All Apologies

Some readers may have noticed I removed one of my earlier posts, “One of My Pseudoscientific Students…”  I did so because apparently some of my students have begun reading my blog.  I wrote the aforementioned post in such a way as to identify the student.  This was inappropriate on my part.  From now on I will not single out individuals unless they are in the public eye (e.g.  elected officials, professional athletes) or friends/family. 

Santina’s blog

My wife is now active in the blogoshpere.  You can find her blog here.  We’ll see which one of us blogs more often! 

By the way, what’s a squibble?

Mondegreens

A quick thought for today:

I’ve been listening to a CD of Foo Fighters songs I made from itunes, and I misheard part of Times Like These, resulting in the following mondegreen:

…I’m a streetlight shaman…

The actual line is:

…I’m a streetlight shinin’…

A mondegreen is, of course, a misheard or misinterpreted song lyric (or line in a poem).  I like my version of that Foo Fighters line better.  It doesn’t make much sense, but I like it better.  I also like the following line:

…plowman dig my herb…

better than the original:

…plowman dig my earth…

That’s from Bob Dylan’s All Along the Watchtower, also covered by Jimi Hendrix.  The Hendrix version is a little less intelligible, hence what I heard.

Strange Loops and Self-Writing Poems

I recently finished reading Douglas Hofstadter’s I Am a Strange Loop and I highly recommend it. In it, Hofstadter details a theory of the soul, if you will. Both Hofstadter and I use the word soul advisedly. It is not the traditional religious/spiritual definition, but rather a concept what could also be called interiority, salf-awareness, consciousness, or I-ness. Hofstadter maintains that the sould arises from the underlying microscopic physical phenomena of the brain–once a certain threshold is crossed, the sould emerges. This threshold is what he calls a strange loop–a self-aware, self-referential, self-modifying feedback loop of cognition.

I realize I probably haven’t done a very good job of conveying what this book is about. Suffice it to say, I highly recommend it. The subject material is fascinating for anyone interested in cognition or metaphysics. The writing is also excellent and entertaining.

I want to quote part of I Am a Strange Loop as a way of getting to what I mean:

Poised midway between the unvisualizable cosmic vastness of curved spacetime and the dubious, shadowy flickerings of charged quanta, we human beings, more like rainbows and mirages than like raindrops or boulders, are unpredictable self-writing poems–wague, metaphorical, ambiguous, and sometimes exceedingly beautiful. (p. 363, I Am a Strange Loop, Douglas Hofstadter, Basic Books, New York 2007)

Here I’ve emphasized the phrase self-writing poems. I felt a particular resonance with that phrase, perhaps for obvious reasons.

Hofstadter makes one conclusion I find particularly interesting. He postulates musical taste as a sort of yardstick for measuring consciousness. He admits the idea is controversial, and I am not going to agree or disagree with using musical taste to measure one’s soul. What I want to consider is the idea of using similarities in musical tastes to convey similarities of souls/consciousnesses. What does it mean then that I have yet to meet someone with exactly the same musical tastes as I have? (Unless one of you likes jazz, grunge, and Bob Dylan and hasn’t told me )

That’s it for now. I do apologize for not blogging for a while. Classes started recently and the blog I wanted to write (this one) was a bit deep, so there it is. Time for this poem to go self-write.

Olympics

I got back from Nantucket last week and classes started today, but mostly I’ve been focused on the Olympics.  A few thoughts, starting with the not-so-good and moving toward the very good:

NBC’s coverage of the Olympics: not good.  Living on the west coast we get NBC’s evening Olympic broadcast tape-delayed.  That’s right, in this day and age where most people are connected to the internet and can get news, sports results, etc. almost as soon as they happen, NBC won’t show those of us on the west coast the Olympics live.  Never mind that the results are posted live on their website, we have to stay up until 1:30 AM to see the end of men’s gymnastics.  Yeah, I know those of you back east have to do this to see things live, but other sporting events aren’t broadcast this way.  I mean, the Superbowl and World Series are broadcast live, so why not the Olympics?

Speaking of gymnastics, there is no way in hell that all the Chinese “women” gymnasts are 16 years old or older.  Just my opinion, but remember, I am a doctor. 

Now for the good:

Michael Phelps is a crazy good swimmer, which reminds me: has anyone else noticed that in swimming  a lot of world records seem to be set at each Olympics, while in track relatively few are?  Looking at the progression of world records in the 100 m freestyle (swimming) and the 400 m sprint (track; the times for each event are similar), the 100 m free shows a larger percentage decrease over the last 100 years (as well as the last 50 years).  My theory is this: humans are used to running and not necessarily used to swimming.  Thus we (as a species) are close to our theoretical maximum speed when it comes to running.  In swimming, on the other hand, there is still improvement to be made in the area of optimum technique.  We are not as close to our maximum theoretical swimming speed as we are to our running speed.  Just a theory.

Speaking of running, Usain Bolt is crazy fast.  I had been thinking about the whole swimming vs. track world record theory for a week or so…and then Bolt goes out and sets records in the 100 m and 200 m sprints.  He also blew away the field in both events.  In the 100 in particular (I haven’t seen video of the 200 yet), he was pulling away from the other runners over the last half of the race.  Mind you, the other runners are some of the best sprinters in the world.  Just amazing.  I didn’t think I’d see a track performance more impressive than Michael Johnson’s 200 m in 1996, but I was wrong.  Wow.

Quick Update

I’m back from Nantucket, but before I continue with real blogging, I wanted to mention a new feature I’ve added to the Chemist and Poet blog: you can now receive blog updates (i.e. feeds) via email!  Just click on the link on the top of the sidebar on the right…and enjoy!

Trade Manny?

Short answer: Yes, if it’s the Jason Bay deal (via the Marlins).

Long answer: Yes. Take a look at players A and B below:

player A: .282/.375/.519 (AVG/OBP/SLG), 29 years old, under contract for $7.5 million in 2009

player B: .299/.398/.529, 36 years old, club option for 2009-2010 for ~$20 million
Which player would you rather have? Of course, A is Jason Bay and B is Manny Ramirez. Bay is younger and provides similar production to Manny at this stage in his career for a lot less money. Granted, the version of the Manny to the Marlins/prospects to the Pirates/Bay to the Red Sox deal that I’ve heard has the Sox playing the rest of Manny’s salary for the year. The deal isn’t as attractive in that light, but the Sox will probably let Manny go this offseason, so why not get a player as good as Bay in the meantime (Manny’s salary being a sunk cost)?

Just my quick take. We’ll see what happens later today…

Jonah stories

A couple of stories about my son, Jonah:

About six weeks ago I had the transmission replaced in my car (so much for German engineering–the reliability of BMW’s is a topic of a future post) and borrowed my parents’ 1989 Toyota Cressida. Some of you may remember that car–quite nice in its day (sort of a proto-Lexus), but it’s almost 20 years old now and getting a little long in the tooth. At any rate, the driver’s-side sun visor tends to squeak loudly when moved. One day, when I was taking Jonah to preschool, I went to move the visor and warned him that it might squeak. It didn’t and I made some comment like, “That’s interesting, it didn’t squeak.” Jonah said. “That’s because the sun was shining on it.” I told him I didn’t think the sun would make it not squeak, and then he said, “When you move it fast it squeaks and when you move it slow it doesn’t.” So I tried it. Indeed, moving the visor fast made the loud squeak and moving it slow didn’t!

Holy crap! My 4-year-old son is a budding scientist! I gave him a high-five and a fist-bump for making such an astute observation.

Just last weekend Jonah, Santina, Rory, Papa, and I walked to downtown San Mateo. Like most parents with young kids, Santina and I will spell words that we don’t want Jonah to understand. On our walk Jonah said something about being hungry and Santina told me we didn’t have and S-N-A-C-K-S. Jonah asked “What did you spell, Mommy?” And Santina said, “What do you think I spelled?” To which Jonah replied, “Snacks!”

Holy crap! My son is spelling! We’re in trouble now…

Through all of this I could not be more proud of my little guy.

More Jonah stories later.

Everyone should have a Nantucket…

Every year since 1991, my family (my parents and my aunt Rory and uncle Peter, that is) has rented a house on Nantucket for one to two weeks. I’ve been able to go almost every year (I didn’t go the year Jonah was born, for example). Santina, Jonah, and I will be leaving Monday to fly to Boston. Tuesday we’ll drive to Hyannis and catch the ferry to Nantucket. We’ll be there for almost two weeks, so my blog won’t be updated much, if at all, during that time.

What does Nantucket mean to me? Nantucket, or rather, vacationing on Nantucket, is about doing nothing. Well, maybe not nothing, but doing relatively little. In college I valued my vacation time for being low-intensity. Nantucket epitomized that. I’d play some tennis, go out to dinner with my parents, and maybe write some poetry. Nice and relaxing.

Things have changed a little since Jonah was born, but Nantucket is still relaxing. I’ll leave you with a Nantucket poem (I’ve added a couple to my poetry page). Until then, meet me at the grey house with the white trim…

Traveling to Nantucket

I long to travel. To board a ferry
bound for Nantucket. Across a blue strip of ocean,
not too far,
but far enough. Far enough that I can’t see the cape
from the island.
Far enough to get away from cities
with their smog breathing in, their traffic,
the cars coughing men. And work and school,
the tedious and tiring, the reinforced
concrete and painted steel,
dominating skyscrapers and vast cement boulevards.
To go
away from here.
I long to travel. To step off the ferry
and walk onto an island, Nantucket,
walk on cobblestone streets or red brick sidewalks.
Stroll down Main Street, past the planter box
in the middle of the road,
the one all the cars drive around,
the one with the red and yellow and orange
flowers. To turn down a side street,
float past the antique shops, art galleries, seafood restaurants,
and most importantly,
the cafés and bookstores.
But the time will come to visit all of these places.
Before all else, I will rest.
Sleep in a room built with wood walls,
a house covered with gray shingles. Sleep
past noon and then go for a walk.
Back to the center of town, past
the bed & breakfast inns where young
couples always stay. Again down side streets,
streets with English names line North Water,
Orange, or Pleasant. On an island of Indian
places-Nantucket, Madaket, Siasconset.
Grabbing names slinking off their signs,
crawling up to me, tugging on my shoe-laces as if to say:
You will not find San Mateo here. No Los Altos,
Alameda de las Pulgas, El Camino Real.
California this ain’t.
When I have tasted my fill of names, then
turn into the next shop. A bookstore,
a place to browse, to lose an afternoon
just looking, reading bits and pieces of books of poems,
reading thought-provoking science fiction from an obscure
Polish writer. Slip out onto the red brick sidewalk again
to find a café, a place to sit at a marble table
on a black-and-white tile floor and contemplate.
Contemplate poetry, both the books freshly purchased
and my own slop. Catch
snippets of conversations,
odds and ends of discussions
on politics or religion sometimes, but mostly
about others. Gossip.
Listen to the gossip, absorb it through osmosis.
Maybe smile at the waitress with the long, dark brown
hair. Drink another cup
then leave. Return to the wood-walled
room. Tomorrow I leave. Tomorrow I
return to the dark constructs of man.
Tomorrow I begin to long to travel, again, to
long for those June days of espresso and chocolate-chip ice cream,
of subtle flowers and subtler poems.
Now I long to travel, to Nantucket,
once more, on my own.

The poem that started it all

There is a reason someone once called me “Wayne Pitcher, Chemist and Poet.” I’ve been writing poetry since my senior year in high school. Here’s “the poem that started it all”:

Bury the Ghost

Dig the grave
Deeper and deeper.
Bury the ghost,
I’m not its keeper.

Pile the dirt
Higher and higher.
Burn her letters,
Fuel for the fire.

Forget the memories,
Forget them longer.
No longer weak,
Be strong, be stronger.

Learn form the past,
Learn quicker and quicker.
Build those walls
Thicker and thicker.

No. Tear them down,
Bricks by the stack.
For I got the monkey
Off my back!

I know, I know, it rhymes. Hey it was my first “real” poem, so cut me some slack.

I’ll post my poetry (both old and new) periodically.