- Just the other day, out with a friend at the pub, he made an interesting remark: "This beer tastes like sour cereal". Little did we know that there was just as much chance of the beer having gone off in the pub as there was that he was in fact sampling an ancient Egyptian brewmasters' ale.
- It could be worse. Like: "Oh my God! I've just been bitten by an American rattlesnake and I've only minutes to live! Quick, fly to Australia and find some Australian sheep's blood!"
- Here's an argument for looking at the glass as half full instead of half empty. Elephants rampage through your restaurant, destroying everything? No problem, reopen as "Restaurant where elephants have been" to capitalize on your misfortune.
- Who says the cold war is over? Not while the two sides continue to steal each other's lakes!
- And finally for those of us who have suffered the stampede of commuters at Oxford Circus on a friday afternoon, there is finally somewhere to go to find relief, if only temporarily.
Tuesday, May 24, 2005
Five comforting, if odd, thoughts
Sunday, May 22, 2005
New Media Notes - May, 2005
Are you are a Blogger (if not why not start a blog)?
Need to freshen up?
Read this month's installement of Notes to learn how to:
Need to freshen up?
Read this month's installement of Notes to learn how to:
- create customized google maps
- promote your blog, and
- join the Technorati tagging revolution
- Probably the coolest "how-to" on the WWW right now is this guide to hacking Google Maps for your own devious purposes. This is for advanced Internet users with a variety of web skills. Here's a couple of examples where people in Boston and Chicago have used the maps to chart public transport routes and this is an example of how maps can be integrated with real estate.
- Promote your blog. Get it out there and let everyone enjoy your joys and misery. Be part of the collective. This post from the amazing Robin Good is a great place to start your promotional campaign. Learn about the benefits of RSS syndication. This is for anyone with a blog.
- One of the different things about open source development is the way technologies develop. Technorati is part of a growing movement of sites tracking blogs and implementing a tag structure that announces the start of a progress to a semantic web for next-generation Internet. Pump up your blog by embedding technorati tags using this tutorial. Also for anyone with a blog and listed with Technorati you might be interested in adding the beta Technorati searchlet to your site. You can see it in action in the right column of this website.
Those young enough to remember the early 1990s will look back fondly at the "how-to" environment that stimulated the early growth of the World Wide Web (WWW). For programmers the tools necessary to learn about HTML, Java, SMIL were provided on websites that were probably the Google PageRank 9 sites of their day.
Well the WWW has grown up a lot since that time. There are now over 10 million blogs and tracking on Technorati and creating and supporting the tools to 'write' content is the explosive growth sector of the Internet. The Open Source movement is further driving a shift to creativity and collaboration in design and content. The dominant media is shifting with it.
Living the Culture of Consumption
Sometimes we simply let ideas fester, ignoring or abandoning the reason within them. Was there ever a more self-evident truth than the one articulated by sociologist Raymond Williams forty years ago (that's right! The 1960s were 40 years ago!):
"It is clear why 'consumer', as a description, is so popular, for while a large part of our economic activity is obviously devoted to supplying known needs, a considerable and increasing part of it goes to ensuring we consume what industry finds it convenient to produce. As this tendency strengthens, it becomes increasingly obvious that society is not controlling its economic life, but is in part being controlled by it. The weakening of purposeful social thinking is a direct consequence of this powerful experience, which seeks to reduce human activity to predictable patterns of demand. If we were not consumers, but users, we might look at society very differently, for the concept of use involves general human judgments -- whereas consumption, with its crude hand-to-mouth patterns, tends to cancel these questions, replacing them by the stimulated and controlled absorption of the products of an external and autonomous system."
That little gem is from The Long Revolution, laying special emphasis on the 'creative mind' in relation to social and cultural thinking. Funny how in the advertising and marketing industries today 'creative' is a term applied to roles in the company who substantiate the modern push marketing techniques through authoring of convincing scripts that play into cultural stereotypes.
Williams went on to pioneer the field of 'cultural studies' and continued to articulate still unresolved questions about how we form the self and social. According to the John Hopkins Guide to Literary Theory and Criticism, Williams was:
"Confident that 'all kinds of writing produce meaning and value', he wrote in a multiplicity of modes and discourses (as critic, theorist, historian, journalist, political commentator, pamphleteer, dramatist, and novelist) and in a variety of styles (conversational, high academic, technically condensed, literary, and polemical). At his death in 1988, after a career of 40 years, he left behind more than 650 publications, including 27 academic books, 5 novels, 3 plays, 7 pamphlets, 60 columns on television in The Listener, and more than 500 articles and reviews, among them his regular book reviews for the Guardian and New Society."
"It is clear why 'consumer', as a description, is so popular, for while a large part of our economic activity is obviously devoted to supplying known needs, a considerable and increasing part of it goes to ensuring we consume what industry finds it convenient to produce. As this tendency strengthens, it becomes increasingly obvious that society is not controlling its economic life, but is in part being controlled by it. The weakening of purposeful social thinking is a direct consequence of this powerful experience, which seeks to reduce human activity to predictable patterns of demand. If we were not consumers, but users, we might look at society very differently, for the concept of use involves general human judgments -- whereas consumption, with its crude hand-to-mouth patterns, tends to cancel these questions, replacing them by the stimulated and controlled absorption of the products of an external and autonomous system."
That little gem is from The Long Revolution, laying special emphasis on the 'creative mind' in relation to social and cultural thinking. Funny how in the advertising and marketing industries today 'creative' is a term applied to roles in the company who substantiate the modern push marketing techniques through authoring of convincing scripts that play into cultural stereotypes.
Williams went on to pioneer the field of 'cultural studies' and continued to articulate still unresolved questions about how we form the self and social. According to the John Hopkins Guide to Literary Theory and Criticism, Williams was:
"Confident that 'all kinds of writing produce meaning and value', he wrote in a multiplicity of modes and discourses (as critic, theorist, historian, journalist, political commentator, pamphleteer, dramatist, and novelist) and in a variety of styles (conversational, high academic, technically condensed, literary, and polemical). At his death in 1988, after a career of 40 years, he left behind more than 650 publications, including 27 academic books, 5 novels, 3 plays, 7 pamphlets, 60 columns on television in The Listener, and more than 500 articles and reviews, among them his regular book reviews for the Guardian and New Society."
Labels: sociology
Saturday, May 21, 2005
Arsenal Glory Glory Hallelujah!
Arsenal are FA Cup Champions 2005!
Patrick Viera slotted home the vital strike to clinch victory for Arsene Wenger's Red Army in penalty kicks after 120 minutes of scoreless football.
It was beautiful to see Arsenal grind out a victory after winning with such silky smooth football that the team was accused of not knowing how to compete. This match answered that criticism decisively.
Well done to Manchester United to get to the final and win the battle on the stat sheet but thankfully that is not where the ultimate result was found.
Labels: sport
Stage set for Arsenal FA Cup glory
Football fans worldwide are tingling with anticipation at the thought of this afternoon's FA Cup Final in Cardiff between Arsenal Football Club and Manchester United.
Arsene Wenger's magic, he wears a magic hat
And when he saw the FA Cup,
He said I'm 'avin that!
Check out my new Arsenal photo album of a few matches this season. For some reason I keep getting assigned seats that are very low down on the field. It's not great for action down the other end but there's no feeling like it when they are coming at you!
Hopefully Man U play football and not foul by rota this afternoon. Otherwise we could see a lot more like this picture showing midfield stalwart Patrick Viera getting chopped down by an oaf from Liverpool.
Labels: photography, sport
Thursday, May 19, 2005
Sociology of racism in Brockley
Sir, if you wish to have a just notion of the magnitude of this city, you must not be satisfied with seeing its great streets and squares, but must survey the innumerable little lanes and courts. It is not in the showy evolutions of buildings, but in the multiplicity of human habitations which are crowded together, that the wonderful immensity of London consists.
- Samuel Johnson (18th century English writer) in conversation with James Boswell
Brockley is a rising star. The way that Londoners understand that Camden has had its moment in the sun, and Shoreditch is the flavor of the month, so too we can see the promise in little SE4. But does that promise also come with a lingering sense of failing multiculturalism?
Crunched between Lewisham and News Cross, the Zone 2 district became a conservation area in 1974 "following a campaign from local residents to protect the area's overall character of period houses, large gardens and open spaces; all of which had largely survived intact since the area was first developed from around 1870, but were beginning to be under threat of extensive re-development".
This attention to preservation has paid off as a walk through this neighborhood of 4000 houses will attest. The houses are that much better kept-up, a neighborhood watchman strolls leisurely through in the evenings chatting with residents, his walky-talky occasionally blurting out sounds from other foot soldiers patrolling and protecting the unique serenity of these streets in an otherwise rambunctious quarter of southeast London.
Lewisham is a transportation hub but comparatively soulless with bland urban landscapes and New Cross is to Camden what Brockley is to Swiss Cottage. The area is currently a hotbed for musical talent building on a legacy that saw Siousxie and the Banshees kick off the goth movement in the 1970s and in the last couple years Bloc Party, Art Brut and most recently Geniac, who I saw play at the Catapult Club last month and are one of the best unsigned punk/rock bands in Britain at the moment (download this raw mp3 for an idea of the sound).
So it is more likely New Cross, with two stations on the East London tube line, will lead the charge from the southeast to promote a new hub of cultural and artistic activity and eventually inherent the trendy mantle from Camden and Shoreditch. The council recently turned down planning permission for a new Starbucks on the high street and the borough very nearly elected the UK's first Green MP in recent political elections.
But it is Brockley that the househunters and transplants will seek out as the most obviously pleasant place to live in the surrounding area. Many of the academics at nearby Goldsmiths College already call it home and the suited commuter rush at local St Johns train station speaks of an already bulging middle class occupation.
So that sets the stage for our exercise in sociological imagination, understanding the self and the social in little SE4, and exploring those "human habitations" of which Johnson speaks in our opening quote. For there remains demons lurking in the multicultural milieu of the streets and those who live among them.
Despite recent growth in the area commercial support for the residents continues to be very undeveloped . The big grocery stores call Lewisham and New Cross home, restaurants and coffee shops are few and far between, and most residents trek to Greenwich for any evening activities. Arriving locals lament the lack of decent pubs in the area. So with most of the newcomers avoiding the local establishments, it provides a unique opportunity to connect with a more traditionally fixed Brockley resident.
Approximately five blocks apart sit two pubs, on the main arteries leading into Brockley from one side, and for the purposes of this little exploration it is unnecessary to identify them by name. Unless of course we adopt the names articulated by patrons.
"We're all white," says Tad at the bar with a wink. "That's what we say around here. Ha ha ha. You know, We're all right and we're all white."
And this pub is all white. On the half-dozen occasions I've been in I've never seen a black or visible minority of any kind. Well I guess that's not actually true. A local Pakistani shopkeeper occasionally stops in for a pint after work. When he's not around the other patrons make an exception on his behalf.
"That Paki," says another patron. "He's a good Paki."
The barmaid laughs and others join in. "Ya. He is a good Paki, that one," another chimes in. The racial slurs are not spoken with obvious malice, although there is tremendous distrust for other skin colors among the 20 or so patrons who linger around the bar making small talk and downing pints. The fact the my skin color is white and I am sitting in their pub makes them comfortable speaking naturally (racially) with me as well.
Herein lies one of the greatest challenges of the sociologist. Like an undercover policeman who wants to infiltrate a gang of drug dealers, so too must the sociologist often put personal convictions and perspectives to the side in the interest of being allowed to participate in sociological activity. On one occasion I let slip during a conversation with a patron that I had overheard racism from fans of a local football club. My tone was disapproving. We'd been chatting for an hour but he subsequently turned his back on me for the remainder of the evening.
A colleague here at Goldsmiths had done an in-depth study of fans of this club and also had to submerge himself in the communities and conversations of the subjects of his research.
"Yes I did some of that research," he says. "And I certainly have the scars to prove it."
Five blocks down the road the situation does not improve. If the other was the 'white' pub, this is the 'black' pub. On the four occasions I have been in this busy pub I have never seen another white patron. The music is dub reggae, the atmosphere significantly more lively, and a more nomadic patron population circulates among each other, from table to table. Here the color of my skin provides obstacles to even engaging in conversations or observing interaction.
On my second visit, after sitting alone for the entirety of the first, I got frustrated and tried to barge into the community. I sat down at a table with other patrons and introduced myself. They rose from their chairs to find another seat. Subsequently I managed to pin one of them, obviously uncomfortable with our conversation, at the bar where we spoke softly. After several futile forays into small talk I approached the situation directly.
"Why doesn't anyone want to speak with me?"
His response surprised the sociologist in me: "Racism my friend. We've lived under slavery. We don't trust you. You want to dominate."
Later the bartender would politely ask if I wanted to find another place for a pint. As the door swung closed behind me I heard a laugh from inside: "Blood Clot Bakra".
A browse of an online Patois Dictionary tells me that I was being called a curse followed by a derogatory term for a "white slavemaster, or member of the ruling class in colonial days. Popular etymology: 'back raw' (which he bestowed with a whip)".
It is a product of my relativist perspective that I was more shocked to hear that the patrons were connecting my skin color with racism a century before than the utterings at the 'white' pub. But perhaps these blacks understood the derogatory emphasis and words spoken in the pub down the street, without needing to sit and listen.
So like two garrisons camped on two hills, these pubs in Brockley serve their own populations, oblivious to the multicultural agenda so prolific in political and social discussions in the UK. And of course these perspectives are not limited to these particular pubs, or to Brockley, where blacks and whites move freely on the streets, if not interacting, interliving.
I have written a short story soon to be published based on my experiences in another part of East London where the glaring chasm between races and hopes for reconciliation is far more dramatic than the discussions and observations highlighted here.
And like most sociology, there really isn't much scientific validity to the perspective presented in this blog posting, more simple observation of people in a place or time to do with as you please.
But what these observations do suggest is that we need to dig still deeper within the cultural and social fabric of communities to illustrate the work that still needs to be done to arrive at a collective perspective of shared humanity. In the words of Bishop Desmond Tutu, disrespect the other and you disrespect yourself for you and the other are the same.
- Samuel Johnson (18th century English writer) in conversation with James Boswell
Brockley is a rising star. The way that Londoners understand that Camden has had its moment in the sun, and Shoreditch is the flavor of the month, so too we can see the promise in little SE4. But does that promise also come with a lingering sense of failing multiculturalism?
Crunched between Lewisham and News Cross, the Zone 2 district became a conservation area in 1974 "following a campaign from local residents to protect the area's overall character of period houses, large gardens and open spaces; all of which had largely survived intact since the area was first developed from around 1870, but were beginning to be under threat of extensive re-development".
This attention to preservation has paid off as a walk through this neighborhood of 4000 houses will attest. The houses are that much better kept-up, a neighborhood watchman strolls leisurely through in the evenings chatting with residents, his walky-talky occasionally blurting out sounds from other foot soldiers patrolling and protecting the unique serenity of these streets in an otherwise rambunctious quarter of southeast London.
Lewisham is a transportation hub but comparatively soulless with bland urban landscapes and New Cross is to Camden what Brockley is to Swiss Cottage. The area is currently a hotbed for musical talent building on a legacy that saw Siousxie and the Banshees kick off the goth movement in the 1970s and in the last couple years Bloc Party, Art Brut and most recently Geniac, who I saw play at the Catapult Club last month and are one of the best unsigned punk/rock bands in Britain at the moment (download this raw mp3 for an idea of the sound).
So it is more likely New Cross, with two stations on the East London tube line, will lead the charge from the southeast to promote a new hub of cultural and artistic activity and eventually inherent the trendy mantle from Camden and Shoreditch. The council recently turned down planning permission for a new Starbucks on the high street and the borough very nearly elected the UK's first Green MP in recent political elections.
But it is Brockley that the househunters and transplants will seek out as the most obviously pleasant place to live in the surrounding area. Many of the academics at nearby Goldsmiths College already call it home and the suited commuter rush at local St Johns train station speaks of an already bulging middle class occupation.
So that sets the stage for our exercise in sociological imagination, understanding the self and the social in little SE4, and exploring those "human habitations" of which Johnson speaks in our opening quote. For there remains demons lurking in the multicultural milieu of the streets and those who live among them.
Despite recent growth in the area commercial support for the residents continues to be very undeveloped . The big grocery stores call Lewisham and New Cross home, restaurants and coffee shops are few and far between, and most residents trek to Greenwich for any evening activities. Arriving locals lament the lack of decent pubs in the area. So with most of the newcomers avoiding the local establishments, it provides a unique opportunity to connect with a more traditionally fixed Brockley resident.
Approximately five blocks apart sit two pubs, on the main arteries leading into Brockley from one side, and for the purposes of this little exploration it is unnecessary to identify them by name. Unless of course we adopt the names articulated by patrons.
"We're all white," says Tad at the bar with a wink. "That's what we say around here. Ha ha ha. You know, We're all right and we're all white."
And this pub is all white. On the half-dozen occasions I've been in I've never seen a black or visible minority of any kind. Well I guess that's not actually true. A local Pakistani shopkeeper occasionally stops in for a pint after work. When he's not around the other patrons make an exception on his behalf.
"That Paki," says another patron. "He's a good Paki."
The barmaid laughs and others join in. "Ya. He is a good Paki, that one," another chimes in. The racial slurs are not spoken with obvious malice, although there is tremendous distrust for other skin colors among the 20 or so patrons who linger around the bar making small talk and downing pints. The fact the my skin color is white and I am sitting in their pub makes them comfortable speaking naturally (racially) with me as well.
Herein lies one of the greatest challenges of the sociologist. Like an undercover policeman who wants to infiltrate a gang of drug dealers, so too must the sociologist often put personal convictions and perspectives to the side in the interest of being allowed to participate in sociological activity. On one occasion I let slip during a conversation with a patron that I had overheard racism from fans of a local football club. My tone was disapproving. We'd been chatting for an hour but he subsequently turned his back on me for the remainder of the evening.
A colleague here at Goldsmiths had done an in-depth study of fans of this club and also had to submerge himself in the communities and conversations of the subjects of his research.
"Yes I did some of that research," he says. "And I certainly have the scars to prove it."
Five blocks down the road the situation does not improve. If the other was the 'white' pub, this is the 'black' pub. On the four occasions I have been in this busy pub I have never seen another white patron. The music is dub reggae, the atmosphere significantly more lively, and a more nomadic patron population circulates among each other, from table to table. Here the color of my skin provides obstacles to even engaging in conversations or observing interaction.
On my second visit, after sitting alone for the entirety of the first, I got frustrated and tried to barge into the community. I sat down at a table with other patrons and introduced myself. They rose from their chairs to find another seat. Subsequently I managed to pin one of them, obviously uncomfortable with our conversation, at the bar where we spoke softly. After several futile forays into small talk I approached the situation directly.
"Why doesn't anyone want to speak with me?"
His response surprised the sociologist in me: "Racism my friend. We've lived under slavery. We don't trust you. You want to dominate."
Later the bartender would politely ask if I wanted to find another place for a pint. As the door swung closed behind me I heard a laugh from inside: "Blood Clot Bakra".
A browse of an online Patois Dictionary tells me that I was being called a curse followed by a derogatory term for a "white slavemaster, or member of the ruling class in colonial days. Popular etymology: 'back raw' (which he bestowed with a whip)".
It is a product of my relativist perspective that I was more shocked to hear that the patrons were connecting my skin color with racism a century before than the utterings at the 'white' pub. But perhaps these blacks understood the derogatory emphasis and words spoken in the pub down the street, without needing to sit and listen.
So like two garrisons camped on two hills, these pubs in Brockley serve their own populations, oblivious to the multicultural agenda so prolific in political and social discussions in the UK. And of course these perspectives are not limited to these particular pubs, or to Brockley, where blacks and whites move freely on the streets, if not interacting, interliving.
I have written a short story soon to be published based on my experiences in another part of East London where the glaring chasm between races and hopes for reconciliation is far more dramatic than the discussions and observations highlighted here.
And like most sociology, there really isn't much scientific validity to the perspective presented in this blog posting, more simple observation of people in a place or time to do with as you please.
But what these observations do suggest is that we need to dig still deeper within the cultural and social fabric of communities to illustrate the work that still needs to be done to arrive at a collective perspective of shared humanity. In the words of Bishop Desmond Tutu, disrespect the other and you disrespect yourself for you and the other are the same.
Wednesday, May 18, 2005
Secrets of the world's coolest brands - Goldsmiths
Good news for my future status as an alumni of Goldsmiths College, University of London where I am currently pursuing a PhD in sociology and computing science. For the third consecutive year Goldsmiths is one of the top five coolest brands in the UK according to a report by Superbrands, and produced by the Brand Council.
"The five rules of cool are originality, innovation, authenticity, a sense of style and being unique. Goldsmiths College is a leading cool brand that not only is cool in itself, but helps to shape the future of cool. With a really unique, strong and desirable reputation, the achievements of the College and its graduates speak for itself." - Stephen Cheliotis, Superbrands Brand Liaison Director.
The College is almost painfully trendy at the moment. In a recent edition of the UK version of The Apprentice the task was to sell art. One of the groups was frustrated by their inability to translate their corporate language into something attractive to the artists. Bitterly a member who looked decidedly Oxbridge mused: "So what if I didn't go to Goldsmiths fu**ing College!"
"The five rules of cool are originality, innovation, authenticity, a sense of style and being unique. Goldsmiths College is a leading cool brand that not only is cool in itself, but helps to shape the future of cool. With a really unique, strong and desirable reputation, the achievements of the College and its graduates speak for itself." - Stephen Cheliotis, Superbrands Brand Liaison Director.
The College is almost painfully trendy at the moment. In a recent edition of the UK version of The Apprentice the task was to sell art. One of the groups was frustrated by their inability to translate their corporate language into something attractive to the artists. Bitterly a member who looked decidedly Oxbridge mused: "So what if I didn't go to Goldsmiths fu**ing College!"
But based on my experiences in Spring Review Week, where PhD students from across the College come together to present the status of their research, Goldsmiths is a fascinating place that seems to attract extremely innovative and interdisciplinary thinkers. Now it is entirely possible that they all arrived there by a similar route to my own, by clumsy coincidence, but that might also be how it has maintained its reputation for cool. There is nothing so uncool as something or someone who can't stop acting as if they are cool. Now all I've got to hope is that the coolness doesn't rub off before I graduate in two years. There is also nothing so uncool as someone or something that used to be cool but still keeps pretending.
Monday, May 16, 2005
Pass the Pope at Lightspeed
What could possibly bring together the new Pope, Lance Armstrong, Hermann Hesse, astrophysics, and the little German town of Tubingen? Hop on to our lightspeed mad bicycle to find out!
Researchers in the department of Theoretical Astrophysics at the University of Tubingen, Germany have developed a speed-of-light simulator, that takes you through the streets of Tubingen in southwest Germany, at near light speeds. It opened on May 7th through the end of 2005 as an exhibition at the Deutsches Museum, Munich providing museum-goers the opportunity to hop on a stationary bike, accelerating to 30km/h to witness the effects on perception of travel at 99% the speed of light as the view is projected on a large screen in front of you in real time. The engineers have created a correlation between traveling 30km/h on the bike and witnessing light speed on the screen. That provides the seedling idea for this thought experiment.
Everyone knows that six-times Tour de France winner Lance Armstrong can ride a bike forever at incredible speed. He reaches speeds in excess of 75km/h on descents. So what would happen if we put Armstrong on the exhibition bike and instructed him to tide forever at incredible speed? Einstein's Special Theory of Relativity provides some clues.
For example if your spaceship were to leave earth traveling at 98% the speed of light, the pace reached by any biker experimenting with the Tubingen simulation, and you took a one year journey, when you returned five years on earth would have passed. But that's taking us in the wrong direction. While it might be interesting to explore participation in an accelerated future, what about journeying to the past? Aren't the technical challenges insurmountable? And why might we want to do this, especially if we were only able to navigate the winding cobblestone paths of little Tubingen?
There are likely countless good reasons why visiting this German town in the past on our light bike could be interesting and enjoyable. Near the borders of Switzerland and Austria and overlooking the Neckar and Ammer rivers, Tubingen is richly vested in history and an ideal site for time travel. For our purposes we will concentrate on two key personalities who touched ground in the town, already connected over boundaries of time and space - the newly elected Pope Benedict XVI, formerly Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger and author Herman Hesse.
But first just how possible is our little thought experiment?
We are after all speaking of generating an infinite source of energy to drive our infinite mass (as objects approach the speed of light mass increases with velocity, going to infinity at the speed of light). Also approaching light speed means that thoughts, heart beat and movements would slow as well. But we were never thinking very quickly anyhow and surely there is nothing more massive than Lance Armstrong's thighs. Plus we have already seen Captain Kirk, Superman and even Chubaka of Star Wars fame reverse time with a flick of a switch or cape so it is clearly possible, despite what any 'earthbound' physicist might say.
Those physicists who dare to explore thought experiments in violation of the laws of physics, like Doc Brown in Back to the Future, suggest that if we could exceed 140% of the speed of light time will go faster than the stationary frame, in effect reversing time. With Armstrong traveling furiously over 200% the 30km/h speed of light requirement in the German museum we look well set to exceed that threshold. And now for the real kicker. He would pedal backwards, clearly a recipe for taking us backwards through time.
So that's sorted out and now on to our personalities. Pope Benedict XVI is already 78-years-old so we'd be unlikely to encounter him if we started Armstrong speeding back to the future. He's probably a fairly interesting character to meet in current time 2005, setting the stage and foundation of beliefs for over 1 billion Catholics worldwide. But to truly understand the essence of the man who would be pope we might need to travel back to 1968, a point in history often signaled by biographers as a critical juncture in the development of his philosophical perspective.
Joseph Aloysius Ratzinger was teaching at Tubingen when Marxist student protests broke out in the late 1960s, the European equivalent to the student protests in Italy, France and the US at the same period. As power was questioned in all its forms Ratzinger was scared by the upheaval and became gravely concerned with the consequences of a system free of a strong hand of structured order. He called the revolts "a radical attack on human freedom ... a deep threat to all that is human".
Shortly after he is said to have adopted the Conservative views that led him to his taskmaster position in the Church under John Paul II, effectively the Party Whip.
Charles Moore in the Daily Telegaph muses that "his experience of the subsequent turmoil in the Church has taught him that Western culture is profoundly hostile to the message of Christianity".
According to Moore, Pope Benedict XVI is said to be fascinated with Herman Hesse's Steppenwolf, with its portrait of Harry Haller embracing the meaninglessness of life. If this is true, and we have no reason to suspect otherwise, perhaps Ratzinger feels special affinity for the character who balances self-affirmation with self-destruction and individuality with convention.
Perhaps he also feels special affinity for author Hesse who apprenticed for four years at the Buchhandlung Heckenhauer (still standing today in Tubingen on the Holzmarkt Square) from 1895-1898, in a common practice for young writers. Hesse led a wandering life but, like Ratzinger, was crucially formed by his contemplative years in the Black Forest bordertown before the start of WWI, against which Hesse furiously spoke out in Switzerland. Ratzinger deserted the German army during WWII and was briefly held by American forces as a POW.
Hesse received the Nobel Prize for literature in 1946 after his works had been put out of print in Nazi Germany from 1939-1945 by authorities. His literary canon is defined by a range of beautiful texts but it is Siddhartha, a fictional account of the early spiritual wanderings of Gautama Buddha, and Steppenwolf that must have touched Ratzinger.
And so it is with great ferocity that Armstrong pedals our lightspeed bike backwards to 1968 to find the young theologian deep in a Martin Luther-like trance, driven to action but now feeling the weight of consequence, searching for a reconnection to God.
In a Time Magazine interview with a friend, Wolfgang Beinert, working in Tubingen at the time, Ratzinger's dilemma emerges:
"Ratzinger had advocated -- was known for advocating -- a greater openness and a loosening of ecclesiastical authority, the Tubingen strikes triggered a huge fright. Ratzinger believed that he was in some way responsible, guilty of the chaos, and that the university and society and church were collapsing."
Did he clutch Steppenwolf to his chest and chart a new path of authority and strict convention, his reputation as a institutional disciplinarian strengthened with each new promotion within the Church hierarchy?
Perhaps we should accelerate Armstrong's reverse still further, calling for one of his mythical climbs on Alpe d'Huez to take us still further back to Hesse, sitting contemplative, a lonely figure publishing his first poems in 1898, "melancholy neo-Romantic lyrics expressing Hesse's uneasiness with the world".
But a closer look sees figures clasped hand in hand across a table and over Hesse's shoulder, shadowed faces flickering in the firelight. Steppenwolf and Siddhartha sat cross legged speaking in turn.
SW: Our whole civilization is a cemetery where Jesus Christ, and Socrates, Mozart and Haydn, Dante and Goethe were but the indecipherable names on moldering stones; and the mourners who stood round affecting a pretense of sorrow would give much to believe in these inscriptions which once were holy.
SH: All the voices, all the goals, all the yearnings, all the sorrows, all the pleasures, all the good and evil, all of them together is the world. All of them together was the stream of events, the music of life...then the great song of a thousand voices consisted of one word: Om - perfection
Hesse doesn't seem startled by our presence: "We won't bring them," motioning towards his characters. "Ratzinger already knows them."
A whirl of the pedals and Armstrong has us on our way back to unite the characters of our Tubingen time-traveling drama, over time and space. Ratzinger doesn't seem startled by our presence.
Hesse: People with courage and character always seem sinister to the rest
Ratzinger: Having a clear faith, based on the creed of the church, is often labeled today as a fundamentalism... Whereas relativism, which is letting oneself be tossed and 'swept along by every wind of teaching,' looks like the only attitude acceptable to today's standards.
Hesse: Yet it is possible for one never to transgress a single law and still be a bastard
Ratzinger: Because in today's world the theme of truth has all but disappeared, because truth appears too great for man, and yet everything falls apart if there is no truth. We are moving toward a dictatorship of relativism which does not recognize anything as for certain and which has as its highest goal one's own ego and one's own desires.
Hesse: Within us there is someone who knows everything, wills everything, does everything better than we ourselves.
Shortly they fade from view and earshot, walking arm and arm, no longer two isolated, inspirational men but now joined forces, stretched by lightspeed over Tubingen.
One can't help but think that commuters in the congested cities of the world like London, Tokyo, Los Angeles or Mexico City, might benefit more from getting around on a 'bike' traveling at light speed than the 85,000 residents in this idyllic old town. But the next time you visit Tubingen allow your senses to open and seek the Om that came that day when Pope Benedict XVI and Hermann Hesse met and walked together, speaking in turn, listening all the time.
As for us, we sped off on our lightspeed bike in time to get it back to the Deutches Museum before opening the next morning. It's there waiting for you when you're ready to conduct your own thought experiment. But you better get out practicing on your bike as Lance Armstrong has a seventh Tour de France to win this summer and he's a little busy.
Researchers in the department of Theoretical Astrophysics at the University of Tubingen, Germany have developed a speed-of-light simulator, that takes you through the streets of Tubingen in southwest Germany, at near light speeds. It opened on May 7th through the end of 2005 as an exhibition at the Deutsches Museum, Munich providing museum-goers the opportunity to hop on a stationary bike, accelerating to 30km/h to witness the effects on perception of travel at 99% the speed of light as the view is projected on a large screen in front of you in real time. The engineers have created a correlation between traveling 30km/h on the bike and witnessing light speed on the screen. That provides the seedling idea for this thought experiment.
Everyone knows that six-times Tour de France winner Lance Armstrong can ride a bike forever at incredible speed. He reaches speeds in excess of 75km/h on descents. So what would happen if we put Armstrong on the exhibition bike and instructed him to tide forever at incredible speed? Einstein's Special Theory of Relativity provides some clues.
For example if your spaceship were to leave earth traveling at 98% the speed of light, the pace reached by any biker experimenting with the Tubingen simulation, and you took a one year journey, when you returned five years on earth would have passed. But that's taking us in the wrong direction. While it might be interesting to explore participation in an accelerated future, what about journeying to the past? Aren't the technical challenges insurmountable? And why might we want to do this, especially if we were only able to navigate the winding cobblestone paths of little Tubingen?
There are likely countless good reasons why visiting this German town in the past on our light bike could be interesting and enjoyable. Near the borders of Switzerland and Austria and overlooking the Neckar and Ammer rivers, Tubingen is richly vested in history and an ideal site for time travel. For our purposes we will concentrate on two key personalities who touched ground in the town, already connected over boundaries of time and space - the newly elected Pope Benedict XVI, formerly Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger and author Herman Hesse.
But first just how possible is our little thought experiment?
We are after all speaking of generating an infinite source of energy to drive our infinite mass (as objects approach the speed of light mass increases with velocity, going to infinity at the speed of light). Also approaching light speed means that thoughts, heart beat and movements would slow as well. But we were never thinking very quickly anyhow and surely there is nothing more massive than Lance Armstrong's thighs. Plus we have already seen Captain Kirk, Superman and even Chubaka of Star Wars fame reverse time with a flick of a switch or cape so it is clearly possible, despite what any 'earthbound' physicist might say.
Those physicists who dare to explore thought experiments in violation of the laws of physics, like Doc Brown in Back to the Future, suggest that if we could exceed 140% of the speed of light time will go faster than the stationary frame, in effect reversing time. With Armstrong traveling furiously over 200% the 30km/h speed of light requirement in the German museum we look well set to exceed that threshold. And now for the real kicker. He would pedal backwards, clearly a recipe for taking us backwards through time.
So that's sorted out and now on to our personalities. Pope Benedict XVI is already 78-years-old so we'd be unlikely to encounter him if we started Armstrong speeding back to the future. He's probably a fairly interesting character to meet in current time 2005, setting the stage and foundation of beliefs for over 1 billion Catholics worldwide. But to truly understand the essence of the man who would be pope we might need to travel back to 1968, a point in history often signaled by biographers as a critical juncture in the development of his philosophical perspective.
Joseph Aloysius Ratzinger was teaching at Tubingen when Marxist student protests broke out in the late 1960s, the European equivalent to the student protests in Italy, France and the US at the same period. As power was questioned in all its forms Ratzinger was scared by the upheaval and became gravely concerned with the consequences of a system free of a strong hand of structured order. He called the revolts "a radical attack on human freedom ... a deep threat to all that is human".
Shortly after he is said to have adopted the Conservative views that led him to his taskmaster position in the Church under John Paul II, effectively the Party Whip.
Charles Moore in the Daily Telegaph muses that "his experience of the subsequent turmoil in the Church has taught him that Western culture is profoundly hostile to the message of Christianity".
According to Moore, Pope Benedict XVI is said to be fascinated with Herman Hesse's Steppenwolf, with its portrait of Harry Haller embracing the meaninglessness of life. If this is true, and we have no reason to suspect otherwise, perhaps Ratzinger feels special affinity for the character who balances self-affirmation with self-destruction and individuality with convention.
Perhaps he also feels special affinity for author Hesse who apprenticed for four years at the Buchhandlung Heckenhauer (still standing today in Tubingen on the Holzmarkt Square) from 1895-1898, in a common practice for young writers. Hesse led a wandering life but, like Ratzinger, was crucially formed by his contemplative years in the Black Forest bordertown before the start of WWI, against which Hesse furiously spoke out in Switzerland. Ratzinger deserted the German army during WWII and was briefly held by American forces as a POW.
Hesse received the Nobel Prize for literature in 1946 after his works had been put out of print in Nazi Germany from 1939-1945 by authorities. His literary canon is defined by a range of beautiful texts but it is Siddhartha, a fictional account of the early spiritual wanderings of Gautama Buddha, and Steppenwolf that must have touched Ratzinger.
And so it is with great ferocity that Armstrong pedals our lightspeed bike backwards to 1968 to find the young theologian deep in a Martin Luther-like trance, driven to action but now feeling the weight of consequence, searching for a reconnection to God.
In a Time Magazine interview with a friend, Wolfgang Beinert, working in Tubingen at the time, Ratzinger's dilemma emerges:
"Ratzinger had advocated -- was known for advocating -- a greater openness and a loosening of ecclesiastical authority, the Tubingen strikes triggered a huge fright. Ratzinger believed that he was in some way responsible, guilty of the chaos, and that the university and society and church were collapsing."
Did he clutch Steppenwolf to his chest and chart a new path of authority and strict convention, his reputation as a institutional disciplinarian strengthened with each new promotion within the Church hierarchy?
Perhaps we should accelerate Armstrong's reverse still further, calling for one of his mythical climbs on Alpe d'Huez to take us still further back to Hesse, sitting contemplative, a lonely figure publishing his first poems in 1898, "melancholy neo-Romantic lyrics expressing Hesse's uneasiness with the world".
But a closer look sees figures clasped hand in hand across a table and over Hesse's shoulder, shadowed faces flickering in the firelight. Steppenwolf and Siddhartha sat cross legged speaking in turn.
SW: Our whole civilization is a cemetery where Jesus Christ, and Socrates, Mozart and Haydn, Dante and Goethe were but the indecipherable names on moldering stones; and the mourners who stood round affecting a pretense of sorrow would give much to believe in these inscriptions which once were holy.
SH: All the voices, all the goals, all the yearnings, all the sorrows, all the pleasures, all the good and evil, all of them together is the world. All of them together was the stream of events, the music of life...then the great song of a thousand voices consisted of one word: Om - perfection
Hesse doesn't seem startled by our presence: "We won't bring them," motioning towards his characters. "Ratzinger already knows them."
A whirl of the pedals and Armstrong has us on our way back to unite the characters of our Tubingen time-traveling drama, over time and space. Ratzinger doesn't seem startled by our presence.
Hesse: People with courage and character always seem sinister to the rest
Ratzinger: Having a clear faith, based on the creed of the church, is often labeled today as a fundamentalism... Whereas relativism, which is letting oneself be tossed and 'swept along by every wind of teaching,' looks like the only attitude acceptable to today's standards.
Hesse: Yet it is possible for one never to transgress a single law and still be a bastard
Ratzinger: Because in today's world the theme of truth has all but disappeared, because truth appears too great for man, and yet everything falls apart if there is no truth. We are moving toward a dictatorship of relativism which does not recognize anything as for certain and which has as its highest goal one's own ego and one's own desires.
Hesse: Within us there is someone who knows everything, wills everything, does everything better than we ourselves.
Shortly they fade from view and earshot, walking arm and arm, no longer two isolated, inspirational men but now joined forces, stretched by lightspeed over Tubingen.
One can't help but think that commuters in the congested cities of the world like London, Tokyo, Los Angeles or Mexico City, might benefit more from getting around on a 'bike' traveling at light speed than the 85,000 residents in this idyllic old town. But the next time you visit Tubingen allow your senses to open and seek the Om that came that day when Pope Benedict XVI and Hermann Hesse met and walked together, speaking in turn, listening all the time.
As for us, we sped off on our lightspeed bike in time to get it back to the Deutches Museum before opening the next morning. It's there waiting for you when you're ready to conduct your own thought experiment. But you better get out practicing on your bike as Lance Armstrong has a seventh Tour de France to win this summer and he's a little busy.
Labels: literature, religion, science
Sunday, May 15, 2005
Khan Amir sting like Ali?
Hours after the Theatre of the New Ear played out spectacle at a venue traditionally used for classical arts, a ballet of another kind was performed on a springy canvas in Bolton.
Well I guess it depends on how you define ballet:
"To me, boxing is like a ballet, except there's no music, no choreography, and the dancers hit each other."
- Jack Handy, famous for his Deep Thought comedy sketches on Saturday Night Live.
Flyweight Amir Khan, at 18 a big UK talent in a little package, announced he was turning pro after outpointing Cuban Olympic and World Champion Mario Kindelan. Kindelan had beaten Khan in the Athens 2004 Olympics and the Bolton-native was determined to avenge this defeat before turning pro. Many pundits rated Kindelan the greatest amateur fighter in the world.
A quick scan of the media coverage going into the bout. The Cuban coverage reveals the close alignment between national pride and sporting outcomes in the country. In England Khan said he would win and when he won said he would become a legend by 25. Sounds as if he is made of the right stuff for the bravado and theatre that is modern professional boxing, particularly the kind of big title fights Khan will want to land in the future. Reminds a bit of Khan's fighting hero:
"I am the greatest, I said that even before I knew I was."
- Muhammad Ali, the greatest
It was rumored before the Athens games that if Khan wasn't selected for the British team he might fight for Pakistan, the native home of his parents. Instead he become a terrific sporting hero for Britain. Most pubs were filled as the fight was broadcast live on national terrestrial television. In a country that can always benefit from frequent reminders of the values of the diverse multicultural population, Khan is the best fighter and could be doing for East Indians in England what footballer Zidane did for North Africans in France after the successful 1998 World Cup campaign - improving multiculturalism through sport.
Boxing can be a gruesome game but in tales from Rocky, Sugar Ray, Duran, Roy Jones, pre-ear-munching Tyson, and most famously Ali himself, the penchant for great drama and bravery in boxing can rarely be matched. And occasionally as with Ali, it can have global effects. A scan of comments on an Islamic message board to an interview with Ali reveals the depth of inspiration.
- MUHAMMAD ALI IS THE GREATEST! NO MATTER WHO OR WHAT HE'S UP AGAINST, HE ALWAYS COMES OUT ON TOP!!
- I think Muhammad Ali is the greatest boxer in the entire universe! He really inspired me to stand up for Islam and to not be ashamed of who you are! And if someone tries to Taunt you for wh you are then just simply tell them i dont have to be who you want be to be i think he is i just can;'t explain! "Your hands can't hit what you eyes cant see, float like a butterfly,sting like a bee, Rumble young man rumble"!
So enough about Ali and the past, when we could be presently witnessing the birth of a prodigous talent in Khan. He needs to work a lot on his press conference patter to match his hero but his footwork, so improved over his last encounter with Kindelan, set him apart from the Cuban. Floating like a butterfly who has matured to compliment the bravado, Khan shares many of the qualities of his iconic hero, but plans to differ on retirement plans.
"I want to retire from all of boxing by the age of 25, becoming a legend as well at that age. It is a big goal and it is going to be hard to do ... I don't want to get punched all my life so the best thing is at the age of 25 to stop boxing and look after my family." (Sporting Life)
Well I guess it depends on how you define ballet:
"To me, boxing is like a ballet, except there's no music, no choreography, and the dancers hit each other."
- Jack Handy, famous for his Deep Thought comedy sketches on Saturday Night Live.
Flyweight Amir Khan, at 18 a big UK talent in a little package, announced he was turning pro after outpointing Cuban Olympic and World Champion Mario Kindelan. Kindelan had beaten Khan in the Athens 2004 Olympics and the Bolton-native was determined to avenge this defeat before turning pro. Many pundits rated Kindelan the greatest amateur fighter in the world.
A quick scan of the media coverage going into the bout. The Cuban coverage reveals the close alignment between national pride and sporting outcomes in the country. In England Khan said he would win and when he won said he would become a legend by 25. Sounds as if he is made of the right stuff for the bravado and theatre that is modern professional boxing, particularly the kind of big title fights Khan will want to land in the future. Reminds a bit of Khan's fighting hero:
"I am the greatest, I said that even before I knew I was."
- Muhammad Ali, the greatest
It was rumored before the Athens games that if Khan wasn't selected for the British team he might fight for Pakistan, the native home of his parents. Instead he become a terrific sporting hero for Britain. Most pubs were filled as the fight was broadcast live on national terrestrial television. In a country that can always benefit from frequent reminders of the values of the diverse multicultural population, Khan is the best fighter and could be doing for East Indians in England what footballer Zidane did for North Africans in France after the successful 1998 World Cup campaign - improving multiculturalism through sport.
Boxing can be a gruesome game but in tales from Rocky, Sugar Ray, Duran, Roy Jones, pre-ear-munching Tyson, and most famously Ali himself, the penchant for great drama and bravery in boxing can rarely be matched. And occasionally as with Ali, it can have global effects. A scan of comments on an Islamic message board to an interview with Ali reveals the depth of inspiration.
- MUHAMMAD ALI IS THE GREATEST! NO MATTER WHO OR WHAT HE'S UP AGAINST, HE ALWAYS COMES OUT ON TOP!!
- I think Muhammad Ali is the greatest boxer in the entire universe! He really inspired me to stand up for Islam and to not be ashamed of who you are! And if someone tries to Taunt you for wh you are then just simply tell them i dont have to be who you want be to be i think he is i just can;'t explain! "Your hands can't hit what you eyes cant see, float like a butterfly,sting like a bee, Rumble young man rumble"!
So enough about Ali and the past, when we could be presently witnessing the birth of a prodigous talent in Khan. He needs to work a lot on his press conference patter to match his hero but his footwork, so improved over his last encounter with Kindelan, set him apart from the Cuban. Floating like a butterfly who has matured to compliment the bravado, Khan shares many of the qualities of his iconic hero, but plans to differ on retirement plans.
"I want to retire from all of boxing by the age of 25, becoming a legend as well at that age. It is a big goal and it is going to be hard to do ... I don't want to get punched all my life so the best thing is at the age of 25 to stop boxing and look after my family." (Sporting Life)
Saturday, May 14, 2005
Review: Theatre of the New Ear
Some events live up to the hype.
The arrival of the Theatre of the New Ear ("Leave Your Eyes at Home!") in London's Royal Festival Hall was loaded with anticipation. Two original sound plays by the writer/director Coen Brothers (Raising Arizona, Big Lebowski, The Man Who Wasn't There, Fargo) and writer/director Charlie Kaufman (Being John Malkovich, Adaptation, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind). The cast featured mainly former stars of their work including Meryl Streep, Steve Buscemi, John Goodman, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Hope Davis, and Peter Dinklage. Carter Burwell set the plays to music and Parabola provided the orchestra.
The tickets for the event sold out in a day as fans of the critically acclaimed and populist directors flocked this one-night-only opportunity. In the only other previous or scheduled performance, the plays were staged three times to packed houses at St Ann's Warehouse, a converted industrial space in hipster Brooklyn.
In the program notes Carter Burwell (composer on many of the Coen Brothers films) further sets the stage:
"You're watching a movie, in a theatre at home, and starting to doze. You can't keep your eyes open, but the sound of the film still seeps through your ears, which sadly are never closed. Your mind paints the picture itself in that meaningful but not quite visual way that dreams play out. This is the experience I'd like you to have now."
All true except you couldn't keep your eyes off the stage. A performance like this one could herald the return of the sound play as a popular art form. Broadcast on Digital Radio I'm sure it would be fantastic to hear as radio drama, but it was electric in person. Sawbones featured a rapid-fire dialogue and Oh Brother Where Art Thou style score. And as one of Charlie Kaufman's characters in Hope Leaves the Theatre says: "I'd watch Philip Seymour Hoffman read the phone book."
But it was Kaufman's play that stole the evening. He is a master of the narrative within the narrative, or "the play within the play within the play within the play, all right we get it Charlie Kaufman" as a critic in the play comments. He has a wonderful talent for shifting perspective, often poking fun at himself, and this play is no exception. From the program notes: "Kaufman wrote Hope Leaves the Theatre in 1997 during his last year at Windsor Prep, where he was just embarking on his now famous struggles with issues of identity, weight gain, and pornography addiction".
Meryl Streep is an incredible actress. Watching her live on stage is an engrossing experience. She reads across a range of Kaufman's characters shifting voice constantly from a black woman to a radio man and sailor. She has a wonderful rapport with the audience, at one point climbing to sit on the edge of the stage and discuss her lament on the direspects shown by modern theatre audiences. Peter Dinklage is introduced by a Hope Davis character sitting in the seats waiting ... "Peter Dinklage ... Isn't he that dwarf? ... Oh Ya. He was in that movie Train Station." ... Once again to the program notes: "redefined leading man in The Station Agent". All of the characters have fun at each other's expense and the story has a wonderful flow, caressed by Streep's magnetic personalities, Dinklage's booming voice and charm, and Davis' tour de force as the lead female character, who when her cell phone goes off in the theatre gets told off by Meryl Streep, a claim to fame for her mom. You get the picture. I mean the sound.
Bravo to both the Coens and Kaufman for reintroducing an art form to mainstream consciousness and doing such a good job while they were at it. And the obvious enjoyment the actors got out of playing their parts on stage bodes well for creative collaborations like these in the future. It might even turn out to be a great way to stage a screenplay in the interests of getting it produced into a film. You need a band, some actors (call Meryl and she if she is available?), and a screenplay. Oh ... and a director, preferably one with a habit of writing irresistibly stimulating prose.
Some more links to reviews of the play:
Ain't it cool news
Aussie James
Being Charlie Kaufman forum topic
Chocolate and Vodka
The arrival of the Theatre of the New Ear ("Leave Your Eyes at Home!") in London's Royal Festival Hall was loaded with anticipation. Two original sound plays by the writer/director Coen Brothers (Raising Arizona, Big Lebowski, The Man Who Wasn't There, Fargo) and writer/director Charlie Kaufman (Being John Malkovich, Adaptation, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind). The cast featured mainly former stars of their work including Meryl Streep, Steve Buscemi, John Goodman, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Hope Davis, and Peter Dinklage. Carter Burwell set the plays to music and Parabola provided the orchestra.
The tickets for the event sold out in a day as fans of the critically acclaimed and populist directors flocked this one-night-only opportunity. In the only other previous or scheduled performance, the plays were staged three times to packed houses at St Ann's Warehouse, a converted industrial space in hipster Brooklyn.
In the program notes Carter Burwell (composer on many of the Coen Brothers films) further sets the stage:
"You're watching a movie, in a theatre at home, and starting to doze. You can't keep your eyes open, but the sound of the film still seeps through your ears, which sadly are never closed. Your mind paints the picture itself in that meaningful but not quite visual way that dreams play out. This is the experience I'd like you to have now."
All true except you couldn't keep your eyes off the stage. A performance like this one could herald the return of the sound play as a popular art form. Broadcast on Digital Radio I'm sure it would be fantastic to hear as radio drama, but it was electric in person. Sawbones featured a rapid-fire dialogue and Oh Brother Where Art Thou style score. And as one of Charlie Kaufman's characters in Hope Leaves the Theatre says: "I'd watch Philip Seymour Hoffman read the phone book."
But it was Kaufman's play that stole the evening. He is a master of the narrative within the narrative, or "the play within the play within the play within the play, all right we get it Charlie Kaufman" as a critic in the play comments. He has a wonderful talent for shifting perspective, often poking fun at himself, and this play is no exception. From the program notes: "Kaufman wrote Hope Leaves the Theatre in 1997 during his last year at Windsor Prep, where he was just embarking on his now famous struggles with issues of identity, weight gain, and pornography addiction".
Meryl Streep is an incredible actress. Watching her live on stage is an engrossing experience. She reads across a range of Kaufman's characters shifting voice constantly from a black woman to a radio man and sailor. She has a wonderful rapport with the audience, at one point climbing to sit on the edge of the stage and discuss her lament on the direspects shown by modern theatre audiences. Peter Dinklage is introduced by a Hope Davis character sitting in the seats waiting ... "Peter Dinklage ... Isn't he that dwarf? ... Oh Ya. He was in that movie Train Station." ... Once again to the program notes: "redefined leading man in The Station Agent". All of the characters have fun at each other's expense and the story has a wonderful flow, caressed by Streep's magnetic personalities, Dinklage's booming voice and charm, and Davis' tour de force as the lead female character, who when her cell phone goes off in the theatre gets told off by Meryl Streep, a claim to fame for her mom. You get the picture. I mean the sound.
Bravo to both the Coens and Kaufman for reintroducing an art form to mainstream consciousness and doing such a good job while they were at it. And the obvious enjoyment the actors got out of playing their parts on stage bodes well for creative collaborations like these in the future. It might even turn out to be a great way to stage a screenplay in the interests of getting it produced into a film. You need a band, some actors (call Meryl and she if she is available?), and a screenplay. Oh ... and a director, preferably one with a habit of writing irresistibly stimulating prose.
Some more links to reviews of the play:
Ain't it cool news
Aussie James
Being Charlie Kaufman forum topic
Chocolate and Vodka
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