You don’t need photons to be enlightened
Posted: May 6, 2013 Filed under: Language, Thoughts | Tags: analogy, communication, Science, writing 2 Comments »
Science is rad. For reals. For so long, the world of ‘science’ suffered from its public image defined by the stereotypical lab coat-shod propellerheads with pocket protectors and sex appeal equal to fuglio septia. But now, it has managed to break free from all that and (to an extent) fashion itself a new certain coolness. In fact, 4.9 million people ‘Fucking Love Science’, according to Facebook, and I count myself as one of them. It’s this new brand of ‘science-all-up-in-your-face’ attitude that has reinvigorated its place in the public sphere. Knowledge is cool, science is cool, biology is cool, the solar system is cool. Robots are so cool, they even formed a band – a kickarse band. But, it’s not as if the world of science has experienced a geomagnetic pole reversal and now all research findings are published as memes on Instagram or something. The eggheads still toil away uncovering the secrets of existence with their blackboards covered in alien language and particle-smashing multi-multi–billion dollar toys. And they are still as out of touch with the rest of the world as gravitational singularity.
So, who should we really thank for demonstrating that science is worth the love? If my calculations prove correct (and they always do), it’s those precious links between us and those in vanguard of discovery – the science communicators. They can be journalists, writers, spokespersons – or even practising scientists themselves, but they are the people who funnel and translate the impossibly esoteric mountains of information produced by experiments and research, and translate it into something understandable, informative – and most vitally – entertaining. They skilfully shrink down the overwhelming into something small enough for inexpert minds to grasp and enjoy, without insulting the intelligence of neither scientist nor reader alike. Without them, the undeniable awesomeness in all disciplines of science would remain invisible, foreign and boring. It’s a rare ability we take for granted as we ooh and aah watching docos, or raise a fascinated eyebrow reading Scientific American.
The idea of bringing news from the scientific frontiers to the layman goes back to the early 20th century, when Science Monthly became Popular Science Monthly – signalling a shift toward relatable and entertaining science literature. Albert Einstein was indeed an advocate. He famously said: “If you can’t explain it simply, you don’t understand it well enough.” His ageless concepts remain the foundation of modern quantum physics, and so are pretty much as synapse-snappingly complex as they come, but he proves his point by offering some explanation of his theories of relativity in a pithy, sorta charming way. “When you are courting a nice girl an hour seems like a second. When you sit on a red-hot cinder a second seems like an hour. That’s relativity,” said the great man.
Now, I (because it’s all about me!) was never destined to be a scientist. Lab coats don’t suit me, mathematics terrifies me and I’m simply not blessed with the focused intelligence the line of work demands. But I do have a healthy appetite for knowledge. My brain is never satisfied without an enormous feast of facts – no matter how obscure – actually, sometimes the more obscure the better. Often I find myself trapped on Wikipedia – unable to escape those enticing blue hyperlinks, lures that promise to take me to new enlightenments. One minute I’m looking up premier leageue statistics, then I’m boning up on nuclear dynamics, and suddenly I’m reading this and wondering how I ever got there. Imagine information as lillypads – I’m like a frog hopping from one to another, as if the lillypads were hot, and I didn’t have little frog-shoes on my frog-feet. That was an analogy. I’m fairly crap at them, as you can plainly see… And that is the reason why I’d never cut it as a science communicator either, unfortunately.
That really is a key to great communication – particularly in this field. Finding that great analogy – that spot-on simile that simple metaphor that twists the tumblers of the ‘I-don’t-get-it’ floodgate and lets the waters of understanding rush into the sluice chambers of your ‘now-I-get-it’ brain aqueduct. I’m simply not very good at it. I’m certainly not about to take up creative writing, for fear of ending up in some infinite tautological loop (“The sea glistened like a gigantic puddle of water’); nor romantic novels for fear of ruining the idea of romance for the entire literate world (“The dancing glow of the candles illuminated her gentle skin like a flickering TV left on in a dark room… she rolled her head back and inhaled deeply, feeling her desire escalating like the electricity bill from the carelessly forgotten TV set left on in the living room.”).
But there’s a difference between painting descriptive scenes with metaphor and striking a moment of mutual understanding with the reader. It’s the latter that is so important for scientific communication to work. If you notice in the first paragraph, I tried being clever and done flipped it around – tossing in a few obscure scientific allusions to the mix. Unless you were quite familiar with fungal growths, geophysics and quantum mechanics, it’s doubtful you’d readily comprehend what the hell I was talking about and so would be less inclined to read on. As with any matter, if the writing is too dense, it will sink. Had I used references more universally understood, then perhaps I’d have more success engaging you, the dear reader. And that’s why it is such a valuable skill in a communicator’s arsenal – particularly when it comes to explaining science. As much as I wish I did, I simply don’t have the knack for drawing perfect parallels – my mind doesn’t think along those lines (see what I did there?). But my lack of ability gives way to a heightened appreciation and respect for it.
So this is more or less a thank you to those people who enlighten us by taming the flames from the fires of great minds and lighting the torches of those who are out of reach. (Kinda better?). These are exciting times in all corners of the scientific realm, from the Higgs-particle; to new eco-innovations, robots (obviously), and bioethics – and without the talents of the world’s science scribes, we would barely even know such things could be exciting, let alone revel in the excitement of discovery. And that would be a tragic thing.
Excelsior!, dig?
20 Super Annoying Hollywood Habits
Posted: April 5, 2013 Filed under: Lists, Thoughts | Tags: annoying, cliche, films, habits, Hollywood, Michael Bay, movies Leave a comment »
Who doesn’t love settling in on a cold, rainy day to watch a movie? Or to spend a lazy Sunday glued to the TV for back-to-back episodes of that must-see show about the biker gang zombies who cook meth and sell it to dragons? I know I do. The problem for me though, is that I have an annoyingly hyperactive brain guarding the path to true immersion in whatever escapist fiction flickers on-screen. Perhaps I’m overly cynical, or perhaps it’s because I once trained myself to be resistant to hypnosis so as to prevent becoming a sleeper agent assassin for the KGB. In any case, it means I have an exhaustive list of Hollywood habits and clichés that will immediately snap my suspension of disbelief – which is already as brittle as Michael Bay’s New Year’s resolution to take it easy on the explosions.
Here are just some celluloid neuroses of mine:
1. People order drinks and food then never eat it – usually sticking someone with the bill
This is number one, because it’s most certainly the most irritating. If I were a café or bar owner in the film-world, I would lose my mind over the endless customers who saunter in, casually ask for something and then saunter back out again as soon as their order hits the grill-plate. Sometimes they might hang around until a drink arrives, but will exit immediately after they’ve indolently picked it up and waved it about a few times in conversation. Just think of the ruinous expenses of all that wastage and unpaid bills!
2. No-one looks at at anyone when they’re dropping some real heavy news
I get that sometimes dramatic things happen in life and breaking the news of some heavy shit can be pretty damned hard. But, whether you’re telling the President the zombie mutation virus has broken out of containment; or confessing to an extra-marital affair with your spouse’s bikram yoga instructor; or finally revealing to other soldiers in your platoon what really went down during Operation: Blue Typhoon and why you can never eat a banana again; at least have the common decency to look them in the eye! At the very least point your face at their face. None of this back-turning, mumbling rudeness!
3. Everyone has appalling phone manners
Have we really become such a socially abbreviated culture that we can’t even manage a mannerly goodbye at the end of a phone conversation? Characters just sit there on the line and wait until the crucial bit of info is revealed and then hang up. It’s just rude. No ‘thanks for calling’, no ‘see you later’, no ‘have a nice afternoon’, no ‘say hi to Frank for me’… just an abrupt end to the conve-
4. Dating in a big city a breeze
Even, no, especially in films about romance, it seems like a love life comes complimentary with your latte from the trendy city coffee shop as if cupid’s arrow tips were made of biscotti. Not only do you just happen to regularly bump into random acquaintances for witty banter over whatever semi-embarrassing situation you’re caught in (locked out of apartment, spilled coffee on self, dog running amok… etc), you then can simply peg a date with a simple: “Dinner Friday?”, “Sure”, “I’ll pick you up at eight.”… Done! It matters not where this stranger plans to take you, or how they know where you live. Pfft details – it’s date time!
5. The best player in the team will only show up at half-time
What does it say about team commitment when the best players are NEVER around for that dramatically crucial match against the really slick, sinister-looking team who have heaps of money, a bully coach and shiny black uniforms. It’s not until your team is one full cheek into a clinical and comprehensive arse-kicking when who should show up in the dressing room? Only the most vital member of your otherwise shithouse (yet totally lovable) team! Now get out there and win in the last few seconds in the most uncanny, slow-motion, tears-for-the-underdogs way possible!
6. People just kind of waltz into a room and pick up the conversation as if they’d been there all along…
Seriously!? Do important people hide around corners in government buildings just waiting for the opportune moment?
“It’s almost as if the alien mothership has some kind of-”
“-electron-pulse plasma forcefield, yes general, I took the liberty of entering the room and finishing your sentence so now everyone knows I’m the smart one around here.” Unfortunately it never works for me, though hopefully the next time I blurt: ‘ham sandwich!’ as I enter a room, it WILL make sense. I probably should increase my odds and walk into more delicatessens.
7. Gangs of ruffians never co-ordinate their attacks very well
I don’t condone wanton violence, nor gang affiliation… but nor do I condone a lack of respect for teamwork and role-based coordination tactics. So many attempted beat downs are thwarted because a lack of tactical cohesion completely nullifies the numerical advantage. Instead of gathering around in a circle and going in one at a time for a routine cycle of butt-kicking – why not pool your resources and attack with purpose? Guy in sleeveless leather jacket can feign a frontal attack to draw the target’s attention, opening up for a simultaneous pincer strike on the flanks from guy with shaved head and guy with bandana. While they close in, guy with metal pole can sweep low and take the legs out from under the target where they will be vulnerable to a good’n’proper stompin’. See street toughs of Hollywood? It’s not so hard.
8. Police think a car door is a bulletproof shield
Why? Why do cops do that?! Do they realise the baddies are firing lumps of lead at a really high velocity?! Unless you’re patrolling the streets in a Sherman tank, a car door isn’t actually going to stop a volley of bullets. You might as well hide behind a tissue.
9. People hold torches funny
A torch (or, ‘flashlight’) doesn’t seem like the kind of object that requires any technique to use. You just kind of, point it and… not drop it… but the folks of Hollywood seem loathe to hold it any other way than next to the temple, with elbows pointed down. I suppose you could consider it the coolest way to point a torch – but you don’t always have to look cool, especially if all you’re doing is trudging knee deep in human refuse as you investigate the town’s sewers at night for whatever ominous reasons.
10. All doors can be opened by shooting them
Fair enough, I were packing heat, ‘shoot it’ would also rank high on my list of troubleshooting solutions to overcome various problems, like say a jammed printer, a tight jar lid, a loud neighbour or even a locked door. But, would it actually work? Locks can be pretty hardcore these days, I’d be more worried about the slug ricocheting back into my groin from the 30cm distance at which I shot the stupid thing. Yeah, not a smart idea, better call a locksmith.
11. Looking at a photograph will change a character’s mind
They say a picture is a thousand words, to which every screenwriter in the business replies, ‘thank fuck for that’. In Hollwoodland, photographs are extra-super-mega persuasive and prolonged staring at an old photo of the family you once had will definitely thrust you into the third act guns blazing – figuratively and most probably literally.
12. Cops don’t take suspensions very seriously
I’m beginning to think that ‘You’re off the case’ is some sort of police code for: ‘Please continue the investigation, and make sure lots of things explode along the way’.
13. Dudes in suits are really awesome at fighting
This one I know a bit about, because I am both really, really good at fighting and also look really, really good in a suit. But, for reasons of restricted mobility and a little thing called Saville Row stitching, I refuse to combine the two – even if shit goes down at the charity ball. Disappoint the babes I may, but It’s simply impossible to execute an exemplary roundhouse kick in tapered trousers, and a bespoke Hugo Boss might look killer, but doesn’t make you killer. It’s also really hard to run at top speed in Italian loafers, so I don’t know who these try-hard suave Hollywood action men think they’re kidding.
14. The Wilhelm scream is really annoying
What was once a long-running inside joke in the film business has become a real pain in the aural receptors. The famous Wilhelm Scream appears in just about every mainstream Hollywood movie produced ever. I can barely sit through a blockbuster movie these days without the uncomfortable expectation of hearing that distinctive warbled cry clawing away in the back of my head. They could have at least recorded a semi-realistic scream; ‘Wilhelm’ sounds more like someone who fell in the toilet than a man who just received a bullet to the chest.
15. “I’m getting too old for this shit”
“Let’s get out of here”; “I’ve got a bad feeling about this”; “Get me the President”; “The monster is headed downtown”; “No, it’s too dangerous”; “Hold it right there”; “I’m hit! Go on without me”… So much lazy, lazy dialogue just won’t go away. I can honestly promise that I’ve never actually said any of these phrases in real life… well, except for in moments of extreme passion, and then it’s pretty much word-for-word in that order…
16. Profane old ladies are hilarious
No they are not. They just aren’t. A sweet old lady flipping the bird, swearing or laying down some ebonic trash-talk for ‘shock humour’ is not funny. Not even remotely. So, stop it. Now… Adam Sandler. Bad Adam Sandler!
17. If you own a fruit stall – a car WILL crash through it
It’s just a matter of time.
18. Electronic devices are noisy
Generally, if something electronic starts making noises, it’s most likely faulty and will probably electrocute someone. Unless of course it was programmed to make glitchy beeps and boops and crackles every time it is used. Though, why every high-tech piece of covert espionage equipment would be programmed to make more of a clamour than a startled R2-D2 is just too far a stretch for my logic.
19. There are commentators at children’s sports games
Despite the head injuries, I still remember my junior sporting days and NOT ONCE was there a card table and microphone set up for some play-by-play commentary of my team’s most nail-biting of encounters, 1998 under-12s grand final penalty shootout epic included. Though, if Hollywood were to believe every junior sports game features fully-fledged referees, grandstands and professional commentary. We were lucky if one of the mums remembered it was her turn to bring the oranges.
20. Batman can’t turn his head properly
This gets to me every time. Every stinking time! Get a more flexible suit already, you silly billionaire orphan!
The Worst Things in the World. Vol 2: Beauty Pageants and Honey Boo Boo
Posted: March 5, 2013 Filed under: Thoughts, Worst Things In The World | Tags: beauty pageants, dumb, Honey Boo Boo, Miss Universe, Miss World 1 Comment »
Surely the ideal candidates for a pro-eugenics campaign?
I had a minor rage incident recently. T’was just a little outburst of incredulous shock: the end result of an insidious combination of rainy weather, boredom, curiosity and YouTube You see, I’d just slogged through a particularly stressful and demoralising week, and instead of enjoying my long-awaited weekend outlets of playing soccer, eating sushi train and drinking afternoon ciders at the pub, howling winds and thumping rain forced me, hermit-like, indoors.
Needing entertainment and some reminder that life was worth living, I decided to finally watch a film I’d been meaning to see for years. After Letters From Iwo Jima left me welled up with tears and wallowing in a dank pit of despair, I turned to the net for some typically senseless, but always entertaining YouTube hilarity. As I was wondered what to search for, I was struck by a sudden thought – a name, a phrase, a meme, or something or other that I’d heard of but knew little about – except that it was somehow popular. So, like a stupid cat poking its nose into a bear trap, I typed the words ‘Honey Boo Boo’ into the search field and clicked the first result that came up. It took less than a minute before the tears returned. However, these were not tears shed from sorrow over the futility and ruin of war… this time they were tears of rage. Tears of angry, salty, what-the-fuck-is-wrong-with-the-world rage.
What – to my increasing horror – I witnessed, was the latest and most heinous of reality television’s crimes to humanity. A truly face-palmingly moronic program about a bizarre family hailing from a ‘Murican backwater so deep that brain cells simply have no choice but to drown. The show primarily followed its protagonist, little seven-year-old Alana ‘Honey Boo Boo’ Thompson, an agonisingly annoying little brat with a sugar habit, who happens to be a full-time children’s beauty pageant contestant. Prodding her along each step of the way was her intellectually-derelict mother June, aka ‘Mama’, who I assume to be the unholy spawn of Cletus from The Simpsons and Jabba the Hutt. Shockingly, I also learned that this show had spun-off from another reality show entitled Toddlers in Tiaras AND that both programs aired on a network called THE LEARNING CHANNEL.
I can’t even… how the… what?
I truly believe that if humanity was stored in a barrel, and you had reached in and scraped your fingers along the bottom, the grimy filth clinging to the underside of your fingernails would still be more worthwhile to modern society than whatever the hell ‘Here Comes Honey Boo Boo’ is meant to represent.
‘Exploitative entertainment? I wrote the book on it!’
I get that trashy reality TV exists. I get that it’s fake, melodramatic and its characters are one-dimensional epsilon minors of our species. I even get that it’s a guilty pleasure for the rest of us. But this? This is next level exploitation; this is the 21st century way of locking freaks in a cage and carting them from town to town. Things such as this can only emerge from a place suffering a poverty of intelligence and integrity. On every level Honey Boo Boo is shameful, from the controversial axis on which it revolves – children’s beauty pageants – to the patronising mockery encouraged by the producers who make these monkeys dance for a banana with one hand, and rake in the cash from the idiotic laughing masses with the other.
Let’s put aside the silly rednecks and scumbag television producers for a moment and examine at pageantry as a thing. I don’t think it even bears explaining that coating a five-year-old in makeup and making them dance to provocative music is a bad, bad thing. But even the ‘grown-up’ versions, the Miss Universes and the Miss Worlds – really are no different. First of all, the original pageants were held to judge animals by inspecting the undersides of their tails and measuring their teeth – so there’s that. Second of all, the first human ‘beauty’ pageant, run in 1854, was the brainchild of a man named P T Barnam – the same P T Barnam who wrote a book entitled The Art Of Money Getting.
Now, Mr Barnam was a man who unashamedly pandered to the lowest common denominator, and mastered numerous unctuous ways to suck the pennies from people’s pockets. He ran gigantic circuses built on animal abuse and freak show gawking, he staged cheesy plays and was, in general, a champion of low-brow. Not surprisingly, he ended up in politics. To be fair, Mr Barnam did accomplish many great deeds and eventually became quite a generous man who was simply obsessed with grand spectacle. Nevertheless, beauty pageants don’t list among his more culturally-affirming legacies.
During the next century these pageants expanded from their hokey town fair origins, and with the help of television and institutionalised sexism, became the highly profitable trash parades we see today. Of course the name and the game is ‘beauty’ – but somewhere along the way, that term became far more removed from its literal meaning. ‘Beauty’ connotes elegance and allure, not just a pretty face but a beautiful being. Today’s ‘Miss General Location or Theme’ pageants seem to advertise that to achieve admiration, a woman must venture down a path of teeth bleaching, eating disorders and body-enhancing/ personality-reducing surgical procedures. To make matters worse, it almost sarcastically pretends that intelligence carries any bearing at all on judging criteria. Yeah… The question and answer time is included to give the audience a bit of a laugh, no-one there wants or expects any mind-jolting flashes of perspicacity. The inane questions are invariably designed to lure out inane answers; I mean when would you ever seriously ask an adult what they would do if they were ‘President of the world’? Oh, end world hunger? Have peace for all peoples? Even if a contestant happened to be bright and insightful, she’d unfortunately never be allowed the chance to shine. One, because the questions are dumb and two, because at that point everyone else has tuned out waiting impatiently for the bikini round.
‘Oh Miss Brazil, your views on current issues facing developing nations are so insightful. By ‘views of current issues facing developing nations’ I meant of course your booty, and by ‘insightful’ I meant of course is so fine, dayyyum!
If you need any more convincing, just look at who runs Miss Universe: Donald Trump. A man whose sleaze, bigotry and repugnance knows no bounds. Even Mr Barnam lived in an age where cheesy vaudeville and awful freak shows still maintained a feathery touch of class. The Trump effect, with it crass, charmless Vegas-vibe, only guarantees a complete bankruptcy of dignity.
And so, back to little Honey Boo Boo and her televised saga of child abuse. It’s bad enough that beauty pageants exist for teenagers and adults, but children? The entire concept is based upon critical sexualisation and superficial values, which for adults is wrong and for children is criminal. The halfwit parents who enter their kids into these competitions might say it’s good for raising self-esteem and confidence. In other words, teaching them that self-worth and confidence is smattered over your face in foundation and mascara, and that you are judged and estimated by how you look. Some even defend it by saying it’s no different than, say, signing your kid up to a junior soccer team. How, exactly, participating with peers in a team sport and prancing around in fishnets high on sugar are comparable, I’m not sure. Either it’s an absurd comparison or they play soccer very differently in the States. (That could perhaps explain David Beckham’s five year stint there.)
I’m not going to completely write off the idea of a pageant. It’s just another (and certainly not the worst) manifestation of a natural competitive instinct – and the ignoble but nonetheless pleasurable predilection for casting judgement on others. Of both those counts I am guilty a thousand times. But I just cannot see a positive seed sprouting from under the layers of dirt. It’s trashy, it’s superficial and worst of all, is a grand exercise of false empowerment. What’s more, it’s frustrating that having a problem with these things is so often dismissed as the jealousy of a foot-stomping, frumpy feminist – or, if you are a straight male like me, irrefutable evidence of homosexuality. Well, it’s not seeing a beautiful woman that offends me (though plastic matchsticks aren’t really my thing), but it’s the lamentable fact that so many young women will grow up to believe that donning a glittery little tiara on your head and a ‘Miss Anything’ sash on your shoulder is the greatest achievement a woman could dream of. An ‘achievement’ that is ultimately nothing more than artful exploitation… money-getting, some might even say.
I really hope it doesn’t rain again next weekend.
