and consequent.