- The Whirlpool Galaxy, also known as Messier 51a (M51a) or NGC 5194, is an interacting grand-design spiral galaxy with a Seyfert 2 active galactic nucleus. It lies in the constellation Canes Venatici, and was the first galaxy to be classified as a spiral galaxy. It is 7.22 megaparsecs (23.5 million light-years) away and 23.58 kiloparsecs (76,900 ly) in diameter.
- On David Lynch’s Revenge of the Jedi
SOMEHOW MY FATHER CONVINCED MY mother to squander a date night and watch David Lynch’s Dune when it was in the theaters in 1984. I was seven; my sister, five. When we asked about the movie, my mother or my father or both—they may’ve coordinated their anecdote—told me they knew they were in trouble when the theater manager handed out to everyone in the audience a one-sheet that attempted to explain the intricacies of the film’s logic.