The Pirate at a Crossroads, or, A Conclave of My Very Own

Well, campers, there's big news afoot. Feeling left out from the recent papal conclave? Fear not!

As many of the six of you who read this blog may know, I was offered a job from a certain unnamed alma mater and a certain unnamed theatre company in SW Detroit to organize and run a collaboration between the two. This proposed collaboration was contingent on their securing the funds needed - a task, I was informed yesterday, that remains unfulfilled, as the major grant application they had submitted was denied. An empty coffer precludes more than my being paid; that money would have covered transportation expenses for participants, materials, staff costs, etc.

With the end of my master's program coming at the end of July, this places yours truly at a strange point of decision making: what, gentle readers, am I going to do with myself? I'm way too stressed to think clearly about this, and yet the stress will also not allow me to leave off of thinking about it, despite my being knee deep in an horrendous three week death march of finals. So I'm asking for your advice, folks.

There is no "bad" choice among what I see as my available options: 1)to return to Michigan and take a job with the aforementioned unnamed theatre company, with whom I have an open (and funded) job offer; 2)to stay in NYC and continue to work as a scientist to pay rent, and use my free time to continue studying and working in theatre (there are fantastic opportunities here); 3) to do something else entirely (like trying to get a teaching artist job in another country, or something). And yes, I realize that there are people starving in the world and that I'm a whiny baby for even concerning myself with the difficulty of this decision.

I'm asking you to contact me, by whatever means, and let me know what you think. I'm asking because I want to know, so feel free to suggest whatever. You can e-mail me, call me, post here, or just come see me. Help me out!

[EDIT]: My brain feels like this!

A scene from work (don't worry, I washed my hands before typing this)

(Characters: Dr. Science and a travelling microscope salesman
The time is about 10 minutes ago.)

Him: Hey there, how's it...whoa.
Me: Yep.
Him: Um...
Me: Yeah, I'm kinda in the middle of something.
Him: I can see. Is that dead?
Me: Oh yeah. It'd have to be.
Him: That looks, um...interesting.
Me: What I'm doing is easily one of the most bizarre things I've had to do in the name of science. It's important that you know that.
Him: Have you done this before?
Me: No, this is a first.
Him: Huh.
Me: In fact, I'd love to tell people about how weird this is, but I'm pretty sure I'd rather they just didn't know how I spent my afternoon.
Him: So, why are you...no, never mind. Well, I'll, um...go. Good luck with that. (awkwardly sidesteps his way out)

Hat trick! Hat trick!

"Ramshackle," with an emphasis on "shack," might be the most accurate way to conjure for you the image of the site of last night's fun. A loosely-confederated and architecturally questionable structure built inside a concrete warehouse in a post-industrial part of Brooklyn was home to "The Hang," a party, musical performance, and feast. For six bucks you got a plate of hot, to-die-for Senegalese food and a comfy seat from which to watch visiting African musicians jam with local artists. Everyone was invited to take part in playing music (sadly I did not have my bass, because why would I have been carrying that around?), and there was a really nice, at-home sort of feel, despite the odd surroundings.

I'd like to point out that in one weekend here I saw a brass band performing Bjork, pretend wrestlers and punk bands from japan, and some incredible african music for a grand total of thirty dollars (which would have been twenty-four if I hadn't wanted to eat at the Hang). Although it'd be nice to have some company (did you know that the majority of stuff I write about doing on here, I do by myself?), I have to say that New York never ceases to offer great chances to have weird fun.

Rock.

Dr. Science meets Dr. Cube

Kaiju Big Battel (no, that's not a typo) held a DVD release party at CBGB's last night, with performances by five cah-razy Japanese Punk Bands and appearances by Kaiju wrestlers Kung Fu Chicken Noodle, the American Beetle, and that evil incarnate himself, Dr. Cube. The punk bands were nuts, honestly out of their minds with drive to offer the most intense, fun show possible - and they did a pretty fine job. Peedlander Z dressed up like what you'd get if fruit, the Village people, and the costume dept. of your high school's drama group had babies who only spoke japanese and played guitar really well. The bizarro-award of the night went to MC Manmoth and DJ Eagle, though, whose act consisted entirely of dressing in different cotumes and inviting people from the audience on stage to dance with them and drink tequila as they played old, obscure songs from the seventies. They, themselves, played no music, and did not sing. Oh, and sometimes they'd ask people to hit them in the face with this giant rubber band they had.

The song titles from the various bands were usually the only things said in English, and favorites included: "I dance because I want to eat your smile," "mystery animal: rock n' roll," " thrash thrash thrash," and my favorite lyric of the evening, "we know we can't change the world, so can we just please rock now?"

The highlight of the evening had to have been meeting Dr. Cube, though. I was wearing a Dr. Cube shirt given to me by my sister, and when Cube was walking through the audience, he saw my shirt, walked over and put his arm around me, slapped me on the chest and gave me the thumbs up before turning away and shoving somebody else out of his way. Oh, that Dr. Cube.

I managed to pick up the new Kaiju DVD and a sweet "Danger Can Happen" T-shirt, too.

Bjorkestra

I'm beginning to think that New York is a lot like the internet. It has everything you could possibly ever think of, and some stuff you wouldn't; you either have to know what you're looking for, or you have to stumble on it.

And so it was by stumbling that Andrew and I came to attend a performance last night of the Bjorkestra, a twenty-or-so-person brass band that does big band versions of Bjork songs. Honestly, I never would have thought that "enjoy" needed a bass trombone solo, but boy does it ever benefit from one. "All is full of love" with saxophones was incredible, too - which was on par for all the other songs they played. They're playing again on my birthday, so maybe I'll have to check that out.

EDIT: if you go here, and click on "mp3's" you can check out their version of "Army of me."

Dr. Science vs. a mob of frenzied, screaming six year-olds

For a minute, I thought they were going to kill me.

A fellow student here at NYU asked me to pay a visit to the career day going on at the middleschool where she volunteers. "They've seen a rabbi, and a daycare worker, and an ombudsman, and it'd be great to get someone to interest them in science. They don't get much of that." I agreed, only then to learn that by "middleschool" she meant "a group of 18 six year-olds." I quickly donned my light-up science belt.

They were bouncing off the walls when I got there, and my plans for trying to teach science quickly turned into just trying to get them to think that science was cool. I showed them some pictures of what normal objects look like at high magnification, and (with remarkable resonance with my audience) related what I do to what Pokemon scientist and cartoon character Prof. Oak does. Next I showed them this substance you can make out of cornstarch and water and green food coloring that doesn't appear to follow Newton's third law of motion (it's a liquid that turns solid when you touch it, then back to a liquid), and that quickly turned into my being quite literally mauled and/or bum rushed by small children. Suddenly, everything was covered with the green stuff, including myself, the floor, and the kids.

We washed up, I made a play-doh and tissue paper volcano erupt, and then answered some more questions about being a scientist. The questions included "will we ever see you again?" and "can we see your belt again?" This was a nice break from their previous question, "what is it?!", screamed almost constantly whenever they saw something they were interested in.

Me: So you, this subs-
Them:WHAT IS IT?
ME: Well, it's -
Them: WHAT IS IT?
Me: Hang on, I'l tell -
Them: WHAT IS IT?
Me: It's cornstarch and-
Them: WHAT IS IT?

Ugh. Children'd!

Stranger than fiction, or, um...WHAT?!

Saturday evening I attended a gathering on the upper west side. The hostess had made a point of inviting me and following up to make sure I was coming, saying that it would be good for me to get out and meet some pretty single girls.

I underestimated the fanciness of this party, though, and was pretty unenthusiastic to begin with, so I was feeling markedly out of place and more socially inept than usual when the hostess pulled me aside. "I have someone I want you to meet," she says," I think you two will have a lot to talk about." I suddenly find myself really self-conscious and uncomfortable, and I'm just about to say "I really can't do this" when she adds, "He's the New York correspondent for Al Jazeera."

Good lord did I get to have the best conversation ever! We talked about politics in the middle east and the United States, and he commended my mother for trying to learn Arabic. Apparently Al Jazeera is going to launch an English-language station, and we talked about the sorts of concessions that would have to be made to appease the resounding distrust and criticism of the current administration. With the deck already stacked against them, the station will certainly encounter a lot of difficulties getting approval and support here, if they intend to avoid having to stoop to the level of, say, Fox News.

We also talked a lot about Iran, and how even though most if not all of the governments of the middle east are strongly opposed to iran getting the bomb, much of the public sentiment within those countries illustrates a popular belief that such a development would be good and justified. With so much public opposition to any involvement that smacks of US imperialism, the European model of diplomacy might be the best option left. My contention, though, is that something will have to be done to restore the critics' (in which category one could rightly place the US) faith in diplomacy - as both Iran and North Korea have, in the past, used diplomacy as a way to buy time to continue developing nuclear arms.

I guess my point is that while I was wholly unsuited for the showy shindig, I ended up having a tremendously good and unexpectedly weird time anyway. Seriously, who hangs out at a party and talks politics with someone from Al Jazeera? I couldn't fake this stuff if I tried. New York is so strange...

Internet, let's never fight again.

I have been remiss lately in my inclusion of bizarre outbound links. Long the trademark of my posts, I've been a little negligent lately, so I shall try to make amends. We've missed out on people getting the slimy plaudits they deserve, as well as a fashion mogul's secrets to a thinner, healthier, more horse-filled you, and, um... a teacher climbing a mountain with a washing machine on his back. Need a recipe for the perfect pork martini? Really, really, want to visit the mousepad museum?

And just when you thought you wasted all the time there is on the internet, you stumble across a thing like this.

They say the neon lights are bright...

I finally overcame my "but it'll just be expensive spectactle!" stigma regarding Broadway shows, and took last night's performance of Twelve Angry Men. In the win category for me, I was right about there being horrendously over-the-top spectacle - at two points in the play, the entire set slides over, floor and all, by about ten feet - which served no other function than to show off that such a feat could be done. On the other hand, WOW! was that ever a fantastically acted piece. Ye gods, everyone and everything was so ridiculously well performed and staged. And while the piece lacks the thought-provocation of richard foreman or the call to direct social action of Boal, as far as indulgent nights at the theatre are concerned, it was unquestionably sublime.

To be frank, though, the audience was oddly touristy and underdressed compared to the mental image I had held of seeing a broadway show. I was all worried about my uncivilized demeanor and generally bad manners giving me away as a Broadway newbie, but I think I was the most dressed up one there (if only because I wasn't wearing a fanny pack). Still and all, a good time was had.

I've got a broken face/mother's little vampire

Andrew, the other roomate about whom these blogs seem to never say anything, joined with me in an effort to fix the window to our fire escape. Then he smashed said window and his own weight onto my face. We have fun, he and I. The window didn't break, as I really caught more of the frame than than the glass.
As a scientist, I will use this opportunity to conclude from my relatively minor (i.e. one cut across the bridge of my nose) injuries that my years of accidental self-inflicted injuries have not been without benefit. I kinda shrugged it off and then he and I ate some cake.

THEN, I had the great experience of learning that I had induced - by spending time outside saturday - a condition known as PMLE (polymorphous light eruption) which is basically a fancy way of saying that my skin doesn't want to see the sun ever again, and neither do I. Seven hours in the emergency room later, I'm chocked full of drugs and no longer feel the urge to allow rabid animals to gnaw the flesh from my body.

Sigh...I hope you're all organ donors, because I can only expect things to improve from here...

Re-prioritizing the Revolution, or, Social Darwinism Meets the Horrible New York Club

Saturday night my indefatigable visitor, two of her friends, and yours truly attempt to take in a Tsunami Relief Benefit show, for which several good bands were supposed to be head-lining. Noticed that I used the words "attempt" and "supposed to," did you?
This was my first (whoops, almost typed "fist" there; slow down, you're getting too freudian) experience with standing in line to get into a new york city club. The sorts of clubs I usually like don't have velvet ropes, but, hey, who am I to argue with a charity show, right? Apparently the guy who's in charge of the line is deeply concerned about the gender balance inside the club, and will only let in groups where the proportion of girls exceeds that of the males. Example? Four young fellows who all kinds of looked the part of the intended audience for the indie techno/rock bands that were playing had to wait for a really long time while some dude in a mesh muscle shirt with six vapid and vacuous "ladies" walks right through the door, no waiting. [Editor's note: said dude left not five minutes later, complaining about the music]. Carol was our saving grace, and we finally got in only to learn that THE BANDS ARE NOT PLAYING (I am yelling as I type) BUT RATHER ONLY DJ-ING AND THE PLACE IS HORRIBLY SMALL AND EVERYONE OVERREACTS TO MY INCREDIBLY BRIGHT SCIENCE BELT.
Backed into a veritable culture corner (not to be confused with culture kitchen), I did what I could -- I territorialized the dance floor like the elected representative from Jumbo Crazy Danceland until I was good and tired, and then we left.
Someone reminded me recently that social darwinism has nothing to do with morals or absolute value -- it has only to do with what species are most fit at a particular time and in a particular circumstance. If that time and circumstance ever involves being accompanied by a lot of women and an entry way governed by a velvet rope, I can only conclude that I will be left outside to be eaten by glaciers, or something.

The Duchess of Grey

Woo, backlog. This weekend was crazy fun. For more details than I will offer here, you can check out a suprisingly complimentary three-part synopsis of ms. Carol's visit at her weblog here. That being said, on with the show...

Ghostbusters, a life-long affair

Carol Grey is in town - more on this as the weekend progresses - but our adventures today took us up to the campus of Columbia University for a friend's art exhibit. I hadn't been there before, and INSISTED that we make a side-trip to the steps of the library where they filmed that scene in Ghostbusters. It's a little embarrassing how excited I got.

Come on, though, that movie was life-alteringly good.

A Pirate Grows in Brooklyn

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Originally uploaded by the once and future dr.science.

Today I could be found, for a time, at a Mahayana Buddhist temple, the interior of which was decorated, in part, with neon lights and an enormous gold Buddha. This is not the point of the story for which I am posting, nor is it even really an important part of that story, but it's a detail I feel sets nicely the tone of a meditative, slightly bizarre, and decidedly american experience I had this warm Thursday.
A little backstory: The freedom that comes with warm weather exists as an almost tangible image in my mind. It is the beginning of warm weather in the year I worked for Matrix, and I'm racing down Fort Street in a rickety Ford Festiva with Adam T., fresh out of juvenile detention, riding in the passenger seat. He has insisted that the windows be rolled down, and is singing at the top of his lungs to the same one song we listen to whenever he is in my car. It is almost always "I wanna be a baller" by Little Troy (and about ten other guys are on that track, I think, and it's actually a very BAD song). We enjoy the ride at our own pace.
That song is about celebrating what you have but recognizing that "there's gotta be a better way." Adam and I were both at the same place in our lives, I think, as we were both trying to find a better way to do what we wanted to, whether it was transforming the world with theatre or just making it out of that neighborhood alive. We knew there had to be a better way than living in a post-industrial wasteland or banging your head against the same problems for months on end. I think we also tried to carve out some fun in the face of it all.
So today I had to try to pull myself out from under a huge pile of work, including listening to several hours' worth of oral histories collected for this group project I'm working on. I walk to relieve stress, and I walked as I listened to those histories, thanks to the iPod. By the time I got done with what I had to listen to, I had walked all over brooklyn and was halfway across the manhattan bridge.
I wasn't feeling any less stressed out, though, and lately I've been getting disheartened by finding more problems than solutions, more work than results. So I kept walking.
And I'm sure you can guess what happened. It's cliche, I'm know, but "I wanna be a baller" came on when I set the iPod to play randomly. And no, none of my problems went away and nothing actually got better, but at least I found myself having fun with that lamentable state of things and enjoying the warm weather, and checking out new parts of the city. If I had windows, I would have rolled them down.
So if you saw a pirate walking around brooklyn and manhattan today, belting out terrible lyrics like "i wanna be a baller, shot caller, twenty-inch blades, on the impala," yeah...that was me.

I'm blinding you, with science!

Just when I thought the original science belt was the unrivaled zenith of ostentatious belt technology, Brooklyn's Flatbush Mall answers back with a thunderous, "Oh, hell no! We can do far worse than that!" As a side-effect, or rather, an unexpected and pleasant result of today's travels (see above), I am now the proud owner of a (and if you're not familiar with these already, then I will only ever do justice with a picture) computerized belt buckle that scrolls the word "SCIENCE" across the front in bright blue letters.

EDIT: Oh, wait, I found a site that has pictures of what I'm talking about (though they want a WHOLE LOT more money than what I spent). Behold!

Papabile

From the New York Times: "Vatican observers have spent years now honing their ever-changing lists of cardinals who are 'papabile,' or potential popes. Although the chosen successor may not have made any of these lists, there are certain names that keep cropping up as the cardinals to watch...Among the third-world contenders most often mentioned..."

wait, wait, wait. What? The cardinals would actually consider someone from the third-world for pope? That's the best news I've heard in a LONG time! Can you imagine if the either the bishop from Africa or Honduras, both of whom are active advocates of social-justice, and who are on the above-mentioned papabile list, were appointed? Good grief, I'd have no choice but to start going back to Church. It's as though somebody up there really is listening...

...which is not to say I'm not still willing to take the job...

I'm feeling fat and sassy

This weekend was nothing else if not a master class in the art of being really, profoundly unproductive. A recital in time-burglary was given by Profs. Graham and Andrew on the luxurious pleather couch on Saturday, with both guilty pleasure to me and great detriment to my academic carreer. When Ann and her friend showed up for an impromptu visit, I abandoned any plans for getting work done. Unless, of course, you count "eating pancakes at a greasy diner at 5 in the morning" work, which, incidentally, I do not.

I'm not behind in my work, but I'm also not ahead. I've been so locked into doing everything in the least amount of time and the highest degree of stress that such conditions are becoming, I fear, the only ones under which I accomplish my tasks. Does anyone else get this way?