Stars

I hear that Scotland is one of the best places in the world from which to look at stars. This is because it's so sparsely populated: evidently, even if you go far enough away from built-up areas that you can't see the orange glow above the horizon, the light pollution still affects how well you can see. This seems only a little bit strange. But I have other reason for believing that seeing lights or their glow in the sky and not being able to see the stars are not too closely correlated: I was in St. Andrews town centre an hour or so ago, and, obviously, there were streetlights. But I could see the stars! I can't really get over this. I always thought that when you're in the country, you see stars, but that when you're in a town, you're blinded by the light. Guess not. I'm guessing, crazy though this doubtless is, that the lack of towns near St. Andrews means that one can see the stars when in St. Andrews more clearly, even though, for all one can tell, the sky is just as light as it would be were there towns nearby.

It's really beautiful. The cognitive dissonance is nice too.

I'm listening to [em] now: their second album, [em] II. I can't find anything by them on YouTube or Grooveshark (despite my uploading [em] II to the latter). But it's a really amazing album. I dare you to to buy it.

Finally: Joanna Newsom's next album is coming out on Tuesday. I won't be able to get at it until Friday, on which day I will go very far out of my way to get at it.