METEOR (Blegvad-Partridge) Close Earth Flyby By Asteriod 2005 YU55

This radar image of asteroid 2005 YU55 was obtained on Nov. 7, 2011, at 11:45 a.m. PST (2:45 p.m. EST/1945 UTC), when the space rock was at 3.6 lunar distances, which is about 860,000 miles, or 1.38 million kilometers, from Earth.  Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech



A mass of Minerals and Metals,
Confused into a ball,
Hurtling through a Vacuum
On a Million Mile fall.

A piece of shattered planet,
The last surviving chunk,
Ten times the size of Canada,
A Crumb of Interstellar Junk.

Meteor, Meteor.
Don't you hear that distant roar?
Doom is calling Door-to-Door :
Prepare to meet thy Meteor !

Hurtling through emptiness,
With No One at the Wheel,
Imagine if it landed here,
Imagine how you'd feel --

The oceans would evaporate,
You couldn't see for steam,
And even the most Rational
Would think it was a Dream.

 

Meteor, Meteor.
Don't you hear that distant roar?
Doom is calling Door-to-Door :
Prepare to meet thy Meteor !

And another Planet Shattered,
Pieces scattered to the Stars,
We wouldn't think it mattered
if the planet wasn't Ours.

The Moon begins to wander
Now its anchor's been destroyed,
Drifting without Influence
Out into the void.

The human race wiped out
When we were Just about to switch
from Inhumanity to Sanity,
Now wouldn't that be rich?

As you died your only comfort
Would be that you Knew
All the agents of Corruption
in the world were Dying Too.

Meteor, Meteor.
Don't you hear that distant roar?
Coming through the Kitchen Floor :
Prepare to meet thy Meteor !




NOTE:  I'm sorry not to be able to share a recording of Peter Blegvad (Slapp Happy) and Andy Partridge's (XTC) song with you, but the only version I have heard can't be uploaded, although I imagine it can be found somewhere out there on the Celestial Jukebox.  I wish Blegvad (who included it in live performances, such as the 3-14-92 concert at St. Ann's in Brooklyn) committed it to a fixed "vinyl" (sorry for dating myself) version because, as you can see,  it’s a terrific lyric wedded to a driving, exciting melody and rhythm. Until Asteroid Armageddon, Meteor (like its composers) will remain perennially relevant.  

 P.S.  Asteroid 2005 YU55 is not "Ten times the size of Canada", but only as big as the "supercarrier" USS Nimitz, "one of the largest warships in the world."  DUCK! (and cover). 

“Va t’en.” (Death Comes To Perigord 3)

                         

      



     “Va t’en.”

         The command was hissed rather than spoken. But I had no intention of going before I had done my job, and as soothingly as possible told him so.  For now I felt sure that Le Marinel must have good reason for sending me the urgent message I had received, though to me it looked as if I might have been more usefully employed in examining into his mental rather than physical condition.  And examine him I did, in spite of all his expostulations.  His heart was certainly in a flutter; but that might be set down to his anger just as much to any cardiac weakness, for in other respects he was, for his age, in surprisingly sound condition.  He seemed, in fact, to be, with ordinary care, good enough for many years to come, and I could not see why I had been so urgently pressed by Le Marinel to go out that night.  The thought had puzzled me even before I left Perigord.

        Once I had done with the man I took up the candle from the bed side table with that little flurry of irritation a doctor is apt to experience in such cases.  Short of accident, many a much younger man would go before de Quettville.  The flutter at his heart was nothing.  He probably smoked too much.  All these Channel Islanders smoked too much:  tobacco was so cheap for them.  And my irritation over the needless call was certainly not lessened by contact with such an ill-mannered patient.  He had sunk back the moment I finished, and now reclined with closed eyes, his sharp nose and white night-cap silhouetted grotesquely in black against the bed curtain, the long beard showing like a waterfall.  But he was not asleep.  As I watched him with disfavor an eyelid fluttered and he waved a hand toward the door.

        “Va t’en,” he repeated crossly.

 

Actually, sort of days of future passed future