VLVL(7):Annotations, questions, &c pt2

[Matt Treyvaud]

On Wed, 6 Jan 1999, keith woodward wrote:

> 231.35-6:  "UHURU":  Swahili, "freedom"

+ Star Trek connection (Uhura), maybe especially relevant because of the
all-black Star Trek parody on the Tube elsewhere in VL.
 
> 232.16:  "discover a theorem":  Apparently, then, one creates a theorem?

Surely one simply theorises, and a theorem is the residue?
 
> 239.36:  "steering committee":  ???

The context pretty much says it all: a steering committee is a committee
entrusted with preparing the agenda for a meeting, conference, etc. 
 
> 262.30-263.26:  "this summer all that... Fifth House of fun":  ???  Left 
> my Ptolemy in WI, can someone explicate this astrology.  If not, I will 
> on Sunday.

- Pluto, god of the underworld, is still a little debated in terms of
meaning (since people didn't even know about it until quite recently) but
two elements occur in most descriptions: money, and death. Nihilism
is the logical progression of a system based on those two elements, though
most popular astrology books try to put a positive spin on it. Reagan's
election is a delightfully perfect thing to connect with Pluto.

- 'squaring' - when you draw a chart, it's drawn as a circle with
midheaven (directly overhead) at the top, east at the left (called
'ascendent' for obvious reasons), west/descendent at the right, directly
below you (if the earth was transparent and you could see through it) at
the bottom. The planets are drawn at the edges of the circle at an
angle corresponding to their angle in the sky (since they all move in 
basically the same plane, this is possible). I.e., if the earth was a
point, and you were standing on it looking east, and someone saw you from
your left side and observed the position of the planets relative to you,
and then drew a stylised diagram of that, they'd get an astrology chart. 
Okay. Now 'squaring' is when there are 90 degrees between two planets,
e.g. if the moon was at the horizon and the sun was directly overhead, or
if the moon was 45 degrees above the eastern horizon and the sun was 45
degrees below it. Squaring is 'bad'. It produces awkwardness and tends to
make both the planets have negative effects. Pluto "squaring each of us in
a different way" means that in everyone's chart, Pluto is making a
90-degree angle with a different planet, and thus 'death and money' are
interacting negatively with everyone - but differently, according to the
planet squared. If Pluto was squaring someone's Venus, for example, they
might find that they went broke after their lover died (that's extreme,
but you get the idea).

- "Venus aspect to his midheaven". "Business" is in the tenth house.
There are twelve 'houses', basically wedge of the circle of equal size
(30 degrees, obviously), numbered sequentially anti-clockwise, starting
with number one which is the thirty degrees from the eastern horizon to
thirty degrees below it. If you draw that on paper, you'll see that the
tenth house is the one just to the east of midheaven (which is a line
between the 9th and 10th houses, going straight up). Thus, the 'Venus
aspect to his midheaven' probably means that Venus is a little to the left
of the midheaven line, putting it in the 10th house, meaning that his love 
life is connected with business in some way. I would assume that the
reason she knows a Virgo is involved is because Virgo is in Sheldon's
tenth house with Venus. Lovers of romance will be disappointed to know
that Venus is in fall in Virgo, meaning it 'doesn't work well' there, as
one book I have puts it.

- Mars, Pluto and Scorpio. Pluto = Death and money. Mars = war and general
aggression, therefore sex if you're a Freudian. Scorpio = rampant
sexuality and warped psychology. Therefore, Brock = Scorpio, natch...
Also, when a planet is in the sign it rules, it has increased power. 

- Retrograde - This means when planets move backwards through the
charts, rather than east-west. When planets are in retrograde, they are
"frustrated". This can lead to their power being weakened, less focused,
or turned to the dark side.

- "Trying to get out of Libra" - Libra, scales, justice, equality. Pluto
trying to escape from Libra suggests the image of the powers of Money and
Death trying to free themselves from morality, which would, logically,
intensify the negative effects they have on things.

> 262.37:  "delta base":  ???

Must be a misprint in your edition, mine says "data base" which makes
sense.

> 264.13-4:  "457, 467 megahertz":  ???

FM frequencies. Commercial FM stations generally use things in the area of
80-110 MHz.
 
Matt

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 Matt Treyvaud, Abbr. Prim.                       (R.I.P. Kerry Thornley)
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