books | Heath Wilder

So my amazing sister has been feeding me with a steady diet of awesome … well forever … but more recently fascinating digital things. Digital things that include over 60,000+ years of astronomers, collaborative digital art, nonlinear culture, etc.

Today’s feast was the bat cloud.

… and I’m not going to even explain it. I’m going to leave your journey to you.

But on brand I am going to tangent off about myself.

There are many things that I love about my sister, and what’s on my mind at the moment is that gold that drops without need of preamble and context. The context is largely unnecessary in a lot of neurodivergent conversations. Especially the ones that fall in the category “I found this shiny rock that I want to give it to you.” They are the start of a conversation and add to your dialogue that may have been on hold for minutes, months or years – it’s irrelevant. The relevance is that it’s additive. It’s an instinctual “Yes and…” game.

Recently, we were talking about the indigenous astronomy from an article. Astronomy is very helpful as a calendar to track seasons, and in the outback sky the viewing is pretty incredible. The Boorong constellation Djuit – the red backed parrot contains Antares – referencing both the red supergiant star (α Scorpii A) and it’s bluer companion (α Scorpii B) representing the male parrots red back and blue halo feathers. Ngarrindjeri call Antares the “red man” (Waiyungari) and talk about its changing brightness in the stories.

Indigenous Australian calendars recognise as many different seasons as the region produces. The Tiwi seasonal calendar has 3 major and 13 minor seasons as fits their tropical island climate. The D’harawal calendar has 6 with rules and observations that are relevant for where we are on the south east coast. Ngoonungi is when the flying foxes appear just before the end of year heat starts.

Serendipitously after my conversation with my sister on indigenous astronomy I was at Sydney Writers Festival where I happened to catch Bruce Pascoe and Ray Norris talk about their latest book on (you guessed it) Aboriginal astronomy, Big Sky. It was a fascinating talk full of nuance and the wonderful dry humour of Bruce. Big Sky was unsurprisingly scoped up from the festival bookshop but I managed to get a book signed for my nephew over in the Northern Hemisphere.

Antares appears white in this WISE false-colour infrared image (Wikipedia)

225 Smith St, Brooklyn, NY 11231, United States

Not only are books magic but “Books are Magic” is magic, as are the coven curating the creative compositions there.

You can tell a lot about a person from the books and music on the shelves in their home – what’s on display and what’s been repeatedly used and lent and dog-eared for reference. But I was keenly aware that the books there are carefully considered recommendations for the benefit of the person walking through the door.

There are the big hits with substance, and they sit alongside the books of big impact with a smaller distribution. The range is impressive – rather than 90 copies of this seasons “Eat, Pray Love” they’ll have 2 copies and a dozen + titles speaking to a broad range. They have recommendation cards a plenty so you know they know the library. You can tell books are a personal love language here. As a middle-aged / Autistic / Aboriginal / Jewish / Australian I felt uncommonly welcome. I may have helped that the music was in one of the many playlists I’ve had over the years, like a sound track across the epochs of my history.

I bought two books – Katherine May’s “Enchantment” I had previously bought in virtual edition for a book club, and uncharacteristically a new manga “Love Bullet” that once I flipped a few pages, insisted to me that I take it home – like the face of a puppy staring up at me in an animal shelter.

The staff are attentive and happy to facilitate as if you are a house guest rather than a target for financial transaction.

Loved Books are Magic. Well worth a 23 hour flight.

booksaremagic.net/