I spent an awful lot of time as a child and teenager tinkering with various projects. I’d have lots of projects on at any one time, brewing in my head for a while, and making their way to notebooks and scraps of paper, then to elaborate drawings showing the technical details, and ultimately to some sort of realization in the real work, some percentage of the time. In the Summer time, I would probably have one Big Project and that would occupy my thoughts for a great deal of time, and would involve a lot of hiding away doing things. Lots of these projects would involve electronics (increasingly as time went by and I Learned more and my various part time jobs could support more) and there’d be lots of tinkering with all sorts of items, and a constant feature would be the soldering iron, one not so different from the one that you see above right.
(1) Did you, like most people, miss the movie Idiocracy* last year? It looks like yet another lame comedy, but bear with it. It actually isn’t, really. It is one of the best indictments of what seems to be happening to a large part of the core of our society that I’ve seen in a while. You know what I mean… lower and lower thresholds for waiving all sorts of basic things that were once part of our required education… not just the awful spellings on signs that some of us whine about (sometimes too much, I’ll admit), but the necessity to use a severely reduced vocabulary to make yourself understood in the local store…or the lack of patience people (and the media) have for a reasoned, structured argument, focusing rather on looks, personalities or sound-bites (look for example at some the political headline discussions in both US and UK news at this moment)… the worry that fewer and fewer people seem to read a book from time to time**… The fact that nobody who works in stores seems to know anything about the merchandise they are employed to sell you… Or that situation you’ve had where the person behind the counter gets confused and can’t serve you because the item that you want to buy does not have a little picture of it at the checkout that they can click on in order to ring up your order/total…
Well, this film imagines a future where that sort of thing has become the least of your worries. The “dumbing-down” has just continued unabated. Everybody is essentially Continue reading ‘Idiocracy’
It’s bike to work week here in [LA] California again! Do consider participating (even if it isn’t where you are…) The MTA here in Los Angeles is doing a good job of pushing the idea that biking to work is a good alternative to fighting with other drivers on the highway*. Have a go! (I’ve been noticing more cyclists on the roads in the city in recent times, by the way, so you won’t be alone.) [Update: Click here for the website of the California Bicycle Coalition for events near you.]
If in LA, pop over to the MTA website. They’ve got a number of things going on. There are pit stops along the Red Line today, and on Thursday, if you show up on a bus or the subway with a bike helmet, you can ride for free! (I wonder if they actually bother to check if you have a bike with that helmet…?)
Do you know about Pauli’s Other Principle? One statement of it is:
Fermions are discovered in the US, whereas bosons are discovered in Europe.
(In case you don’t know, it is useful to classify particles according to whether they come with integer (0, 1,2,…) multiples of a basic unit of spin, or half-integer (1/2, 3/2,…) multiples. Fermions include the electron and the quarks, bosons include the photon and the gluons…)
Jester at Resonaances examines the striking evidence for the Principle in modern particle physics, and examines some of the predictions that follow from it. It was clear from the principle, for example, that the SSC (Superconducting Super-Collider) in Continue reading ‘Pauli’s Other Principle’
Wow, doesn’t time fly when you’re having a busy semester! I meant to tell you about this early March shoot a while back, but got swamped and it fell off the desk. I recalled that I’ve been neglectful because I learned that the show in which some of this will be used will air on Tuesday night (9:00pm I think - “The Universe” on the History Channel). The episode discusses the end of the universe, as far as I know. The point is to discuss the various speculations that have been made about how the universe might end, and what current knowledge (such as the famous 1998 supernova observations showing that the universe’s expansion is accelerating) seems to suggest about which of those scenarios might be more likely. Of course, for the discussions to make sense, you need someone to talk about some of the basics, such as what it means for the universe (indeed, the whole of spacetime) to expand and collapse. Who you gonna call?
Ok. I’m one of many you can call. It was a new (to me) producer/writer, Savas Georgalis, who called this time, and we worked together on plans about how we might Continue reading ‘Tales From The Industry XX - Sporting Locations’
So you’ll recall the shoot last year, right? Casino Royale theme? Where I got all dressed up in a Tuxedo at a club in New York that was kitted out as a Casino playing blackjack and so forth (click right) and getting very cosy with Ms Moneypenny? (Wait, that last bit didn’t happen.) Along with some actual stars, from entertainment, sport, fashion, etc? You don’t recall? Well, that’ll teach you not to use the blog’s archives more during your coffee breaks…
To recap (but please read properly about the background here), it was a photo spread with short bios for an annual piece called “Coming Kings” for a men’s magazine called “King”. I’d got the call out of the blue from them, and decided to do it since it’s an opportunity to do something a little different. To put some awareness of science and scientists in places where you normally don’t find much (if any) of it, rather than only targeting the more traditional crowds. It’s all about, as I said: Continue reading ‘When Worlds Collide IV: The Verdict is…’
Well, Comedy Central fans, here’s something for you. Before you get settled into your nightly dose of the Daily Show on Wednesday night, tune in half an hour earlier, at 10:30 (at least on the coasts). It’s Lewis Black’s new show “Root of All Evil”, this week covering the issue of which of the two prevailing juggernauts in our culture, American Idol or High School, that reduce so much in our culture to popularity contests, is more Evil.
(This one I actually think speaks to a serious point. Sadly, in an presidential election year here, any attempt to parody this sort of thing for comedic effect is totally outshone by almost any news broadcast.)
Did you see the Nike commercial with Kobe Bryant as Einstein?
It is part of a series with the theme “genius” in which he plays a variety of historical figures with a reputation for innovation. More (including the video) on Bryant’s website, and there’s a breakdown by fliptomato on his blog (where I found this).
Given the opening line of fliptomato’s blog post, I wonder if he (or the commercial makers) knows about the excellent Gary Larson cartoon from very many years back Continue reading ‘Kobe as Einstein’
Ooooh! A Puzzle. Ok, maybe not the most challenging one, but hey, I’m getting old, so I’m setting the bar low:
(I’d originally intended to make some, but that’s a project for another time.) These ones will do for now. Assembly should be fun. Wait, there’s something missing:
Wow, a lot of time has passed since I thought I’d get around to posting about this. You’ll recall that I went to take part in the taping of a segment for Comedy Central some time ago. Well, later on I went to the taping of the full show in which it will appear, and it was an amusing and interesting experience.
The show? Comedy Central, and in particular, Daily Show fans will be pleased to learn that Lewis Black finally has a show of his own, and it is called “The Root of All Evil”. The format is that he presides as a judge over a case examining which of two popular Continue reading ‘Tales From The Industry XIX - Black Comedy’
So yesterday at Pinewood Studios they announced the name of the upcoming second James Bond film in the new series that (excellently, in my opinion) re-envisions the Bond movie universe. Last year’s first one was “Casino Royale”, you may recall. Did you hear what the next one will be called?
The next Categorically Not! is on Sunday January 27th (upcoming). The Categorically Not! series of events that are held at the Santa Monica Art Studios, (with occasional exceptions). It’s a series - started and run by science writer K. C. Cole - of fun and informative conversations deliberately ignoring the traditional boundaries between art, science, humanities, and other subjects. I strongly encourage you to come to them if you’re in the area. Here is the website that describes past ones, and upcoming ones. See also the links at the end of the post for some announcements and descriptions (and even video) of previous events. (Above right and left: Reza Aslan speaking on the origin of various ideas in Religion at the event entitled “Beginnings” on 16th December, 2007. Click right one for larger view.)
The theme this month is Science Goes Hollywood. Here’s the description from K C Cole:
Being a loyal fan of Scottish single malt whisky, I never thought I’d be blogging about Irish whiskey, but this is why we get out of bed in the morning - we seek the stuff we can’t guess*.
So I was going to point out to you an amusing distraction. The series of radio ads for Jameson Irish Whiskey that you can listen to here. There’s one featuring a physicist, you see, and a friend of mine sent me the link for that reason**. There’s the idea of attraction, and so gravity is brought in by the ad man trying to use the concept to sell the product, and the physicist is obviously not having it… a short bit of fun play between segments of some program on some station somewhere or another. I can see that they’d work rather well. Have a listen.
That was going to be it, until I found another - real - physics connection. Turns out that Guglielmo Marconi - he of the use of electromagnetic waves for telegraph communication, Nobel prize, and so forth - is the the key to the connection. Do you know what it is?
Discovered a new trick accidentally. Go into the wrong folder in your database of photos and stumble upon things you photographed a year ago to the day with the intention of blogging but never did.
A year ago today, after a meeting with my playwright collaborator Oliver Mayer to work on our play, I took some snaps of some old “Chinese Checkers”* boards on the wall. We were at the Brite Spot, a legendary cafe in Echo Park. I found them rather pleasant to look at, and wish I could have got a better angle to photograph them properly, but it was not practical. Anyway, here they are (click for a larger view):
How about a bit of chemistry? My Correlations colleague Chris Hardwick, one of Wired Science’s presenters, did another excellent demo on the show. This time he did it with chemistry teacher Chris Schrempp, who showed us how to make nitrocellulose in a few simple steps, using common cellulose sources such as the cotton balls in your bathroom cabinet. He does a nice job of explaining all the steps and the chemistry going on, and, of course, in the end there are rather lovely residue-free fireballs - just like the ones magicians do!
My always-ignored advice to anyone studying for exams is that the best thing you can do the night before is get a good night’s sleep. Long study periods long before the previous night should have been used to build up your skills and knowledge. Late-night cramming at the expense of being fresh and having your wits about you in the morning is not really going to help much, if at all. (Heh… long study periods….call me old-fashioned.)
On this very matter, Yvette (one of our regular commenters here) has outdone herself once again with her literary skills! Here is part of her seasonal (as in finals season) poem:
The Night Before Finals
By Yvette Cendes
T’was the night before finals
And all through the dorm
Crazed cramming and panic
Was quite the norm.
The students were restless
And none touched their beds
While theorems and formulas
Danced in their heads.
Well, I don’t like this whole “nerd” business, a term that’s somewhat about marginalizing people who actually care to devote themselves to something*, but I lightened up for a while to take this test**. As you can see from the score on the left, I get to keep my membership card. I might even get to sit on some committees in the club. But I don’t think I get to chair any, and certainly won’t be president. That’s probably a good thing.
Why do it? Some of the questions are just really funny!
Oh boy. I laughed very loudly in my office at this in many places. I had the door closed, mercifully. I’m sorry, but most of you won’t get this, but I need to let the relative few who’ll find this hilarious know about it. So scroll on down to another post if you’ve no idea why this would be funny for you. Basically, you have to be into Radio, and moreover into BBC Radio. Quite a bit. If you’re familiar with it (especially Radio 4 and Radio 3) then please please please listen to this new program: It’s called Listen Against. It is a remarkably good and hilarious parody of Radio 4 and a host of other Continue reading ‘Listen Against’
Yesterday, on (one of) the biggest shopping days of the year, I went… shopping. Insane, I know. Oddly enough, it was not a disaster. After an hour or so the headache that usually develops (when I have to make so many decisions over prices and items of clothing and so forth) began to approach, but that was largely due to the barrage of Christmas Carols. I eventually found a way to see the humour in just how dreadful some of the treatments of various songs can be, and that kept me going a bit longer. The Mel Torme (”the velvet fog”) version of “Chestnuts Roasting on an…” (whatever it’s really called) has sunken to a new unanticipated low by having had a strangely irrelevant and mood-altering backbeat added to it for part of the song. I heard this in the Gap, which meant that I left rather hurriedly without buying anything because I was laughing too much. After three hours of this sort of activity in several stores, I came away with essentially one item. One. Sigh.
Anyway, where was I going with this? Well, nowhere in particular, but I thought I’d share my lunch scene with you. I was at Santa Monica for the shopping you see, and part of my agenda was to make the shopping bearable by having a late lunch down at the beach.
I’d packed a sandwich, brought a book and an apple, and everything. On my way, I stopped at a store I regularly stop at to get the best deal in Santa Monica - the aforementioned simple jam tarts. A dollar apiece. I got two. Dessert, you see. They packed them into the usual pink box, and after getting a cup of coffee next door I wandered down to the pier, past the pier, and walked toward the area where all the chess tables are set up. Chess players were there, including many of the regulars I’ve Continue reading ‘Chess and Shopping’
Surprisingly satisfying sound to it, that word… Bench.
Feeling a bit off the tracks, internally, in one way or another and so I’ve decided to opt out of Thanksgiving this year and spend some time hiding out on my own. Consequently, there’ll be no cooking post, I’m afraid. I’ll have to refer you to last year’s. However, there are other arenas of derring-do besides the kitchen. Today, Asymptotia goes down to the workshop…
I’ll probably be drummed out of the Theorists’ Guild for admitting this, but I can’t go for long without making or doing something constructive with my own hands. The mood to make something hit me hard the other day. Not long ago I began to eye various aspects of my office (at home) and try to understand why I only use it to pick up printouts, find a book on a shelf, and add to the giant piles of paper on every surface. I never sit in it and use it, and I did not know why, annoyingly enough. Well, I think I figured it out, and after making a series of investigations, and a series of detailed measurements, the solution is on order. I will report later. The solution (and some other projects I have in mind) will require some careful woodwork, and I’ve not really got a good working space for that, having mostly done all my woodworking on the ground, patio, steps, and other improvised places.
So today’s project was to fix this. The plan began with a spontaneous purchase (for Continue reading ‘Bench’
Since everything seems to be degenerating all too rapidly into holiday mood (giant Santas and huge batteries of lights and so forth have started appearing in my neighbourhood1 … students are leaving early to go home for Thanksgiving…which is this Thursday, by the way), this year I’ve decided to give in rather than resist. So my first holiday act of the year was to let my class know this morning that I won’t hold a Wednesday class after all. They must agree to do the homework and other practice I assign, and to use that hour (when it comes) to curl up with and start a new novel of their choosing2. My second holiday act is to get everyone singing. Yes. Singing.
What shall we sing?
Well, Oliver Rosten has written a song that’s quite appropriate, since it is related to physics and mathematics, in a way. It’s about an aspect of the Department of Applied Mathematics and Theoretical Physics at Cambridge, so I’ll be listening out for especially enthusiastic singing from you readers over there (you know who you are), ok?!
I’ll steal the words from his site by way of explanation, followed by the song itself. The tune should be familiar to many. Let me/him know what you think in the comments (be sure to close your office door the first time around until you get the rhythm right):
By the way, don’t forget the Leonids over the next few nights, if you happen to be out and about. There’s no exceptionally high activity expected, but that does not mean you won’t see a few if you’ve a mind to look up. It’s at least a good conversation point (or a perfect excuse to go to a romantic spot after that weekend movie date) so keep an eye out. I’ll point you to a post I did last year on these meteors for viewing (and background) information. Here.
Well, that was a bit of an odd day. Let me explain.
An email and then a call with a producer at Comedy Central last week led me to the (historic) Hollywood Center Studios today. I was to do an appearance in a little comedy “bit” that will be part of a show to air next year. They wanted scientists for a fun piece, but I won’t say what they were doing with us since I don’t know if they’d like it revealed before airing (probably not). It’s a new show too, with some very well known and smart comedians on it. I’ll tell you more when I can. All I can say is that it looks as Continue reading ‘Tales From The Industry, XV - Coincident Science Bloggers’
This was originally posted on Cosmic Variance on May 3rd 2006. It was a report on the Categorically Not! event that took place on 23rd April 2006, entitled “Really?”. I’ve decided to reproduce it here as a happy memory of the wonder that Artist and Educator Bob Miller brought into the lives of many. (See next post.) It was a marvellous event overall (probably my favourite Cat Not! event), with several excellent presentations, and so I’ll reproduce the post in its entirety (with slight corrections) to give you a sense of the evening. -cvj
Well, apologies to all concerned for taking so long to post this, but here it is. The Categorically Not! two Sundays ago was -as usual- extremely enjoyable and informative. This one was all about Illusion, in some sense, the theme being “Really?”.
We started out with a few opening remarks by Bob Miller, who specialises in what some might call “light art”. He’s well known for creating a large number of wonderful works using light and shadow, several of them forming the cornerstone of exhibitions in the Exploratorium in San Francisco, for example. Have a look at the “lightwalk”, linked here.
Bob did not talk much, because he wanted everyone to just play, learning from getting involved. And play they did. He’d been up all night preparing (with KC Cole’s help) various fun things for people to do (see the table in the picture above, for example). All simple, and all with a little printed explanation about what to do, and the operation of the thing they were playing with or effect they were seeing.
The photos record scenes from an excellent use of the Los Angeles Natural History Museum’s large exhibition halls after hours: Live music. (They’re not super-great - I only had my phone with me.)
A friend took me as a guest to a filming of Josh Ritter and his band for a TV show. Lots of Lovely Bones everywhere*, stuffed animals, loud (but not too loud) good music (I’d not really listened to Ritter before - hey, not bad at all), and free martinis on tap (surprisingly not watered down!) from Grey Goose. How could I not go?
(You can see the exhibit hall (North American Mammals, I think) with the activity in the distance between the bones of Mr/Ms Triceratops here.)
If you’ve never been the the Natural History Museum here before and you are in LA, please go along. It’s really very good indeed. As an incentive, you can go to the new spider pavillion and wander around with live spiders everywhere. (What’s that? That’s not an incentive? I see…Well, there’s lots to see besides rubbing shoulders with spiders, from dinosaurs, mammals and birds to wonderful gemstones and minerals…) I’m thinking of going to check it out some time, and maybe report back here on the blog about it some time.
I don’t know if you’ve been watching the new PBS series WIRED Science, but I recommend that you give it a try. There was another excellent episode Wednesday night, covering topics as diverse as organ regeneration, neutrino oscillations, and research in supersymmetry (interview of Jim Gates by Zia). You can see video of lots of the segments here.
To my delight there was another excellent new short segment, called “Hack”, again done by Chris Hardwick in the studio. Recall that I spoke about the “What’s Inside” pieces a few weeks ago. “Hack” shows you how to make something familiar, as opposed to just find out what’s inside something. In this one, Chris (who’s impressively very funny while he does the chemistry: “a funnel…’cos it’s got the word `fun’ in it”) shows you how chemoluminescence works by demonstrating how to reproduce what glow sticks do! Here’s the video:
While I’m on the subject, there’s some news over on my other blogging gig, Continue reading ‘Hack!’
The strange object pictured above is a rather nice demonstration of the “field lines†around a bar magnet. It is not a great photo (all my fault), but the demo is great. The designers suspended the tiny bits of iron in oil, inside a sealed chamber, forming a block. There’s a little cylindrical hole through the centre of the block (but still outside the chamber) that allows you to put a bar magnet in. This makes for a demo far more exciting than any shake-it-up snow scene: You shake block and the iron filings are all over the oil in three dimensions, randomly arranged. You then insert the magnet. They slowly but determinedly arrange themselves into the familiar pattern, in three dimensions. It’s great. (Why didn’t they have these when I was growing up?! I might have gone into science… Oh, wait…)
[Post reconstruction in progress after 25.10.07 hack (body, comments and images to follow)]:
Don’t forget the Orionids over the next night or two (peaking late tonight, the wee hours of Sunday morning). As the name implies, look for them coming from Orion, although even if you don’t know exactly where that is, you’ll see them almost anywhere you look in the sky if you’ve enough dark. Recall that Orion has those three bright equally spaced stars in a line, making up his belt. I spoke about this, and gave more directions about the Orionids in a post last year.
Expect to see few, if any Orionids before midnight – especially this year, with a bright waxing gibbous Moon glaring high in the western sky.
But moonset is around 1:30 a.m. local daylight time on Sunday, and that’s a good time to begin preparing for your meteor vigil. At its best several hours later, at around 5:00 a.m. when Orion is highest in the sky toward the south, Orionids typically produce around 20 to 25 meteors per hour under a clear, dark sky.
Today’s StarDate (as usual, read on NPR by the wonderful Sandy Wood) has a piece on it too. Here’s an extract from the transcript (written by Damond Benningfield):
A quick reminder. The show WIRED Science (that I mentioned earlier) debuts tonight! Notice also that the website with all the extra material is now live (and rather amazingly well designed -well done the New Media division at KCET), and - don’t forget - debuting also (and already live) is the new blog Correlations (I gave you the back story on that here). You can find a link to it from the site, or go directly here (but go look at the main site too). Please go along and say hi to us over there on our welcoming blog posts. And Tell Your Friends! (That includes you, science-oriented bloggers - it’s in a good cause!).
Here’s a teaser for the program, and one of the reasons I have high hopes for it. Here, they strip aside all the fancy stuff and just put a good person in front of the camera to get people thinking about something simple. This is a great thing when done well, and they’ve got the people who can do it. Here’s presenter Chris Hardwick doing a brilliant job of telling you what’s inside a simple everyday product in an entertaining way (link with transcript here, or play right here by clicking below):
As I said in the previous post, there’s more to the new WIRED Science TV show on PBS than just the TV show. The website is going to be full of quite a lot of additional material, starting next Wednesday. There’ll be show episodes, extensions of some of the segments, extra links to expand upon the stories, materials for schools, and so forth. But there’s also something else in the works. There’ll be a dedicated blog for the show, and it is called “Correlations”.
Correlations is a new group science blog, with bloggers of a range of interests. It will be connected to the show in many ways, but will expand well beyond the show into aspects of science and technology of all sorts, according to the tastes of the bloggers involved. There’ll be all sorts of interesting material, from serious stuff to fun stuff, and points in between. I think that it’s a great combination of bloggers (the team was assembled by Leighton Woodhouse, of KCET - we had a great conversation about the whole business of science blogging and science bloggers back during the Summer) and I’m quite excited to see how it goes. Who are they? Well, here’s the list:
Here’s my promised report/diary on yesterday’s adventures in film-making.
6:45am Got up a bit earlier than perhaps I should have, given that I got to sleep at 1:00am. Spent a while reading a ton of email, and sending some more. Will be away from my regular professoring duties for the whole day, and so wanted to make sure the fort was held. Prepared some appropriate TV clothing (pretty much what I wear normally anyway - simple solid colours), and so forth. Attempted to beautify myself just a tad (with the usual…inconclusive results). Shower and so forth. Coffee and oatmeal, sprinkled with NPR… Read a bit of stuff on dates of historical background on material I’ll be talking about. I often forget that sort of thing, and its never ever needed whenever I do remind myself of it, so after a few minutes I decided not to bother. The core physics ideas are more important, ultimately. Spent time looking for rain gear (the micro-brolly, basically), since supposedly there’s going to be a rainstorm later (hurrah! finally!). Ready to go.
8:45am Fifteen minutes later than I intended to (how did that happen?), I set off to walk to the Sunset/Vermont Red Line subway station. Waved to a neighbour, and we exchanged pleasantries about how nice a day it was.
8:47am Walked past surprised neighbour back toward home…. briskly.
8:52am Riding the Brompton (the folding bike, for those of you not keeping up), I cycled off to the Sunset/Vermont station.
Yes, it has been that sort of time. The last several days have been full of far too many things - several of which it would be fun to blog about - but none of which have left me any time for doing the actual blogging part. What sort of things? Well, everything from social gatherings like a couple of parties and salon-type events on the one hand, the usual work-type events on the other (like yesterday’s reception to welcome new USC College faculty - I find those especially important to show up to as a means of re-engaging with a cross section of one’s colleagues, old and new, at the beginning of the year*), and on a third hand (sorry) there’s been a big crunch on the research side of things. The big crunch saw me in my office until about 3:00am after a long night of finishing up two companion papers with three of my students (this included breaking for a walk across campus at about 8:30pm to get some tasty mulitas at the excellent La Taquiza) and submitting them to the arXiv. Sensibly, the students went home by 1:30 or so, leaving me the silly one to tinker some more until the end. It was a really fun couple of projects uncovering some rather rich physics, and I’ll try to tell you about them some time soon.
Ok, there’s “The Elegant Universe”, and “The Ambidextrous Universe”…. even “Stephen Hawking’s Universe”… and so on for these titles. But how about “The Scary Universe” or “The Dangerous Universe”? (Personally, I wish we’d just stop with the whole “The fill-in-the-blank Universe” stuff, so I probably should have not written this first paragraph.)
Well, I myself don’t think of the Universe that way, but tonight (at 9:00pm) the History Channel will be presenting the next show in their series (called “The Universe”), which is about (they say) the Most Dangerous Place In The Universe”. It looks as though it will be a survey of various places where a lot of very energetic activity is taking place, powering some of the most powerful phenomena we’ve ever seen, such as quasars, magnetars, and so forth. So black holes will feature quite a bit, I imagine, and although I probably should not really be telling you about it before I’ve had a chance to see it (recall my remarks about the windy shooting conditions), I think (I’m not sure) that I’ll be making an appearance as one of the contributors. (I did not get caught off guard this time.)
So you’ve already read my opinion about the Bourne Ultimatum after I returned from seeing it on the opening night - (In short, it’s just brilliant!) Well here’s something related that is rather funny, especially if you are a football (soccer) fan, although that is not necessary (I have little or no interest in it myself).
If you don’t already listen to Mark Kermode and Simon Mayo every week (most conveniently via their podcast), let me say right away that you should, since it is just an excellent and often highly entertaining discussion of film and movie releases. As a film reviewer, Kermode is not as good with words as, say, the New Yorker’s Anthony Lane (although it is not a fair comparison - the media are different), but his rants can be just great to listen to when he truly hates (and occasionally loves) something -whether you agree with him or not. Simon Mayo is sometimes thought of as his sidekick in this duo, but he’s really the anchor of the whole thing (and often the pragmatic link back to the everyday that keeps the whole show rooted), and from time to time the focus shifts to him. He’s also into his sports, while Kermode is not, which also makes for an amusing backdrop since the broadcast (on Radio 5 Live) is usually done live from some sporting context or other, which takes a sort of backseat role while they talk about movies. Anyway, it is an excellent podcast to listen to every week. I highly recommend it. You can find it on iTunes. (They also have started doing occasional video podcasts too, but the thing to go for is the radio show - another convenience of it is the fact that you can keep the podcast until after you’ve seen the films if you like (this is what I usually do - I mostly prefer to not hear anything about a film before I see it), and then listen to it and shout at Mark if you so desire.)
As I mentioned, Mayo is a big sports fan, and his team, Tottenham, apparently got slaughtered by Crystal Palace and are now at the bottom of the premier league (can you tell I’m faking this and I’ve no idea what I’m talking about?) The next day, he’s interviewing (not with Kermode though) the director Paul Greengrass and the actor Matt Damon (both of the Bourne Continue reading ‘Live Radio Footie Film Fun’
This was the best I could do for a Simpsons avatar for me. (Click for larger.)
(I usually wear plain things with nothing written on them, but I suppose this particular design will do, for fun! Also, I could not really find the right hair.)
So what’s yours like? (Email me them and I’ll post them in the comments if you like. Or give a link to one on your page.)
-cvj
P.S. The movie? Oh, it’s a pretty good extended Simpsons episode. I don’t know if it qualifies as a movie to see in the cinema, but then there’s an awful lot of really bad stuff out there that supposedly qualifies and can’t hold a candle to even a half hour Simpsons episode. Fun with a group out for a lark, I’d say.
notebooks and scraps of paper, then to elaborate drawings showing the technical details, and ultimately to some sort of realization in the real work, some percentage of the time. In the Summer time, I would probably have one Big Project and that would occupy my thoughts for a great deal of time, and would involve a lot of hiding away doing things. Lots of these projects would involve electronics (increasingly as time went by and I Learned more and my various part time jobs could support more) and there’d be lots of tinkering with all sorts of items, and a constant feature would be the soldering iron, one not so different from the one that you see above right.
The next Categorically Not! is on Sunday January 27th (upcoming). The Categorically Not! series of events that are held at the Santa Monica Art Studios
Being a loyal fan of Scottish single malt whisky, I never thought I’d be blogging about Irish whiskey, but this is why we get out of bed in the morning - we seek the stuff we can’t guess*.
some might call “light art”. He’s well known for creating a large number of wonderful works using light and shadow, several of them forming the cornerstone of exhibitions in the Exploratorium in San Francisco, for example. Have a look at the “lightwalk”, linked 
