Get This Look: Meteorological Events

by Rebecca Jane Stokes

1. The Sundog

What’s that, you say? Three suns dancing ominously in the sky? Could it be a mystical portent bespeaking the end of days? Could it be the lingering effects of the peyote you stole from your cousin Doug? Could it be … a sundog? It’s probably a sundog, or, a mock sun. They earn their name for sitting on either side of the real sun, and also for having tails, which seems a little offensive to asocial dogs, or to those born sans waggers. Meaning that what looks to the naked eye to be evidence of an impending apocalypse is in fact just the result of the sun’s rays passing through low-lying ice crystals that act as prisms. So calm down and find solace in the fact that you’re being freaked out by an atmospheric phenomenon that once also hella freaked out Seneca and even Aristotle.

Get This Look:

The Sundog, featuring a fedora hat

Brat and Suzie long sleeve top, $64 / Temperley London / Christian Louboutin gold heels / Michael Kors / River Island gold jewelry / Fedora hat

2. The St. Elmo’s Fire

St. Elmo’s Fire is when Demi Moore’s crippling coke problem leaves her sobbing on the floor, and it’s a nautical phenomenon in which a whole mess of luminous plasma is formed by coronal discharge — which is also how baby ships are made, so you teenage vessels better keep your sharp corners in line with a strong electrical field until you’re at least eighteen. Named after Elmo, the patron saint of sailors, this reaction causes a blue flame to appear, sometimes with spooky accompanying sound effects. Although it happens most commonly on boats, it can also happen between cattle’s horns. To tell whether or not your cattle have been affected by St. Elmo’s fire, please note whether or not they’re running around going, “Getitoffmegetitoffmegetitoffme.”

Get This Look:

The St. Elmo’s Fire, featuring rhinestone earrings

Julien Macdonald pleated dress / Fendi genuine leather boots / Rhinestone earrings / Goth glove / Hair accessory

3. Ball Lighting

Ball lightning is almost exactly what it sounds like — with one major exception. So, if you just read those words and assumed ball lightning was made of low-lying balls of lightning that appear during thunderstorms, you’re totally right. Except for that these things are clearly ghosts. Oh sure, modern science is all “they are just lightning,” but I ask you, Modern Science, is ball lightning still unexplained? Does it still show up in houses all scaring tiny colonial boys? Does it explode suddenly and stink of sulphur? Exactly and also you’re welcome. If you need further proof, there’s the most famous incident of ball lightning — in 1638, in England’s Widdecombe-on-the-Moor — when it knocked down the damn doors of a church, went inside that church and was all “I HAVE THE POWER!” because it is prrrobably Satan? (It’s totally Satan.)

Get This Look:

The Ball Lightning, featuring skinny leg jeans

Actual Pain black t shirt, $52 / Tripp skinny leg jeans / ALDO / Crystal jewelry

Previously: Cannibals.

Rebecca Jane Stokes is a writer living in Brooklyn. She’s an editor at Fempop, and spends a large amount of her time pretending to be a mildly evil cat on the internet.