Sixth Ocean

Today is the 86th day of the year 2024. If this weren't a leap year, it would be the 85th day. Why is that significant? Because yesterday would have been the 84th day of the year if not for the extra leap year day and we would have completed seven dozen days so far this year.

  

And so what about that? In the Universal Solar Calendar, the day after each dozenth day is called "First Ocean," "Second Ocean," and so on until for some reason Angus MacLise squeezed in Fourth and Fifth Ocean in the five days after Third Ocean, the day after the 36th day of the year. And then, again for some reason, he resumed naming the days after the dozenth as an Ocean, making today Sixth Ocean.

Logically, today would be Seventh Ocean, as it occurs after the seventh dozen day of the year, but art and not logic seems to guide the naming of days in the Universal Solar Calendar. The extra leap year day just makes it even more confusing. And don't hold your breath for Seventh Ocean - that doesn't occur until the 160th day of the year.

But anyway, I've been including compositions from Éliane Radigue's Occam Ocean series on each Ocean day, and it seems in keeping with last weekend's Big Ears festival to continue that today with this amazing performance by Hélène Breschand of Occam XVI on harp.