Jumpsuits & Teleporters

I stumbled upon Amy Leach’s writing while researching the literary journal Ecotone. She has a wonderful factual story in Issue 13 titled “Twinkle Twinkle” about an amateur astronomer. I googled her and found “Sail On, My Little Honey Bee” from 2009 about the orbiting laws of moons. Here’s an excerpt:

For an idea of how long your light takes to reach Earth, sing one line from a song, such as “Sail on, my little honey bee,” and that is how long moonlight takes. The Earth can sing the same line back to you, to represent earthlight. “Sail on, my little honey bee.” As for the Sun, he should sing as lustily as sunlight; have him discharge the song “I Gave Her Cakes and I Gave Her Ale,” which is eight minutes long, which is how long sunlight takes to reach the Earth. Also the Earth may sing to the Sun and the Sun to the Moon and the Moon to the Sun, songs of representative length.