Out of this world!

The Planets; Gustav Holst, composer; Berliner Philharmoniker; Sir Simon Rattle, conducting

In the autumn of 1976, my fifth grade class took a field trip to Marshall, Minnesota. Southwest State University had a planetarium. Mr. S. had been teaching a unit on astronomy and I liked it, which was a change for me. Usually, I didn’t go for the science classes. I suppose the beauty of the stars, points of light against an imponderable backdrop of blackness, captured the attention of one who lives so much of his life on the right side of his brain that he’s practically handicapped.

Mr. S. had talked to us about the planetarium in anticipation of our field trip, but who could make any sense out of what he was talking about; at least until we could see it. And, indeed, for me, the trip was pretty ho-hum; just another place to eat lunch. But, then …

We entered the planetarium. We sat in the comfy seats. We listened to the nice man talk about what we would see. Then he turned down the lights. And all of a sudden the stars were over our heads. We were OUTSIDE … INSIDE. There was no way that I ever could have imagined the impact of this perception that the far-away was confined within a domed darkened room. I was completely transformed. I wanted to come to this school every day from now on so that I could sit under the stars … INSIDE.

The nice man wanted to show us Orion, the Big Dipper, the Little Dipper, the north star, Canis Major, Sirius, the Southern Cross, Andromeda, Jupiter, Mars, Venus, Cassiopeia and Alpha Centauri. Meanwhile, it took everything inside of me not to burst and say, Please, nice man, do you have to talk so much? Can you just be quiet for a little while and let us look at the stars, here, inside? I mean, my God, aren’t they beautiful, sir, don’t you think they’re beautiful?

I don’t remember much about the ride back to the school. I was too stunned to allow the landscape that was whooshing by my window to register inside my head. It was too full of images of the moon, stars, planets, galaxies, the heavens … Creation.

Where I got the idea, I don’t know, but that evening, back home, I took an empty cylindrical oatmeal box and cut off both ends. On one end piece, I poked holes in approximately the places where stars would form the Big Dipper. Then I put it back on the oatmeal box. Then I cut a circle out of the center of the other end piece about the same diameter as the inner tube of a roll of toilet tissue. After slipping the tube through the cut-out circle, I placed that end back onto the oatmeal box, as well. With this, I could pretend that I was looking through a telescope – or sitting inside my very own planetarium; quietly; inside.

I haven’t lost my sense of romance and fascination with planetariums. I’ve gone to them in New York City, Copenhagen, Washington, DC, and at the Terry Redlin Art Museum in Watertown, South Dakota. All of them did a magic number on me. But not like the first one.

The first time I heard the music of Gustav Holst was at my sister K.’s band concert shortly before they went on a band trip to St. Louis, Missouri. They played the “Second Suite in F for Military Band”. Even at that young age, I recognized the English provincial and folkish nature of his music.

In “The Planets – Suite For Large Orchestra”, the composer sounds a little more mainland European, but now and again his British-ness breaks through. Take heed that the thematic character of the piece is decidedly astrological, not astronomical. That’s why there is no “Earth” movement. The order of the planets in the suite corresponds to the increasing distance of each planet from the Earth. Interestingly enough, Pluto was proclaimed a planet just four years before Mr. Holst’s death. He showed no enthusiasm, however, in writing a representational movement for his planetarial collection. Little matter, though, as Pluto was “demoted” in 2006 and Mr. Holst’s work remains a complete representation of our Solar System.

Since our fifth grade unit on astronomy, I have seen several meteor showers and two comets. I’ve seen two planets and the moon occupy the same tiny piece of sky. I’ve seen both solar and lunar eclipses. You can keep your Broadway and West End theatres. The best stage of all is straight up … OUTSIDE.

Credits: To Mr. S., our fifth grade and sixth science and creative writing instructor. Thank you for the planetarium trip. Sorry about my F in Oceanography. But it’s your fault. You didn’t take us to an Aquarium.