dump the celebrities

I had been in bed for about a half hour last night when I thought my fading memory had left a task undone.

When I looked out my bedroom door, it looked as if I had left the patio lights on. But they were a bit dimmer than usual.

I should have known better. For the last couple of nights we have been enjoying full moons that would have filled a vaudevillian's heart with Junes and soons. This one was billed as the brightest supermoon of 2020 -- a pink supermoon.

Have you noticed how the media have done their best to get us interested in what is over our heads? When I was growing up, the moon, stars, and planets were interesting in themselves.

Sure, now and then, some celebrity would intrude its way on to the stage -- like Comet Kohoutek or the much-anticipated Halley's Comet. Both of which turned out to be about as interesting as meeting Lecey Goranson.

Apparently, the wonders of nature are no longer interesting enough for us. The media has taken to turning every astronomical event into a red carpet moment.

First, it was referring to the period when the moon's trajectory is closest to Earth as a supermoon. Now, that term has long been used by scientists. But, all of a sudden, it was as if one of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse had been unleashed.

The media reports were filled with reports that because the moon was so close to the Earth, it would be YUGE!!!! and BLINDINGLY BRIGHT!!!! It was not just the moon. It was Brad Pitt with a Klieg light.

We all know, of course, at most, supermoons are only 20% brighter than your quotidian moon. But, once hyped, we see them as something far larger than they are in life.

And then there are the special names. Some names have predated the modern cult of celebrity, and have provided lyricists with a trove of rhymes and some snappy rhythms. Harvest moon. Blue moon. Paper moon.

OK. That last one is manufactured. But it is no less manufactured than the recently-touted list of full moons that attempt to claim a patina of authrencity because of their alleged connection to American Indian tribes.

This week's full moon was a pink moon. Not because of its color, but because of its supposed connection to a flower that blooms in April.

But the pink moon is not alone. Some of us were introduced to the wolf moon last year. And there are plenty of cousins: snow, worm, flower, strawberry, buck, sturgeon, corn, hunter's, beaver, cold. All claim authentic American Indian roots, though, upon examination, the roots seem to be as questionable as Hiawatha.

They remind me of the Hispanic list of Mexican castes.

If all of that sounds like a complaint, it isn't. Anything that gets people looking at the sky is a good thing as far as I am concerned.

And, now that most of us are spending a large portion of our lives in our houses and gardens, there is plenty of time to re-acquaint ourselves with the universe above us.

We don't need no stinkin' celebrities.