Betsy Devine: Funny ha-ha and/or funny peculiar

As we walked through the dark streets of Alpbach after the opera, people kept stopping Frank–“You are the oxygen atom!” Plus many enthusiastic remarks on his singing, which I’ll refrain from repeating because I don’t want his head to become too big! (Alas, Frank’s literally-big head is already too big for the largest size of Alpine hat sold here in Alpbach.) The beautiful soprano Eve (Diane Shooman), meanwhile, was surrounded by interviewers from Austrian radio, which is a shame because her red dress and glamorous fishnet “lab coat” deserve a much wider audience. Best Marilyn-Monroe singing ever! Alas, my camera chose last night to develop mysterious problems with speed and focus, so that my own record of these events is as blurred as it might be by two bottles of Champagne…which I didn’t drink, enjoying instead all the tipsiness of success without any next-morning-hangover aftermath. Thomas Oliva, one of the main organizers for this whole event, also found time to organize lab coats, laser pointers, helium balloons, and many other extras for our show, including flowers for the soprano’s curtain call and–for Marc Abrahams and Frank Wilczek–authentic Alpine boots! So I was very glad that Thomas also got to join us onstage as one of our “scientist” with laser beams–as did Krishna Nathan of IBM, Kathryn List (Vice President of the European Forum Alpbach), and two other scientists of great dramatic ability whose names I hope to discover and blog here later, one of them the heart surgeon whose lab provided all lab coats except for Diane’s fishnet special. To anyone who googled here from “scientific wrangling”–oops, not quite. But as some consolation, from this scientist wrangler, here are the written-down guidelines for five unrehearsed people who got cast in our mini-opera ten minutes pre-curtain. And they were great! In case the Metropolitan Opera phones me about doing a re-staging there, I’d better go find out the names of those other two scientists!*

* Our two other scientist-opera-stars were Heinrich Mächler, Professor at the University Clinic in Graz and Professor Wolf Rauch, Professor for Information Technology at Graz University, long-term rector of his University, now also member of the Styrian Parliament. Thanks once again to Thomas Oliva, for this information!

t-zero. After a speaker who talks about Liechtenstein, Marc will take audience questions. Then go with Betsy to join the opera singers behind their screen (diagram zero), and get a laser pointer from her if you don’t already have one.

t-one. After Eve goes onstage, she will beckon to us. We follow her up onto the stage and stand together, upstage and stage right (diagram one). Our role here is half scientist, half science machine. Therefore we stand very still and look very serious during the singing.

t-two. When Eve sings “..it involves laser beams…” that is our CUE. Machine-like, we raise our laser pointers and shine them on Atom’s shoes. This brings him to life and makes him move around, but try to keep the light shining on his shoes.

t-three. When Eve sings “if those lasers blink..” that is our CUE. We turn off our laser pointers and, machine-like, lower them again.

t-final! The curtain call! Now we cast off machine-like qualities–we can even clap for Atom, Eve, Paul (the pianist,) and Marc. While they are bowing we make a single line across the back of the stage to take our own bow, on behalf of all scientists everywhere. Then we bow again as part of the ensemble. We leave the stage after Atom and Eve–and don’t forget to give Betsy back her laser pointers!

Teenier toad

Originally uploaded by Specklet.

…as I’m taking a few days off after meeting one gazillion more fascinating people at Wikimania and Dan Gillmor’s Citizen Media conference, both at Harvard Law School.

But here’s something wonderful to keep readers happy–all the blogs on my blogroll and a fine Flickr photoset of tiny animals on people’s fingers, for which we should all thank Mark Frauenfelder at BoingBoing.

…I’m taking a few days off after meeting one gazillion more fascinating people at Wikimania and Dan Gillmor’s Citizen Media conference, both at Harvard Law School.

But here’s something wonderful to keep readers happy–all the blogs on my blogroll and a fine Flickr photoset of tiny animals on people’s fingers–my favorite is this sub-centimeter toad, what’s yours? (I found this set via Mark Frauenfelder at BoingBoing.)

Thank you, thank you, to Benjamin and Christelijne van den Hout for the photos of both one and many gray European sea lions from our shared “super snelle rubberboot” adventure in the North Sea. When I finally got my own (non-digital) photos back, there were many of beach vistas and many others of physicists, but my one shot of North Sea sea lions didn’t appear, not even as a blurry memory. So I am especially grateful to Benjamin and Christelijne for sharing their own excellent digital photos with me, and even for letting me share some of them with you. I was warned by my guidebook that, although friendly and curious, North Sea sea lions can (if you get too close) “become quite aggressive.”

I so much prefer that phrase in its Dutch translation:

Zero minutes to spare–I raced down Dock #4 to the Ocean King. With a bit of help, I clambered over the side and onto a bench–then we were off, putt-putting toward open water.

Then…. WHOOM! That yellow rubber boat took off at top speed. Spray flew up into our faces from left and right. We laughed and held handrails and were grateful our benches were padded, as our boat took off from the crest of a wave and then whomped us down again several times in rapid succession. Each turn tipped the boat up and slid us in unison sideways.

I had (now we come to the symbolic part of my narrative) exactly one photo left in the single-use camera I bought in Amsterdam. (My digital camera…but that’s another story.)

Only one photo, and I was saving that photo for a Vlieland sea lion.

Or, and this was also a possibility, I might have zero photographs left in the camera. I might already have used up every picture at last night’s celebration of Gerard ‘t Hooft.

The difference between ‘1’ and ‘0’ is very important in math and physics, but on a single-use camera (and in your real life), the distinction is so hard to guess that it’s almost not there.

Sea lions appeared, first distant and sunbathing lumps on a long narrow sandbar, then inquisitive gray and black spotted visitors swimming out to our boat to stare up into our faces from deep liquid eyes.

Then I took my camera out of its hidden pocket and spent several minutes looking for one final picture. One friendly seal came quite close to the boat–but I wasn’t quick enough. Then I saw a chance to photograph two or three sea lion faces in the same image–as soon as the shutter clicked I knew the shot could have been better, that if I’d spent more time on it I might also have put the whole sandbar into its background.

Of course, I won’t know until I get the film developed if I got any sea lion picture at all. (Fortunately, a kind young Dutch couple said they’d send me some of their photos, so I still have something to hope for if that happens.)

Now, I really truly had zero photos left. Only my own eyes would see all the rest of the journey–I felt free and empty and very, very happy.

A wonderful trip.

Reading up on the gray European sea lion this morning, and noticing how far my skills at reading Dutch have declined since 1998 when we lived in Leiden.

No sea lions haunt the sugar-sand North Sea beach near our Vlieland hotel, so I’m setting off on a last-minute quest to see some. Vlieland is a lovely peaceful family resort that Dutch families know about and other folks mostly don’t, so the amount of signage in English is little or none.

Fortunately, there is a “super snelle rubberboot” (super-fast rubber boat) that likes to take local tourists out to ogle sunbathing sea lions (“Zeehonden die liggen te zonnen”). And we might also see some “kleine dolfijn” (little dolphins, I hope!)

Lord knows what I’m getting into here, but surely going off on a Dutch-speaking boat adventure comes under the heading of “making trouble today for a better tomorrow.” Niek today posted one of Frank’s own mantras about making trouble, so I’m sure he’ll sympathize!

Farewell to the dock duck, we’re on the road again, so I leave you, dear blogreaders with a few more of the most ducky stories from this blog….

• Whither Duck Cheney (April 2005)
• This story quacks me up (July 2003)
• To quack or not to quack, that is the question… (August 2003)

Bonus linkage: Niek Hockx emailed me a webcam showing Dutch sea lions–I’m en route to see some, so this bloggery comes to you over Logan’s wifi, not much more than a week after my visit to the Galapagos sea lions. The Dutch call them “Zeehonden” (sea dogs)–in Galapagos they were “lobos del mar” (sea wolves)…

One brown mother duck with five brown fuzzy babies.

They’ve been the big topic of neighborhood conversaion up in NH, where I’ve been hanging out email-free this past week.

Jamie says one of the babies is a wild child, who showed up all by himself at Jamie’s boat dock the other day. The baby hung out there for hours, loving the attention and little pieces of bread that came his way.

Then Mama Duck showed up to reassemble her family before bedtime, but not without giving both Jamie and her wild child a LOUD QUACKING-TO!

In other summertime news, I made chocolate cake and invited my siblings over to share it.

And my brother brought me the Manchester Union Leader with a new phone-jamming story inside, while my sister brought me the actual federal pleading for the defense in the upcoming trial of Shaun Hansen.

I have to say, I do have the most marvelous siblings.

Frank and I are back from the beautiful Galápagos Islands, still smiling about the great people and friendly sea lions we met there. As I was wondering how I could publicly thank the great team from USFQ, I found out that Lynn Margulis already did so with such elegance I should just quote her:

GAIAS, the Galápagos Academic Institute for the Arts and Sciences, is a recent thrust of the University of San Francisco at Quito (USFQ). The meteoric rise of this new university, complete with classes in gourmet cooking, undergirds the best scientific meeting I have been privileged to attend. Founded by Ecuadorian physicists (Santiago Gangotena, Bruce Hoeneisen and Carlos Montúfar—all three received Ph.D.’s at U.S. institutions), USFQ now accommodates 2,800 students on the main campus at Cumbayá. A resolutely private institution in a beautiful valley half an hour from Quito’s center, it also boasts the Tiputini Biodiversity Station in the Amazon basin, where field research is conducted in collaboration with Thomas Kunz of Boston University. Two new scientific programs are slated to begin next year: archaeological research at Rio Bamba and a collaboration on evolutionary themes with the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

The irrepressible, diligent and generous founders of USFQ invented this meeting. Philosophically oriented educators on a continent nearly devoid of our peculiarly North American institutions display unbounded enthusiasm toward the liberal arts college.

As you can see, GAIAS hosts a variety of conferences: last year evolution, this year physics, next year history. My advice is–if they invite you, say yes, yes, yes!

So, thank you, Carlos and Bruce and Santiago! And Mona! And Gloria! And Ana Teresa! And Paola! And Regina! And Gaby! And all the whole mighty army of minders and mavens and chefs and cheerleaders and futból fans who made the event so enjoyable. Please have a physics conference again soon–or else a blogging conference where I can bring Frank as my date…