Record Labels

Revealing that I’m a physics major from “Boston” has never been a good ice-breaker. But I fare far worse when initial impressions are based on musical taste.

I don’t think I’ve ever recovered from the time in 4^th grade when my best friend asked who I liked to listen to, and I said the name of the only musical artist I could think of – Raffi.

Four years later, I studied before a reunion with that old friend. When the question was posed I answered confidently, “Boyz II Men”

“Ugh, R and B?”

I’m sure she could picture the townies cruising among our blinking traffic lights blaring “Down on Bended Knee” after the snow birds had gone to sleep.

In the era of free Napster, I downloaded indiscriminately and found a band I really liked -- HIM. But they play Finnish “Love Metal”.

I roll my eyes at Bryan Adams’ “Baby I’d die for you.” -- It’s a little dramatic. But I’m somehow fine with “Join me in death” -- honey – pentagram, 666.

But I won’t be known as a romantic, and certainly not one prone to tragic emotional debilitation. So, without a real answer to the question I say Weezer, but apologetically, to acknowledge that they’re a little too popular. Or, in a complete cop out I’ll cryptically say I’ve been buying movie soundtracks recently, so that I can smoothly transition to my aversion for Natalie Portman’s acting via the obscene Shins advisement in Garden State.

And I’ll admit, for those of you who have been paying attention, that I sometimes still get Baby Beluga stuck in my head.

Maybe Georgia Got It Right

On the Santa Monica promenade:
The air in this parking garage contains automobile engine exhaust.
Chemicals in automobile exhaust are known to cause cancer.

At Ross Department Store:
Some products sold here may be hazardous to your health.

The warning on Sweet’N Low no longer gives me pause.

So, I think that the easiest way to eliminate the implication of scientific scandal from the debate over evolution is to not resist.

Allow stickers that declare “Evolution is just a theory,” and require a few others.

“Newton’s laws cannot be proven.”

“The Central Dogma is not a fact.”

Science owes its success to the harsh critique of older ideas and the recognition that these ideas need not be wholly accepted or rejected. So, I find it hard to take issue with a warning that ends as I think every class should begin:

“This material should be approached with an open mind, studied carefully and critically considered.”

Reason number 853 to dislike the DMV:

Creepy fingerprint technician.

I thought it would be do it yourself: thumb on inkpad, thumb on paper. Instead, there was a little inferred scanner and a man who was a bit too involved in the process. He put his hand over mine and worked my finger over the glass plate. After a few attempts at a scan:

“Wow this really just isn’t working today.”

More rubbing, some sympathetic glances from the guy at the next widow.

“Hmm. . . it’s never given me this much trouble before.”

Now he’s drawing on all his thumb-touching experience . . . and I’m trying to detach my mind from my body. . .

“Nope, it just doesn’t like your thumb – but I do.”

It finally takes, the technician smiles.

“You must have a complicated karma.”

On the upside, I didn’t make an appointment and didn’t have to wait at all. We’ll see how the DMV’s new One Hour Photo image goes over.

Sunset Boulevard

I knew that in LA, I’d meet people trying to break into the business. Stupidly, I thought such sightings would be occasional, that meeting F-list celebs would be novelty.

But small talk with any waitress will reveal her desire to be on screen and unless the 20-something at the party is working towards his PhD in something hopelessly un-cool, you’ll find that he’s paying rent by writing, editing, or if he’s really good, directing the next poor substitute for the spin-off of the spin-off of Debbie Does Dallas.

That academic 20-something plans to spend his days humbly toiling in a laboratory. He knows his role has nothing to do with Hollywood.

But the sidewalks are paved in red carpet, stretch H-2’s line the streets and even the road signs reek with fame.

Those who reside in the ivory tower may be notoriously out of touch, but this can make them particularly susceptible to the fantasy of stardom. By the time they are a 40 to 50-something they’re living with a full-blown delusion that their celebrity in the field of sono-luminescence is much more far reaching.

My statistical mechanics professor refuses to distribute e-mail address for fear that “every high school student in the country” would be contacting him for science fair advice were the information readily available.

He spent a good deal of today’s lecture venting about being hounded for interviews by the paparazzi of physics – the New York Times science editors and the producers at NOVA. In researching ways to maintain his svelte figure, our good professor had been disappointed to find that even talking on the phone burned more calories than sex. But, after spending a grueling day exhausting himself speaking about his discovery (pain endured ‘for the fans’), this world-expert on energy decided that effort spent on the phone just might approach the passion he puts into copulation.

At least we didn’t have to read his thermodynamic equivalent of Magical Me. He’s probably just waiting for someone to buy the screen play.

Netflix It

Most people join Netflix for the convenience and price. I’ve found that it’s also forced me to remove the bull from the list, Let’s see that in a sentence now: “The Seventh Seal? Yeah, I really need to watch that. It’s totally at the top of my list”.

The Netflix list is an online catalog of movies you’d like to see. When you send back seven and eight, DVDs nine and ten are sent to you.

And so the list evolves. It is born a collection of classics, arty films and foreign flicks. Then, you find yourself returning – without watching all those depressingly honest subtitled must-sees chronicling the lives of the disadvantaged, malnourished and lame.

Soon, your list no longer resembles a syllabus from the “Intro to Film” course you never quite found the time to take, and looks more like the HBO lineup you missed when your roommates refused to chip in for cable.

If only I could subject to the same polygraph that fanciful collection of things I say I’d like to do sometime. Instead of DVD’s in the mail, it would be a man at my door. He’d be built like a tumbler from Cirque De Sole. On the days when there’s nothing I have to do he’d burst into my apartment at 7am and yell, “Sky diving lessons!”. How quickly that list would become void of adventures and full of dates with my couch, some tea, my pajamas and Netflix.

Absurdity Like an Onion

Department drama update:
Below is an e-mail sent by The Victim (tenured faculty member, crazy) to the head of our department.

I need to correct a serious misunderstanding that you have of the
English language.

It is important to correct the record.

In your email below you state that one of the boy graduate students has been described as a "tosser" and you then state that the term "tosser" is the U.K. equivalent of "wanker".

Thus, you are implying that the word "tosser" is an american word.

You are incorrect.

This is a gross and serious error on your part.

Actually both "tosser" and "wanker" are U.K. expressions.

I do not know what the american equivalent is of "tosser" nor "wanker".

sincerely The Victim

And the original, from our dept. head:

Dear Dr. Administrator:

I received a copy of the outrageous e-mail below sent by your
faculty member, “The Husband” I want to know immediately how you are going to handle this attack as I will be speaking to the student and senior administrators tomorrow (Monday).

In writing to a 2nd year grad student, The Husband calls
him a tosser [U.K. equivalent of "wanker"]

Power Failure

On the hottest summer days, air conditioners draw more than their allotment of power and lights dim warning of an immanent blown fuse.

Recently, I’ve immersed myself in equations. Developing my mathematical intuition has put a deal of stress on my capacity to speak. As I spend more of my days mentally manipulating geometric objects, mathematical constructs that model physical phenomena, I become more proficient in translating thought into Greek symbols and integral signs.

But, I’m finding that this skill and that of expressing ideas in English multiply to a constant. My linguistic skills are approaching zero asymptotically.

While working, lapses in concentration shift my consciousness from my left brain to the right. The other day when I was studying, it was providing background music: the Garden state soundtrack. Tapping its foot, lip-syncing, playing the highlights. Fine.

I became lost in left brain. A few hours later, something started to irritate me.

As my focus shifted, I realized it was the music.

Baby Beluga

But there are only two stanzas -- barely, so the song was on repeat “Song That Never Ends” style.

“Baby Beluga in the deep blue sea,
Swim so wild and you swim so free
The waves roll in and the waves roll out see the water comin’ out of your spout. . . doot doot doot. . .

BAAAAYBEE-BA-LOOOGA
BAAAAYBEE-BA-LOOOGA

Is the water warm?
Is the da da dum. . . with you so happy. . .

Baby Beluga in the deep blue sea. . .”

For the next three hours, my right brain became an idiot kid I was babysitting, demanding my attention and being as irritating as possible. Regressing.

Until all that was left was:

BABY BELUGA!! BABY BELUGA!! BABY BELUGA!! BABY BELUGA. . .

“Oh, hey, Sarah?”

Another student startles me out of the trance.
Sharp breath. Microwave beeps.
Stretch and a fridge fan begins to whir.
And, ignorant of the elapsed time, my VCR is flashing 12:00.

Reset, I continue my work.