Search Results for: festival of books

Yesterday at JPL

jpl_open_house_2009_1I had a lot of fun at this year’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) open house. I’m happy to report that there were, once again, lots of people wandering around looking at the displays and demonstrations, asking questions, hanging out, and so forth, and an impressive turnout of JPL staff answering questions and being very enthusiastic about the science (something which is easy to do because it’s such an excellent topic!). I’ve made a video for you that is coming up at the end of this post. (Click on stills for larger views.)

jpl_open_house_2009_5 jpl_open_house_2009_6

There was the usual huge emphasis on planetary exploration with rovers and robots and so forth – this seems to capture the imagination of everyone, so why not? – but I was more than a little surprised to find virtually no showing for the Planck mission. There was one poster somewhere, but no booth, no model, no description of the truly amazing science that it will do in unlocking more about the origins of the entire […] Click to continue reading this post

A Dialogue about Art and Science!

On Saturday (tomorrow), I’ll be talking with science writer Philip Ball at the Malvern Festival of Ideas! The topic will be Science and Art, and I think it will be an interesting and fun exchange. It is free, online, and starts at 5:15 pm UK time. You can click here for the details.

I’ll talk a little bit about how I came to create the non-fiction science book The Dialogues, using graphic narrative art to help frame and drive the ideas forward, and how I really wanted to re-shape what is the norm for a popular science book, where somehow using just prose to talk about serious scientific ideas has become regarded as the pinnacle of achievement – this runs counter to so many things, not the least being the fact that scientists themselves don’t just use prose to communicate with each other!

But anyway, that’s just the beginning of it all. Philip and I will talk about […] Click to continue reading this post

North Carolina Science Fair!

Tomorrow I’ll be giving a talk at the North Carolina Science Festival! The talk will be about black holes, time, space, movies, and books, held inside the historic Morehead planetarium. I’ll sign the book for you after if you want.
Here is a link to the event.

(On the plane over, rather than doing my usual sketch-a-face-from-a-magazine exercise you might be familiar with from earlier posts, e.g. here, I made some new sketches for use in the talk. One of those is above.)

-cvj Click to continue reading this post

Noted…

Last week the always-interesting Maria Popova of Brain Pickings wrote a piece about the book. I was pleased to see what she wrote because it was clear that she really understood many of the several things I was trying to do in making the book. (I say this because my expectation is usually that people aren’t going to click with it because it does not fit narrow presuppositions for either a non-fiction science book or for a graphic novel.) So this was a very pleasant surprise indeed. There’s no point trying to paraphrase her, so let me simply point you there with this link.

The book also made the roundup of top Science Books for 2017 on NPR’s […] Click to continue reading this post

CicLAVia Time Lapse

Here’s a timelapse video of the CicLAVia ride from Sunday 21st April. (I’ve done one for each of the past rides as well, so search on “ciclavia” for them if you wish.) My thoughts about the ride were posted back on the day, and there’s lots of discussion at that post on some of the issues I raised, so go and have a look if you like, and feel free to join in. I did the ride on the Brompton, as usual, and this time I was accompanied by my colleague Krzysztof Pilch, who was riding one as well. We even saw a few others on the way, which was nice.

ciclavia_April_2013_mapThe video is a bit flawed, not the least because at some point the top of my bag started puffing up a bit and blocking part of the view. Also, I’ve not laid on some funky music like the fancy folk do, so it is quite silent. But there it is as a record of most of the 13-15 mile route from Downtown to Venice beach: […] Click to continue reading this post

More Book Fun!

bookfair_homeMark your calendar for Sunday! The West Hollywood Book Fair is on from 10 am to 6:00 pm that day, and there’s so much to see and do with readings, panels, discussions, authors, special celebrity guests, food, exhibitions, writing workshops, discount book offers, signings, swag (no doubt), and so forth. I’ve not been before, but as you know from reading here I’m a big fan of cities going gaga over books for a while, being a regular visitor to the LA Times Book Festival when it comes in the Spring. The calendar of events and much more about the event can be found at the website here.

Here’s another thing. Despite the fact there was no mention of a spankingly splendid […] Click to continue reading this post

Tastin’

pinot_sausage_1What’s this? Pinot Grigio salami? Well, this has to be tried out, I think.

Turned out to be rather good, although how it would have tasted without the pinot grigio being involved in the process, I don’t know.

Anyway, as a result of the successful taste test, this has been a component of my lunch sandwich here a lot. (Click for a closer view and to read the details if desired.)

In related news, the real Summer season is finally beginning here in Aspen, on or around this weekend. Several things that have been pinot_sauage_3closed (e.g., the buses up to the trailheads of some of my favourite hiking trails, the weekly farmer’s market on the street), or running reduced hours (e.g. the Explore bookstore) up to now are opening up, and some of the major festivals are beginning. Of course, I won’t be around for most of them. That’s life. Among these is the Food and Wine classic which starts Friday. There are giant tents being constructed around town, and lots of portable industrial grade cooking units being installed in them. Quite a remarkable operation. You can see the full schedule here.

To my delight I noticed that among the numerous chefs flying in for it is one of my favourites, Mario Batali! He and Nancy Silverton (another favourite excellent chef and restaurateur) […] Click to continue reading this post

Altered Saturday Plans

river in aspenWell, I was supposed to go for an early morning hike to start off the day, but it has not happened. It was just meant to be a short one, since I’m staying in a little cabin out of town not too far from the start of a lovely trail. Then I was to go to the farmer’s market (more on that later) and then after lunch go to pick up my ticket for the chamber music concert I’m to go to this afternoon. (I say “pick up” and not “buy” since I was the lucky winner (well, one of them) of a little ticket lottery at the Aspen Center for Physics for tickets to concerts in the neighbouring Aspen Music Festival. Hurrah!)

Well, the hike did not happen. Why? Well, at about 6:30pm yesterday while scribbling fragments of equations and furrowing my brow while sitting in a cafe in town (a change of venue after a day at the Center(re) sitting in the office, you see), I began to realize that a computation I was stuck on might actually be becoming unstuck! Various parts […] Click to continue reading this post

First Day of the Rest of Their Lives

Cliché, I know, but I presume that is what calling it “Commencement Day” is all about. Is that not right?

commencement day
(Commencement Day: Part of the crowd of graduates, family, and friends assembled in front of the grand stage set up in front of the Doheny library.)

commencement daycommencement dayYesterday was both a happy and slightly sad day for me, because I’m a bit of a softy when it comes down to it. Quite a number of the students I taught over the last few years graduated yesterday. While I was so pleased to see them all happy and looking forward to moving on, and meet their parents and siblings, I was also a bit sad, since I won’t be seeing them around the campus any more. I feel like I’m losing a number of good friends, which seems like an odd thing to say given that I don’t really know them all as friends in the usual sense…. But I got accustomed to seeing them around, spending time with them talking, laughing, worrying, puzzling… getting coffee, milkshakes… They became a real part of my life for a while… Now they are off to take on the world. I feel a bit like a parent… perhaps I’m getting broody?

The campus was lovely yesterday, even more than it usually is. The ground staff […] Click to continue reading this post

Chocolaty Book Fun

Ah yes, it is that time of year again. The LA Times book festival is on, starting today, and it was kicked off with the swanky Book Awards festival last night, followed by a reception. This all takes place on the UCLA campus, in Westwood. You might recall that I went last year and reported on it. [(Update: A version of the post is here.] (If in town, go to the LA Times website for more information and find your way over there either today or tomorrow!)

So I went to the Awards show again because:

  1. I enjoyed it last year,
  2. I like “book people”,
  3. I like the idea that in the city where there’s a swanky Awards ceremony for everything else, they have one for books,
  4. I like the unashamed delight that everyone takes in the value of the word on the page… there were some very nice speeches from the master of ceremonies (Jim Lehrer this year) and the various presenters in each category (all authors themselves) about the various aspects of this (all the way from history to Children’s books, to Science…)
  5. I wanted to see if they would have chocolate fountains again. They did.
  6. I wanted to see if they had old typewriters embedded inside ice sculptures again. They did.
  7. I can never be mistaken for an actual author at the reception too many times,
  8. I like dressing up, from time to time. (Never let it be said that I am not honest with you on this blog.)

book prizes   book prizes

(Above: MC for the night, PBS Newshour host Jim Lehrer, and the LA Times’ Kenneth Turan, on the set/stage. I really like the work of both of these guys…)

Spent most of the evening after the ceremony at the reception talking with LA Times (or related) people and their spouses. This was not my intention, but it was a happy occurrence, as they were all really interesting people – two science writers (Rosie Mestel and Alan Zarembo, who I’d not met before and who were just great to talk to) and also some more general columnists, such as (novellist and essayist) Meghan Daum and others whose names escape me now. K C Cole, my friend and USC colleague – and ex-LA Times science writer – was there for good conversation, as was Tom Siegfried. So it was just excellent to stand around and munch on the excellent food, drink the wine, and talk (and yes, sometimes gripe) a bit about science coverage and science writing. Briefly chatted with poet and author Michael Datcher (remember him from the point of view event?) and his wife as well, who told me about an upcoming event I’ll be mentioning later, I hope.

Rosie and I turned out to have some interesting points of commonality, which was a pleasant surprise, and so we talked about not just science and science-writing, but England, gardening, and the East/West divide in Los Angeles.

book prizes

(Above: Available light (sorry) shot of Alan Zarembo dipping a bit of pineapple into the chocolate fountain. Meghan Daum and Rosie Mestel look on.)

Some friends and colleagues from USC were there in an official capacity as well, such […] Click to continue reading this post