Soonish 5.11 The Otherworldly Power of a Total Eclipse

5.11 | 03.18.24

The most important piece of advice David Baron ever got: “Before you die, you owe it to yourself to see a total solar eclipse.”

The recommendation came from the Williams College astronomer Jay Pasachoff, a beloved teacher and textbook author, after Baron interviewed him for a 1994 radio story. Baron listened—and it changed his life. He saw his first eclipse in Aruba in 1998, and has since become a true umbraphile. The upcoming eclipse of April 8, 2024, will be the ninth one he’s witnessed.

A veteran science journalist and former NPR science correspondent, Baron joined Soonish from his home in Boulder, CO, to talk about his 2017 book American Eclipse: A Nation’s Epic Race to Catch The Shadow of the Moon and Win the Glory of the World. It’s a dramatic account of the total eclipse of July 29, 1878, which crossed through Montana, Wyoming, Colorado, and Texas and drew a fascinating cast of characters into its path, including a young Thomas Edison.

Everyone who chased the 1878 eclipse went West for their own reasons. In Edison’s case, it was to prove his bona fides as a scientist, not just an inventor. For the arrogant University of Michigan astronomer James Craig Watson, it was to hunt for the hypothetical planet Vulcan. For Vassar College astronomer Maria Mitchell and her students, it was to prove to a skeptical public that women could do science and still be “feminine.” Baron’s book shows how their adventures made the eclipse into a major cultural and scientific turning point for the young nation, previously considered a backwater of science. And it reminds us that for the people who flock into the path of totality, an eclipse can still be transformative today.

The first edition of Baron’s book came out right before the great American eclipse of August 2017, and it has now been reissued with a new afterword priming readers for April 8 eclipse. In an unexpected twist for a work of narrative science history, the book is now being made into a Broadway musical, which will have its world premiere at Baylor College in Waco, TX, on April 7, the day before the eclipse.

On a scale of 1 to 10, how excited is Baron? “Oh, gosh, it’s going to sound silly, but it’s 100, it’s a million,” he says. “I mean, my life revolves around going to solar eclipses, and this one I’ve been looking forward to for a very long time.”

Soonish will be in Mazatlán, Mexico, for the total eclipse of April 8, 2024. If you’ll be there too, drop us a note at wade@soonishpodcast.org.

This episode is dedicated to the memory of Jay Passachoff (1943-2022).

Eclipse Resources

David Baron, American Eclipse: A Nation’s Epic Race to Catch The Shadow of the Moon and Win the Glory of the World (New York: Liveright Publishing Corporation, 2024)

Shadows of August (Soonish Episode 2.01)

David Baron, Chasing Eclipses, Story Collider, April 28, 2017

Eclipse Map 2024 from the National Solar Observatory

Viewing Eclipses Safely from the National Solar Observatory

“What’s the Cloud Outlook for Eclipse Day? See if History Is On Your Side,” The New York Times, March 13, 2024

“The Sun, Our Star,” a podcast series leading up to the 2024 eclipse, from the official NASA podcast Curious Universe

Notes

The Soonish opening theme is by Graham Gordon Ramsay.

If you enjoy Soonish, please rate and review the show on Apple Podcasts. Every additional rating makes it easier for other listeners to find the show.

Listener support is the rocket fuel that keeps our little ship going! You can pitch in with a per-episode donation at patreon.com/soonish.

Get the latest updates about the show in our email newsletter, Signals from Soonish.

And hear about everything going on about Hub & Spoke in our free bimonthly Substack newsletter, Penny Farthings. Subscribers also get access to our quarterly anthology show, the Hub & Spoke Radio Hour.

Full Transcript

[Music: Hub & Spoke Sonic ID]

David Baron: Well, I think the very word eclipse can be misleading because an eclipse is the hiding of something. But what makes a total solar eclipse so astonishing is what it reveals.

[Music: Soonish theme]

Wade Roush: I’m Wade Roush. This is Soonish. And that was my guest David Baron.

He’s an author, a science journalist, and a former NPR science correspondent who’s just come out with a new edition of his 2017 book, American Eclipse: A Nation’s Epic Race to Catch The Shadow of the Moon and Win the Glory of the World.

And it’s all about a total solar eclipse that crossed the Western United States in the summer of 1878 and how it turned into a major scientific and cultural event for a young country that was still busy settling the west and trying to make a name for itself as a center for learning and science.

Of course there’s a reason behind the timing of the first and second editions of the book, which is that here in North America we’re living through two back to back total solar eclipses of our own.

The first one was on August 21, 2017, and the next one is just three weeks from now on April 8, 2024.

I’ve known David for many years, and it was hearing him do a talk about eclipses in a live storytelling show in 2017 that convinced me I needed to go see one for myself.

Which I did. And you can listen to the whole story of that adventure in a Soonish episode from 2017 called The Shadows of August.

I wanted to have David on the show not just so that he could tell you about the book, but also because when it comes to eclipses, he’s the most articulate and inspiring speaker I’ve ever heard.

There’s something magical about a total eclipse that everyone needs to experience. Nobody can capture that like David.

So if you listen to this whole interview and you don’t come away from it making your own plan to see the April 8 eclipse, well then, like Mrs. Landingham used to say on The West Wing, I don’t even want to know you.

Okay, let’s dive in.

Wade Roush: David Baron, thank you for joining me.

David Baron: Wade, it's my pleasure.

Wade Roush: So we're recording this on Monday the 11th of March, 2024. So it's actually four weeks to the day before the great 2024 eclipse of April 8th. So kind of on a scale of 1 to 10, what's your excitement level right now?

David Baron: Oh, gosh. I mean, it's going to sound silly. I mean, it's a it's a hundred. It's a million. I mean, I really, I mean, I my life revolves around going to total eclipses and this one I've been looking forward to for a very long time, the, the 1 in 2017, which I know you saw and a lot of people did in the US. That was the first total solar eclipse to cross the continental United States coast to coast in 99 years. It was a really big deal. This one's going to be an even bigger deal. More than 30 million people live in the path of the total eclipse. More than half the US population lives within a day's drive. There will be millions and millions and millions of people who will see this. Undoubtedly, it will be the most witnessed total eclipse in US history. And just personally, I'm very excited to see it as well.

Wade Roush: Yeah, well, you kind of anticipated my next question. So I was going to ask you what makes this particular eclipse so special. You know, one thing is, I guess that it's rare to have two total solar eclipses back to back crossing the same continent within seven years.

David Baron: Well, although Australia has hit the jackpot, they I think have five within 15 years or something like that. So I've, I was in Australia in 2012 for one. I was in Australia last year for one. There's another 1 in 2028 going off over Australia one I think in 2030. So but yeah, Australia really hit the jackpot. But for the US to have two going over such a substantial portion of the continent within seven years is pretty remarkable. But to more fully answer your question about what makes this one so special, it's a number of things there. I mean, in some ways the more remarkable thing was the great drought in total eclipses before the 1 in 2017. There were others over the decades that touched the continental United States, the Pacific Northwest, the southeast. But there hadn't been one going over a substantial part of the U.S. for almost a century. And so when the 1 in 2017 came along. Most Americans had never seen a total solar eclipse, and they really didn't know what the big deal was. But in 2017, I mean, it was a huge deal. I mean, you know, there was, uh, wall to wall coverage on TV. A lot of people did go to the path of the total eclipse. Those who did go see the total eclipse, like you came back and told their friends, oh, my God, that was amazing. You have to go see one. So seven years later, you've got a country filled with people who remember the 1 in 2017 who either went to see it as a total eclipse and want to do it again, or who missed out and had to listen to their friends going on about it and they now want to see it. So, uh, there will be again, there will be many millions of people who go to see this.

Wade Roush: So, David, you are an eclipse chaser or what is sometimes called an umbraphile for a lover of the shadows. How did that start for you?

David Baron: Well for me. Well, to go back to the really the beginning. It's 30 years ago. So I was a science correspondent for NPR back in the 90s. And in 1994, there was a partial solar eclipse that crossed the United States. And I did a story about it for Morning Edition. And in the course of my reporting, I interviewed an astronomer named Jay Pasachoff, who was at Williams College in Massachusetts, and he was a solar astronomer. And he chased eclipses all over the place. And it was when I interviewed him about the partial eclipse in 1994 that he emphasized how as interesting as a partial eclipse is, a total solar eclipse is fundamentally different. And he, at the end of the interview, said something that changed my life. He turned to me and he said, you know, before you die, you owe it to yourself to experience a total solar eclipse. And he said it with passion and conviction and sincerity. And I took him seriously. And it was that comment that had got me to do the research, to discover that in 1998, there was going to be a total eclipse crossing the Caribbean. So February 1998, I went to Aruba. I figured wouldn't be a such a bad place to go in February anyway, and was there for the total eclipse and it just was everything Jay Pasachoff said. And so much more. And I met in Aruba all these crazy eclipse chasers who knew this was a thing. But there were these people out on the beach. This was their sixth eclipse, their 12th eclipse, their 20th total eclipse. And of course, as soon as the total eclipse was over, I became one of them.

Wade Roush: So that was February of 1998, about 26 years ago. How many eclipses have you been to in total now?

David Baron: Yeah, so I've now seen eight total solar eclipses. So, um, on five continents, I saw it. So ’98, then ’99, I went to Munich, Germany. Uh, and then I kind of took some time off because it's kind of it's expensive to chase eclipses. I had other priorities, but I got back to it in 2012, and at this point in my life, I really am making it a priority to whenever I can. I'm going to go see a total solar eclipse. There aren't that many more that I could possibly see in my lifetime, and if I can afford it and take the time off and get there, you know I'm going to do it. So, uh, yeah. So I've now seen eight and this will be my ninth.

Wade Roush: So can you roughly describe the path of the April 2024 eclipse? You don't have to go as far this time to see it. You live in Boulder? Uh. It won't I mean, it'll be a partial eclipse from Boulder, but obviously you'll go somewhere in the path of totality.

David Baron: Right. So. Well, the 1 in 2017 was closer to where I am here in Colorado. I went to Wyoming that year. Uh, this time I'm going to Texas. So the path of totality. Well, it starts in Mexico and goes up to Canada, across the United States. It goes from Texas to Maine. And, um, I would say most, uh, eclipse chasers who are coming from any distance are going to Texas. Texas, uh, has the best odds of clear skies, and the total eclipse will last the longest in Texas. So when the moon's shadow enters the United States from Mexico, if you're right along the center line of the path, you could experience a total eclipse as long as 4.5 minutes, which is quite long for a total eclipse. By the time the moon's shadow reaches Maine and exits into Canada, the longest the eclipse will be there is 3.5 minutes. But the more important thing is the odds of clear skies. I mean, if I lived in New England, if I lived in Cleveland, I might well stay put because you have a reason to be there. But being in Colorado, Texas seemed the natural place. So I'm going to Waco, Texas. Uh, it's a large enough city that it was reasonably easy to get lodging, as long as we looked into it well in advance. Reasonably easy to get to. I wanted to be south of Dallas because the odds of clear skies get a little better down there. Waco's near the center line of the eclipse path, so you get almost the full length of totality. There were a number of reasons to be in Waco, and well, at some point we might talk about another reason why it's fortunate. I'm going to Waco, which is that my book, which we will talk about, has been turned into a musical and which I never thought this would happen. And it will see its world premiere performance in Waco at Baylor University on Sunday, April 7th, the day before the eclipse. So, um, that's another huge reason I'm going to Waco.

Wade Roush: That makes total sense, and I definitely want to come back to all of that. I don't want to skip ahead, though.

David Baron: I totally understand. I just you asked me. So. Yeah, totally.

Wade Roush: I want you to, um, review my choice of locations for the eclipse. So I'm going to Mazatlán, basically the on the west coast of Mexico, where the eclipse will cross into the continent first. And, um, from what I've read, the weather has a pretty good chance of being cooperative there. Clear skies, very likely on April 8th. So does that sound like a good location to you?

David Baron: That sounds like an excellent location. Yeah. I mean, Mexico has even better odds of clear skies than Texas, although I understand it's really the the highlands of Mexico up toward Texas where you get the best odds. But I Mazatlán would be a beautiful place to go. Um, I understand the odds of clear skies are quite good. And if you go inland a little bit, I think you might be able to get away from coastal clouds. So, um. Yeah, that sounds terrific.

Wade Roush: Okay, I'll let you know how it goes. Okay, so, so one of the reasons, David, that we're talking is that I've known you for a long time. I met you in probably 1989 or 1990. So it's been more than 30 years. I was a grad student at MIT at the time. And you were visiting MIT as a Knight Science Journalism Fellow.

David Baron: I remember it well.

Wade Roush: I don't remember if you were at WBUR at that point or whether you were already at NPR, but you were doing this mid-career science journalism fellowship. And that's where we first met. And you and Dan Charles, I think, were both in the same class. Um, or maybe one class apart.

David Baron: No, we were the same class. Right. So the Knight Science Journalism Fellowship brought in, I think it was eight US based science journalists and then a number of international ones as well. And so Dan Charles, who went on to work at NPR, was in my class, as was John Nielsen, who for a long time, uh, reported on the environment for NPR. So although Dan and John were not working in radio at the time, but they went on into radio, okay. They were the same year.

Wade Roush: One radio guy and two up and coming radio guys. And I have to say that, uh, it took me a long time to actually take the plunge, but you and Dan were two of my inspirations for eventually teaching myself audio, and I just I was always aware that that was another way of telling stories and just thought it was too hard or too, uh, artful or something. And I finally got around to it in like 2016. But, uh, you were out there providing, uh, stellar example for all those years. So I want to thank you for that.

David Baron: Well, that's very sweet. And I think, I mean, I think your podcast is great, and I mean, I, I think you're you're writing, you're delivery, everything about it. It's really nice. 

Wade Roush: Oh, thanks. Uh, the other reason we're talking now is because of your book. So the first edition of your book American Eclipse came out in 2017, in advance of the great 2017 eclipse. And now you have a second edition, a kind of expanded edition with a new afterword timed perfectly for this second North American Eclipse. So I wanted to spend some time talking about the book. So can you say a little bit about the themes of the book? It's built around the story of the July 29th, 1878 eclipse, which also crossed North America. And so I wanted to ask you sort of how you decided to write a whole book about eclipses and why you wound up focusing on that particular eclipse. Out of all the ones you could have chosen, you focused on 1878. Why?

David Baron: So after I saw my first total eclipse in Aruba in 1998, I thought, I want to write about this. I mean, this was such an astonishing experience. And here I am, a science writer. I wanted to bring to life, to others the excitement of a total eclipse. And and then when I started to look around at future eclipses, I realized, well, this was a book that should wait a while because the next total eclipse to cross the United States wouldn't be until 2017. So and then there'd be another in 2024. So 1998, when I had the idea I had 19 years to figure out what the book would be and actually write it before it would come out. So it was a really, really long range project. And it wasn't until I think about 2012, when I went to see a total eclipse in Australia, when I realized, well, the eclipse in the United States is five years off. Time to get serious about this. And. The kind of science writing I like to do. I've I've always written about science for the general public. I don't, you know, I don't like I don't do things that are highly technical. My goal is to reach people who don't think they care about science and tell them science stories. And so I wanted to find a really good story that just was a good story that happened to be about eclipses that would attract folks. And I just I started to do research and I really and for actually at first I thought I might write a book about modern day eclipse chasers, which could be a very good book because they slash.

David Baron: We are a pretty odd lot of folks who go all over the world for something that lasts a few minutes at most, but I decided that the best eclipse stories aren't from today. They're from the 19th century. Because, uh, during the late 19th century, total solar eclipses weren't just really interesting natural marvels to go gawk at, but they were keenly important for science. Astronomy had reached the point where scientists were just starting to unravel the mysteries of the sun. What is this great ball of fire in the sky? What fuels it? And there were certain studies they could do only during a total solar eclipse, which is something that occurs about once every year and a half somewhere on the planet, usually someplace very hard to get to, lasts all of 2 or 3 minutes usually, but was so important that these grand astronomical expeditions would be put together to the far corners of the Earth, where astronomers would set up their telescopes and spectroscopes and other equipment. Hope that clouds didn't get in the way, and then frantically conduct their experiments during the total eclipse. So I started to look at the various total eclipses to see which would be worth a story. There was one that went over Thailand in 1868 that was kind of interesting. Then one went over the Mediterranean in 1870, over India in 1871, and there were great characters and interesting stories.

David Baron: But then when I came to 1878, it just had it all. I mean, here was a total solar eclipse that crossed the western frontier of the United States, right down the spine of the Rocky Mountains, Montana Territory to Texas. This was the Wild West. This was a time when we were just settling that part of the country. Obviously, there was a lot of conflict. Um, and also it was a fascinating time for the United States overall. We were a young nation becoming very quickly an economic powerhouse. But when it came to intellectual pursuits, we were the laughing stock of Europe for the most part. I mean, Europeans considered themselves the center of Western culture. That's where great music and art and literature and science came from. The U.S. was this intellectual backwater. But here was this scientific event that was going to be in our own backyard. Where it was a chance for we, for the United States as a nation to show the world what we could do. So it became this really important national event. And I'll just say one more thing about it, which is among the people who came out west was Thomas Edison, Thomas Edison, age 31, who had just invented the phonograph right before he invented the light bulb, was in the Wild West for a total eclipse. I thought, there's got to be a book in this. And then the deeper and deeper I went into investigating the story of the eclipse. It just got better and better. 

Wade Roush: Yeah, well, I'd like to go one level deeper. So the book is, it's a history. It's a narrative history, I guess, and it follows, I don't know, somewhere between 4 and 6 main characters and the people around them, and each of them had a different reason for going west to see this eclipse. And some of the reasons were scientific and others were more political, I guess, and I just wanted to I wanted to explore that a little bit because, you know, there were some astronomers who had actual important astronomy questions they wanted to answer. And there were others. There were others, like Edison, who were kind of testing or demonstrating or showing off their inventions. And there were yet others who went out there not to make any discoveries, but to just show that they could do science, like Maria Mitchell and her students from Vassar. So could you maybe spend a few minutes just, uh, relating this, the stories that you feel like were the most important threads through the book.

David Baron: So when I decided I was going to write about the total solar eclipse of 1878, I just started looking into who were these people who came out west? There were dozens. I came up with a list of more than 70 people scientists, mostly astronomers, but scientists of other types as well, who came out to Wyoming, Colorado, Texas to conduct studies during the eclipse. And I just started looking into them. Who were these people? Um, what was their background? Why did they come out for the eclipse? What were they trying to achieve? Who would make the best stories? And as a storyteller, you also want people who were changed in some way by the eclipse. You have some narrative arc. And it was it was obvious from the very beginning that Thomas Edison, of course, would be one of the characters, and he had a real narrative arc. I mean, he and of course, he was not only an important person, but a just such a colorful character. We tend to think of Edison these days as this gray haired old man who's an icon of America. This was a young Thomas Edison. This was a guy who he really had just made his name and was such a colorful, folksy character. The press loved him because he spoke in soundbites. And so I had such a great time getting to know him. 

David Baron: And the interesting thing about his story was, at that stage of his career, Edison thought of himself not just as an inventor. He wanted to be a scientist. He wanted to be taken seriously by academic scientists. He wanted to make some important discoveries about nature itself. And so he decided to go west for the eclipse, to try to answer some important questions about the solar corona. Today, we know it's the sun's outer atmosphere. Back then, astronomers just knew it's this beautiful halo that appears around the the the darkened moon when you have a total solar eclipse. And they weren't sure what it was. So Edison came up with an invention specifically to study the solar corona, to measure if it gave off heat as well as light. So this was going to be his important contribution. Um, and the invention was called the tasimeter, which at the time, of course, no one's ever heard of it today. But back then, people were talking about it as potentially bigger than the phonograph. It was going to just take off as a really important device. So Edison, no doubt I was going to follow him. One of the key questions to be answered during the total eclipse was a very different one, and that was about the planets in our solar system. If you look at a solar system chart from the mid to late 19th century, you'll see that it I mean, today, of course, the planets going from the sun outward it goes Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars.

David Baron: If you look at a at a solar system chart from back then, the first planet is actually one called Vulcan. You'll see that it goes Vulcan, Mercury, Venus, Earth. Vulcan was at that time a hypothetical planet. It was a planet that many astronomers thought had to exist because Mercury's orbit didn't make sense otherwise. Mercury behaved as if there was some mass between it and the sun, tugging it along. Now, no one had ever reliably seen Vulcan, but that's not really a surprise. If you really do have a planet that close to the sun, it's going to set with the sun. It won't be in the sky at night, and you can't see it in the daytime because it'll be lost in the sun's glare. But during a total solar eclipse, when the moon completely blocks the face of the sun, and you can look with your telescope right around the sun, that might be a chance to find Vulcan. So there were a number of astronomers coming out to the west to look for Vulcan. But one in particular was the person who, if anyone would find it, was probably going to be him.

David Baron: And his name was James Craig Watson. He taught astronomy at the University of Michigan, and in that era was in fact known as a planet hunter because back in that at that time, asteroids, which of course, are quite small bodies that are mostly between Mars and Jupiter, they were considered planets. I mean, they they do orbit the sun just like the major planets. But back then they were called minor planets, and they got names just like the major planets. Finding them was a very big deal. James Craig Watson had a real knack for finding asteroids, and for that reason he was a planet hunter. So if anyone had the skill to find Vulcan, the mysterious hypothetical planet, during a three minute window of totality, it was going to be James Craig Watson. So he and he too was a just a really interesting character, a real jerk, honestly. Um, and at first I was struggling with whether I wanted him to be an important character in my book because I so disliked him. But then, of course, as a writer, sometimes it's fun to have a character. Whose you don't really like very much, although I have empathy for him too, and I hope that comes through. But. So James Craig Watson went west looking for Vulcan. And a lot of, you know, the press was following his doings as well to find out, would James Craig Watson discover Vulcan?

David Baron: The third character who I decided I have three main characters and then, as you said, a number of others who also, to a greater or lesser degree, play a role in the story. But my third main character. Went west with a very different, um, goal in mind. And her name was Maria Mitchell. So. Maria Mitchell was by far the most famous female scientist in America in the 19th century. She was an astronomer. She taught at Vassar College, which back in the 1870s was still a new all women's college in Poughkeepsie, New York. Um, understandably, this was not an easy time to be a female scientist. There were very few jobs for women in science, but more than that, it was a time when women's higher education itself was coming under attack. At that time, there were very few women's colleges, and they were considered risky social experiments because not too long before a very prominent Boston doctor came out with a best selling book that made the claim that women's higher education was actually detrimental to a young woman's health, that if a if a female college student used her brain too much, it would sap energy from her maturing reproductive organs and turn her into a sterile, masculine invalid. And as crazy as it sounds today, it was taken very seriously and really caused a bit of a panic.

David Baron: Well, Maria Mitchell thought this was crazy. She encouraged young women to use their brains in her astronomy courses at Vassar, but she had to do more than that. She had to convince America in general that this book was rubbish. So in 1878, she did something truly remarkable when when these groups of men were assembling eclipse expeditions out to the Wild West, many of them with government support and logistical help, she took it upon herself to put together an all female expedition to Denver. So Maria Mitchell, her expedition, the Vassar College eclipse party, it was called to Denver. It was a scientific expedition. Like the others, they were looking to see if they might find Vulcan. They were studying the corona, but there was a whole other level of importance there, which was this was kind of political theater to show the American public that women could be smart and educated and healthy and feminine as well. And there's just this wonderful photograph that's in my book of the Vassar College Eclipse party in Denver in 1878. And here are these women astronomers in Victorian dresses, sitting daintily on their chairs next to their telescopes. Uh, and it just says so much about what they were trying to do and about that era.

Wade Roush: Let’s take a quick break.

Here at Soonish we’re part of a collective of great independent podcasts called Hub & Spoke. And I wanted to take a minute to tell you about two new ways that you can be part of what we’re doing.

The first is to sign up for our newsletter on Substack. It’s called Penny Farthings, in tribute to our Hub & Spoke’s bicycle logo. And it’s full of links to new episodes from Hub & Spoke shows, listening recommendations, and exclusive interviews with producers from the collective. It comes out six times a year and you can subscribe for free at hubspokeaudio.substack.com.

Second, we were really excited in 2023 to launch a new quarterly podcast called the Hub & Spoke Radio Hour. It’s an anthology show that brings together segments from different Hub & Spoke shows. We build each episode around a seasonal theme like Independence or Fear or Love.

I’m especially proud of the Love episode from this February, which included segments from the Rumble Strip, Mementos, Ministry of Ideas, and the Lonely Palette. The Hub & Spoke Radio Hour also lives on Substack and the best way to hear it is to subscribe to our newsletter, which, again, is at hubspokeaudio.substack.com.

I’ll just close by saying that if you value the kinds of curious, humane, mind-expanding, and well-crafted stories we make here at Hub & Spoke, then there’s a way you can support that. You can make a tax-deductible, one-time or recurring donation of any amount by going to hubspokeaudio.org/donate.

And we’ll use your contribution to support all of our producers and keep fighting the good fight for truly independent podcasting.

Thank you. And now back to my conversation with David Baron.

Wade Roush: Okay. Well, David, without giving away the ending of the book or ruining the suspense, can we go back to these three stories? So. Did Edison's tasimeter actually work? Was he able to measure the temperature of the corona? Um, did Vulcan really turn out to exist? That one is a little bit of a giveaway. I mean, we know today that Mercury is actually the closest planet to the sun, and Vulcan remained and remains hypothetical, um, mythical even. And and thirdly, do you feel like the coverage of Maria mitchell's expedition substantially changed the way people see women scientists or saw women scientists in the 19th century? I mean, what was the long-term impact of her adventure?

David Baron: So to tease them apart. So when it comes to Thomas Edison and his taximeter, it kind of worked and it kind of didn't. I mean, the device, the taximeter was what we would call today a rudimentary infrared detector. It was made to detect heat waves coming off of objects. You pointed at something, and it could detect if if there was warmth coming off of it. And when Edison pointed it at the solar corona, he detected heat. The problem was he detected far too much. He he detected so much heat, he hadn't set his equipment properly, and it just went off the scale immediately. So he couldn't he couldn't say how much heat was coming off the sun. It was clearly more than he was prepared to detect. And in the end, the taximeter again. Who's ever heard of the Taximeter today? It wasn't really that great a device. It could detect heat, but it really couldn't measure it accurately. It was kind of funky. I mean, it would give you varied results all the time. It was so it was a clunky early infrared detector that was very quickly surpassed by other devices, and the taximeter was lost to history.

Wade Roush: I couldn't tell from your book whether what Edison detected was real or an artifact. I mean, do you think he actually measured the corona and its temperature, or was it just that his instrument was going crazy?

David Baron: No, no, I think it's quite clear he did because he, you know, he he was he had set up his equipment in this hen house that he took over as his, as his makeshift observatory. He said he attached his decimeter to a telescope and he pointed it at the solar corona. And it wasn't until he actually pointed it there at totality that suddenly the heat measurement just went way up off the scale. So I have no doubt that he was measuring heat from the corona. But, um, but again, it was it was not that meaningful a result. In the end, he could just say, well, there's more than X amount, okay. But he couldn't say how much. So you could.

Wade Roush: Say in a in a indirect way, Edison was the inventor of infrared astronomy, maybe in the same way that Karl Jansky was the inventor of radio telescopes. You know, these people who kind of accidentally do something decades before it becomes practical?

David Baron: Well, I mean, and he he actually conceived the idea at the time he was working with the Taximeter. He said, you know, you could point it up into space at night and you might be able to detect stars you can't even see. You might detect their heat even though you don't see their light. And in that way, yeah, he really did foresee infrared astronomy, but he was not the person who eventually led us down that path. But he did come up with the idea very early.

Wade Roush: Okay, what about James Craig Watson and Vulcan?

David Baron: Well, if you were to open a newspaper the day after the eclipse of 1878, the big headline was Vulcan found that James Craig Watson had found the elusive hypothetical planet during totality. And for a little while afterwards, he was being hailed as this great American hero. Um, Alexander Graham Bell sent him a congratulatory note. I mean, and for such a pompous ass, this this was exactly what he wanted. He loved, you know, being celebrated in this way.  

Wade Roush: Yeah, he was a big ego. He mistreated his wife. He was kind of a jerk, like you said. And that comes through very clearly in the book.

David Baron: Yeah. So he, uh, he already thought of himself as America's greatest astronomer. And this was just for him. Proof that he was. But it didn't take too long before his supposed discovery kind of fell apart. I mean, if Vulcan really was where he said it was, how come no one else, you know, you had dozens of these astronomers looking for Vulcan along the path of totality from Wyoming to Texas. No one else saw it. In fact, there was someone else who thought he saw Vulcan, uh, who was in Denver. But when they compared notes, they were not the same object. In fact, both. It's complicated. James Craig Watson actually thought he found two potential Vulcans, um, as did this other astronomer in Denver, but it all fell apart. James Craig Watson, though, was adamant that he had been correct, and he came up with a crazy scheme for proving, even without a total eclipse, that Vulcan was there. He was going to discover Vulcan in the daytime, um, using a new fangled telescope that was just nutty. And he ended up essentially working himself to death a couple of years later. Um, so, of course, as you said, there is no Vulcan. Mercury is the closest planet to the sun.

Wade Roush: Let’s come back to that. And what about Mariah Mitchell and her party? What was your interpretation of kind of the, the larger cultural meaning of, of her expedition?

David Baron: Well, her expedition to Denver definitely opened eyes. I mean, you you know, I was reading old newspaper reports, of course, putting this book together. And you have I mean, the reporters were fascinated by this group of women who came out to Denver for the eclipse. And there were a number of the reports just pointing out how, um, impressive they were. And, you know, Mariah Mitchell gave a public talk in Denver a couple of days after the eclipse. Um, so, I mean, and this was, of course, reported all across the country. I'm not going to claim that this one event suddenly opened up the doors of science to women. Of course it didn't, but it was an important step along the way. And Mariah Mitchell, her life's story in general, was hugely important. She helped train the next generation of women scientists. She was out there advocating for women in science for a very long time, her life as an example, even into the 20th century, perhaps even today, helped inspire young women to go into the sciences. So there's no question that Mariah Mitchell overall was very, very important in in creating a path for female scientists. And her eclipse expedition to Denver in 1878 was one of the more notable things she did in terms of opening the public's eyes. 

Wade Roush: Okay. So. You chose the late 19th century and the 1878 eclipse, particularly because it had this. Like you said before, it was an era when people were still learning a lot about the sun and eclipses could could be very revealing. And that continued for a while. I can think of at least one more eclipse. That turned out to be the clincher in this ongoing story about Vulcan. And so I do want to come back to that now. So the reason people were looking for Vulcan, the way I understand it, is that Mercury precesses in its orbit. That is, it's its orbit is kind of an oval around the sun. And the oval itself kind of like spins around the sun as Mercury, uh, completes its revolutions. It's, um, and it precesses faster than it ought to by Newtonian gravity. Right. And that was a mystery. And so there were plenty of Vulcan hunters. Watson wasn't the only one, but it took somebody else in the 20th century to kind of finally figure out what was going on. And I'd love if you, because you tell that story in a paragraph or two toward the end of the book. But I think it's so cool that we really should talk about it here.

David Baron: No, no, absolutely. So, so as I said, and as you just said very beautifully, the reason Vulcan was thought to exist was because Mercury's orbit didn't behave the way Newton's laws said it should behave. So Newtonian mechanics. Suggested that, well, if Mercury is going to behave this way, there's got to be some mass between it in the sun. And the person who finally solved the mystery of Mercury's orbit was Albert Einstein. Because what he showed is when you have a planet that close to the sun, it doesn't really behave by Newtonian physics anymore. It's Einsteinian. It's, uh. The general theory of relativity, which says that when you get near a really massive object, that massive objects like the sun distort space and time and change the way things move. And one of the clinchers for Einstein's general theory of relativity, which was which was itself highly controversial when it first came out, was that he was able to solve for the correct orbit of Mercury. His his own laws showed that Mercury behaved exactly the way it should. Under under general relativity. But more than that, as you alluded to, there was a total eclipse in 1919 that was used to help prove that Einstein was right. And in that case, it was during this eclipse, both in Brazil and off the coast of Africa, there were scientists stationed who were studying stars that were right near the limb of the sun, uh, during totality, to see if they could detect the bending of light by the sun. And the bending of light was in keeping with Einstein's theory. And so that's considered to be one of the key, uh, experimental proofs that Einstein was. Right. So, so this whole thing about Vulcan and, uh, and eclipses and. Let me back up a minute so that that eclipse in 1919 was keenly important for science again, in this case to prove that Einstein was right. And at that moment, suddenly Vulcan went from being a hypothetical planet to now a planet that couldn't exist. Because if Einstein's right, there isn't a mass between Mercury and the sun. So at that moment, Vulcan just vanished.

Wade Roush: Had there been any eclipses since then that have stood out for their scientific importance, or have eclipses sort of become an interesting entertainment at this point?

David Baron: Uh, total eclipses are still being used by astronomers to help answer questions about the sun in particular. Honestly, it's now fine tuning our understanding. The back in the 19th century, they were huge, fundamental unanswered questions that astronomers were trying to get to the bottom of. Now we you know, we know that the solar corona is the sun's outer atmosphere. It's it's incredibly hot, um, atmosphere of charged particles that get blasted off the sun and come streaming out toward us as what's called the solar wind. But there are still questions about how does the sun transmit its energy into the corona and then into the solar wind. And although we now have spacecraft that can watch this, the sun and the solar corona, 24 hours a day, the region right, right on the limb of the sun is very hard to look at. Uh, we can't look at it from space because there's a danger that it'll just, uh, if if the surface of the sun ends up shining onto these detectors in space, that's just going to destroy them. So the detectors in space block out much more than just the sun to look at the corona. But the the moon is so perfectly sized that during a total solar eclipse, you can see the very inner part of the corona. And that's still something that solar astronomers use total eclipses for is to look at that region. So there are videos that are being made of the solar corona during a total eclipse that can then be studied later on. There are other studies, too, about how a total eclipse affects radio communications or the weather and other things. It's all interesting. There's going to be citizen science going on during this eclipse, but honestly, most scientists, even who are going to see the total eclipse on April 8th of this year, are going there just for fun. It's, uh. So today a total eclipse is much more a phenomenon just to marvel at. Uh, there is still science to be done, but it's not the same as it was a century and a half ago.

Wade Roush: David, correct me if I'm wrong. Something just popped into my head, which I. I know that the moon used to be billions of years ago, much, much, much closer to Earth. And so it would have covered a much bigger part of the sky. In fact, you know, if you went back in a time machine a couple of billion years and you stood on the surface of the Earth, you'd probably be pretty alarmed at how close the moon was. So gradually the moon's getting farther away in its orbit. It's just kind of spiraling outward very slowly. Are we fortunate, in a way, to be living in a moment in time when the the moon is exactly far enough away to, to have the same angular width as the sun. So when it, during eclipse, basically it covers the sun pretty much exactly to the point where it kind of depends on where the moon is in its orbit. If it's a little bit closer, it would completely obscure the sun. If it's a little bit farther away, you have an annular annular eclipse. So you're seeing a ring of fire like we did in October of 2023 here in New Mexico. That was amazing, by the way. And but but you know, for a classic solar eclipse like the one coming up in April, uh, you know, it's basically covering the sun, uh, almost precisely, which is like, it's just good luck. And am I right about that or am I making that up?

David Baron: No, no, you're exactly right. Okay. Um, yeah. Eventually there will be no total solar eclipses on Earth anymore because the moon is slowly drifting away. Honestly, I'm forgetting how long that's going to take. It's many millions of years. I think it's hundreds of millions, maybe even a billion or more. I think it's in the hundreds of millions. So it's a very slow process. But eventually the moon will be too far away for it ever to fully cover the sun. So it's we are the only place in our solar system where you can see a total solar eclipse like you see on Earth, where where the moon covers the sun and hardly anything more. And also, yeah, we're lucky to be on this earth at this time because, um, whoever's still here, millions and millions of years from now won't be able to have that experience, right?

Wade Roush: Have you seen Dune Part One or Part Two?

David Baron: I saw Part One.

Wade Roush: Okay. Part Two is, um, there's a lot of, um, sort of fake astronomy in those movies. And having to do with the moons of Arrakis and, uh, how close they are. And there are a couple of scenes in in Part Two where both moons are eclipsing Arrakis sun at the same time. And kind of, it's really cool to see that. The visual effects are pretty stunning, but I think people like to play around with eclipses as a way of sort of like underscoring how spooky and weird and foreign and strange this other planet is. Right?

David Baron: So yeah. Well, yeah. Well, and and on Facebook, I can't tell you how often I've seen. Doctored fake photos of total eclipses. Um, it often there you can just tell that they're photoshopped that that, uh, this the color is wrong, the color of the sky is wrong, the and so forth. But yeah, people have all sorts of visions about what a total solar eclipse is, and it is amazing. And there are, of course, legitimate photos online as well. But as you know, well, no picture can do it justice. 

Wade Roush: Well, that leads directly into my next question. So you do this several times in the book. You relay, you sort of try to reconstruct what happened in July of 1878, what it was like for people in Wyoming or Colorado or Texas. But then you also, in a few places, you relay your own personal eclipse experiences, and you do a really nice job in prose. I'm going to challenge you to do it for me now, you know, in words. So can you. Can you do your best job at kind of trying to explain what is so magical about an eclipse? What is the experience like, what's going on physically around you? And then for you personally, sort of what kinds of what kinds of emotions or reactions does it bring up?

David Baron: Well, I think the very word eclipse can be misleading because an eclipse is the hiding of something. But what makes a total solar eclipse so astonishing is what it reveals. Any given day on earth. We have the blue sky overhead, the beautiful blue sky. But the blue sky is a curtain that hides what's overhead, right? I mean, the stars are up there all the time. The planets are up there. The sun is up there. Not just as this blazing bright light that we can't look at it so bright, but as a really interesting, intricate object during a total solar eclipse. For that brief period, when the moon completely blocks the face of the sun, the blue sky gets stripped away. It's like, you know, a curtain has been withdrawn and suddenly you can see the center of the solar system. And it is otherworldly. I mean, my first total eclipse, that moment that totality began and I took off my eclipse glasses. I thought I was on another planet. This was I mean, it was like watching Dune or Star Wars or something. This this is not. The Earth's sky. What am I looking at? Everything about it. The colors were crazy. So during a total solar eclipse, it's. It's not dark like midnight. It's not a sky full of stars. It's more like twilight.

David Baron: And so overhead, it'll be like a deep purple. Gray, uh, like twilight. But on the horizon, it's like sunset orange all around you. This 360 degree sunset. So the colors are weird. Then you've got, uh, of course, the whatever planets may be visible. And my first total eclipse in Aruba, there were three planets clearly visible, which is very bright, star like objects. And you're looking along the plane of the solar system. So the planets are effectively lined up. And then in the middle of the planets was this thing I just, I it's like nothing I'd ever seen before. And that was this, the sun and the moon together. And what you're looking at is the solar corona, which is just the most dazzling sight in the heavens. It's the light is ethereal. It's it just doesn't seem real. And and if you've seen photographs of the solar corona, most of them make it look like a fairly uniform kind of halo around the the dark moon. But it's so much more than that. It's it's got texture. I mean, it looks like it's made out of little threads, shiny threads of silk or tinsel, and it's different every time. I mean, having seen eight total eclipses, I can tell you the solar corona is constantly changing. And so sometimes it looks like a sunflower, sometimes it looks like a calla lily with a kind of a big petal coming off on one side.

David Baron: Um, so it's differently shaped also during a total eclipse, depending on what's going on on the sun, you may see what are called solar prominences that look like giant red flames coming off and the color of the prominences. It's this kind of. Ruby or scarlet. It's also just beautiful to see. Um, and and it's all happening so fast and changing so fast. It sets in in a moment, the shadows moving 2000 miles an hour over you. Um, there's so much going on. And then there are things happening on Earth you've got. If you're in an area where there are birds, the birds will be going crazy. The insects may be going crazy. People are going crazy. The temperature drops. Um, so it can be quite noticeable that there's a sudden cool wind that starts blowing. It just feels wrong. All of it. What you're seeing, what you're feeling, what you're hearing. It's it's an immersive experience. And so these are among the many reasons why it's not just something to see. It's not something you want to just watch on your phone or your computer or television. You really have to immerse yourself in it to experience it.

Wade Roush: Yeah, I guess it's that strange beauty that is so rare. You know, we might be lucky to experience it once in our lives. Unless we are eclipse chasers like you. I guess that's what accounts for the fascination with eclipses, right?

David Baron: But there's also there's also an element of. Fear. Even today, when you know what's happening, it's nothing more than the moon passing briefly in front of the sun. The sun's going to come back out. It's just so unsettling. I mean, there's it is truly awesome in terms of the sense of being feeling yourself in awe of a higher power. And whether you believe the higher power is supernatural or natural, you just come to understand in the most basic, guttural way, how powerless we are in the, uh, in the face of nature itself. And when that shadow comes over you, there's nothing you can do to stop it. When the sun goes away, you realize how much we depend on that sun. And when the sun comes back, that moment when you see the first ray of sun peeking out from the side behind the moon. It's like the world is reborn and everyone starts cheering and it's wonderful. It's this whole drama that happens in just a few minutes. Uh, and and for me, I mean, it it feels like you're not on. You've stepped, you've stepped onto another planet or another universe and you've left. You've almost left time as well. Everything you hold on to that gives you a sense of reality is upset during that period. Uh, it's wonderful and scary and moving and addictive.

Wade Roush: Yeah, it feels to me like as modern humans, we've built up so many very thick, almost impenetrable walls between us and nature. But an eclipse reminds us that we do live on the surface of this planet, whose rotation we do not control, surrounded by celestial bodies, whose orbits we do not control. And we can predict them now, but we have zero power. And so it's a very, like you said, a visceral reminder of how much we are still. And placed or stuck or, you know, we still exist in this, in this natural world surrounded by these awesome powers. And we've just managed to kind of, like, separate ourselves from that level of, of almost mythological understanding of the cosmos. And maybe an eclipse is in a small way or a big way, a reminder of our connection to that. And I'm just kind of waxing philosophical here, I guess.

David Baron: I agree with you totally. Yeah. No, I mean, that's exactly right. And particularly today, where we have surrounded ourselves with technology that makes us feel like we are the center of everything, which I think is so detrimental to one's mental health. I really believe that humility is important for for getting by in life. I mean to understand that it's not all about me or you. I find that very therapeutic too. That's one of the things I like about a total eclipse. It's it reminds me just how totally insignificant I am. Um, and and yet. I'm part of everything. So it's both. It's both humbling and empowering. And I think from I can just speak for myself, I, I do find it just it helps keep my head on straight. 

Wade Roush: And then there seems to be a if you zoom out just a little bit, a communal aspect to that as well. So in some way, in some strange way that it's also hard to explain. You know, you have millions of people these days flocking to the path of an eclipse. So everyone in the path is is experiencing this at the same time. And certainly for me in 2017, I felt a brief sort of unity in some way, like that experience was coming at a very weird, difficult, traumatic time. You know, this was pre-COVID, but it was already, you know, it was eight months into Trump's first term—only term, God help us—and it was just a few a week or two after the events in Charlottesville, Virginia. It was a really tough time in, uh, sort of the American psyche. And here we are. I happen to be in southern Illinois, near Carbondale, not in Carbondale, but just south of it, in a little town called Makanda. And, uh, everyone there seemed to be joined wherever they were from, whatever their politics were. It didn't matter that day because we were experiencing this thing. So. And you touch on this in the book. It does seem like eclipses have an ability to kind of remind us that we are all human in a way, and whatever our petty political differences or economic differences for this brief time, we're united by this experience of, of, you know, whatever is close to the divine. So, uh, do you think that'll happen again this year?

David Baron: I hope so, and I think so. I really do. I mean, I, of course, the total eclipse of August 21st, 2017 didn't suddenly change the direction of America. It didn't suddenly bring us all together. And so we could work together in Congress to get things done or agree on things. Unfortunately, it didn't. But for a day we did come together. And I do believe for a day we will come together again. And it's a helpful reminder the total eclipse in 2017, you had folks going from New York City down to Tennessee and Denver up to Wyoming. You had Blue America visiting Red America for a day, and everyone getting along and just appreciating something that was completely apolitical. And just as you said, understanding we're all on this tiny rock together, floating through space. Um, yeah. I have no doubt that there will be that same effect again. I wish, though, that it would have a more lasting effect, and that we would come out the other side and realize, well, maybe we should put aside some of our, as you said, petty differences in the scheme of things.

Wade Roush: Well, maybe one way that eclipses will have a more lasting impact is that your book is being turned into a musical, which people can go and see and hear and listen to. I wanted to ask you before I let you go, what's it been like to to see your, your, your work of narrative history transformed into a Broadway style stage musical? That's kind of an amazing thing.

David Baron: Oh, it just it's wonderful and surreal. Yeah. So I as you said, my book first came out in 2017 and I think it was 2019, 2020 that these theater producers from New York got in touch and said they they thought this would make a great musical. And I that was the farthest thing from my mind. And I thought, okay, if you want to give it a go, sure. Let's see what happens. But I really didn't think anything would come of it. Uh, and then, uh, before I knew it, they had brought on board a really talented composer lyricist named Michael John LaChiusa, who had several Tony nominations. He's had things on Broadway, a lot of things off Broadway. Um, and the show was written, and I went to see the first workshop production in New York a little over a year ago, and I went in. Kind of excited, but a little worried. Like what? I like this and it's just wonderful. Um, to see, first of all, to see my characters. I mean, they were real people, but I think of them as my characters. Here's Thomas Edison and Mariah Mitchell and James Craig Watson up on stage singing and and the moment of totality when they and the cast of 25 are singing together, looking up into the sky. And if I may say, singing some of my own words back to me. It was very flattering and moving and, and also, I just came to realize that this was the perfect thing to write a musical about because at least certainly the moment of totality, because this group of voices, this chorus singing together, looking up into the sky, this harmony is exactly the feeling you and I were describing.

David Baron: It's that feeling of all being together in the presence of some greater power, looking up at this total eclipse that just comes across so beautiful in Michael John LaChiusa's music. So this workshop production was in New York in the fall of 2022. I'm getting a quick lesson in just how hard it is to to put a piece of theater together. It's a lot of work, as you might imagine. Uh, it is, you know, but it's moving down on its way, hopefully to eventually getting to Broadway. Fingers crossed. But it will see its world premiere as a concert performance in Waco, Texas on Sunday, April 7th, 2024, the day before the total eclipse. So the theater producers have are working with Baylor University in Waco, uh, to stage two concerts. There are half dozen Broadway performers coming down to sing the the lead roles the chorus will consist of, I'm now told, up to 50 Baylor performing arts students. Um, and it just should be an amazing event. I mean, obviously for me personally, but I think it'll be a fun, fun way to to get a taste of what everyone will experience the following day at the total eclipse itself.

Wade Roush: Yeah. I mean, what an amazing opportunity, if you're in the cast, to perform in this musical about an eclipse, and then go outdoors the next day and see an eclipse.

David Baron: Oh, yeah. No, I'm really excited about that too, because I don't think anyone in the cast has seen a total eclipse. Certainly Michael John LaChiusa hasn't, so he's very excited to see one. And I'm hoping this will be a bonding experience for the whole team. Putting together the show, the performers, the musical director, the director, the composer, the producers, I mean, they're all going to be there together and this hopefully will be something that, again, you never know if a show is actually going to make it back to New York under Broadway. But hopefully this show has a good, long life. And, uh, you know, to have the these folks remember what it was actually like when they're on stage, I think will be fantastic. And one added thing, I mean, obviously already even if even if this show goes no, no further, it's already just been a wonderful dream come true or wasn't even a dream. Who thought this would happen? But it's wonderful to see it happen. But here is my next dream. Should American Eclipse the musical continue on and I expect it will. I'm hoping that there will be a production at the Sydney Opera House in 2028, because a total solar eclipse is going to cross Sydney with the opera House right along the centre line in 2028. So that's just the perfect venue for a production of American Eclipse The Musical. So that's my hope that in 2028, I'll be able to go to Australia for the eclipse and for the musical as well.

Wade Roush: I hope that happens, and break a leg now and in Australia. That's fantastic. Well, David, this has been such a pleasure. Before we go, I have to explain something. I have to say something, which is that you talked earlier about how Jay Pasachoff, the astronomer at Williams, was the guy who introduced you to eclipses and urged you to see one. Before you die, you have to see an eclipse. I understand Jay himself passed away the weekend you were in New York for the for the preview for the workshop.

David Baron: Correct.

Wade Roush: So he's no longer with us, but he was your gateway to becoming an umbra file. And I want to tell you that you were mine. So, um. Yeah. No, I went to, uh, you did a TedX talk that you also shared on stage as a story Collider talk back in, I don't know, 2015 or 16.

David Baron: it was 2017. It was the the winter of 2017.

Wade Roush: Yeah. Okay. Well, it was enough time in advance. You basically I saw that talk live and that was what convinced me I needed to make a plan to go to the totality, to the path of totality in August and see that eclipse. So in the same way you feel grateful to Jay, I feel grateful to you. So, so thank you so much for turning me on. And I don't know if I'll become an eclipse chaser like you, but this will be my third one, so who knows?

David Baron: Well, that's very flattering. And and of course, you are now doing the same for your listeners. I'm sure there are some of your listeners of yours who, because of your episode in 2017, or maybe this one will go see a total solar eclipse. So the best way to pay me back is to pay it forward, which is exactly what I have been trying to do for Jay Pasachoff who who, as you say, died unexpectedly a little over a year ago. And, um, it's a real shame he's going to miss this 1 in 2024. He was more responsible than anyone for the 2017 eclipse being the big deal. It was because of his own evangelizing and the many people he turned on to eclipses, myself included. And and it's now, because of that eclipse and all the people who came out of that eclipse, who will be promoting the 1 in 2024. So his his legacy lives on. But I do miss him as a human being.

Wade Roush: Okay. Well, we'll dedicate this to Jay then. So, uh, David, that's great. Thank you again. Uh, what a pleasure. And, uh, have a great time in Waco. And I'll send you a telegram from Mazatlán.

David Baron: Yeah, you'll see the eclipse before I do. So, uh, hopefully it'll be clear skies from Mazatlán to the to the, uh, Canadian maritime provinces.

Wade Roush: Yep. Crossing our fingers.

Wade Roush: That’s it for this week’s episode.

Soonish is written and produced by me, Wade Roush. Our intro music is by Graham Gordon Ramsay. The outro music and all the other music in this episode is from Titlecard Music and Sound in Boston. 

At our website, soonishpodcast.org, there’s transcript of this episode and links to David Baron’s book American Eclipse and other eclipse resources, including my own episode about the 2017 ecllpse.

Soonish is a proud founding member of Hub & Spoke, a nonprofit collective of indie producers making some of the smartest audio stories out there.

And this week I want to tell you about an episode of Vanessa Lowe’s remarkable Hub & Spoke podcast, Nocturne. Sort of in keeping with today’s eclipse theme, Nocturne is a show about what happens after darkness falls. And one of the things that happens is …. The bats come out.

Vanessa’s most recent episode is about an author and conservationist named Merlin Tuttle who’s been working for the last 65 years to understand bats … and to protect them from our misunderstanding.

[Nocturne clip]

The episode is a real sonic and storytelling marvel. And you can hear the whole thing at nocturnepodcast.org or wherever you get your podcasts.

That’s it for now. Thanks for listening, and I’ll be back with more episodes… Soonish.