Monet, Wenders, and Komorebi

Last year, I saw beautiful poem of a movie by one of my favorite directors:

The ending scene defines a very Japanese word:

Of course, the same culture that gave us the Haiku poetry form would have a word capturing something so ephemeral.

Today, in the MFA, I happened to catch an explainer about Monet that referenced this concept (although not the word itself) in the context of his fascination with Japanese art.

Aha, I thought - of course - the master of light in nature would be chasing komorebi :

Time: Ephemeral

Each Instant of Life Passes,

Real or Imagined?

Knight Rider, Education, and Me

 

In the 80's, there was a period of time where Knight Rider was pretty much the coolest thing, like, ever!  With its talking car and iconic soundtrack, it was a huge international success.  I, of course, watched my fair share back in the day.  However, I have never felt the hankering to go back to check it out in the streaming world.  Irene, however, is systematically working her way through all the 80's hits and so I am hearing the soundtrack again. (for the record, the little I have watched does not encourage me to recommend it to the uninitiated).  It is a cultural touchstone for everyone around my age though so I can confidently reference it to a peer casually and be assured they will get the reference. 

For instance, Michael Knight is known to work for "The Foundation", so if I hear those words, my first thought will be of KITT and Hasselhoff.  I had forgotten the full name was actually "The Foundation for Law and Government" (yikes!).

Now, let's go back to 2008 when I was a new hire in Wayland and my mentor (fellow physics teacher PS) was giving me a tour of the campus.  When we got to the faculty lounge, there was a parent representative from the local fundraising organization :

Me being me, when the dude from the organization said "I'm here from the Foundation", I quickly responded with "I love the work you've done with Michael Knight".  PS busted into a surprised chuckle as the parent searched his memory for a teacher named Michael Knight that they've supported with a grant in recent years...

Oh, I'm still proud of that one...

Chess Rap 2026

This may be the end of an era...

Video creds to JM!

A Sweet Thank You

 Through the years, I have gotten a few cookies as thank you's from students - but rarely have they spanned so widely across the curriculum as these from KT:

In case you can't tell, it's a rocket ship (suspiciously similar to Veritasium's rocket ship!), a Wheatstone bridge circuit, and a free body diagram.  I ate the free body diagram one arrow at a time but I had to do it quickly since it started accelerating away once I broke the equilibrium...

Immigrant Moms Get the Job Done

 

 I am the son of an immigrant Mom

My wife is the daughter of an immigrant Mom

I was 21 when I saw this movie that showed me the richness of the melting pot that is the USA.

I didn't even know there were Indians in Mississippi nor that there were Indians from Uganda (!)

This Mamdani fella has been making the news.

I heard he has an immigrant Mom too.

Today, I found out his immigrant Mom is the director of that movie

Old Blogs, Old Innumeracies, Old Star Treks

 Years ago, I started to keep a second blog to track all the innumeracies I was stumbling across in mainstream media.  Like so many things in life, I just let it go after a while.  The blog is still out there, and I thought to check on it when my brother brought my attention to an odd throw-away line in an old Star Trek episode:

The Media's Innumeracy and Sciencific Illiteracy: Nice one, Kirk

(I assume the misspelling in the title of the blog was intentional on my part?  I certainly hope so...)

Maybe I will make another post over there in less than 10 years (or did I mean 1 year (or 100?) - what's a zero between friends?).

Ken as Dog or Dog as Ken

My father once told me you can tell a lot about a dog owner by watching their dog.

But now that SJ has successfully imagined what I would look like as a dog (she said she was defeated by trying to match a dog to me and instead just imagined me as a dog), I can take my father's wisdom to a whole new level:

photo cred goes to Isabelle!

This little clay sculpture has already claimed a spot in my heart 

(or am I in the heart of this dog?)

:)