Aitch-Bar

Writing About (Mostly) Not Astrophysics

Category Archives: “Art”


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Avatar: The Way of Sascha

Screengrab from It's Always Sunny of Dennis saying "It's about the thrill of wearing another man's skin."

Pictured: Me

Back in 2010 I was out at a bar with some friends of my then-girlfriend when a couple young women cautiously approached me. They asked “Excuse me, are you Sascha?” and without hesitation I somehow had the wherewithal to answer “Yes, I am!” They then pulled me aside to compliment me on the talk I had given at RISD earlier that day, and we had a 7-10 minute conversation on “my work” which I gradually ascertained was some kind of social art collective in New York City, where I, apparently, lived.

I don’t know whether they eventually got suspicious that I was who they had assumed, but if so, they never let on. And I remain proud to this day of my quick-witted choice to lie to these unsuspecting strangers. (As it turns out, I looked pretty similar to this guy, but I’m still surprised that they saw and heard both of us in person on the same day and decided we matched.)

In the same spirit, I enjoy being catfished as much as the next guy, so when an unknown Whatsapp user starts texting me out of the blue, in Spanish, fun can only be right around the corner.

It is hard to know what this person was trying to get out of me, but I appreciated her desire to avoid believability. She was from LA, but currently living in Iraq, with her “only daughter.” What was she doing there? She was “posted” there. With whom? With all these random pictures of people in body armor. The army lets you bring your kids now? Yes, if they are very small.

I used Google Translate because I don’t speak Spanish, but that wasn’t much help when she dropped an Indonesian sentence in there and then seemed to understand my response, in Indonesian. Here is the excerpt:

Jenny: I’m Jenny good morning from here
Sorry I misspelled a number when trying to text a friend and your number came up
Sorry if I bother you, can I know your name please?

Ryan: I’m Ryan. Good evening.

Jenny: WOW, it’s morning here now 04:47
Where do you live?
I am from Los Angeles but am currently in Iraq.

[This was one-hour later than the current time in Iraq]

Ryan: Iraq? What are you doing there? i’m in Boston.

Jenny: i’m posted here
I work here and live with my only daughter.

Ryan: Posted in what?

Jenny:

(Would you believe it if I told you reverse image-searching these turn up generic “girls with ammo” pictures on gun-fetish pintrest?)

that’s it
so nothing much
I was here for the other government. We have been in the second troop for 8 months.
Can I know the time there now?

[I quickly double-check whether there are still American troops in Iraq because I’m honestly not sure. ]

Ryan: It’s like 8 o’clock. I’m surprised the army would let you take your daughter with you.

Jenny: yes because she is very small
Aku tidak bisa tinggal jauh darinya (Indonesian: “I can’t stay away from him”)
that’s Lillian that’s her name

Ryan: Tunggu, apakah kita berbicara bahasa Indonesia sekarang? (Indonesian: “Wait, are we speaking Indonesian now?”)

Jenny: (back to Spanish)

No, I wrote to my friend here to find her a child, so I didn’t change it.
Sorry, he was the wrong guy.
Who lives with you?

[At this point my wife, who has been following along with this saga solemnly places her hand on my shoulder and beseeches that I don’t fall in love]

Ryan: You won’t believe when I tell you: I live in a lighthouse

Jenny: wow, it’s nothing, I mean, do you live with your family?
I am a simple girl ok not rich
I live with my daughter alone, who do you live with?

Ryan: The sea is my family. The waves, my lovers. Whales and starfish, my cousins.

Jenny: oh that’s amazing
Are you married or single?
I’m separated I only have one daughter
I turn 25 next month

Ryan: I have no one to call my own, just the lonely expanse of the sea. The heartless void of the abyss.

Jenny: how old are you now my good friend
Don’t you feel lonely sometimes?
Do you want to be single forever?
I am looking for a decent man you are handsome but I don’t know your attitude
What is your occupation do you work?
Ryan… Really great
I am Jenny
Take care I have to rest a bit so I can arrive early for my duty

Once she’d started glitching, the magic kind of went out of it. And I was already married to the sea. Still, what a deep backstory! Just a simple girl not rich trying to make her way in this world. The last American soldier stationed in Iraq, with her small daughter.


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Brilliant Entry May Have Been Deemed “Too Thought-provoking” For Boston-Area Photography Contest

Newton, Massachusetts. March 26th, 6:06 PM

Back in May there were sandwich boards around town soliciting pictures for a photography exhibit about the initial months of the pandemic. Being the sensitive and artistic soul that I know myself to be, I thought “I’ve got just the picture!” and scrolled back through my camera roll to the grey early days of our now-perpetual state. Back when people were still leaving their mail untouched for a day, when we’d only just begun to mentally size up the airflow in every new interior space upon entering. The days before fear gave way to sadness, and we weren’t yet numb to the multi-faceted tragedy of what we’re still watching unfold.

My submission didn’t make it in. It probably got edged out by a photo of a cat watching Tiger King or something. No problem, I’ve got this blog I can put it on instead. Basically what you’re looking at here is a picture I took one day while out with my wife on one of those walks we all have to take now so we don’t go crazy. The Mass Pike runs through the area and I’d been fixated on how the ever-present crush of Boston traffic had dwindled to nothing seemingly overnight. I can see part of the pike out of the corner of my eye from my desk at home so I’d been tracking it unintentionally as society went into lockdown.

This was two weeks into isolation for us. On the 12th as cancellations and scary news alerts were steadily pinging away, I took a day off work to rush down to RI to stock my mother with groceries and convince her to stay put for a while. I never returned to the office—we went remote the next day. A couple days later my wife’s did too. I was proud of how a patchwork of local authorities and employers here had taken these extreme steps to help slow or prevent the elderly and vulnerable from dying—a shared decision made by ordinary people in the almost total absence of national leadership.

When we came up on this highway bridge it really was shocking to see the highway this deserted. But I knew that that doesn’t necessarily come across in a still image, so I had to try to take a few and make them a bit arty while still showing the maximum possible extent of the road without cars on it. I liked this one the best, but it’s funny that I thought I could make a photo featuring the weird grocery store perched over the pike “arty.”

The contest required a description under 100 words, thus quashing my desire to write an extended reverie on the idea that under normal circumstances, at the time and date I took this, the Red Sox would have been playing their opening game. The road would have been filled with cars holding people listening to it on their radios. How poetic!

Here’s what I wrote instead:

I live close enough to the pike to hear it whooshing through a quiet night. It crowds with crawling cars twice a day and only ever subsides to a steady thrum.
As ordinary life shut down for many of us, and my world shrank to the blocks around my apartment, I couldn’t help but gawk at the abrupt lack of traffic; an eerie absence that substantiated the magnitude of the crisis. Yet, far from being ominous, the quiet road was evidence of our enormous collective effort to save each other’s lives.
I took this picture on a Thursday evening in late March, at what would have been the height of rush hour.


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Paul & Babe & Us

It’s the holiday season, so Merry Christmas, Chappy Chanukkah, Happy New Year, and so on!

People are pretty down on 2016, with good reason. Personally though, it was a pretty good year for me, and hopefully for many others. I got married (was my co-blogger a groomsman? of course he was!), and many people I care for got engaged, married, had children, and/or any other variety of personal milestones–which is great!

Among the fun things was visiting my wife’s home of Minnesota (a state you are only allowed to enter following marriage to a current or former resident). I wrote about visiting Prince already but when we were up in the northern part of that state we got a photo op with a local hero (inspired by my new brother-in-law & his fiance), and it is one of my favorite photos. I only wish that I had known to wear blue pants! So I’m going to post it as a way of bragging that I had a pretty good 2016.

PaulBabeMichneys

Happy 2017!


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David Tennant’s Doctor Who, Adrift in Time?

Well, I found the 10th Doctor, adrift in history—specifically the history of whaling in Nantucket.

George Myrick Tennant

George Myrick Tennant

The familiar visage supposedly belongs to a “George Myrick Jr.,” ship owner and merchant, found while wandering the Nantucket Whaling Museum. A better image of the portrait and some of the cover story the good doctor made up to live as a whaling entrepreneur in the 19th century is here. Still looking for evidence of a sonic harpoon.

See also: “Doctor Who Theme for Ukulele“


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Les Automatóns

Bonjour Y'All

Bonjour Y’All!

Me: I just had a dream that I was in a production of Les Mis and the major action of the plot revolved around several of the major characters secretly being robots. For instance, that “I dreamed a dream of time gone by” song was about a robot who was hundreds of years old pining for the life he used to have 300 years ago in England.

Girlfriend: Have you ever seen Les Mis?

Me: No, and now I’m afraid I’m going to be disappointed.

Girlfriend: So the other characters were dressed as robots?

Me: No, I think they were actually being played by robots.

Girlfriend: This is the most magical conversation we’ve ever had.

Me: It might be the most magical dream I’ve ever had.


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Physics Art Show Submission “Domeflat: SUPA00398520”

For the past few years my department has hosted an annual art show to showcase the various scientific and extrascientific artistic endeavors of students and faculty. This year I submitted a stitched-together domeflat from the dataset I’m working with—an image taken of an evenly lit telescope dome interior to better understand the imperfections of the telescope CCD. Since astronomy has a hard-earned reputation as the prettiest of the physics disciplines I thought it would really bring the hammer of day-to-day  tedium down on people’s expectations. Take THAT for assuming I’d give you something that looked good just because this is an art show! Here is the image and description I submitted:

Domeflat

“Domeflat: SUPA00398520”

This image, taken of the inside of the Subaru Telescope dome on Mauna Koa Hawaii poses the question: what is the nature of perception? Used to calibrate the properties of the telescope’s CCD cameras, the observers image a pure white field— thus, the emergent imperfections challenge the viewer to confront the fractured ways in which they view the world. Moreover, although the gaps in between CCDs create the appearance of windowpanes, the context is of a confined indoor space—a claustrophobic response to the telescope’s true potential and a visceral reminder of the futility of science to observe the substance of the soul.

The inability of the camera to detect the edges of its frame demonstrates the inner hollowness of incomplete perspective.  Are the didactic shackles of technology forcing a naturally circular field of view to be confined to a formalist rectangle? Or are we seeing a hi-fidelity instrument in a lo-fi world? What began as a white field, now viewed in ashen shades, confounds the arrêt d’annulation of the reality versus art paradigm.


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“Swap” by Kevin Chang (Part 5)

Also a terrifying and confusing journey

General Chang’s Zombie Chicken.

At this point, I really have to admit that I haven’t thought through the consequences of posting this online. As I said, Kevin Chang seems like it should be a common enough name that he is as unlikely to find it if he googles himself, as I am to find him. Still, it isn’t totally impossible. If this work starts getting the attention it deserves, who knows, maybe he’ll come across it. And I don’t really know the intellectual property status of things that you just find somewhere. I know that there have been magazines and radio shows that relied on found materials, and I’m obviously not profiting from this in any way, so who knows.

There is also the possibility that other, innocent, Kevin Changs will start finding these polluting their search results. To these Misters Chang, I am sorry. You don’t deserve this association. But if you’ve looked at any of these I think you’ll have to agree that the world is a better place for having this posted on it.

The final scene is amazing. So many things happen that are bewildering or unstageable. It really speaks for itself. Once more into the breach, dear Kevin Changs:

———————————-

Scene 7  –  The Chaos

Scene: Back in the present. Old Man is sitting watching Jin-Mei, Ping, and Pong playing basketball. Jin-Mei is dressed in a basketball outfit. She owns both Ping and Pong by dodging both of their tackles.

Pong:   (taking his breath) Yo Ping… Wat’s goin’ on wit dis honey? We got owned!

Ping:   (taking his breath) Damn Straight. I mean… True dat.

Pong:   Wake up ya fool. We better start rackin’ up dat ball!

Both of them try stealing the ball from Jin-Mei, but she swiftly dribbles past them. Both ball to the ground.

Jin-Mei:   Come on Boys! Is that all you got? I want to play more!

Pong:   (catching his breath) Time of babe… I’m outaa gas.

Ping:   (catching his breath)  Damn…… Straight……

Jin-Mei:   Aw… fine. You party poopers!

Old Man:   Now, now my little girl, at least let them take a break.

Jin-Mei:   Yes, I know… I was just playing with the (giggles)

Panda enters the stage holding the mirror. It puts down the mirror facing toward the backstage.

Jin-Mei:   (gasps) Mr. Panda!

Old Man:   Panda? Why are you here? I told you to stay home!

Panda:   Making gestures.

Old Man:   I see…

Jin-Mei:   What happened?

Old Man:   The boy we left behind… even with that perfect disguise, the plot fails…

Jin-Mei:   Oh dear… is Lon alright?

Pong:   Yo wait a sec, did you just say… Lon?

Both Old Man and Jin-Mei turn silent.

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“Swap” by Kevin Chang (Part 4)

Also a terrifying and confusing journey

Play or restaurant, either way, your intestines have their work cut out for them.

Just as in our last installment, Jin-Mei, the girl from the old China, continues to not only not know about modern things, but to make assumptions about them that no one from any period of history would make. No matter how unfamiliar you were with a telephone, you’d never think it was plow, if you’ve ever been a farmer. And even if you never saw a basketball, you would never think it was a fruit if you could get close enough to touch it, and see that it has writing on it and stuff, even if you didn’t know the language.

Lon continues to live in the past, doing back-breaking labor and somehow not worrying about getting turned into a vampire, even though he should realize he can leave through the mirror, ostensibly in the hope of getting his terrible mix tape back. With no further ado, the penultimate installment of “Swap.”

———————————-

Scene 5  –  Ping, Pong and the Girl

Scene: Back in the present. Under the dim light of the alley, Ping and Pong are chatting as they are playing around with their basketball. Jin-Mei, who is looking around in curiosity, and Old Man enter the stage.

Pong:   Ey Boss! Wat took ya so long? We’re all cool’ bout helpin’ ya out ya know dat?

Ping:   Yo Bro.

Pong:   Yea wat?

Ping:   When did dat fellow become our boss?

Pong:   Ya fool! He’s da G of da town! He owns dis town dawk! I told ya not to mess wit dat!

Old Man:   I’m sorry to interrupt your youth conversations… but may I get to business?

Pong:   Oh yea! Hit is straight on me poppa!

Old Man:   This is my precious granddaughter, Jin-Mei.

Jin-Mei:   Please to meet you.

Pong:   How ya livin’ honey G dawg!

Jin-Mei:   How do I live? Well it’s a long story, you know…

Old Man:   Anyway… the job I want to give you two is very simple.

Pong & Ping:  (simultaneously) Bring it up!

Old Man:   I want you two to teach my granddaughter what you guys normally do as a teenager. You see, she’s from a country-side and she never had a chance to see the real “civilized” world. I want you two to be her friend.

Pong:   Yo no prob Boss!

Ping:   Damn Straight!

Jin-Mei:   Oh oh! What is this orange round thing you are carrying? May I borrow it for a second?

Pong:   Yea, ya wanna know how to play this ya?

Jin-Mei:   It looks awfully like an orange… (bites on it) Ah! It’s hard!

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