Your Horoscope + Album Release Show

We have divined your near future, as well as what you're doing on January 20th

Happy Wednesday!

Or Mercurii, as the Romans called hump day, after sweet, slippery little Mercury, the messenger god. Fitting that today we bring you this profoundly important message: your near future, described in detail that for some will be harrowing, divined by careful analysis of the firmament and its coruscating tracks. These prophecies apply to the next two weeks or so — roughly till the end of October — so act quickly, if action is what’s called for.

Before you dive in, a brief announcement for those of you who have at least three months to live: we’re going to bring our new album Lobes into the world with a live music extravaganza in Brooklyn, NY, on January 20th. (Check out the nifty notice at the bottom of this post.) Tickets for the event are on sale this morning.

Now, please: read on. There’s no time to lose…

Aries (21 March - 19 April): During the latter half of October, be careful not to let friends take advantage of you. Give them an inch, they’ll choose one from your favorite ruler. Even holding the door for an acquaintance may lead her to invite you inside, ask if you’d like to stay for dinner, then point to some vegetables and dry pasta on the counter and suggest that you get started, because it’s nearly seven and she’s already very hungry. Cultivate an air of distracted lightheadedness; if someone starts to ask a favor, wander away muttering “I should lie down.” Beginning October 30th, you can safely appear to regain focus.

Taurus (20 April - 20 May): Uranus’s transit through Taurus lasts another month, but worry less about that and more about your cousin. He has — there’s no other way to put this — a plot against you. Which is so rare these days, to actually plot against someone. Yes, people hatch plots that they know will cause harm, but the impetus is usually money, status, perhaps love. To put into motion a plot that’s just, like, against somebody… you don’t see it very often! Even in the world of prognostication! Anyway, that’s just what your rotten cousin has done — put into motion a plot against you. Heads up!

Gemini (21 May-21 June): In chess, a player may find herself with no choice except a move that is disadvantageous, even decisively so. She is said to be in “zugzwang” (German: “compulsion to move”), a term sometimes blurted aloud by an unseemly opponent. This month, a particularly literate enemy will yell “Zugzwang!” at you on live television.

Cancer (22 June - 22 July): It’s going to be a great couple of weeks for Cancers. If you have the opportunity to gamble, take it — you’ll collect. If you’ve been thinking about asking someone out on a date, do it — she’ll fall all over you. Is there a contest you can enter? Go for it — you’ll prevail. Interested in cheating on your taxes, but scared to get caught? File before November 1st, and you won’t. If there’s a conversation you’ve been putting off, a question to which you’ve dreaded the answer, a criticism you’ve hesitated to make — now is the time. If you want a higher salary with less responsibility and reimbursed lunches, just ask. Games of chance, bouts of strength, trials of merit — none will you concede if undertaken during the next 12 days.

Leo (23 July - 22 Aug.): In need of a babysitter for your child, your friend’s child, or your parents’ child, you/your friend/your parents will hire an elderly fellow who will recount stories from his time in the war. Refusing to specify which war (“security clearance,” he will mutter), the sitter will by turns shock and lull his charge with tales of  blood, bravery, betrayal, and the byzantine particulars of troop movement. Unless the child is later deprogrammed, she will in middle age raise a nationalist army and depose her country’s elected leader. As a result, the state will founder and pitch into an abaddon of dysfunction and hysterical anarchy.

Virgo (23 Aug. - 22 Sept.): You will find a perfectly good snack, sealed in tamper-proof packaging, on the seat of a train or bus. If you’re hungry, go ahead and eat it; however, know that the nutritional data printed on the wrapping is inaccurate, overstating protein by around 30%, and understating total calories by an even greater factor. There are also mouse bones ground into the recipe, though the mouse gave his skeleton willingly, feeling that he had little else to contribute to a world that long ago lost interest in mouse shows and other labors to which he was suited.

Libra (23 Sept. - 23 Oct.): Mercury has returned to your house. As such communication will prove key, and like a bird you should use color to transmit your romantic desires. Juxtaposing Newton’s color circle with an octogrammic† division of our planet’s elliptic shows that red is the correct choice, especially on October 22nd, when Venus conjuncts the sun, adding spectacular vibrancy to wavelengths between 650 and 700 nanometers. Begin a tally today, and try to wear at least 44 square yards of red fabric by October 29th (approx. 8 1/2 full single layer outfits, but you may include additional layers in your sum). Ideally, propose marriage.

† trioctile sesquiquadrate minus one null quadrant

Scorpio (24 Oct. - 21 Nov.): Plants that are remontant (e.g., certain roses) bloom more than once a season, but that is not you, and last month was pretty big, so it’s time to lie low — like, really low. Don’t leave your home except as necessary (fire, gunpoint, etc.); respond to texts with only “y,” “n,” or “😆”; delete emails on receipt; destroy all post (use a method that doesn’t create smoke); order no food delivery; respond “deceased” to government inquiry; and do whatever possible to keep all your birds from making a big, terrible racket.

Sagittarius (22 Nov. - 21 Dec.): Drink orange things unless dining with your cousin Matt, or a friend’s cousin, if either is named Matt (i.e., either your friend or your friend’s cousin is named Matt). At other times (i.e., when not dining) look for the flaw in a business associate’s plan and you will find it.

Capricorn (22 Dec. - 19 Jan.): You would have to try pretty hard to fuck things up this month, but you’re willing to put in the effort. Although everything was set up just the way you wanted it, watch it all come crashing down over these next couple weeks. No one knows better than you how hard you’ve worked, and yet, for some odd reason, you’ll be the agent of your own undoing, approaching the task with an unhinged glee that will understandably scare away a lot of your closest friends. Those who don’t forsake you will begin to wall themselves off emotionally, and for good reason. Your family will stick by you, but you’ll punish their loyalty, even as you wince at your own actions. You will skip feeding your pet enough that a former acquaintance and samaritan will, for its own good, basically steal it.

Aquarius (20 Jan. - 18 Feb.): In Aristotle’s conception, objects have natural and violent states. “Natural” mostly means “at rest”: a giant oak bookshelf lurking ominously against a wall, its shelves freighted with hundreds of pounds of dusty leather-bound texts, is in a natural state. That same substantial furniture pulled quietly but with great force off its stable axis, so that it tips and comes crashing down onto whoever’s sitting oblivious at the desk in front of it — that bookshelf, as you will soon discover, is in a violent state.

Pisces (19 Feb. - 20 Mar.): Today’s the day! Or one of the next few days will be. Your ship has finally come in. That play you’ve been trying to get off the ground? The Tom Stoppard revival? Mark Rylance is in. He’s IN! He’ll do it. Yes, and he’s going to be great. (Sure, that’s a little farther out than our predictions usually go, but this one’s written in the stars so boldly that you can’t miss it.) Lindsay Lohan, too — Lindsay is IN, 100%. Okay— we know, we know, you had your heart set on Saoirse Ronan for the daughter. It’s just… well, Saoirse’s passing. Sorry. And actually… there’s a bit more bad news. Chalamet is also passing. 😔 And… okay, there’s no easy way to say this… Look, one of your major funders has a godson. And when he finds out that Chalamet is passing, he’s going to insist that his godson get the role. And, look, we’d love to say that the planets just aren’t giving us a clear reading on who this godson is, but that would make us cowards. It’s… god dammit… it’s Zach Braff. 😭

No, we know! He’s too old for the part! His career is cooked! He’s got no cred and even less talent! We know all this — we know. And we’d do anything to change it. We’d throw all our crystal balls and tarot decks onto the pyre, if it would do a lick of good! But it won’t. It won’t, you see, because that’s just not what we astromancers do. We don’t make the future, we just read it. We read it carefully, and — unfortunately, in this case — with remarkable accuracy. We’re very sorry. It would’ve been a great play. (Mark’s parts will still be nice.)