Sep 30: Truman Capote & Marion Cotillard

[Jim Eshelman]

Capote, Truman. Sep 30, 1924, 3:00 PM, New Orleans, LA (B).
Cotillard, Marion. Sep 30, 1975, 4:50 AM CET, Paris, France (AA).


Capote seems to have thrived in the limelight after moving to NYC. Relocate his chart there to find (among other, lesser factors) Sun on Zenith. - He was born one day before Pres. Carter, same Moon-sign.

[Jim Eshelman]

Capote's mundoscope is necessary to understand the chart. It shows two basic characteristics for which he's known, things that don't show well without it: A Mercury-Uranus-Jupiter T-square showing the great success as a ground-breaking writer, and Moon square Pluto for his eccentricity. His Virgo-Libra luminaries describe his character quite well. His Sun (8H) and Moon (9H) house placements show basic themes of writing-publishing and the subject matter of his greatest works.

[Jim Eshelman]

Capote's mundoscope is necessary to understand the chart. It shows two basic characteristics for which he's known, things that don't show well without it: A Mercury-Uranus-Jupiter T-square showing the great success as a ground-breaking writer, and Moon square Pluto for his eccentricity. His Virgo-Libra luminaries describe his character quite well. His Sun (8H) and Moon (9H) house placements show basic themes of writing-publishing and the subject matter of his greatest works.

While I've been rewriting the synastry interpretations, one of the examples that has been pure gold, always giving me something fascinating to incorporate, is the lifelong relationship between Truman Capote and Harper Lee viewtopic.php?f=54&t=5540

This, in turn, has had me looking more at Capote's nativity, which is really one of the most fascinating study charts you'll find anywhere. This is enhanced much if you spent lots of time in the '60s watching his frequent TV appearance, which brings everything in the chart to life: If you didn't, then there are probably some YouTubes around to fill the gap.

The chart is a superb example of a case where Sun-sign and Moon-sign, though "right" enough, don't really capture the individual - other strong factors rise up to do that. The chart, therefore, also reminds me how much we've learned in the last decade or so (or already knew and have gotten to actually practice and carry out) that just wasn't available to earlier astrologers. (Certainly not routinely.) This, in turn, alerts me to what a dear gift Mikestar's TMSA program is: Even though we could calculate this sort of thing from Solar Fire (and, before that, with calculators and the like), we've never before had it so easy to see the depths of a chart within seconds - cutting right to things that our predecessors knew about but couldn't justify the extra work ever to calculate.

Capote was a Virgo-Libra. It fits some details well enough, but doesn't really capture his flamboyance or passion. Yes, he was a perfect mix of the Virgo Sun writer (in some ways he was another Oscar Wilde, and we can remember the likes of F. Scott Fitzgerald, T.S. Eliot, or Faulkner) with the media celebrity of Libra Moon. Yes, he was a frail, effeminate caricature, a matured version of the frail boy subject to bullying that young Harper Lee first met.

But Capote was so much more! He was dramatic and passionate, flourishing airs and allure and fantasies that far exceed what Libra Moon would bring. Personally and professionally he lived in an impenetrable web of fiction and image. And he was peculiar - it was the greater part of our fascination - he was utterly peculiar and unlike anyone else.

In fact, as I was first reading Cyril Fagan's writings on Pluto in the early '70s (things Fagan had written in the last half of the '60s), Capote routinely came to mind as the sort of frail yet foppish peculiar and irregular that he often described. When I first saw Capote's chart I was disappointed because a 6° Sun-Pluto square was all I could get to justify the Pluto identification, and I thought this simply wasn't enough.

But run Capote's nativity in TMSA. The first thing you notice after the Virgo-Libra luminaries will be the strong angularity of Venus, Mars, and Neptune. Here is the passion and emotional drama! The planets are arranged as an exact Venus-Neptune conjunction (0°06') on WP-a, widely Mars on EP (square MC). Furthermore, Neptune is 0°-1' from WP-a. The allure, fantasy, and airs, the ability to present the most gruesome history as if it were gripping fiction, is instantly evident.

The next thing you likely will notice, once your eyes float down the aspectarian past the 2° Moon-Saturn conjunction, is the 0°02' Moon-Pluto mundane square. There's the Pluto! Yes, the combination of Moon-Saturn-Pluto tells of his relationship with his mother and other relationships with women across his life, shows more alienation than he liked to let on... it's very rich and intertwined symbolism - but that one 0°02' aspect fulfills so much about the chart!

So there you have it... in a few seconds of looking at the TMSA summary, you see that this is a Virgo-Libra with Venus, Mars, and Neptune powerfully angular - Neptune within 0°01' - and a 2° Moon-Saturn conjunction and 0°02' Moon-Pluto square. That gives you his character, his image, and his destiny within a few breaths. It's never been this easy before.

There are, of course, many other things in the chart. I haven't dug deeply into that important Venus-Neptune conjunction, or examined the trade-off of his Venus and Mars strengths, or touched his eccentric Mars in Aquarius, or - for one of the most lauded authors ever - mentioned his partile Mercury-Jupiter square. (It's mundane, so most people would never see it without TMSA or intentionally pursuing the mundoscope. Surely some Tropicalists wrote about it being totally comfortable citing a 6° ecliptical square as a defining feature.)

Here is the TMSA breakdown for your consideration:

Code: Select all

Pl Longitude   Lat   Speed    RA    Decl    Azi     Alt     PVL    Ang G
Mo 10Li30'14" 04N53 +14°22' 213°36' 08S19 210°41' +46°52' 244°27'   5%  
Su 13Vi43'11" 00N00 + 0°59' 186°48' 02S56 242°34' +34°01' 217°15'  29%  
Me 26Le35'01" 01N36 + 1°21' 171°42' 05N20 260°26' +26°22' 206°41'  47%  
Ve 28Cn55'13" 00S34 + 1°05' 144°46' 13N27 281°27' + 7°07' 187°16'  99% F
Ma 02Aq07'17" 04S27 + 0°07' 329°38' 17S06 102°26' -12°59'  13°17'  98% F
Ju 20Sc38'49" 00N20 + 0°09' 253°03' 22S12 158°42' +34°47' 297°36'  45%  
Sa 08Li09'09" 02N14 + 0°07' 210°27' 10S01 213°28' +43°55' 240°12'   0%  
Ur 25Aq07'45" 00S48 - 0°02' 350°02' 05S10  81°13' -24°51'  25°07'  50%  
Ne 28Cn05'01" 00N17 + 0°02' 144°14' 14N31 282°39' + 7°12' 187°22' 100% F
Pl 19Ge50'09" 02S11 + 0°00' 104°27' 20N35 310°01' -20°05' 154°29'   5%  
------------------------------------------------------------------------
    Class 1 Aspects          Class 2 Aspects         Class 3 Aspects     
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mo co Sa 02°21' 94%       Mo oc Me 01°05' 80%       Su sx Ju 06°56' 14% 
Mo oc Ur 00°22' 98%       Ve op Ma 03°12' 89%       Su sq Pl 06°07' 31% 
Mo sq Pl 00°02'100%M      Ma op Ne 04°02' 82%       Me sx Pl 06°45' 18% 
Su oc Ve 00°12' 99%       Sa oc Ur 01°59' 35%       Ma tr Sa 06°02' 33% 
Su oc Ne 00°38' 93%       Sa sq Pl 04°17' 65%M      Ju tr Ne 07°26'  2% 
Me sq Ju 00°56' 98%M      Ur tr Pl 05°18' 48%                           
Me op Ur 01°27' 98%                                                     
Ve co Ne 00°06'100%M                                                    
Ju sq Ur 02°30' 88%M