Hawking on Hacking, or How Utah is the Center of the Mediaverse

So I get out of the city for a couple of days, take the kid to Grammy’s house (not to be confused with Latin Grammy’s, whose calls we don’t return), take a break from the hubbub.
Little did I know that Stephen Hawking would pick the day I arrive to alter the laws of physics and dump me into the middle of just about every slow-summer, lame-ass media story in existence. It turns out the new elemental particle in physics is the ‘ward,’ the Mormon term for a parish or congregation, and I’m getting bombarded by them.
With highly tawdry, slow-summer news approaching morning-of-Sept-11th levels (Remember the headlines that day? Lizzie Grubman.), the end of the world is coming up fast, or as they say here, “It sure is the Latter Days.” So start repenting:

  • My sister was in the same ward at BYU with that high priest of Jeopardy, Ken Jennings. Some friend of hers works with him now, and they’re making estimates of his ultimate winnings by reconstructing his time off.
  • The daughter of my mom’s friend is in the same ward as the Hackings, the couple at the center of a “less and less Elizabeth Smart, more and more Laci Peterson” saga unfolding on basic cable. They all spent the last year trading med school application horror stories.
  • But it says in the Bible to visit the sick… My 9-year old niece and a friend from her ward somehow convinced a supposedly rational parent to drive them to Mary Kate’s “anorexia” clinic. “She’s not here now. You’ll have to leave.” was all the thanks these little fans got for their mission of mercy.
  • And I’m sure this plot was hatched at the ward: Someone has been “cleansing” books at the local library, blotting out swear words and replacing them with “gosh,” and “darn.” What satanic books are these, you ask? “Murder, She Wrote.” That’s right, Angela Lansbury is the whore of Babylon. Bea Arthur, you’re free to go.
  • Jocelyn Bell, the woman who discovered pulsars

    After discovering an inexplicable pulsing signal (a “sniggling quarter inch” blip that showed up for 5 min/day) in her PhD radio astronomy data (thousands of feet of paper charts) at Cambridge, Jocelyn Bell and her adviser Tony Hewish, wondered if it was a stellar phenomenon or some man-made interference. If the signal was indeed real, its source was unknown to science at that time. They took to calling it “little green men.”

    There was a meeting just beofre Christmas 1967 which I stumbled upon. I went down to Tony’s office to ask him something and unusually, the door was shut. I knocked and a voice said, “Come in.” I stuck my head around the door and Tony said “Ah, Jocelyn, come in and shut the door.” So I went in and shut the door. It was a discussion between Tony Hewish (my supervisor), Martin Ryle (the head of the Group), and probably John Shakshaft (one of the other senior members of the Group). The discussion was along the lines of “how do we publish this result?”

    Then the night before leaving for Christmas break, Bell locked herself in the lab, pored over her data, and found another signal in another part of the sky, confirming that the signal was not caused by human interference.

    I went off on holiday and came back to the lab wearing an engagement ring. That was the stupidest thing I ever did. In those days, married women did not work…My appearance wearing an engagement ring signalled that I was exiting from professional life. Incidentally, it is interesting to notice that people were much more willing to congratulate me on my engagement than congratulate me on making a major astrophysical discover. Society felt that in getting engaged I was doing the right thing for a young woman. In discovering pulsars, I wasn’t…

    In 1968, Ryle called Nature and told them to “hold the presses.” “Observation of a Rapidly Pulsating Radio Source,” listed Bell and Hewish and two other colleagues as authors, although current citations differ on who was lead author.
    What IS certain, however, is that Ryle and Hewish were awarded the Nobel Prize in 1974, Hewish for his decisive role in the discovery of pulsars.” Although some argue differently, Bell is widely thought to have been robbed of a Nobel Prize. She is currently Dean of Science at the University of Bath.
    Bell’s fascinating first-hand account of the discovery was reprinted in the June 2004 issue of Status: A Report on Women in Astronomy, which is published by the American Astronomical Society [PDF only].
    In her telling, the N-word never comes up, even indirectly, but it looms large as day-to-day details of the players’ actions and theories build up. The excerpts above are about as close as Bell comes to explaining why she thinks she didn’t share the Nobel.
    The only woman to win a Nobel Prize for Physics was Marie Curie in 1903, for discovering radiation. (She won again for Chemistry in 1911, for discovering radium.)

    Jocelyn Bell, the woman who discovered pulsars

    After discovering an inexplicable pulsing signal (a “sniggling quarter inch” blip that showed up for 5 min/day) in her PhD radio astronomy data (thousands of feet of paper charts) at Cambridge, Jocelyn Bell and her adviser Tony Hewish, wondered if it was a stellar phenomenon or some man-made interference. If the signal was indeed real, its source was unknown to science at that time. They took to calling it “little green men.”

    There was a meeting just beofre Christmas 1967 which I stumbled upon. I went down to Tony’s office to ask him something and unusually, the door was shut. I knocked and a voice said, “Come in.” I stuck my head around the door and Tony said “Ah, Jocelyn, come in and shut the door.” So I went in and shut the door. It was a discussion between Tony Hewish (my supervisor), Martin Ryle (the head of the Group), and probably John Shakshaft (one of the other senior members of the Group). The discussion was along the lines of “how do we publish this result?”

    Then the night before leaving for Christmas break, Bell locked herself in the lab, pored over her data, and found another signal in another part of the sky, confirming that the signal was not caused by human interference.

    I went off on holiday and came back to the lab wearing an engagement ring. That was the stupidest thing I ever did. In those days, married women did not work…My appearance wearing an engagement ring signalled that I was exiting from professional life. Incidentally, it is interesting to notice that people were much more willing to congratulate me on my engagement than congratulate me on making a major astrophysical discover. Society felt that in getting engaged I was doing the right thing for a young woman. In discovering pulsars, I wasn’t…

    In 1968, Ryle called Nature and told them to “hold the presses.” “Observation of a Rapidly Pulsating Radio Source,” listed Bell and Hewish and two other colleagues as authors, although current citations differ on who was lead author.
    What IS certain, however, is that Ryle and Hewish were awarded the Nobel Prize in 1974, Hewish for his decisive role in the discovery of pulsars.” Although some argue differently, Bell is widely thought to have been robbed of a Nobel Prize. She is currently Dean of Science at the University of Bath.
    Bell’s fascinating first-hand account of the discovery was reprinted in the June 2004 issue of Status: A Report on Women in Astronomy, which is published by the American Astronomical Society [PDF only].
    In her telling, the N-word never comes up, even indirectly, but it looms large as day-to-day details of the players’ actions and theories build up. The excerpts above are about as close as Bell comes to explaining why she thinks she didn’t share the Nobel.
    The only woman to win a Nobel Prize for Physics was Marie Curie in 1903, for discovering radiation. (She won again for Chemistry in 1911, for discovering radium.)

    Someone give that woman a development deal–and a date

    Not necessarily in that order.
    1989: Woman gives birth to baby girl. Man helps change diapers at first, then abandons woman and 10-month old child. Woman laments the lack of real men like her father, moves in with father.
    cut to –
    2003: Ffifteen hardworking, single-parent years later, woman seeks fame and fortune in the entertainment industry. Ends up writing a weekly column for little conservative journal. Lives in Silver Lake, a raw-but-rapidly-gentrifying city in East L.A. full of “hippies,” “gays, bohemians, and industry types,” and which has one of the few public schools “where the children speak English at home.” In an overwhelmingly anti-war town, woman is a lonely pro-war supporter.
    March 2003: Seeking fame and fortune in the entertainment industry that so many of her unshaven neighbors seem to have attained, woman starts blog. Receives, not a script deal, but positive reviews–from “the Matt Drudge of porn,” local warblogger, other Hollywood hangers-on.
    First full-length post tells of her run-in at a gourmet grocery store with smug, self-absorbed, peace march-organizing creative type and his 4-year old son. Coins the term “Silver Lake Dads,” which is picked up by exactly one person–the warblogger–to praise the woman’s blog for “baiting hippie Silver Lake Dads”and to announce the availability of $5 wine on his failed Gawker clone.
    June 2004: One week after organizing an Entertainment Industry And Political Bloggers In LA panel (still no development deal), woman is decried by writers, bloggers, hippies, creative types for her hatred and exclusion of same on panel. And, she says, for not linking to their hippie blogs.
    In need of Father’s Day story, woman recycles 15-month old blog post about self-absorbed hippie in the supermarket. Attempts to reinvigorate failed coinage, Silver Lake Dads, All dads who do not abandon their children and who are not her dad are like peacenik Hollywood writers. Professes admiration for the fictional creation of same, a dad character on TV. Still no script deal. Still single.

    Geezers, Screenwriters & Directors

    It’s my guess that we cling to the harsher bits of the past not just as a warning system to remind us that the next Indian raid or suddenly veering, tower-bound 757 is always waiting but as a passport to connect us to the rest of the world, whose horrors are available each morning and evening on television or in the Times. And the cold moment that returns to mind and sticks there, unbidden, may be preferable to the alternative and much longer blank spaces, whole months and years wiped clear of color or conversation. Like it or not, we geezers are not the curators of this unstable repository of trifling or tragic days but only the screenwriters and directors of the latest revival.

    -Roger Angell, “Life in rerun, now playing near you.” >The New Yorker, Issue of 2004-06-07

    Try Explaining “Famous Bloggers”

    That was my dilemma last night in attending Gothamisty NY Bloggers forum at the Apple store. Like everyone else, I went to drum up traffic for my own weblog.
    Sure, some will act like they care about the Freddie Nick vs. Jason feud; a couple of MovableType geeks lobbied Anil to include their pet features in the next release; and of course, Lock & Loaded were funny.
    But when the entire audience raised their hands in response to Anil’s cry of “bloggaz in da house!” it was obvious we’d all come prepared–just in case we were asked at the last minute– to fill in and flak our sites to 200 potential linkers. To wit: the blogcard that got shoved into my hand from Rosmania, a sort of Gawker-for-Detroit, whose posts have more circular footnotes than a David Foster Wallace novel.

    The Birthday Boy from La Mancha

    Marlise Simons reports in the Times on celebrations under way all over Spain to commemorate the 400th anniversary of Don Quixote, the country’s “secular bible.”
    Festivities included a marathon 44-hour mundo hispanico reading, which mirrors nicely my own weeklong marathon reading of the excellent new English translation on an otherwise painful cruise to Mexico.
    If your schedule’s somewhat limited, try the hilarious fiasco doc of Terry Gilliam’s failed DQ movie, Lost in La Mancha. And if that’s too long for you, pop on over to First Sally, my production company site, where there’s a single image of Quixote and Pancho to stare at for a few seconds.

    Movie Mag Maven Mad for Mitchell’s Manic Metaphors

    MMMMWAHAHAHA. Wendy Mitchell demonstrates why she gets the big pro blogger bucks. Like free sample day at the Whole Foods cheese department, she’s laid out bites of Elvis Mitchell’s ripest metaphors for you to sample with your little review-reading toothpick.
    [For those about to knock, we dispute you. Try writing like that yourself. It’s like making a sculpture from undercooked pasta; it’s not hard, exactly, but you’re probably gonna end up with a sticky mess.]

    Writing about making bottles

    Whether it’s momentum, or a mindshare takeover, or a drive to push the site out of the nest and let it learn to fly, or the fact that I’ve changed 200 diapers in the last three weeks, I’ve been posting on daddytypes.com a lot more than here lately. And for that, I apologize.
    Of course, if you’re interested in anything like the following, stop on by:

  • SUV-like strollers
  • infant t-shirts with swear words printed on them
  • loft-compatible baby furniture
  • what to do when your kid pukes
  • what cars gay soccer dads drive
  • Dan Cortese’s daughter’s name
  • why Cassavetes’ Shadows is an infant’s best possible first movie. (See? There’s some overlap.)
  • While I Was (heh) Out

    The following were not reasons for my not posting for five days:

  • Was walking the dog in the park at 4AM and “fell for a con” [Is that what they call it on Oz now, Kevin?]
  • Was hiring a hitman to ice my daddy-aged roommate.
  • Was skewering Plum Sykes’ book, Bergdorf Blondes so skilfully she may not even feel it. [Get it straight, people: THOSE SYKES’S ARE NOT TWINS.]
  • Was shopping for napkin rings with my bestest friend (we agreed it’s OK to see other people).
  • Was taking the 8 week-old kid to occupational therapy for sensory integration development.
  • You know that guy?

    At that graduate writing lecture? The one on the front row of the auditorium, with the grimy totebags stuffed with sheafs of paper? The old dude, who kept asking about, didn’t you ever notice in Shakespeare’s Titus how…? and how Nabokov subconciously cribbed then referenced some German short story in both Lolita AND Pale Fire? The one who then pulls out some sweat-curled manuscript he’s been writing in his paperback-stuffed rent stabilized apartment on 108th st, where he’s figured out his Grand Unification Theory of Literature, if only you’ll read it, you’ll see that it’s…
    No, the other one, the one who keeps talking about Skull & Bones? Yeah, yeah, that’s him.
    Well, he has a 10,000-word column in the New York Observer. No, seriously. Like every week.

    On Adapting for Film

    [via IFP] New York Women in Film and Television is sponsoring a panel titled The Art of Adaptation on Jan. 28 in New York, thank you. In fact, it’s at the Alliance Francaise/French Institute, East 60th St, so even I can stumble out of bed and wander on over by, um, the 6:30 start time.
    IFP members and others get $5 off the $20 registration fee. NYWIFTies get in for a mere $10.
    Related: Jason Kottke made a sweet weblog for Susan Orlean’s view of Adaptation.
    This panel may be payback for the last adaptation panel I attended, a misogyny-tinged but hilarious and enlighteneing discussion sponsored by Harper’s Magazine. At the New School, a lone woman, Susan Minot, squared off against David O. Russell, David Foster Wallace, Todd Solondz and Dale Peck. Editor/moderator Lewis Lapham complained about Leonard [sic] DiCaprio, while everyone else discussed James Cameron at length.
    Alas, with no known tape or transcript, this panel only lives on in our hearts. And in this funny weird/funny haha DFW-centric account from some delusional DFW groupie chick (“He’s trying so hard to be everyman, when we all know he’s uberman… poor Dave.”). Quelle surprise, it’s written in the overly footnoted style of the uberman himself.