Category: The Arts

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What Fools these Midsummer Mortals Be

20170719 mids movie

Oberon, what visions I have seen! Methought I was enamoured of an ass!
— Titania, Act IV, Sc 1

In the dark of the wood, under moonlight, at midnight, anything can happen. That’s the premise of A Midsummer Night’s Dream and what makes it one of the greatest comedies ever written. Aside from making my case as to why this is so, let me also point out a few interesting facts about midsummer, good vs. disastrous Shakespeare, and how Midsummer has been interpreted.

Midsummer is long days and languid nights; fireflies or sparklers glowing while the sound of crickets or frogs echo above dark green trees, thick with foliage. Midsummer is a time for foolery, which is the perfect time to watch a play, especially outdoors. Shakespeare in the Park is popular worldwide in New York and Paris but also in small towns and local venues. Summer solstice-y traditions are also popular whether it’s official Scandinavian holidays like Sankthansaften in Denmark or Juhannus in Finland or even our backyard barbecues. There’s drinking and feasting, sometimes a naked sprint or some skinnydipping, and when the sun finally sets, there’s might be a giant community bonfire. In the dark of the night, in front of a fire, in shadows and in light, anything can happen.

Magic and the Just Desserts for the Snobbish
Lovers enter a dark forest, filled with mischief makers and aphrodisiacs. Local actors prepare a play and, like in Waiting for Guffman, simple actors act simply. A fairy queen and king are at odds, interesting shadows to the real queen and king, also at odds.  Why does A Midsummer Night’s Dream’s plot work so well? Three reasons: Continue reading “What Fools these Midsummer Mortals Be”

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Tracing the Guitar String Theory of Two Brians

pal·imp·sest
ˈpaləm(p)ˌsest/
noun: palimpsest; plural noun: palimpsests

–a manuscript or piece of writing material on which the original writing has been effaced to make room for later writing but of which traces remain
–something reused or altered but still bearing visible traces of its earlier form

What makes a physicist turn into a rock star? What makes a rock star turn back into a physicist? This is the story of two Brians.  One of them you know, though you may not know this part of his background.  The other you might know if you are young and/or hip, or if you wait a few years. Both of them wanted to excel at doing more than one thing. We all have been told we should do what we’re passionate at. But what if you love two things?

This story reminded me of Buckaroo Banzai, star of screen and comics, was billed as an adventurer, physicist, brain surgeon, test pilot and rock musician, saving the world from the invasion of aliens from Planet 10. This awesome movie from 1984 starred Peter Weller as the super cool adventurer.  It always seemed like the most incongruous pair of roles in that list was physicist and rock musician. But though Dr. Banzai was a fictional character, maybe there is something natural that yokes physics and rock’n’roll. Continue reading “Tracing the Guitar String Theory of Two Brians”

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Our Days Are Numbered

Midweek since the time change, I’m still not sleeping properly, waking in the middle of the night and dozing until suddenly it’s later than I should be up, and I drag out of bed, logy and bleary-eyed. Yesterday was 3-14, a calendar quirk that’s labelled Pi Day on our Gregorian-driven pages, a day of no significance but a fun day for the mathematically-amused.
20170315 calendar

In movies, clocks show time passing, calendar pages falling, seasons changing with sped-up elapsed time. Why don’t we see other metaphors—for example, how often are rulers used or tape measures? We move through time and space, but we seem to take no notice of space. We are comfortable with granting the importance of spatial distances, but when it comes to time, we want to see it measured.  By instinct, we feel time all around us, whether we are forever noting the digital clock readout of our phones all day, feeling the seasons pass, or obsessing about our age, it’s as if time sits like a bird on our shoulder.

If we are saving daylight, when do we get to spend it?
Many of us grew up with Daylight Savings Time, so it’s hard to imagine that the practice is relatively recent and didn’t catch hold in the mid-1970s U.S. Energy Crisis. Even then, some places like Arizona still choose not to participate, and the starting dates have shifted around nationally, moving to a different day in the year just a decade ago. While the extra hour of daylight in the evening favor those who work inside all day, farmers and those who put on evening entertainment oppose the process. For example, dairy farmers know that the cows don’t want to be milked an hour earlier just because that’s what the clock says. Continue reading “Our Days Are Numbered”