On Wednesday evening I went on radio KGGV ‘The Bridge’ 95.1 ,here in Guerneville, speaking and playing on DJ Milo’s politics program ‘Touch’. We had another fine ramble on what it means to be ‘Metaquizzical’. I said to ‘ask many deep questions and see what comes up’, and to use new metaphors reflecting new discoveries about reality. From there we talked about the ‘Goldilocks Zone’, a common astronomical term to describe the best zone, orbit-wise, for a planet to evolve life. We then went on what that means from the temperature gradients on the planet Mercury to the streets of Richmond. An out-of-the-box conversation!
Sunday we had our second ‘Metaquizzical Café slot at the Petaluma Museum’s ‘Beyond’ exhibit. There were several astronomers in the audience so I knew I had to get the science right on my ‘Sidewalk Astronomer’ song. I sang it rather nervously because I changed the lyrics to reflect what they had previously told me about looking at the moon with a telescope. It was a prodigious, last-minute, lyric change in content, rhyme and meter reflecting the best phase of the moon for viewing, how it rises on Berkeley, and how high the mountains on the moon can get. All this and not letting go of the feeling, rhythm and romance of the song! Singing science is a very tricky business! I got through it. (Listen to the Sidewalk Astronomer)
Astronomer Allan Stearn then gave a friendly, engaging, personal retrospective of legendary astronomer John Lowry Dobson who started the international sidewalk astronomy movement, and invented the ‘Dobsonian’ telescope which is the standard for amateur astronomers around the world. Allan was peppered by the audience about a number of things including John Dobson’s cosmology. Dobson doesn’t believe in the ‘Big Bang’ theory. He asserts our universe is more an endless ‘Big Composter’ or ‘Big Womb’, and that, instead of dramatic beginnings and endings, we just infinitely ‘mix’.
I finished the fascinating slot with a lovely audience sing along of John Lennon’s ‘Across the Universe’. Jai Guru Deva!
Sunday we had our second ‘Metaquizzical Café slot at the Petaluma Museum’s ‘Beyond’ exhibit. There were several astronomers in the audience so I knew I had to get the science right on my ‘Sidewalk Astronomer’ song. I sang it rather nervously because I changed the lyrics to reflect what they had previously told me about looking at the moon with a telescope. It was a prodigious, last-minute, lyric change in content, rhyme and meter reflecting the best phase of the moon for viewing, how it rises on Berkeley, and how high the mountains on the moon can get. All this and not letting go of the feeling, rhythm and romance of the song! Singing science is a very tricky business! I got through it. (Listen to the Sidewalk Astronomer)
Astronomer Allan Stearn then gave a friendly, engaging, personal retrospective of legendary astronomer John Lowry Dobson who started the international sidewalk astronomy movement, and invented the ‘Dobsonian’ telescope which is the standard for amateur astronomers around the world. Allan was peppered by the audience about a number of things including John Dobson’s cosmology. Dobson doesn’t believe in the ‘Big Bang’ theory. He asserts our universe is more an endless ‘Big Composter’ or ‘Big Womb’, and that, instead of dramatic beginnings and endings, we just infinitely ‘mix’.
I finished the fascinating slot with a lovely audience sing along of John Lennon’s ‘Across the Universe’. Jai Guru Deva!