Pursuing praxis

If I ran a dinky little restaurant, I’d put this in the customer’s bathroom. Out of stock since the 13th century, but maybe they’ll get some more in soon.

I’ve been hankering for good movie theme music again. And these sorts of hankerings usually lead to a list that quickly recedes into obscurity as my ADHD brain flits to something new.

So, the context of this list: Music without lyrics that’s a recurrent theme, or the opening or closing track for a movie which I have seen. Further: I’m looking for the kind of music that makes me want to go for a hard five mile run - the sort of music that functions as pre-endorphins to the real endorphins you get after you do something hard or achieve something important to you. For me that usually involves some combination of kettle drums, french horns, cellos, baritone voice, a trumpet volley, a 75 piece orchestra and/or full choir. I’m open to electric guitar, steel guitar, amped violin, giant Japanese drums, mass tap dancing, and the odd ethnic/world/non-standard instrument or vocalization. But whatever the instruments, the music - composition, melody, harmony, all the rest - has to grab your brain and heart and stomach and take them all for a ride. A.k.a. Knock Your Socks Off Music. KYSOM.

To begin, then:

Theme to Pirates of the Caribbean (I): The Black Pearl, Skull and Crossbones (oh yeah), He’s a Pirate
Robin Hood Prince of Theives: Overture and Prisoner of the Crusades
The Hunt for Red October: Hymn to Red October  (did you know that there’s a track called ‘Putin’s Demise’?)
Jurassic Park (of course): Theme from Jurassic Park, End Credits
Indiana Jones: The Raider’s March
Run, Lola, Run: Running Two
Gladiator: Now We Are Free
ET: Adventures on Earth
Back to the Future: Theme
Star Trek: The Voyage Home: Hospital chase
Superman: Main Theme (man I miss this music!)
Star Wars: A New Hope: Main Theme
Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone: Prologue,  Hedwig’s Theme,
Goldeneye: Goldeneye by Tina Turner (I’ll make an exception for lyrics)
Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon: Desert Capriccio, Night Flight,
The Thomas Crown Affair (1999): Black and White X5, Glider Pt 1, Glider Pt2
XXX (exception for lyrics): Rammstein’s Feuer Frei

Movies I haven’t seen but know the music to:
Excalibur and Glory: Carl Orff’s Carmina Burana: O Fortuna (this will rock your world, especially if you hear it live)
Apocolypse Now: Wagner’s Die Walkure (Ride of the Valkyries)
Brief Encounter: Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto No. 2 (heaven on a stick)
2001: A Space Odyssey: Strauss’s Introduction from "Also Sprach Zarathustra"
Somewhere in Time: Rachmaninoff’s Rhapsody on a Theme by Paganini
My Life: The William Tell Overture

From the best of craigslist:

Date: 2007-05-03, 2:34PM EDT

I have 2 dogs & I was buying a large bag of Pal at Big W and standing inline at the check out.

A woman behind me asked if I had a dog.

On impulse, I told her that no, I was starting The Pal Diet again although I probably shouldn’t because I’d ended up in the hospital last time, but that I’d lost 50 pounds before I awakened in an intensive care ward with tubes coming out of most of my orifices and IV’s in both arms.

I told her that it was essentially a perfect diet and that the way that it works is to load your pants pockets with Pal nuggets and simply eat one or two every time you feel hungry & that the food is nutritionally complete so I was going to try it again.

I have to mention here that practically everyone in the line was by now enthralled with my story, particularly a guy who was behind her.

Horrified, she asked if I’d ended up in the hospital in that condition because I had been poisoned. I told her no; it was because I’d been sitting in the street licking my balls and a car hit me.

I thought one guy was going to have a heart attack he was laughing so hard as he staggered out the door.

Stupid b*tch…why else would I buy dog food?? 

I’m generally a pretty nice person, I think. My attitude averages on the positive side of neutral, and two standard deviations don’t stray considerably far from that average, with a noticable tail end in the "quite happy" range.

However, I have recently had the inadvertent opportunity to simulate what I would be like as a peri-homicidal psychotic: dump me into the deep end of computer programing with zero experience and expect 3 hours of "programming for n00bs" lecture to make it all better. I get so frustrated my head wants to explode, and I spend hours managing my rage in order to preserve relationships and stay on the good side of the law. In these situations, judging myself to be bitchy is a good thing - it means I’m only bitchy.

At root, I think I can reasonably attribute it to the self-taught-programmer/professor who learned it 15 years ago and is so competent now that he thinks you can just pick it up, no sweat, in a weekend or two of considered work. No "C++ for Dummies" or "Read this if you value your sanity" pointers or tips or anything. Just a copy of his half-finished draft of his book-in-progress that assumes you know how to program, and then you’re dumped in the deep end with the sort of sympathy that rings exceptionally shallow after a dizzying 80 minute watch-me-program-while-speed-typing-and-juggling-three-windows-on-the-screen lecture. Arrghhh!!

The good news is, I’ve also discovered how to terminate this simulation: drop the damn class.  

My blood-pressure, neck muscles, proto-wrinkles, lab-mates, neighbors and boyfriend are all silently thanking me, I’m sure. But it’s nothing compared to how much I’m thanking myself, lol, especially for having the foresight to take enough research credit hours that I’m not in hot water for dropping the class.

Back to work! 

Iran’s president is in New York this week to speak at the UN’s General Assembly. I think it speaks volumes about the UN that they not only permit him to speak, but invite him to do so, but that’s not the point of this post.

I was beyond dismayed to hear that Columbia University had invited Ahmadinejad to speak to their student body - more like shocked, horrified, saddened by the state of higher eduction, the failure to discriminate between educating students and enabling a dictator; between the freedom to speak, and the right to be given a forum to speak; and on.

But then I heard how the speech went - that Columbia’s president Lee Bollinger made the introductory remarks, and that they were lengthy, confrontational, and highly critical. He asked specific questions on specific topics - public executions; persecution of women, homosexuals, and academics; violation of nuclear arms agreements; denial of the Holocaust; calling for the destruction of Israel; and [thankfully] Iran’s waging a proxy war against the US in Iraq. And he didn’t ask politely, either. He made charges and passed judgement, calling Ahmadinejad "a petty and cruel dictator", and saying he was either "brazenly provocative or astonishingly uneducated" about the Holocaust.

Wow!

Ahmadinejad was not happy. From the articles I’ve read so far, he spent a fair bit of wind commenting on his hostile reception, denied that Iran has homosexuals at all, downplayed his position against Israel (see links below), equivocated on the Holocaust, and then danced around the rest with rhetoric on peace and justice and history.

And while there were cheers from the crowd of students in support of Palestine, and against President Bush and American foreign policy, a vocal segment of the assembled students appears to have matched the tone set by Columbia’s president. Some booed, or laughed derisively at points. And this is in addition to large protests in NYC and around Columbia objecting to Ahmadinejad’s presence at both the UN and at Columbia.

This pleases me greatly. I think Columbia’s president Bollinger took a very risky but strategic step. He was lambasted by many (and I would have counted myself among them), but I think many people’s comments (including those of various politicians) were made before the speech. I’d call it a gamble, but clearly Bollinger had this in mind from the start. I do think, though, that if Bollinger hadn’t been so bold, hard-hitting, and critical, the speech would have been a very bad idea. It takes steely nerves and some clearly held principles to skewer a slimey rat on an international stage, especially one prone to carrying on about peace, justice, seriousness, honesty, sincerity, and the like. I hope more university leaders take their cue from Bollinger. Too often they spout generalities meant to offend no one, appeal to everyone, and mask their own wheel-spinning while effectively giving the green light to dangerous causes.

I think the event at Columbia also says something important not only about free speech, but about private property. Let’s assume Bollinger had to reveal his intentions to, say, Columbia’s Board of Trustees in order to gain approval for the event. Being a private university, the buck stops pretty quickly on such a decision (even if it’s a complex or hotly debated decision).

That’s not necessarily the case with public universities. Because they are state funded, and power flows from money, there are strings emanating from the offices of politicians down to the offices of campus presidents. It’s at least possible that pressure could be applied from the "higher-ups" to not host such an event, or to conduct it with a pre-approved agenda or specified attitude outlined by politicians concerned about foreign relations, international trade, war, you name it. These situations are not rare; think of the tour of the Danish cartoons on campuses a couple years ago.

A private enterprise has no such strings attached (though it may be cognizant of such concerns). Bollinger spoke his mind and asked questions and passed judgements that few politicians would approve, or could get away wth themselves. And with resounding success. Private enterprise (academic in this case) can play a crucial and unique role in these kinds of affairs.

Here are a couple of the articles on the speech that I read:
Excerpts from Columbia President Lee Bollinger’s introduction
Ahmadinejad questions 9/11, Holocaust
A glance at Ahmadinejad’s statements (added 9/25/07)
Iran’s Ahmadinejad: No attack on Israel (I don’t believe his veneer of civility, reason, and virtue for a minute, but these are his words nonetheless).

And here’s a video clip of Ahmadinejad just over a year ago, in which he calls Israel "the Great Satan" and refers to "the criminal America and England." And this week he is smiling on our soil. Well, smiling a little less thanks to President Bollinger.  

I’m glad I’m a scientist. Of the things I find interesting, I think science (as a pot of knowledge and science as a method of the mind and (mostly) science education) is sound enough and accessible enough that I can be one among countless others pursuing Science fruitfully. Even as an innate loner, I recognize the tremendous value of a compatible, productive, and inspiring intellectual environment. And by and large I am quite happy with it. 21st century science still rocks.

But there’s enough Renaissance in me to want to do everything that interests me, and to do it really well - to write literature and poetry, make music, draw and paint, speak a handful of languages and travel, as complements to my desire to know the natural world, its objects and motions and processes and phenomena, with the toolkit and keen eye of a naturalist, experimental scientist, logician, analyist and integrator. Too much? Yes, too much to do all of them well, and one must choose (and I have). But I regard broad, globe-spanning, universe-traversing interest as a tremendous virtue. It just requires some management skills and a keen sense of purpose to keep it as an organized, useful and rewarding personal menagerie, and not an anarchic jungle of competing interests.

But art education in general today makes ths all very hard. It’s barrier more than an enabler. I’ve always liked drawing and painting, and by employing my mind in the service of specific goals (to make up for my lack of epiphany-like "talent"), I have been able to produce some drawings and paintings that I am proud of. But these were not enabled by receiving instruction in art so much as simply taking the time, making the space, and getting the necessary supplies to actually sit down and do something. Every one of my art teachers in the last 15 years were mainly there to turn on the studio lights, suggest stuff to do, and hold down the fort while I basically did what I wanted.

Unfortunately, what I really wanted was instruction that had a starting place and a goal, instruction that had cohesiveness, progression, and explicit, justifiable and sensical standards, all subserviated to the purpose of the class and the goals of art in general. I wanted instruction I could respect, instruction that paid me back for throwing my full attention and mental energy at a problem. But I never got it, never saw it, never glimpsed it. I shrugged it off as something I wasn’t entitled to anyway, and moved on to classes and disciplines that were more amenable to my "analytic" mind.

Looking back (at my ripe old age of 27…) I think it’s a tragedy that art instruction is the way it is today, because I know it didn’t used to be that way, and that it’s not necessary. In fact, I think the state of art instruction today is counterproductive for individuals, for the health of the discipline, and for the quality of work generally produced today. 

I have a cousin about to graduate high school who is interested in art. She came into this world wanting to be a doctor, I think she toyed with being an engineer around her one-decade mark, and for the last several years has put a fair bit of effort into painting. Who knows if she’ll change her mind again. But I think the best way to know for sure is to dive in, to really grasp what the field is about, what it takes to "Do Art", and to evaluate one’s own goals, degree of motivation, and strengths and weaknesses in a productive and rewarding setting.

So, while I’m not an artist by any stretch of the imagination, I am art-interested, and I have fairly integrated views on education, instruction, the choice of career and it’s practice and execution, so I’m excited by a crop independent, high-quality art studios in this country that train artists rationally, skillfully, and purposefully. They generally teach art as the classic artists were taught - such as Michaelangelo, Raphael and DaVinci on up to the great portrait artists of the 1800s. Apparently this sort of art education remained till the early 20th century even while its graduates became impressionists, expressionists, cubists, surrealists and the like into the first quarter of the 20th century. Then the modernists became (or spawned) the instructors of the 20th century, and when combined with new approaches and philosophies in education, art instruction morphed into its present form.

Here are the studios, ateliers, and instructors I have come across online. They have been recommended by people and artists I respect, but I’ve never taken a class or met the instructor or anything. Still, it’s exciting to know they exist. That way, when I become the first billionaire paleobiologist, I’ll have a wide selection of high-quality art to populate my private mountain villa.

The Barnestone Studios. Coply, PA. I especially liked the interview clips where Barnestone shares his views on … most things having to do with art and art education.

The Ryder Studio. Santa Fe, NM. Cameras don’t capture people this well.  

The Academy of Realist Art. Toronto, Canada.  

The Atelier School of Classical Realism. Oakland, CA. Argh, and in my own backyard practically! 

Mims Studios. Southern Pines, NC.  

The Grand Central Academy of Art. New York, NY.  

[Hat tip to a poster on the HBList, and artist Brian Larsen’s blog.]

I recently had the opportunity for a ride on a motorcycle. I’ve long been a fan, but with a mere two rides to my credit, and no drives, it’s been little more than a fascination. So, the answer to, "Goferraride?" was easy.

A giant bubbly helmet and a quick demo on how to Hold On Tight, and off we went. My recent improvements in the upper body strength department were quickly shown to be insufficient. The Squeeze n’ Hold On muscles lasted better than the Brace Against the Fuel Tank While Braking muscles, mostly tricepts and deltoids and probably something like rhomboids in the back. Pretty much anything that you use to prevent collapsing on your face in a low push-up/plank position on the floor. Looking at the rhomboids on the 96-year old female cadaver in lab this week, I sincerely hope mine are bigger.

One surprise from the experience was the amount of drag on the portion of my helmet not blocked by the driver. I had to look to the side while riding (pop-pop went my neck every time I turned it), so it was just a question of which side was least tired from resisting the look-over-your-shoulder wind force against the helmet.

And then there was the surprise that this bike only hit its stride at like 8000rpm, so it only really takes off after most cars are panting for dear life.

But, at the upper end of the spedometer, I wasn’t thinking about speed. I was thinking of my big squishy brain safely enveloped in like a foot of padding and protection in every direction, and my dear spinal cord extending down into the perilous breeze, wrapped in a couple layers of tissue and clothing. One minor spill at those speeds and I’d have been a helmeted-brain-on-a-stick, and not much more left of me. And seatbelts are such a habit for me that I only think of them when they’re not even an option.

Dismounting after a tiring 10 minute excursion, I asked, "So, how fast did we go?" with the memory of the digitial spedometer’s unemotional, rapidly decelerating reading of 97mph in the forefront of my mind.

"’Bout a hundred and thirty."

Sushi on a rocket, I’m telling you.
 

Never would have thunk it, huh? Me either. But evidently my knee-length dark blue skirt, bungee-laced hiking shoes, and a zip-up sweatshirt I wore to a dinner party suggested to an Israeli colleague of mine that I was an Orthodox Jew. I never would have thought my modified REI-chic could be so misrepresentative of myself. Haha. We laughed it off, but I felt considerably more dowdy the rest of the evening.