Mars is less than six hours away from its closest encounter with Earth in nearly 60,000 years, and I just got back from taking a look at its much-brighter-than-usual disc shining in the sky over Washington Heights. The Red Planet is so bright, it doesn’t really look red at all to the naked eye — it actually looks quite a lot like Venus, as you can see in the photo above.

Anyway, here’s a picture of Mars over the apartment building across the street from mine:

And here’s a shot of Mars from the roof of my apartment building — which I’m not technically supposed to go on, but I make exceptions when there’s a citywide blackout or a one-in-a-millennium celestial event. :)

Unfortunately, I just found out that the Mars-gazing event on Staten Island that I was planning to attend tomorrow night is sold out. D’oh! I think there’s something at South Street Seaport later in the week, so I might go to that instead. But whatever, even if I don’t get to peer at it through a telescope, at least I saw Mars with my own eyes (and took pictures of it) on the historic night.

UPDATE: Yup, I found it here: “See Mars at the South Street Seaport, August 29th, Pier 17 at 9PM. Weather permitting.” That’s Friday, and weather may indeed be an issue, but we shall see.

ANOTHER UPDATE: In addition to those statistics that I posted Monday, CNN adds this tidbit: “The nearest terrestrial place to Mars at [5:51 AM] was Tahiti, according to astronomers.”

Our neighborhood here in Washington Heights is home to a lot of Jewish people (my soon-to-be-converted mom among them), so I’m guessing these pro-Palestinian protesters in front of the local supermarket this evening may not have gotten a universally warm reception:

The protesters were holding up two signs: one, visible in the picture above, said, “What is the world waiting for? A Palestinian Holocaust?” and another stated “Jews for a just peace say end the occupation now!”

In this case, I’m not commenting, just reporting. :)

I just got through watching the behind-the-scenes preview of the Return of the King on my brand-new Two Towers DVD. Very cool! Alhough I must say, an awful lot of the ten minutes were taken up by cast and crew members talking about the movie, rather than by actual scenes from the movie. But that’s to be expected — they don’t want to give too much away, yet.

Among the tidbits revealed in those cast and crew interviews is the fact that whereas the epic battle of Helm’s Deep in the Two Towers involved 10,000 orcs, the really-really-epic battle of the Pelennor Fields in the Return of the King will involve 200,000 orcs. Two hundred thousand! One of the crew members said, “I think it will probably be the most spectacular battle scene ever filmed.”

Then there’s Elijah Wood, the actor who plays Frodo, who said of the Return of the King as a whole, “It’s better than [movies number] one and two combined. And a lot of people think I’m crazy, but it’s true. It’s amazing. It’s better than I could have hoped for it to be.”

As for visuals, the preview shows us some wonderful shots of the Nazgul’s winged Fell Beasts, including the concluding shot, in which the Nazgul king lands at the gate of Minas Tirith for his big showdown with Gandalf the White. Also, it looks like the Paths of the Dead scene is going to be very cool.

Here are a few notable quotes from the movie, as shown in the preview:

“Understand: things are now in motion that cannot be undone. If the Ring is destroyed, Sauron will fall. But if Sauron regains the Ring, his victory will be so complete that none can forsee the end of it while this world lasts.” –Gandalf

“He has gone unchallenged long enough.” –Aragorn, presumably referring to Sauron

“Word has reached my ears of this Aragorn, son of Arathorn, and I tell you now: I will not bow to this Ranger from the North.” –Denethor, Steward of Gondor

“Is there any hope, Gandalf? For Frodo and Sam?” –Pippin
“There never was much hope. Just a fool’s hope.” –Gandalf

“The board is set. Pieces are moving. We come to it at last: the great battle of our time.” –Gandalf

“Precious will be ours once the hobbitses are dead.” –Gollum, looking at his own reflection in a pool

“Ride now! Ride for ruin — and the world’s ending!” –King Thoeden, leading the Riders of Rohan into battle at the Pelennor

It’s mine… my own… my precious… :)

From the Wall Street Journal’s Opinion Journal:

Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore is the media’s summer whipping boy. His refusal to remove a Ten Commandments monument from the rotunda of the state court building has drawn ridiculous comparisons to, among other things, George Wallace circa 1962. Woe to the Southern official facing a Yankee press in August with too much time on its hands.

Hee hee. But this editorialist is no Moore apologist:

The civil disobedience argument may fly for a Martin Luther King, but certainly not for an elected state judge sworn to enforce the law. If Justice Moore wants to become a professional protester and ignore federal court orders, he’ll need to hang up his robe first.