And there is much to be learned

This is the kind of thing that makes me very happy, so I have to share:




[From The Symphony of Science, via Gizmodo]

A modern popularizers of science music video! This is sort of the equivalent of Gilbert and Sullivan writing an educational musical about Pepper's Ghost*, in that it entails the use of a popular medium to propagate the ideas of popularizers to a wider audience. It is not, of course, any kind of substitute for their actual work - nor does it pretend to be - but it reminds us of something that science often forgets. Namely, that one of the discipline's most powerful tools in securing its own future is the inspiration of wonder and enthusiasm among the public. Sometimes, setting a spark to the tinder means using somewhat silly autotuned jams, or grand pageants of ghostly visitors, but what may be lost of the content is made up for in fascination.

There is also, I think , no concern that such offerings dim the public esteem of science, and that is for two reasons. Firstly, and primarily in this instance, the silliness is being propagated by an outsider, and not by Sagan & Co. themselves. But secondly, and more importantly, I think even if the esteemed scientists themselves had been responsible for the video, it would only have served to show that they have a sense of humor and creativity. Science does not anyone's help in being perceived as an ivory-tower enterprise. A little humanization can go a long way.

And, come on, don't those videos just make you smile?



*Note: This is the article that launched a thousand ships, so to speak, by introducing me to John Henry Pepper and his marvelous, patented ghost-machine. One thesis later, I shake my fist at J.A. Secord as I continue to be consumed by popularizers of science and Victorian magic. So enjoy it, but beware.

Incendiary

I just saw Buckethead at the Recher in Towson. His opening act was a mohawk-sporting hulk named Wolff (of Drums and Tuba) who, living up to his absent band's moniker, spent the better part of an hour doing unwholesome things with, and to, a tuba. We then stood for another interminable hour with an ever-more-restless crowd, waiting for the virtuoso to appear. Just as we began to ask ourselves "How long would you wait for Buckethead?" he descended upon us. The rest of the evening is a haze of shrill and blinding shredding, the music that Disney plays in its animatronic attractions, Buckethead dispensing gifts from a giant blue sack, an excellent John Williams interlude, and some genuinely solid and meaty metal riffs. The man, it must be said, is a prodigy. At times it was entirely unclear if he was playing the guitar or giving it multiple orgasms. My ears still feel cotton-plugged and my legs ache from standing, but the 90-minute set flew by. Not all of Buckethead's music is gentle on the ears, nor even entirely pleasant, but it is powerful if for nothing other than the immense skill it evinces. And his more melodic tracks can be perfectly sublime.

Did I mention that he wears a KFC bucket over his featureless white mask and does not speak during shows? Well, he's earned the right to be as strange as he wants. When you're that good with a guitar, no one cares what you're wearing on your head.