Jan 31, 2024
According to the NPS, the Milky Way is clearest in the evening sky during late summer and fall.
Photo by NPS/Patrick Myers
seen from United States
seen from Belarus
seen from Malaysia
seen from Switzerland
seen from Singapore
seen from United Kingdom
seen from United States
seen from United Kingdom
seen from United States
seen from Australia
seen from Malaysia
seen from China
seen from Russia
seen from United States
seen from United States
seen from United Kingdom
seen from United States
seen from Germany
seen from United States
seen from United Kingdom
According to the NPS, the Milky Way is clearest in the evening sky during late summer and fall.
Photo by NPS/Patrick Myers
Great Sand Dunes National Park and Preserve, Colorado. Pyramid-shaped Star Dune and the jagged Crestone Peaks above it are covered in snow, with pink sunset light illuminating the high points. Photo: Patrick Myers/National Park Service (2023) :: [Robert Scott Horton]
* * * *
Metaphors are not how we define territories; they are how we travel across thresholds between categories. They are bridges across difference. Through them, we connect the abstract and the concrete, the small and the large, the live and the inanimate, the human and the nonhuman. Sometimes the metaphors are built so deeply into language we hardly notice the bodily anatomy that gives mountains foothills, rivers headwaters and mouths (curiously, at opposite ends), needles eyes, vases necks, chairs arms, and tables legs. We think through our bodies, and that includes seeing bodies elsewhere, making bodies the terms of understanding how animate and inanimate, tiny and huge objects and systems work. Both needles and storms have eyes. Metaphor is the process of relating things that are alike in some fashion, to some degree, and the literal-minded object on the grounds of those differences while the metaphorically minded understand the limits of similarity.
['Crossing Over' by Rebecca Solnit] Paris Review
No, this is not a painting. The prairie sunflower (Helianthus pauciflorus) is a striking and vibrant flower that adds a beautiful touch to the sandy landscape of Great Sand Dunes National Park and Preserve. Its bright yellow petals and dark center create a stunning contrast against the surrounding dunes and grasslands. Photo: Patrick Myers / NPS (Aug 2023) :: [Robert Scott Horton]
* * * *
“Nothing,” he said. “If someone carried him in from this side, they carried him up from way down the tracks.” “Or down from way up the tracks,” Baca said, grinning. “What were you looking for?” Kennedy asked. “Besides tracks.” “Nothing in particular,” Leaphorn said. “You’re not really looking for anything in particular. If you do that, you don’t see things you’re not looking for.”
Talking God (Leaphorn & Chee, #9) by Tony Hillerman
U.S. Department of the Interior: On Saturday, October 14, most skywatchers in the U.S. will experience at least a partial eclipse. BUT, from the Oregon coast to the Texas Gulf Coast, where skies are clear, folks will see the full annular eclipse. Also known as the "ring of fire" eclipse, it occurs when the Moon passes between the Sun and Earth at its farthest point from our planet.
During an annular eclipse, it is never safe to look directly at the Sun without specialized eye protection designed for solar viewing. To capture this 2017 solar eclipse pictured below, the National Park Service photographer developed the image with two different exposures – one of the eclipsed Sun using a solar filter to protect the camera's sensor and photographer's eyes, while the other was unfiltered and captured the landscape below the Sun.
Photo: Patrick Myers / Great Sand D
[unes National Park and Preserve (2023)
* * * *
“Dawn is gathering. The noon of night has gone. The first gleams of daylight disclose its temperature. Stone takes on color. Treetops are roots of the day yet to grow. The moon, silver necklace from which Venus dangles like a pearl, still sheds its brightness. The abyss is only perspective, location. There will be nests on some branches.” — Homero Aridjis, from Persephone (Vintage, 1986)
[alive on all channels]
By Margaret Sheard ….
Following the fantastic concert of Killer Queen at the Girne Amphitheatre in North Cyprus, I published a review of the event and posted the link as a message on the band’s Facebook page. Click here
I was pleased to receive a nice comment from lead singer Patrick Myers, who shared the article on the Killer Queen Facebook page, which prompted me to ask if I could interview him and the other members of the group.
As they had returned to the UK, this was not possible but Patrick offered to do an interview by phone or email. With such a busy schedule I was amazed that he was willing to find the time to do this, and decided to do a written question and answers which was sent to him.
Following are my questions and Patrick’s answers :
Q. Where were you born?
A. I was born in the Midlands and grew up in Leicester. I was really lucky, when I was in my mid teens there was a fantastic local band scene. I’d be blagging my way into pubs from about 15 and singing in bands. A lot of fun.
Q. How long have you been performing as Killer Queen?
A. Since 1993. We had the idea to perform a farewell concert to Queen sometime in 1992. The tribute scene hadn’t really started yet but by the time we had got our first gig it was just about to explode so the timing was lucky really. We only had that one show but it was for about 1000 students. There was no second gig booked so that might have been it. I’d have been happy to just have that one show in some ways though – it felt very special. Little did we know that was just the beginning. There was a college tour booked within two weeks of that first show and an invitation to the West end shortly after. Exciting times.
Q. Is this the original group or have there been any changes?
A. We were kids from college only expecting to do a gig or two at best. When this took off so quickly after that first show we all hung in there for the first tour but one by one everyone else had to get back to college at some point so it’s just me from that first gig now.
Q. Who are the other members of the group and how did you meet?
A. Simon Small on guitar, Brad Waissman on Bass, Jon Howells on drums. We all met on the touring music scene really.
Q. Do you find time for any hobbies?
A. Well yes and no. This band sort of feels like a combination of a career and a brilliant train set that I’ve installed in the loft and can’t leave alone. It’s been quite a surreal ride so far. From those early halls of residence rehearsals at London University to playing and selling out at the same arenas as Queen is so dreamlike for me. Along the way so many extraordinary things have happened too. Then suddenly I’m back at home my other life continues. The division between the two parts of my life is very distinct in some ways but blurry in others. There’s always part of my head still in the clouds or that loft hoping this mad little adventure won’t ever stop.
Q. Queen is obviously your idol, which other bands do you like?
A. My first band was actually The Beatles – I discovered them through my Mom – she’s American and had been there for the Beatles invasion back in 64. She never saw them live unfortunately. I was looking for a band that had that same musical scope and writing talent. Lots of great bands and great songs out there but I really had very little access to music other than Top of the Pops and the chart countdown on Sundays. So it was almost impossible to find that combination of voices, breadth of style and depth of catalogue I was after. Then someone let me listen to Queen Greatest Hits on their Walkman. This would have been about 1984/85. I was just in heaven from that point on. Not long after Live Aid happened. Perfect time to discover Queen really. I was too young to see the tour in 86 – not realising that would be the last chance. So, like my Mom, we both never saw our respective teenage bands! But that was the same for everyone my age. We all just missed them so that’s why we wanted to do that first show. So we could feel like we’d had something. As I said there wasn’t a tribute scene then so it felt like if we didn’t do it no one else would. We were wrong there. A year later after our first show there were about a zillion Queen tributes. We were lucky we got there first really.
Q. You were only in the TRNC for a short while, but what was your impression?
A. What we saw looked lovely. Everyone was so friendly too. Be great to spend more time there.
Q. Would you come again at some time in the future?
A. Absolutely.
Q. It must be a very hectic and perhaps stressful lifestyle, how long do you think you will continue?
A. I don’t know. I guess I’ll know when it’s no longer viable for me but I’m hoping to keep on trucking without worrying too much about it really and enjoy it. Let’s just see shall we?
The Killer Queen band have a busy time ahead, here are some of the venues they will be performing at in the near future.
We will be in the UK and Europe till the end of September, then America for a month – 3rd tour there this year and central Europe for November. Some corporate dates in the UK in December and some shows in Jersey. Then a break for a few weeks over Xmas and kicking off with a couple of Arena shows in Cardiff and Liverpool January/February 2020 before heading back out to America again. It’s busy!
The Girne Amphitheatre was full to capacity and the audience loved the performance. I do hope that we will have a return visit to North Cyprus by Killer Queen in the future.
Photos courtesy of Patrick Myers – Killer Queen
There is not much happening in the social scene in Northern Cyprus due to COVID-19 and the restrictions so it was good to step back a year and see what was happening then with the interview with Patrick Meyers of Killer Queen By Margaret Sheard .... Following the fantastic concert of Killer Queen at the Girne Amphitheatre in North Cyprus, I published a review of the event and posted the link as a message on the band’s Facebook page.
Introduction by Margaret Sheard ….
There are many people in North Cyprus who will remember the fantastic concert of Killer Queen at Girne Amphitheatre in September 2019. I wondered how the current Coronavirus pandemic was affecting the members of Killer Queen and sent a message to Patrick Myers (lead singer) to find out how they were coping in the UK during lockdown.
By Patrick Myers – Killer Queen ….
Hello Margaret….
“Life off the Road”…..
On the 14th of March at Brighton Theatre Royal we performed our last show. I’d already packed for a big tour of America – hopefully our biggest yet. I’d spent the last few months buying lights and having a touring Queen style set welded together. It was expensive but worth it. Planning the look is half the fun and we wanted to have a beautiful looking show for the States. Brighton was Friday night. Taxi was booked for Sunday morning to take us to the airport.
Brighton had actually had the first case of this Coronavirus thing. I live nearby and it was worrying but it hadn’t stopped me from popping there now and then. I was pleased to be singing there that night. Wonderful to have a local show and be able to get home. Family life is a rare and precious thing if you tour all year, every year. Grab it while you can.
Last performance in Brighton – photo by Kris Pawlowski
I’d been following the news about Covid19. Turned down a corporate event in January in Mongolia as the news of this just surfaced. That seemed a needless risk and I didn’t want our precious works, visas for America to be refused just by going out there. I thought I’d dodged the bullet. But the news story wasn’t going away. By late February this still seemed like a particularly nasty flu going round – something we needed to protect the very old from. Fortitude and grit would see down any virus in the general population. I’d put a plastic soap case in my pocket last time I’d taken the train to see my parents in early March but that was purely to protect them. This wasn’t something we had to worry about beyond that. It was only listening to late night World Service broadcasts that made me stop and wonder if we weren’t all massively under-reacting about this.
The night before we were due to play Brighton I got the call. The USA tour had cancelled. Despite the assurances from the Oval Office, each State had independently concluded this was going to be serious and had closed. UK venues were all still open at this point but that now was surely a matter of time. All the nightmare news from abroad was now here. Of course it was here. How could it not be? This was going to be everywhere.
UK Lockdown officially begins a week later. The news that comes through now is all from our doorstep. The shortage of PPE, the nurses coming back from retirement and succumbing, the bus drivers in London, the care-homes all over the UK, the lack of testing anywhere. The exponential nightmare that you vaguely remember Gwyneth Paltrow dealing with in some faraway film is now the reality. You go to bed and forget. Wake up and it’s still here.
I’ve spent all my adult life being lucky enough to have a job I love. Singing is brilliant fun. Performing Queen’s songs is special for me and I know their music is very special for our audiences. Music is a magic that unites us and speaks to the fabric of us. The privilege to be able sing for thousands of people, all together on one night, their arms in the air singing those beautiful songs along with us, vanished overnight.
I was asked to write about how this is for me. I feel a lot of conflicting emotions all at once every day. I’m thankful I have a home and family. I have no income. I’m in awe of the frontline workers. I’m horrified to see daily tragedies unfolding all over the world. I’m scared I don’t know how the life I had a few weeks ago will return. I miss singing for people.
In the middle of all these things, life goes rolling on. My wife and I get used to washing and disinfecting our shopping – we develop a system with door handles and gloves. We go for walks and slow down at corners, stepping into the road in case someone is heading your way and you can’t see them.
Your parents get used to Zoom calls. Your parents-in-law insist they still don’t need the internet. They want you to tell them how long this will last for and that everything will be alright. You cheer each other up with jokes. There’s no family plans for that six day gap in Summer when you’re back from America before heading out to Europe. None of those plans exist anymore.
Here you are. You’re in the house with all your kids – including the hairy one you’d just tearfully said goodbye to for what should have been his first year at University. The time you dreamed of carving out for them is right here. There’s just now. A lot of now. And sometimes that’s scary. And sometimes now is beautiful. Sometimes you feel like your former militarily planned tour life is now a terrifying open vista. Sometimes it makes you feel like you’re a teenager again and your life is a fresh page.
I guess we all take this one day at a time and try to be there for each other. We’re all going to need a hug or a phone call and a smile. Life is always a mass of contradictions – and right now is a very concentrated measure of life. All it’s extraordinariness and it’s ordinariness. The unexpected beauty and the unstoppable loss.
At the end of all of this I have no idea if the life I had is one I’ll return to. But I do know I’m massively grateful to the people who put themselves out there in hospitals, care-homes, supermarkets or assembling and delivering food parcels for the hundreds and thousands of people who have needed help though all of this. I feel embarrassed when I catch myself dwelling on my own worries. These people step up day after day with or without protection for themselves.
I’ve tried to think what I had to offer positively with what I do. Your instinct is to give something of your own but that falls down. I work in a medium where people only know us and come to see us because really they want to see and hear someone else – a happy memory from a different time.
Then I remembered an old song I’d written ages ago. I wrote this as a homage celebrating Queen but also about the slightly surreal position of being in a tribute – the job didn’t exist when I was growing up. (I’m still a bit surprised this career ever happened to me.)
But the reason this song is seeing the light of day is because it’s also about staying strong when the magnification on life dials up too high. And that is now.
When I put the headphones on as a kid and listened to Queen it felt exciting, witty and brilliant but it also felt like a security blanket. Queen’s songs so often have their roots in a defiant optimism. A world that could dazzle you but look out for you.
This is my attempt at a makeshift home-made security blanket.
There’s a Justgiving page for the NHS if you’d like to donate to the NHS Charities Together. Click here
Be great to see you all again. Until then folks….
Isolation Challenge : Killer Queen – Life off the road Introduction by Margaret Sheard .... There are many people in North Cyprus who will remember the fantastic concert of Killer Queen at Girne Amphitheatre in September 2019.
By Margaret Sheard ….
Following the fantastic concert of Killer Queen at the Girne Amphitheatre in North Cyprus, I published a review of the event and posted the link as a message on the band’s Facebook page. Click here
I was pleased to receive a nice comment from lead singer Patrick Myers, who shared the article on the Killer Queen Facebook page, which prompted me to ask if I could interview him and the other members of the group.
As they had returned to the UK, this was not possible but Patrick offered to do an interview by phone or email. With such a busy schedule I was amazed that he was willing to find the time to do this, and decided to do a written question and answers which was sent to him.
Following are my questions and Patrick’s answers :
Q. Where were you born?
A. I was born in the Midlands and grew up in Leicester. I was really lucky, when I was in my mid teens there was a fantastic local band scene. I’d be blagging my way into pubs from about 15 and singing in bands. A lot of fun.
Q. How long have you been performing as Killer Queen?
A. Since 1993. We had the idea to perform a farewell concert to Queen sometime in 1992. The tribute scene hadn’t really started yet but by the time we had got our first gig it was just about to explode so the timing was lucky really. We only had that one show but it was for about 1000 students. There was no second gig booked so that might have been it. I’d have been happy to just have that one show in some ways though – it felt very special. Little did we know that was just the beginning. There was a college tour booked within two weeks of that first show and an invitation to the West end shortly after. Exciting times.
Q. Is this the original group or have there been any changes?
A. We were kids from college only expecting to do a gig or two at best. When this took off so quickly after that first show we all hung in there for the first tour but one by one everyone else had to get back to college at some point so it’s just me from that first gig now.
Q. Who are the other members of the group and how did you meet?
A. Simon Small on guitar, Brad Waissman on Bass, Jon Howells on drums. We all met on the touring music scene really.
Q. Do you find time for any hobbies?
A. Well yes and no. This band sort of feels like a combination of a career and a brilliant train set that I’ve installed in the loft and can’t leave alone. It’s been quite a surreal ride so far. From those early halls of residence rehearsals at London University to playing and selling out at the same arenas as Queen is so dreamlike for me. Along the way so many extraordinary things have happened too. Then suddenly I’m back at home my other life continues. The division between the two parts of my life is very distinct in some ways but blurry in others. There’s always part of my head still in the clouds or that loft hoping this mad little adventure won’t ever stop.
Q. Queen is obviously your idol, which other bands do you like?
A. My first band was actually The Beatles – I discovered them through my Mom – she’s American and had been there for the Beatles invasion back in 64. She never saw them live unfortunately. I was looking for a band that had that same musical scope and writing talent. Lots of great bands and great songs out there but I really had very little access to music other than Top of the Pops and the chart countdown on Sundays. So it was almost impossible to find that combination of voices, breadth of style and depth of catalogue I was after. Then someone let me listen to Queen Greatest Hits on their Walkman. This would have been about 1984/85. I was just in heaven from that point on. Not long after Live Aid happened. Perfect time to discover Queen really. I was too young to see the tour in 86 – not realising that would be the last chance. So, like my Mom, we both never saw our respective teenage bands! But that was the same for everyone my age. We all just missed them so that’s why we wanted to do that first show. So we could feel like we’d had something. As I said there wasn’t a tribute scene then so it felt like if we didn’t do it no one else would. We were wrong there. A year later after our first show there were about a zillion Queen tributes. We were lucky we got there first really.
Q. You were only in the TRNC for a short while, but what was your impression?
A. What we saw looked lovely. Everyone was so friendly too. Be great to spend more time there.
Q. Would you come again at some time in the future?
A. Absolutely.
Q. It must be a very hectic and perhaps stressful lifestyle, how long do you think you will continue?
A. I don’t know. I guess I’ll know when it’s no longer viable for me but I’m hoping to keep on trucking without worrying too much about it really and enjoy it. Let’s just see shall we?
The Killer Queen band have a busy time ahead, here are some of the venues they will be performing at in the near future.
We will be in the UK and Europe till the end of September, then America for a month – 3rd tour there this year and central Europe for November. Some corporate dates in the UK in December and some shows in Jersey. Then a break for a few weeks over Xmas and kicking off with a couple of Arena shows in Cardiff and Liverpool January/February 2020 before heading back out to America again. It’s busy!
The Girne Amphitheatre was full to capacity and the audience loved the performance. I do hope that we will have a return visit to North Cyprus by Killer Queen in the future.
Photos courtesy of Patrick Myers – Killer Queen
Killer Queen, CyprusScene interview with lead singer Patrick Myers By Margaret Sheard .... Following the fantastic concert of Killer Queen at the Girne Amphitheatre in North Cyprus, I published a review of the event and posted the link as a message on the band’s Facebook page.
Killer Queen - Queen Tribute-band live in Lillehammer, Norway! Brilliant and amazing, the closest thing you'll ever come to a real Queen-concert these days :)