I especially love the Jazz Flute break we get around minute three. Ron Burgundy's got nothin' on this guy.
Thanks mucho to Thad Thomspon and Jason NeSmith for putting this on my radar. Enjoy.
29 November 2009
Physicists worried about time-travelling sabotage: The elusive Higgs boson
I am very intrigued by this notion that certain otherwise sober and respectable physicists have that "scientists from the future" may be impeding the work of the CERN supercollider. As Faraday
once said, "Nothing is too wonderful to be true."
Read all about it here: Physicists worried about time-travelling sabotage: The elusive Higgs boson
Posted using ShareThis
once said, "Nothing is too wonderful to be true."Read all about it here: Physicists worried about time-travelling sabotage: The elusive Higgs boson
Posted using ShareThis
22 November 2009
This is it
I have held on to an old issue of Time Magazine, from June 22, 1998, with a soft-focused picture of Michael Jordan on the cover. The story has the tagline, We may never see his likes again.
This is one of several press clippings I have saved about Jordan over the years. I remember being struck by an account of him that described him playing a game when he was sick with the flu. With fever and sweat pouring off of him, he was still an absolute team player and still led his team, inch by grueling inch, to victory.
I was, and am, impressed by this story, as much for what it says about Jordan's commitment to the team as for what it says about Jordan himself and his abilities. The ability to motivate an organization around you when you are not at your best is a feat worthy of noting. That Jordan had some of the greatest basketball skills - and all-around athletic skills - of any human who ever lived just adds to the sweetness of the moment.
I thought about this story the other night when Kira and I took a walk to the local theater to watch the new, and final, Michael Jackson concert film, This Is It.
The film documents the rehearsals leading up to the point of Jackson's death last Spring, as Jackson was rallying his own organization around him for a final set of fifty shows to end his career. This Is It collects footage shot during the rehearsals, and they reflect the roughness of the early days of the vision for the shows. We see dancers auditioning and sets being built. We see Michael, frustrated with himself and with his band at times, and at other moments elated and lost in the music and his own movements. He often sings half-voiced ("I'm saving myself for the performances," he says a couple of times), but even so, I was amazed at what I saw on screen.
Jackson was half a century old as this footage was shot, and he easily bests the energetic dancers half his age. His control, focus, and energy during rehearsals seemed to me to be greater than that mustered by many performers I have seen when they are on stage for real, when it counts. Despite the roughness of the staging and the sets, despite the occasional halts and false starts, it was hard for me not to get lost in the performances. Say what you will about Jackson's personality and life (and there is much that could be said), the man had singular talent.
In reflecting on these two Michaels these last few days, I have come back again and again to just how amazed and blessed I feel to be living exactly now, at this point in history.
I can remember a time when there were no personal computers. Hell, even pocket calculators were behemoths when I was a kid, often requiring a pretty large "pocket" for the name to work. I can remember when there was no internet, no email, no cell phones. With these memories, I look around at the Copernican leap we have taken in information and communication these past thirty years and I marvel. I feel like I have the best of both worlds - the before and the after.
I am amazed to have been alive at a time when Michael Jordan and Michael Jackson, both, were at their prime, as I mentioned above, but not only these two giants. There are many more. During this brief window I call my life, I have shared the Earth with Orson Welles, Fred Rogers, Claude Levi-Strauss and Jim Henson. I have been alive and breathed the same air as Phillipe Petit, William S. Burroughs, Nam June Paik and Steve Jobs (not to mention Steve Wozniak!).
I once bumped into Jacques Derrida in a Philadelphia train station, and shook his hand. He had a graciousness to him that inspires me to this day. I am happy that we shared the same ground beneath us at the same moments. I am happy to be able to say, "I was there, then."
Another time, on a whim, I called up Douglas Englebart, just to say hello, and to thank him. What I learned from that exchange is that genius does not always reap a just reward. On the phone Englebart was also gracious, but he sounded a little broken, too. It was not until a few years after we spoke that he truly began to receive the public recognition for his many visionary accomplishments. You may never have heard his name, of course, but if you are reading this, then odds are you have interacted just now with at least three of the many visions with which Englebart gifted the world.
Last weekend I learned of the passing of an old friend, David Knauert. I knew David from our time at seminary together. While our professional lives had taken us in different directions these past few years, it was always a joy for me in the moments we got to spend together, whether at a conference or is a chance meeting during our travels. The heroes of my life are not just these remote figures that make the news or shape the contours of history; they are also the simple kindnesses of folks like David Knauert, seeing that I'm feeling down and suggesting we go see a James Bond movie (as he did a few years back when we were both far from home at a conference). I don't think I ever properly thanked David for those many gracious moments he gave me during our friendship. Faced now with the finality of his passing, I am saddened by this fact almost to desperation. The moment we have to be amazed, to be thankful, to be touched, and to express our gratitude for all this abundance and this monumental coincidence of being together on this Earth, at this moment, in the midst of all these amazing changes and kindnesses, is only ever this one. This is the moment. Right exactly now.
This is it.
We are sharing this world with so many such visionaries. We are sharing the world with those whose minds are re-forming the world before our eyes. I am amazed at how many heroes I have today; genuine heroes, great and small.
You and I, we are living at an amazing moment. Think of all we have seen, and all there is yet to see. Think of the changes you have witnessed, and the amazing performances, great and small, with which we are blessed each day.
I am so thankful for these huge and remote heroes, yes. I am thankful for being alive to share the world with a Jordan or a Jackson. I am even more thankful for the friends with whom I have been blessed to share this world, and this time, in this little window of our lives on Earth. I am thankful for the kind words, and encouragement, and the love of these friends. I am thankful for the many ways in which they inspire and amaze me. I am thankful for the talents and the visions and the dreams and the ways - great and small - in which this amazing family of friends is changing and re-forming this little corner of this big world, the world we are sharing together in this little window of a lifetime.
This is it. This is the life I have been given, and I am amazed and grateful for it. I am thankful for my heroes. I am thankful for you, my friends. I am thankful for inspiration, and for graciousness. I am thankful for those who enter my life and shape it and shift it, no matter how fleetingly. I am thankful. Thank you. Thank you all. Amen.
This is one of several press clippings I have saved about Jordan over the years. I remember being struck by an account of him that described him playing a game when he was sick with the flu. With fever and sweat pouring off of him, he was still an absolute team player and still led his team, inch by grueling inch, to victory.
I was, and am, impressed by this story, as much for what it says about Jordan's commitment to the team as for what it says about Jordan himself and his abilities. The ability to motivate an organization around you when you are not at your best is a feat worthy of noting. That Jordan had some of the greatest basketball skills - and all-around athletic skills - of any human who ever lived just adds to the sweetness of the moment.
I thought about this story the other night when Kira and I took a walk to the local theater to watch the new, and final, Michael Jackson concert film, This Is It.
The film documents the rehearsals leading up to the point of Jackson's death last Spring, as Jackson was rallying his own organization around him for a final set of fifty shows to end his career. This Is It collects footage shot during the rehearsals, and they reflect the roughness of the early days of the vision for the shows. We see dancers auditioning and sets being built. We see Michael, frustrated with himself and with his band at times, and at other moments elated and lost in the music and his own movements. He often sings half-voiced ("I'm saving myself for the performances," he says a couple of times), but even so, I was amazed at what I saw on screen.
Jackson was half a century old as this footage was shot, and he easily bests the energetic dancers half his age. His control, focus, and energy during rehearsals seemed to me to be greater than that mustered by many performers I have seen when they are on stage for real, when it counts. Despite the roughness of the staging and the sets, despite the occasional halts and false starts, it was hard for me not to get lost in the performances. Say what you will about Jackson's personality and life (and there is much that could be said), the man had singular talent.
In reflecting on these two Michaels these last few days, I have come back again and again to just how amazed and blessed I feel to be living exactly now, at this point in history.
I can remember a time when there were no personal computers. Hell, even pocket calculators were behemoths when I was a kid, often requiring a pretty large "pocket" for the name to work. I can remember when there was no internet, no email, no cell phones. With these memories, I look around at the Copernican leap we have taken in information and communication these past thirty years and I marvel. I feel like I have the best of both worlds - the before and the after.
I am amazed to have been alive at a time when Michael Jordan and Michael Jackson, both, were at their prime, as I mentioned above, but not only these two giants. There are many more. During this brief window I call my life, I have shared the Earth with Orson Welles, Fred Rogers, Claude Levi-Strauss and Jim Henson. I have been alive and breathed the same air as Phillipe Petit, William S. Burroughs, Nam June Paik and Steve Jobs (not to mention Steve Wozniak!).
I once bumped into Jacques Derrida in a Philadelphia train station, and shook his hand. He had a graciousness to him that inspires me to this day. I am happy that we shared the same ground beneath us at the same moments. I am happy to be able to say, "I was there, then."
Another time, on a whim, I called up Douglas Englebart, just to say hello, and to thank him. What I learned from that exchange is that genius does not always reap a just reward. On the phone Englebart was also gracious, but he sounded a little broken, too. It was not until a few years after we spoke that he truly began to receive the public recognition for his many visionary accomplishments. You may never have heard his name, of course, but if you are reading this, then odds are you have interacted just now with at least three of the many visions with which Englebart gifted the world.
Last weekend I learned of the passing of an old friend, David Knauert. I knew David from our time at seminary together. While our professional lives had taken us in different directions these past few years, it was always a joy for me in the moments we got to spend together, whether at a conference or is a chance meeting during our travels. The heroes of my life are not just these remote figures that make the news or shape the contours of history; they are also the simple kindnesses of folks like David Knauert, seeing that I'm feeling down and suggesting we go see a James Bond movie (as he did a few years back when we were both far from home at a conference). I don't think I ever properly thanked David for those many gracious moments he gave me during our friendship. Faced now with the finality of his passing, I am saddened by this fact almost to desperation. The moment we have to be amazed, to be thankful, to be touched, and to express our gratitude for all this abundance and this monumental coincidence of being together on this Earth, at this moment, in the midst of all these amazing changes and kindnesses, is only ever this one. This is the moment. Right exactly now.
This is it.
We are sharing this world with so many such visionaries. We are sharing the world with those whose minds are re-forming the world before our eyes. I am amazed at how many heroes I have today; genuine heroes, great and small.
You and I, we are living at an amazing moment. Think of all we have seen, and all there is yet to see. Think of the changes you have witnessed, and the amazing performances, great and small, with which we are blessed each day.
I am so thankful for these huge and remote heroes, yes. I am thankful for being alive to share the world with a Jordan or a Jackson. I am even more thankful for the friends with whom I have been blessed to share this world, and this time, in this little window of our lives on Earth. I am thankful for the kind words, and encouragement, and the love of these friends. I am thankful for the many ways in which they inspire and amaze me. I am thankful for the talents and the visions and the dreams and the ways - great and small - in which this amazing family of friends is changing and re-forming this little corner of this big world, the world we are sharing together in this little window of a lifetime.
This is it. This is the life I have been given, and I am amazed and grateful for it. I am thankful for my heroes. I am thankful for you, my friends. I am thankful for inspiration, and for graciousness. I am thankful for those who enter my life and shape it and shift it, no matter how fleetingly. I am thankful. Thank you. Thank you all. Amen.
14 November 2009
One less key
I did it.On October 30th I took my car out to CarMax (a bit of a haul from where I live - the ride took about 40 minutes) and got it appraised. This was not a glorious process, and the price offered was not high. After all, I had owned the car for almost fifteen years. I had toured in it when I was a musician. I had used it as my main vehicle for not one, but two, long-distance recruiting jobs (Outward Bound an Vanderbilt's Programs for Talented Youth). All told, I had put almost 200,000 miles on the car myself, and it had close to 60,000 on it when I bought it. It looked like Hell, but it ran. It got me where I needed to get to.
And where I needed to get to, spiritually and existentially, was here: the place where I no longer need a car.
This sentiment has been brewing in me for a long while. It started when I briefly lived in Europe, and saw how de-automobilized travel is and can be. In Germany, France, and the Netherlands I have experienced city life and travel that is convenient and easy thanks to both a good train system and my own two feet.
When Kira and I lived in Nashville, we tried to walk as much as we could, but in a lot of the city it was just impossible. No sidewalks, for one. This lack, combined with a sadistic ethic of urban planning that actually made it impossible to walk in some retail areas without jumping fences or endangering one's life, kept me driving, even as I dreamed of car-lessness.
In that regard, moving to Memphis has been a breath of fresh air (in more ways than one). The area in which we live, the Cooper-Young neighborhood, has lots of sidewalks, as well as a good supply of stores and restaurants nearby, within easy walking distance. We can get groceries and necessities, as well as a good variety of meals on nights we don't feel like cooking. Best of all, I am a seven minute walk from work.
I have been building up to this switch. When I first arrived, I used the car a lot. Over the past two months, however, I have been steadily, and rapidly, tapering off my driving. After I went four weeks without using my car, and not feeling the pinch of not using it on my life, I was ready to take the plunge.
The real moment for me, though, was a couple of weeks back. It has been raining like cats and dogs in Memphis through most of the month of October. One day in particular, about three weeks ago, it was really coming down - just bone-soakingly torrential rain. I was due to teach my morning class, and I wavered. Was I really going to try to walk in this? I should just take the car...
I cowboyed up. I gave Kira a kiss, shut the door behind me, and set out. By halfway down the block, I was drenched. I had on a really good rain jacket, so my top was dry, but my pants were soaked through. I put the contents of my pockets into the secure pouches of the rain jacket and trudged on.
Almost all the clothing I wear is somewhat rain-ready, so the pants were manageable even though they were so wet. Once I got to school, I made a quick stop by my office, where I have a towel (stashed there for just such occasions) and did my best to reduce the immediate moisture. My top was still dry, so it wasn't completely uncomfortable. I set off to teach, and made it through the day just fine.
(What I learned from that was not that I should have taken the car. What I learned was that I needed a good set of rain pants. They came in the mail a few days ago, and are now a permanent part of my rain gear. I am looking forward to the next storm, so I can try them out.)
A lot of what kept me from getting rid of the car sooner was fear. Even after I had proven to myself that I could survive just about anything - including a monsoon level storm - and be okay, I still wavered. I dislike change, and the unknown. I had never in my adult life been voluntarily without an automobile before. The couple times I had been without a car and hadn't wanted to be had sucked. Would this suck, too?
After a solid week of non-ownership, I can tell you, no. It does not suck to be without a car. It does not suck to stop paying auto insurance, to no longer have to save for repairs, or to no longer buy gasoline. It does not suck to no longer so directly participate in or support a bloated petrochemical culture. It does not suck to regularly get fresh air and exercise, to see things I like because I have time to notice them as I walk by, or to have an excuse to travel lighter on a daily basis.
I realize not everybody will be able to do this. It took me a long time to build up the gumption, and to arrange my life such that it would be possible. But I'm telling you - even if its just in little ways, you ought to at least try it. The world is a lot more fun on foot.
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