Orthodontic Tale of Woe and Misery

Today, Sebastien got his braces on.  On the way there, I regaled him with tales of my own painful memories of getting braces in the 1980's.  After I told him this story, he was laughing pretty hard and so I asked him "Should I blog this?" 

He said to but not to write it out but to record my oral telling of it, so here ya go (about 3.5 mins):

(((being meta)))

While I initially admire people that project certainty and confidence, the truth is there is probably something wrong with them (I mean those folks probably don't even use parenthesis (and I love parenthetical expressions (every thought leads to other thoughts which branch out and cause you to think of more caveats and what if's (I guess I'm very meta (what does that say about me? (I think I'm being meta about being meta right now (warning: recursion loop!))))))).

Rothko, Kagge, and Silence

For a couple of years, I had the good fortune to live within one block of the Menil Museum in Houston.  Adjacent the Museum itself is the Rothko Chapel:

If you are ever in Houston, I insist you walk inside and spend at least five minutes in silence.  I have done it many times and the effect it can have on you can not be over-stated.

Today I read the following passage in "Silence In the Age of Noise" by Erling Kagge:

" 'Silence is so accurate' said Rothko, when he refused to explain his images. Had he been able to simply reply with words, then perhaps he would have written an article instead of making painting.

I am not sure why, but the fact is that a hush descends whenever you examine great art, trying to understand what the artist wanted to convey...

A good work of art is like a thinking machine that reflects the artist's ideas, hopes, moods, failures and intuitions. Maybe I stay silent in front of art because I feel that I am separated from something every single day. There's so much I don't understand, that I can't move beyond, and art reminds me of that..."

I didn't realize it at the time, but Rothko and the silence helped me make several life-altering decisions back in those in-between years. 

 Even now, I can close my eyes and feel the hum of power in that silent space.  

Putting Things into Perspective

We all have a tendency to make a big deal out of things in our personal lives. These days, it doesn't take much to have a negative perspective on things. The seemingly well structured, predictable order in our lives has been revealed to be a thin veneer placed over an intractable mess. The thing is, knowing the truth is humbling and sobering but our experience in the world does not have to dwell on the negatives.

Teaching astronomy is a humbling enterprise both professionally (because I have so much to learn and the content is literally expanding all the time (see what I did there?)) as well as personally (nothing like thinking about astronomy to make you feel small, brief, and inconsequential).

Recently I came across an interesting compilation of 10 years worth of data from the Solar Dynamics Observatory. This satellite has been quietly taking near continuous pictures of the Sun for years.  That foundational, stable element if our lives ("As sure as the Sun rises") is, in truth, a messy cauldron of plasma being stirred about by rotation and convection, whipping its intense magnetic fields into crazy chaotic contortions:

https://youtu.be/l3QQQu7QLoM

In those images, a massive ejection of plasma (a CME: coronal mass ejection) was captured back in 2014:

This is an actual picture taken in ultraviolet (the Sun that it, obviously the Earth was added to the picture to give the viewer some sense of scale).

Luckily we live 93 million miles away and the ejection happened to be directed elsewhere (outer space is mostly empty space after all). If it had hit us, we probably would have lost satellite communication and our electrical grid for weeks... If our planet were closer (like in the picture), all life would have been extinguished.

The Sun and indeed our lives are and always have been only stable and reliable in an illusory way. When we are reminded of the underlying capricious truth, it doesn't necessitate despair.  I look toward the Sun now with thankfulness and respect. I do continue to expect it to rise predictably tomorrow but acknowledge that it may not. I see our home star with more nuance. Sure there is some additional uncertainty within me but there is empowerment as well from acknowledging the scary truth.

These days I sometimes try to look at my personal problems from 93 million miles away.  The messy cauldron of my internal emotions don't really seem as overwhelming from that perspective. 

Deodorant and Priveledge

When I was in high school, a friend asked me why I never wore any cologne. I responded with indignation that I didn't even use scented deodorant, I was so against the idea of artificial scents. The reply echoes through the years as one of those moments where you can actual feel your perspective changing. Like getting to a plateau on a hike and seeing over the tops of the trees for the first time.  "Whaddya mean your deoderant doesn't have a scent? You wear Mennen. Why would you say it doesn't have a scent?"

I realized in that moment that because it was called 'regular' and because my own father had used it around me my whole life and because it felt familiar and safe, that did not mean 'odorless'.

It would take another 30 years but now I realize that not only was I walking around with an 'artificial scent' that was invisible to me; I was also walking around with a racial, gender, and orientation 'scent' that I was so comfortable with (and that society effectively bathed me with), I just thought I was 'odorless'.

Yoga in a Pandemic

When I was a teenager, I saw the movie Midnight Express.  There was a scene or two of the main character doing some yoga.  At the time, I didn't know what I was watching, I just knew it had some kind of aesthetic appeal.

Years later (I was around 30), I took up Ashtanga yoga in Atlanta.  I would go in three or four times a week and sweat an ocean onto my mat and, for an hour, all my troubles would disappear.  

After I moved to Boston, I let it go and yoga really hasn't been part of my life for almost 20 years.  The pandemic has brought me the time as well as, perhaps, the need.  So, at fifty, I find myself sweating an ocean into my mat once again.  Back then my hair was darker, thicker, longer... but, in my mind, not too much else has changed.  My buddy NRD asked me to record a snipped (he recently turned 50 too!) to inspire him and so I went through a sun salutation and a couple standing poses for him:

A pandemic is better than Turkish prison for sure!

Apples, Corn, and Deer

I have always been fascinated by the fact that the French word for potato is "apple of the earth" (pomme de terre). As is often the case, these little word puzzles that tickle your brain for years turn out to be the tip of a linguistic iceberg.  

Apples of an orange tree

Originally, all fruits were 'apples'.  For example, what we now call an 'orange' was originally the apple of the orange tree!  Eventually, we just dropped all the extra words and just called the fruit of that tree by the name of the tree (etymologically, the orange tree came first then the fruit and then the color).  I don't want to upset the applecart since you are the apple of my eye but the French are not so strange for talking about an apple of the earth. Most ironic of all is the expression "apples and oranges" (meaning you are talking about two completely different things and they should be talked about separately). How do you like them apples?  

Maize or Corn

Let me take a second bite at that apple: It turns out that corn is the apple of the grain world.  While it is true that corn is technically a fruit, what I mean here is that, originally, corn was the generic term for grain. What we call 'corn' in America was originally Indian corn. Corn can be wheat, oats, rye, etc. depending on where you live.  That's why the French call it maïs; they are using the original word for Indian corn, maize. 

While researching for this post, I discovered that a deer used to refer to any four legged wild animal.  I always thought it interesting that a specific type of item could become the name of a category ("Pass me a Kleenex"), but never knew that the name of the category could become a specific item. Language and words are such slippery beasts, aren't they? Words are all contextual!

Hart or Deer

Oh dear, I guess the apple does sometimes fall far from the tree, linguistically speaking.  (Don't worry, I realize this post is kind of corny...)

Red Snapper

The simple pleasures in life...

Before

During

Final

Le mis-en-bouteille familiale

Irene just showed me this amazing video in her Facebook feed from the family winery in Corsica:

https://www.facebook.com/montstjean/videos/596732560977762/

In the background you can see my cousin and her father (Ton Ton!) working the bottling facility.  To see the two of them working together really brings me true joy.  Also, the bottling facility was added in the years after I worked in the winery so I've never seen it operational before.