COLUMN: Eclipse

One of my favorite cultural phenomenons in the history of the internet is the "DVD logo screensaver" meme. Are you familiar?

You remember DVDs, right? Those things we used to buy and rent before Netflix came along and sucked away our souls and wallets? Back in the entertainment era of yesteryear, when you paused a DVD, eventually a screensaver of the little DVD logo would pop up on your TV. This logo would happily bounce around the edges of your screen until you un-paused your movie. Every few minutes, though, if you were paying careful attention, you'd see true magic: the logo would land perfectly in the corner of the screen -- and there was much rejoicing.

For no good reason, it was always an extremely satisfying sight to behold. In one of the funniest episodes of "The Office," hapless boss Michael Scott thought his team was cheering one of his boring sales presentations. In fact, they were cheering because a screensaver logo behind him finally hit the corner. Since then, I've seen videos of packed sports events exploding randomly in joy when a screensaver logo on the jumbotron hits the corner. Some sports arenas are now purposely showing the screensaver in hopes of getting a crowd reaction. It's a silly moment of pointless happiness we can all get behind.

It also happened this week -- just on a slightly larger scale.

Except, instead of a TV, it was the universe. And instead of a DVD logo, it was the moon. Just like how the DVD logo is geometrically destined to land perfectly in the corner of the screen from time to time, so too is the moon geometrically destined to occasionally pass between the sun and the Earth. We call this fully predictable phenomenon a solar eclipse, and as we all know, that moment of pointless happiness happened to us a few days ago. It was great fun.

At 2 p.m. last Monday, if you wanted to do business with our company, you were out of luck. All work in our office ground to a halt for a few minutes so we should step outside with our spanky eclipse glasses and look up at the sun as if we were auditioning to be the cover stars for a Devo album. There was no point in accomplishing anything productive, not while one giant space circle was passing in front of another giant space circle. We weren't in the path of totality here in the Quad Cities, so we only experienced a partial eclipse of the heart, but it was a rare and exhilirating moment to behold regardless.

If you were fortunate enough to be in the path of totality (where the sun becomes completely blocked by the moon,) solar eclipses are even more spectacular. Back in 2017, I stood on a hill in Missouri to experience a total eclipse, and it was pretty epic. Witnessing that fire-ringed black circle was a visual reminder of just how insignifigant we really are in the grand scheme of things. Any time my ego gets pointlessly inflated, it's good to remember that we're all just tiny specks stuck to a ball that's floating through infinity at 67,000 miles an hour. The reality of our universe is cool beyond comprehension.

Regardless of what certain crazypants people on the internet want us to believe, though -- eclipses are NOT a sign of the end times. This week, I saw everyone from online strangers to members of Congress insinuating this week's eclipse was some heavenly harbinger of doom unless we do such-and-such or vote for so-and-so come November. Sorry, I'm not buying it. Eclipses are fully predictable scientific events. In fact, they happen somewhere on Earth almost annually. Just as mathematicians can determine how often that DVD logo will hit the corners of your screen, so too can science geeks predict every eclipse that Earth will ever experience. If a bad omen can be predicted by a nerd and a calculator, it's not especially ominous. 

For our more primitive forefathers, eclipses had to be nothing shy of terrifying. If you were out and about hunting mastadon or trying to invent the wheel and suddenly the sun turned black, that's cause for concern. But in our modern world even with our relatively thin understanding of the universe, I think most of us could go outside this week and enjoy the show without fearing we'd somehow angered a sun god.

I have to admit, though: there was a small part of me keeping a spiritual eye wary for any otherworldy eclipse shenanigans afoot. Alas, I didn't spot a single werewolf. Apophis, the Moon Serpent, did not attempt to eat me. Not a single wizened wizard approached me saying, "BEHOLD, THE PROPHECIES ARE TRUE! YOU ARE THE CHOSEN ONE!" Of course, a friend pointed out to me that I probably shouldn't yearn to be the chosen one. I've seen enough fantasy movies to know nothing good ever happens to chosen ones. Someone else can gladly take that helm. But if the chosen one ever needs a mixtape, I'm your guy. I'm not destined to save the world, but I'm fairly confident I could give it a good soundtrack.

While I don't think eclipses are portents of doom, they're still rare and amazing spectacles to witness. Some of my more jaded and cooler-than-thou friends were so interested in being disinterested in the eclipse that they had to get on social media just to brag about how disinterested they were. "Marked safe from watching one circle float in front of another circle," one wrote. Ooh, I'm so impressed by your apathy. Mountains have existed since the dawn of humanity, but it doesn't make them any less majestic. New Year's Eve is just another night on a man-made calendar, but I bet you've had fun counting down the seconds before midnight. That DVD logo might land in a corner of the screen on every 27th pass, but it doesn't make it any less satisfying when I see it for myself.

As for me? I spent eclipse morning getting a passing grade from my cardiologist check-up. And when the nurse practitioner asked me if I was keeping up with exercising, I proudly replied, "Every single day without fail. And if I'm lying, may God turn the day into night."