If you come and hear me talk about the Hawking book—look, there’s an Events link right here on the site!—you might hear me refer to Gay Talese’s famous (justifiably so!) piece “Frank Sinatra Has a Cold”. Here’s a link to an annotated version of this excellent essay.
I hope you enjoy it as much as I do, and that you can learn why I like it by coming to one of my book talks!
I didn’t leap at the chance to see The Who here in Detroit. I’m not a big concert-goer—crowds, decibels, cost, and opening bands all make me think “Nah, I’ll just listen to the album instead.” I’m not proud to say that I often get bored at even good shows, and as my mind wanders I wonder when it’s going to end and please, I’m tired and I have to work tomorrow so I want to go home now so no encore.
There are exceptions, and performers who meant a lot to me during certain periods of my life, but that’s mostly true of solo artists like Lyle Lovett and Aimee Mann. Arena rock, though? It only took a few shows (the Police and U2 back in the day) to make me sure I didn’t need that sort of thing in my life any more.
But…The Who. I started listening to them in the 1970s, via WLS, 89 on your AM dial all night long. I’ve never stopped. But, these days Daltrey and Townshend are all that’s left and is that enough? And they’re…well, they’re old. And because I now know more than John “Records truly is my middle name” Landecker ever told me through my transistor radio about their complicated relationship to each other and touring, that makes them less like the monolithic presence they were to me when I was a kid. (Yes, that was a “Who’s Next” joke.)
So when I saw they were coming to Detroit I said, out loud, to my wife. “Not interested. What’s the point?”
And then I thought about it some more, and read more about the show and how they were working with a symphony orchestra and that this might be the we-really-mean-it-this-time last tour together and I thought about Douglas Adams’ best book, Last Chance to See. And I realized this was probably it for me, and if I didn’t I’d regret it as much as my wife regrets skipping a chance to see Zappa, her favorite artist, when she had a chance.
Long story short, I went. K came with me, even though she’s emphatically not a fan, and neither of us were bored for a moment. Daltrey and Townshend were technically superb, both musically and in the way they put together a show that played to their strengths and mitigated any weaknesses age might have dealt their voices or bodies. When the music demanded their youthful power Daltrey could still deliver a full-volumed and anguished prayer and Townshend could still deliver a series of chords that started and ended with his arm straight above his head. The hair stood up on my arms and neck during more than one number. It was emotional and inspiring in ways the disaffected youths that we all were—or in my case, pretended to be—would have scoffed at as a teen. This is not going gentle into that good night. As Townshend said at one point, “I fucking hate this. But I’m really good at it.” Maybe that’s about playing live and touring or how he and Daltrey don’t communicate well. Maybe they don’t, sort of, in some contexts…but it’s obvious they like being good together. And they were very good together in Detroit.
They didn’t play an encore, and I wanted one.
Hi! After a long hiatus from blogging and site updating, we’re back with both…and now at least the site will be responsive. (I’ll try too!) I hope you like it, and can find stuff, and that it works well for all your G.T. Labs and science comics needs. I think it will for mine. Many thanks to my friend Jane for getting me here.
Of course a website refresh isn’t newsworthy at this point in history. It’s not like we’re living in the world of The Americans, where “ARPANET” is invoked like it’s a magical and mysterious thing. Which it is, if you think about it for even a second. (And for the worst cross-over ever, imagine Harry Potter sneaking onto that show and yelling Arpa Net, causing all the mainframe tape drives to spin out of control.) But it’s also mundane and commonplace too.
So what remains that’s magical and mysterious while also being the very definition of mundane and commonplace? Quantum theory! And that’s where the new background image comes in. This is the rendering of Einstein’s clock-in-a-box as it appears in Albert Einstein: Philosopher-Scientist, edited by Paul Arthur Schilpp (1949). No credit for the artist, but I infer from the text that it was commissioned by Bohr himself, and as a collector, that would be a drawing I’d love to have the original for.
It illustrates a thought experiment he posed to stump Niels Bohr and his fellow quantum theorists in Einstein’s ongoing effort to demonstrate, once and for all, that this quantum stuff was nonsense. The bunk. Just Plain Wrong.
It almost worked.
Bohr had dispatched most of Einstein’s previous objections with relative ease, but this one made him sweat. Here’s how the scene plays out in Suspended in Language, which you can buy right here on this site, or from great booksellers everywhere.
(Sorry/not sorry about the EPR cliffhanger!)
It’s Not Big It’s Large (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Most of my last year working for United Engineers and Constructors was spent in Syracuse, NY. And Oswego. I enjoyed some things about that phase, which was the tail-end of my nuclear engineering career — the Syracuse Speed Skating Club and living on an expense account, mostly — but I didn’t love being on the road 8-10 months of each year, which is why it was the tail-end.
