-
The greatest minds of the 20th century spent a lot of energy on the possibility of time travel. Einstein in particular addresses the relationship between time and movement or space.

But it's only now in the 21st century that ideas about the bendability of time have really taken off. Now we're seeing technology that can demonstrate what were merely theories in the last century.

Exhibit A:

This is a device that can compress three hours into three minutes. Your tea can go from piping hot to stone cold in the time it takes to glance at the TV screen. The movement in the device actually causes the hands of the clock to speed forward while you're in the world of the device (but slowing down to normal should you take your eyes off it and look at the clock).

As Spock says, Fascinating.
-

-
Colin Ellard, the author of "You Are Here," provides these tips on not getting lost (on the Amazon page for his book):

Top 10 Ways to Avoid Getting Lost

1. Take the time to smell (and look at) the roses. The difference between expert way-finders and the rest of us probably has much to do with being able to pay attention to details. Take the time to soak in the sights, sounds, and smells so that they’ll be familiar on the return. Try not to walk (or drive) on auto-pilot.

2. Remembrance of things passed. Insects use a strategy called the "look-back." It’s exactly what it sounds like. From time to time, turn around and look behind you so that you’ll be better able to recognize a scene on the way back.

3. Don’t get lost in time. We are as bad at keeping track of when as we are at keeping track of where. When travelling through unfamiliar territory, check the time frequently so you’ll know how long a trip has taken. Then you can estimate how long it will take to return.

4. Every route’s a story. Ancient way-finders connected places with stories to help them remember routes. When walking, try to stitch the things you see into a tall tale that you’ll remember later.

5. Embrace your inner geek. Remember that technology is your friend. If you’re out in nature and you’re carrying a compass, check it frequently before you get lost so that you’ll have some idea of your route. If you’re using a GPS, make sure you know how it works before you need it (and make sure the batteries work!).

6. Head for home. When visiting somewhere new, assign one major area or street as the home base and return to it frequently during your explorations. This will help you build a better mental map quickly.

7. Stop, drop, and wait. If you become seriously lost in wilderness, stop moving! Search and rescue teams always begin their “hasty search” from your last known location, and the less you move away from it, the faster you’ll be found.

8. Picture yourself found. If you have a digital camera, take lots of pictures of your route. In a pinch, you will be able to refer to your pictures to remind you of sights along your route, but even without doing so, taking pictures forces you to pay attention to where you are.

9. Don’t lose your cool. Remember that we all become lost from time to time. Getting angry with your partner or yourself will only distract you and make it more difficult to find your way.

10. Stay on track. Most people become lost in natural spaces because they leave a marked trail. Never overestimate your abilities to find your way back.

-

-
"Mom, do we have any more of that non-Newtonian fluid?"

(Eve looked back at her with utter puzzlement. She later found out that their father had been showing Lindsey and her brother science tricks with cornstarch the night before.)
-

-
Jay's work will be on display at the Alphabet City Wine Company (in association with the Michael Mut Gallery) in New York in September. Details below.

Alphabet City Wine Company Art Exhibit Sculptures by Jay Kissel September 10 to October 17, 2010 Wine Tasting & Opening Thursday, September 23, 6:00-9:00pm

JAY KISSEL studied drawing and painting at Maryland Instit

-
Surrender, surrender, surrender.
-

-

This memoir details the author's 1986 post-graduation trip to China with a classmate from Brown University. It's a great read, with good writing and a brisk pace (as they say). Though her story is a little more extreme than most people's tales of their first independent trip abroad, in essence it's quite familiar: meeting other travelers, trying to get "authentic" experience, being disappointed by the banality of most locales. The fact that she makes her story interesting is a testament to the loyalty she retains to her younger self. She reconstructs with great care how it feels to be that age and experiencing these things for the first time.

But what I most admire about it is the way the author, Susan Gilman, balances the immediate perspective and the long perspective. Writing some twenty years later, she's clear about how foolish and unprepared she and her friend were. Painfully, cringefully clear. But she also gives due to the romance of travel and the way it can change a young mind---they way it can be, in short, everything a young, naive mind hopes it will be.


-

-

Will be this actor, Rooney Mara:

-

Ever since Lilith Fair I've been digging out my old Indigo Girls CD. I forgot how much I love this song:


VIRGINIA WOOLF


Some will strut and some will fret 
See this an hour on the stage 
Others will not but they'll sweat 
In their hopelessness in the rage 
We're all the same the men of anger 
And the women of the page 

They published your diary, and that's how i got to know you 
Key to the room of your own and a mind without end 
Here's a young girl on a kind of a telephone line through time 
The voice at the other end comes like a long-lost friend 

So I know I'm alright, my life will come my life will go 
Still I feel it's alright, I just got a letter to my soul 
When my whole life is on the tip of my tongue, empty pages for the no longer young, 
The apathy of time laughs in my face, you say each life has its place 

The hatches were battened, thunderclouds rolled and the critics stormed 
Battles surrounded the white flag of your youth 
But if you need to know that you weathered the storm of cruel mortality 
A hundred years later I'm sitting here living proof 

So you know it's alright, your life will come your life will go 
Still you'll feel it's alright, someone will get a letter to your soul 
When your whole life was on the tip of your tongue, empty pages for the no longer young 
The apathy of time laughed in your face, did you hear me say each life has its place 


The place where you hold me is dark in a pocket of truth 
The moon has swallowed the sun and the light of the earth 
And so it was for you when the river eclipsed your life 
But sent your soul like a message in a bottle to me and it was my rebirth 

So we know it's alright, life will come and life will go 
Still we know it's alright, someone will get a message to your soul 
Then you know it's alright and you feel it's alright 
(when my whole life is on the tip of my tongue empty pages for the no longer young) 
Then you know it's alright and you feel it's alright 
(each life has its place you say each life has its place) 
It's alright

- 

-



















(From Richard Thompson's Cul de Sac)

-

The last of US combat troops are leaving Iraq today.

Here's a prayer for Iraq itself, for its future, for all those who suffered during the war, and for all the US soldiers who were lost and injured.

--

This graphic is from Newsweek. Double-click on it to see it bigger.

-
Got to see this second installment in the Stieg Larsson series yesterday, and it was just as great as first movie. The Mikael Blomqvist character (played by Michael Nyquist) was his same, inexplicably attractive self:

And Noomi Rapace was amazing as Lisbeth Salander. If I had one criticism about her casting in the first movie, it was that she looked a little older and bigger than Lisbeth was supposed to be (Lisbeth is 27 but supposed to look about 14 and be really tiny). They rectified this in this second movie, though. Noomi looked younger and smaller:

There was even a transformation within the confines of this movie. As you learn more about Lisbeth's tragic past, you see her less as a violent head case and more as a kid surviving great odds; and the filmmakers make her look more and more kid-like as her past is revealed---she loses first the heavy eyeliner, then the aggressive hair, and her clothes become plainer and younger.

The story steamed along too. I liked how the villains were often huge and muscle-bound but not nimble. The good guys were physically weaker but flexible and crafty. You feel that integrity, determination, and smarts can beat out brute force in the end.

-

-
A GIRL WINNING:

MORE ROUTINES WITH GUYS DANCING TOGETHER:

PASHA:

GIRLS GETTING TO BE ROMANTIC:

AND DRAMATIC:

AND BADASS:

LONG-LEGGED BOYS:

BOYS WHO FLY:

PASHA:

CRAZY MODERN CHOREOGRAPHY:

MY FAVORITE CHOREOGRAPHER, SONYA TAYEH:

DID I MENTION PASHA?

THIS BASEBALL ROUTINE:

HOST CAT DEELEY, SEEMINGLY THE NICEST PERSON ON THE PLANET:

-

-
I only own two Madonna CDs. One is I'm Breathless, which is uneven but contains "Vogue" plus some songs that were meaningful to me when I was falling in love with Jay. The other one is Ray of Light, which is one of my favorite CDs of all time. When Madonna released it, she said that she loved electronica but it had one fault, which was that it lacked warmth. She wanted to make an electronica record with warmth, and I think she succeeded with this pulsing, dreamy, soulful disc.

Since then I've added a few more examples of "warm electronica" to my collection. The latest is Heartbreak on Vinyl, by Blake Lewis. Lewis was a contestant on American Idol a few years back, and his signature was beatboxing. I hadn't thought more about him until a year ago when I read a review, in somewhere like EW or the Washington Post, saying that he was actually the most successful---artistically---of all the Idol alumns. Intriguing.

I eventually bought this CD and got around to listening to it this week. I absolutely love it. Not much beatboxing, but a lot of great music. Some songs are more pedestrian dance numbers, but a few soar. I like the first cut, "Heartbreak on Vinyl," which is catchy with unusually good lyrics for a pop tune. I love the short piece called "Superscratchavocalisticturntablelicious" (say that fast, Mary Poppins), which is more like a modern jazz composition than a song. It reminds me a little of "Cantaloop" in its combination of jazzy abstraction and modern vocals. My favorite cut is probably "Our Rapture of Love," which is right up my alley:  rich, heavy, dark, romantic.

Note for Bob:  On this CD, Lewis reminds me quite a bit of Kevin Max on The Imposter.

- 

-

Lilith Fair 2010.
-

The Changing Face of Mysteries

-

I'm thinking this morning how quaint it is that mystery novels from the early to mid-20th century would sometimes pivot on the discovery of a monogrammed hankerchief.

-