Archive for the 'Science' Category

Earthrise Over the Holiday Hollywood Funk

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s000z
 on December 24, 2008
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Am in a bit of a Holiday Hollywood Funk now.  The script I spent a year working on and that was referred to as, “brilliant” is also, according to many those same folks who called it brilliant, too experimental to produce.  Consequently it is not-commercially viable script. Perhaps I’m spoiled in that, up to this point, all of my scripts (excepting my last full-length stage-play) have been produced, multiple times, in some sort of capacity. Though on a much smaller scale, obviously. Still, the thought of all this work, yielding no results, w/out more or less, restarting from scratch, bums me out since it feels over and done and I’m really not sure whether or not I’m up to the task of starting up from scratch when I could just start an entirely new script, instead.

Forty years ago today, the Apollo 8 astronauts, the first humans to orbit the Moon, were taken by surprise, upon encountering the earthrise for the very first time. And I’ve been watching earthrise on my laptop here, in my mom’s Denver, Colorado living room, 40 years later just by clicking play on the You Tube stream.

Above Hollywood. Beyond Hollywood. Clouds passing. Rising above. Connecting and reconnecting with the root source of wonder. The startle-zing of Apollo 8’s first confrontation with this unmitigated beauty. The starkness of this new unfamiliar, familiarness.

There’s even a bonus clip — Earthset. Taken from a Japanese camera is hard to believe it’s footage of something that was really going on it’s just so small disk geometrical.

Happy Birthday, Earthrise. To those who’ve been following my blog as well as those who’ve only just jumped on, Happy Christmanukkah. Happy Eid, to those of your who observe Eid. Solstice, as well, obviously. And for any Buddhists reading this blog, not sure that there’s a specific holiday for you this time of year but, peace, health and happiness to you as well. Happy Kwanza to those Kwanza observers out there. And for Atheists, Happy Sir Isaac Newton’s Birthday, as his birthday does, indeed, fall on the 24th of December. (Though there is some contention as to whether to go by the Gregorian calendar or not, lets just assume the 24th, for consistency sake). Wishing all of you a Happy Earthrise Birthday and the best of everything in 2009.

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Driving to Denver in December (desert–>canyon–>snow)

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s000z
 on December 11, 2008
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I’m on hiatus from LA until the end of January.  Cleared outta my Burbank place and managed to fit it all into a 8×7x5 mobile pod that the Big Box Storage guy, Eddie, actually brought to my door, let me fill and then drove to a warehouse. The mobile pod had no number on it so there was this flash of wondering whether or not everything from my birth certificate to my pre-teen journals to my electric power drill would end up going the way of the lost Arc of the Covenant.  But the moment quickly passed and I felt lighter than I had previously.  Between now and the end of January –during which time I’ll be helping mom pack up the home in Denver she’s about to leave for five hours a day, and then spending another five hours a day writing two new screenplays and there will be little to nothing to distract me.

But now it’s a road with only my thoughts to distract. Well, that, and arguments with my mom. Mom, Dad, Alex and me used to do cross country road trips every summer when we were kids and Alex and I would actually get paid, in quarters, not to argue. We’d start each day w/ a maximum of seven quarters and then a quarter would get taken away whenever we’d have an argument or fight.  And we got all over the country this way. Car bingo, books on tape and flash cards about the different states. Oh, and I’m actually proud to be able to say I’ve been to every single state, except for Florida.  And whenever I say this to people they ask me why not Florida and I have nothing to respond, really, except that it’s a peninsula and therefore easy to miss.

VirginRiverCasino Back to the desert, though.  Back to the vast, vast, vastness you wont really ever be able to picture completely in your head. The space is just so difficult to conceptualize, even when in front of it, it’s simply easier to hang back and decide to think of the vastness in terms of time, instead.  So I imagine those great big ice sheets pushing through the rocks, carving out the canyons and the valleys and then melting all away. Stayed the night in the Virgin River Casino that night, drove all day and then evening.  We get out of the car at a scenic overlook to try and, once again, take in the extendo horizontal as it appears to be continually extendo-ing.  We end up getting a nice picture snapped of the two of us.  Mom and me looking nice.  MomandMeandDesertTree-pola Got gas for only $1.51 here, can you believe?

Finally, Colorado.  Colder still.  Elevation climbing.  White mountain peaks glow beneath a moon.  Roads are icy and my Cali car, doing it’s best in this fresh new altitude, lacks the wheel and overall oomph power.  Find a hotel for the night.  Snowing the next day, but we set out anyway. Windshield wipers battling the precipitation straight on until finally, we’ve driven out of the cloud.  The elevation is lower, slightly.  Shift into low gear to avoid skids on the way down.

Photo of the vast, vast, vastness at the bottom of the page is of part of my latest obsession. Something my friends, as well as me are convinced is the direct result of Palin haiku withdrawal syndrome. That is, my obsession w/ the “six word story” that Earnest Hemingway popularized.  So here’s my six word story:

Canyon interstates where glaciers once grew.

DrivingtoDenver

It’s the next day.  I continue to think about those canyons, only I think about the back in time versions of those canyons.  I think about those enormous glaciers, advancing and retreating sheets that defined this great horizontal over 12,500 years ago.  And since you’re reading this now, I know you’re thinking about it as well.  Perhaps not as obsessively as I have been.  But you’re nevertheless thinking about it, anyway.  Those long ago glaciers that carved out canyons, then melted away yet left their trace .

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Dr. Atomic

Published
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s000z
 on November 8, 2008
. 1 Comment

Saw Dr. Atomic, written/directed by Peter Sellars and composed by John Adams, screened in a movie theater in Woodland Hills this morning as the matinee was being performed live at the Met.  The ending, so softly humanizing.  Rather than startle you with the impact of the inevitable explosion this entire opera is leading up to, it brings you inside Oppenheimer’s intellectual and emotional dreamscapes.

atomic As the team at Los Alamos gets closer and closer to the actual test, the dreamscapes bleed together.  Something terrifying and inevitable is moving towards them which they have no more control over than they do the desert thunderstorm.

I’m going to try and assemble some of this, to try and give a sense. Of course, I didn’t get the full experience myself because I saw it in a movie theater and not at the Met. Hopefully, at some point, Dr. Atomic and I will find ourselves in the same city at the same time. In the meantime, I’ll post photos and text since I can’t say much beyond what the opera itself says.

Much of the text from the opera was adapted from declassified U.S. government documents and communications among the scientists, government officials, and military personnel who were involved in the project. Other borrowed texts include poetry by Baudelaire, John Donne, and Muriel Rukeyser, the Bhagavad Gita, and a traditional Tewa Indian song. Marvin Cohen, head of the American Physical Society, has criticized some parts of the libretto for not being strictly scientifically correct, in particular the opening lines (below). [1]

The opening chorus is an incomplete excerpt from the 1945 Smyth Report:

“Matter can be neither created nor destroyed but only altered in form.

Energy can be neither created nor destroyed but only altered in form.”

Act I concludes with an aria sung by Oppenheimer with text from Donne’s Holy Sonnet XIV:

Batter my heart, three person’d God; for, you
As yet but knocke, breathe, shine, and seeke to mend;
That I may rise, and stand, o’erthrow mee, and bend
Your force, to breake, blowe, burn and make me new.
I, like an usurpt towne, to’another due,
Labour to’admit you, but Oh, to no end,
Reason yhour viceroy in mee, mee should defend,
But is captiv’d, and proves weake or untrue.
Yet dearely’I love you, and would be loved faine,
But am betroth’d unto your enemie:
Divorce mee, untie, or breake that knot againe;
Take mee to you, imprison mee, for I
Except you’enthrall mee, never shall be free,
Nor ever chast, except you ravish mee.

Kitty Oppenheimer’s aria, “Easter Eve, 1945″, by Muriel Rukeyser is from her poem of the same name.
The Act II, scene iii chorus, borrowed from the Bhagavad Gita (translated into English by Swami Prabhavananda and Christopher Isherwood) reads:

At the sight of this, your Shape stupendous,
Full of mouths and eyes, feet, thighs and bellies,
Terrible with fangs, O master,
All the worlds are fear-struck, even just as I am.
When I see you, Vishnu, omnipresent,
Shouldering the sky, in hues of rainbow,
With your mouths agape and flame-eyes staring-
All my peace is gone; my heart is troubled.

Act II is peppered with a repeated refrain from Pasqualita, the Oppenheimer’s Tewa Indian housemaid. The text comes from a traditional Tewa song:

In the north the cloud-flower blossoms
And now the lightning flashes
And now the thunder clashes
And now the rain comes down! A-a-aha, a-a-aha, my little one.
In the west the cloud-flower blossoms
And now the lightning flashes
And now the thunder clashes
And now the rain comes down! A-a-aha, a-a-aha, my little one.

And now the rain comes down! A-a-aha, a-a-aha, my little one.

One of the only scenes of actual connection (though still full of loneliness and longing) is Baudelaire’s “A Hemisphere in Your Hair” is used verbatim in the scene w/ Kitty Oppenheimer:

A Hemisphere in Your Hair

Long, long let me breathe the fragrance of your hair. Let me plunge my face into it like a thirsty man into the water of a spring, and let me wave it like a scented handkerchief to stir memories in the air.

If only you knew all that I see! all that I feel! all that I hear in your hair! My soul voyages on its perfume as other men’s souls on music.

Your hair holds a whole dream of masts and sails; it holds seas whose monsoons waft me toward lovely climes where space is bluer and more profound, where fruits and leaves and human skin perfume the air.

In the ocean of your hair I see a harbor teeming with melancholic songs, with lusty men of every nation, and ships of every shape, whose elegant and intricate structures stand out against the enormous sky, home of eternal heat.

In the caresses of your hair I know again the languors of long hours lying on a couch in a fair ship’s cabin, cradles by the harbor’s imperceptible swell, between pots of flowers and cooling water jars.

On the burning hearth of your hair I breathe in the fragrance of tobacco tinged with opium and sugar; in the night of your hair I see the sheen of the tropic’s blue infinity’ on the shores of your hair I get drunk with the smell of musk and tar and the oil of coconuts.
Long, long, let me bite your black and heavy tresses. When I gnaw your elastic and rebellious hair I seem to be eating memories.

The best You Tube clip I could find was from the Amsterdam performance so the subtitles are in Dutch. The stage at the Met was more impressive (in my opinion) in the vertical dynamics. Is nevertheless worth checking out this clip, to get a sense..

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Conglomerating all the Disparate Elements

Published
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s000z
 on October 28, 2008
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other ceOkay, so here’s what’s been going on.  Haven’t been blogging much cause —yikes— this WordPress server is such a mess, I just lost everything I wrote in its entirety.  Plus, I’m not able to upload photos for some reason.  Okay, basic premise is that I don’t really have time to write a blog post now anyway cause I’m finishing a screenplay.  And then I go ahead and blog anyway.  I blog about the Coriolis effect and how understanding how it works differently in the Northern/Southern hemispheres of Earth is like watching a production of a Shakespeare play you’ve already seen before during a completely diff phase of your life than the phase you were in when you saw it the previous time.  And although I don’t go into detail on the Coriolis effect, I offer the opportunity to link to an explanation of by clicking on the swirlie spinning earth at the bottom of this post.  I am actually finally managing to figure out HTML! Okay, well, actually it’s not really swirlie or spinning, since I haven’t figured out flash yet.  Amazing what a looped arrow can do for innuendo, tho.  Please forgive the wikipedia link, since they’re not exactly the most reliable entity.  On the other hand, it was the most comprehensive explanation I found and contains plethoras of links to other sites on the topic.  So I figure this way you can choose the links that best suits you, your learning style and attention span. Oh, and I’m not ready to post an explaination of the screenplay, yet.  I can, however, assure you it has nothing to do with the Coriolis effect!c effect

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How, Given the Opportunity, I Would Choose to Spend My Afternoon With Sarah Palin

Published
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s000z
 on October 4, 2008
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Relevant Posts:
Palintology
Sarah Palin Haikus
Haiku Originations
Censorship?

She says Dino’s and humans existed together, that intelligent design could be taught as an alternative to the Theory of Evolution, her father was a public school science teacher and no journalists are confronting her about it, straight on?  That’s, it!  I’m doing my own interview on the topic!  Only, in my interview, she’s not gonna have the chance to exonerate herself with slick and savvy sound bytes.  I’m taking Sarah straight to the evidence room!  Here’s goes:

Sarah Palin and I enter the American Museum of Natural History through the revolving doors on Central Park West and go to the dinosaur section.  I call her attention to the Late Jurassic Theopod fossil that existed 130 million years ago.  We then go to the hominid section so I can show her fossils proving that early hominids that existed 3.6 million years ago.  She tightens her lips.  “Haven’t you ever discussed this with your dad?” I ask her.  She takes offense, understandably.  Okay, well, she is the Republican Vice Presidential candidate and I wasn’t approaching her with the professionalism she deserves.  I remind myself that it is in my best interest to listen to what she has to say with curiosity and humility.  In fact, I’ll begin by asking if she’s willing to continue the interview.  “Are you willing to continue?”  She resumes by insisting that this is a lower 48 museum conspiracy—an effort to delude and subsequently demonize the common folk.  I ask her if she’d like to discuss said conspiracy with a couple of the resident scientists in the Division of Paleontology. “There’s an exhibit on me?” she beams!

“Well, not exactly,” I start to try and explain but she turning away, winking at a security guard and waving to an elementary school field trip.  What’s going on?  It’s like, she’s suddenly just outright ignoring me in the middle of our interview.  My focus shifts to the Governor’s body language.  Her feet and shoulders are no longer turned towards me but diagonally across the room.  The message she is communicating is that I will get no cooperation from her if I continue this trajectory.  Okay, now, for the default plan.  Drop the issue entirely. Shift topic.  Shift location.  We exit through the revolving doors onto Central Park West.

Palin and I board the downtown bound B train and head over to the New York Public Library.  Third floor to the Astor Reading room.  I pull out the “T” volume of the Oxford English Dictionary.  The Governor selects a long wooden table with two available seats.  I place the volume down on the table and pull the chain on the brass lamp.  I flip through page after page.  Passing, theologian, theology…ah, here it is, theory with a lower case “t.”  What else, ah another word with an entirely autonomous definition is Theory with a capital T.  “Shall I continue?”  SP is studying the gilded edges of the Rococo cumulus cloud ceiling.  Okay, it’s another body language queue telling me its time to let it go.  But then, I’m not ready to let it go.  Not yet, anyway. “Sarah,” I say, “There’s something I need you to look at and you don’t even have to say anything about it, okay?”  Her response: a poker face.  I place my index finger on the colloquial definition of theory in the OED and then explain this is an entirely different word than Theory, as defined scientifically.

“Of course, the two words frequently, and understandably, get confused, for obvious reasons.  The scientific Theory of Evolution is supported with data.  This is why, in this particular context, there are no alternative Theories.  Allowing Intelligent Design into the public school curriculum as an alternative theory when there is no scientific data to support it would be the equivalent of allowing an alternative to the Theory of Gravity to be taught without sufficient data,” I explain.

Palin pauses. Palin ponders. Palin purses her lips.  Something is happening.  What’s going in? Ohmygod, she’s sobbing cats and dogs now all over the OED.  A security guard comes to the rescue by removing the tear stained volume.  She’s crying harder now.  Right here, right in front of me, right in front of everyone else in the New York Public Library Astor Reading Room this afternoon.  And, ohmygod, the acoustics in this room are so unbelievably lousy, her wails and gasps for air between sobs just echo and echo and echo all over the place.  Even the pneumonic tubes transporting the reference requests are rattled from the resonance.  After the several dozen simultaneous shushes by the surrounding tables, I gently place my hand on Sarah’s elbow and suggest we go outside, get some air, freshen up or something.

On the marble steps between Patience and Fortitude, I am handing the governor a mirror so she can see for herself.  It’s not that bad, really.  In fact, her make-up really held up.  Just out of curiosity, is that a waterproof mascara you’re using?” Soon as the words are out of my mouth I catch myself and realize it’s time to tune into body language again.  Once again, I realize that Sarah Palin is utterly oblivious to everything going on with the exception of the cataclysmic tear gush she is now having to contend to.”  I want to be more helpful but I don’t have any Kleenex on me.  I offer Sarah her some Purell instead.  Perhaps it would maybe help to….well, maybe not.  Okay, she’s still crying.  Crap.  This is beyond attentiveness or inattentiveness to subtle communication dynamic and body language.  This is weird.  Not to mention, a situation that is completely out of my league.  I am standing between Patience and Fortitude on the marble steps of the New York Public Library with a Republican Vice Presidential candidate who wont stop crying.  Her face is wet, her clothes are wet, her fine leather go-go boots are so drenched they’re making squishie noises with every single step.  It’s a veritable flood of humility and her eyes just continue to gush!

I take her by the hand now, towards our unanticipated, yet necessary, final destination.  Downtown subway to the Eye and Ear Infirmary Emergency Room where she is whisked through triage, examined by an eye doctor who dilates her pupils with sting-ie yellow drops, pulls a Bobba Fet visor over his face, shines a light into the back of her soul and concludes a bacterial infection.  She is given a prescription for antibiotic eye drops, instructed to take them twice a day for a week and then return for a follow-up.  Within 24 hours she can expect to be feeling fine but it’s important that she not stop taking them just because the symptoms are gone away.  This is because they are antibiotics.  You can’t just quit them cold turkey.  These things have to be gradually phased out.  She assures the doc that she’ll take care to follow his instructions.  In fact, she’s went on antibiotics once for an infection caused by an ingrown toenail once.  They were tremendously beneficial.  “Okay,” I decide.  “Here’s my chance.”  My heart is racing for fast I feel it pulsing in my head.  “Are antibiotics are based on speculation, Doc?” I ask.  “Course not” he responds.  I am attempting to decipher the Governor’s undecipherable body language out of the corner of my eye. “Are the Antibiotics based on the Theory of Evolution, or on the ‘theory’ of Intelligent Design?” I ask the doc.  He is laughing; I am laughing and SP is gone.

I’m running down the stairs and past the security guard and out onto 14th street.  She is a block north of me, hailing an east bound cab.  By the time I reach the cab, she is already gone.  My one opportunity and I blew it!

Had I been more attentive to the subtextual messages conveyed through body language then perhaps I wouldn’t have alienated her to the degree that I did. Had I been able to continue to interview then perhaps she’s have grown to like me or at least trust me enough to open up about the fact that her science teacher dad never gently pulled her aside to explain that dinosaurs preceded hominids on the timeline and elucidated the difference btween theory and Theory so that she knew not to use this colloqual word in a scientific context.  Was some dysfunctional dynamic at work or just plain negligence on her dad’s end?  Does anyone, Republican or Democrat, have a theory on why the scientific context of the word “theory” gets repeatedly misappropriated?  And while we’re at it, doesn’t anyone have some Kleenex?


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For the First Time in a Long Time, I Dreamed About Antarctica Again…

Published
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s000z
 on August 5, 2008
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It’s been several months since my last Antarctic dream and I’d been missing it.  This made the revisit particularly satisfying; I was really glad to go back.  I try not to analyze the psycho/emotional aspects of these things too deeply as that’s not my field of expertise.  One thing I did notice, however about the difference between the last and the one I had several months ago, was the aspect of safety.  I was a lot safer in this dream.  The large space of the compound and protective glass dome made it safe.  At one point in the dream, I even remember feeling distantly concerned I might be missing something more exciting that was happening elsewhere by spending so much of my Arctic adventure (who knows when I’ll be back?) hanging around the compound, surfing the net and taking cashews and chocolates from gift boxes made from old schwag bags.  There were all these scientists, computers, and an Antarctic Sesame Street broadcast.  (Actually turned out to be a syndication of something already shot because the actors didn’t live in Antarctica.)  There were hand written cards and letters on the wall.  One, in particular, a friend asked me to check on because  It eluded to a genocide in Africa.  The thought maybe there was something I could do about it was frustrating given the fact I was in Antarctica with very little outside contact.  The compound was large, but not overwhelmingly so.  It was full of skylights and I remember, several times, feeling as though going outside this compound would mean going to a place where there wasn’t enough air.  I knew I was there for the summer and there wouldn’t be there very long because I had no real purpose there.   Also, I’d want to go soon as it stopped being light all the time because it felt as though it would become more difficult to breathe, once everything got dark.  I had conversations with the scientists there while waiting in the bathroom line.  Similar to Alaska, the men greatly outnumbered the women.  So we were in these bathroom lines with lots of male scientists who were friendly but very busy at the same time.  The stairs and walkways to the actual stalls resembles something like a trailer on a film set.  There were only a couple of stalls for women, several rows of stalls for men.  That made sense, given the demographic of the compound.  The toilets themselves had some special way to flush.  Think it had something to do with how the Coriolis effect functioned at the Geomagnetic South.  But it was worth the wait in line and the discomfort of using a toilet with a strange flush (I think what made it strange was the fact that the water didn’t swirl, suction pulled it straight down) because waiting in line was the best time to talk to the scientists.  I remember wishing I had more of a purpose there than I actually did.  At the end of the dream, I went back before the beginning.  Before everyone left for this compound in Antarctica.  There was a science lecture going on.  Something was going on during the power point lecture that shouldn’t be going on.  In the hallway, maybe.  Something nefarious.  A metal door or metal table, maybe.  A crime, of some sort, was being committed by scientists.  I’m overhearing it and know there’s something amiss but can’t figure out who or why.  Then, I’m escaping on a charter plane, southbound…

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Quakey

Published
by
s000z
 on July 30, 2008
. 1 Comment

So this was bound to happen at some point or another. My first real Cali Earthquake. Ground was shaking. Not tilting or slanting or rippling or buckling or any other the other bizarre scenarios I’d heard or seen or read about. It sounded like a large truck or freight train passing uncomfortably close. So I leap across the room, sequester myself in the doorway for all of, oh, twenty seconds and then it’s all gone. And I stay in the doorway for about another minute or so, wondering what, if any, aftershocks might ensue. Then get up and return to my script (the 30 second PSA spot for the OPCC). About five minutes pass and I realize my heart is still on fight/flight forward. I check the radio.  Schubert playing.   ‘Was it really a big deal,’ I’m wondering, ‘or am I making a big deal of it?’ Maybe it wasn’t a quake at all—just a plate tremour, like they always get, only I noticed something this time.  Seemed like more than that.  I did, afterall, leap into a doorway and all, but maybe no.t  My generally quiet downstairs neighbors are now arguing with the other neighbors but I can’t understand what they’re arguing about because it’s in Arabic.  Both families recently immigrated from Syria.  Could that be connected with what just happened?  Are there Earthquakes in Syria?  Phones are ringing, now.  It’s like all the apartments, all around the courtyard have phones going off  simultaneously.  I hear a siren; then another one.  Okay, okay, emergency vehicles are involved.  This was def a legit experience.  Okay, so I turn on the radio, again. Playing…Schubert?  I think it’s Schubert, anyway.  Not 100% sure. Google search.  No, not Schubert seaching, earthquake searching.  Only earthquakes mentioned in Burbank were in, like 2005.  So, I go back to writing my PSA script when Sam’s IM pops up on my Gmail ichat. “You alright.” OMG—this was a legit experience, I guess. “Yeah, fine. How’d you know?” I’m asking. “The Tube” he tells me. And so we’re discussing all the various applications of the word “Tube” via g-chat (via fiberoptic ‘tube’) when I get another call and then another. Dad wanted to be sure I was okay.  He tells me about the quake he experienced in Japan.  Why haven’t I ever travelled to Japan?  I wanna go to Japan one day!  Dad has to get back to work, ends the call.  Cousins Josh and Sally in Calabasas each send emails tell me they’re okay.  And then Edward calls.  Edward, my fellow east-coast transplant who just two weeks ago returned Boston and was all bummed that he never got to experience an earthquake.  He assures me that this earthquake was legit. Yes, a real earthquake. 5.5.  I check in w/ the cardio-vascular unit and yes, indeed, my heart is still prepping to enter mach five past light speed. Okay. So it really really was legit. Quick. Relatively innocuous. But still, legit.  And after trolling the LA Times website for some photo or snap of some sort that might have managed to successfully captured the jolt, I’d done near given up when, low and behold, “Earthquake Damage” popped up on my friend, Michelle Hanson’s facebook profile.  And there it was.  Michelle had succeeded where the LA Times’ pulitzer winning staff had failed.  Jpeg version of photo, kindly provided by the artist and posted with her permission.  That is, so long as she gets 5% of the gross, if it sells…

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