To End with Mahler

When I was a kid I had a bad experience with Mahler. The children's choir I sang with at the time was recruited to sing about 12 minutes of "bims" and "boms" as a bells chorus in the 5th movement of his 3rd symphony. Now, I don't know if you're familiar with Gustav Mahler's work but let's just say that it tends to be a little long winded. Mahler's 3rd is the longest of them all and for a 6th grader trying to sit pretty on hard wooden risers through the last 30 minutes of music which seems to reach its climax but wander away again about 34 times, just teasing you, was like some sort of hideous psychological torture. I've often compared the end of that piece to that annoying drunk guy who seems to be at every party who keeps saying he's going home, staggers toward the door, and moments before turning the knob gets distracted by a fellow reveler and stays to make bad jokes and spill his drink for another hour. Yep, Mahler 3 scarred me for life.

Needless to say, I was less than thrilled when I found out a few months ago the this year's master work to be performed by the Lamont Symphony Orchestra and Choruses was to be Mahler's 2nd Symphony. I HATE Mahler and I was so disappointed that the last concert of my senior year and indeed my career as a music student at Lamont would be me singing 8 minutes of gushing German after sitting under the hot stage lights, crammed in with ten thousand other choristers, listening to an hour and a half of Mahler's tedious composition. As a performer, my life and all of its major mile stones have always been marked by performances. The ends of school years come with a deluge of song and it has been in these moments that I have most been able to reflect upon and celebrate the past year. It is a truly meaningful ritual to me that I have been taking part in for the better part of 14 years.

Last night I thought that my end of the year celebration had come, only this time not in the form of a grandiose choral and orchestral collaboration, but as a night of traditional Indian Kathak dancing and Senegalese drumming. That performance was amazing, the culmination of 10 weeks of study in the culture and practice of North Indian classical dance followed by an amazing performance of joyous tribal drumming led by true masters. I was thrilled with that night and content to consider it my final farewell performance at DU and Lamont. I was completely prepared to write off the following night's Mahler performance hoping just to get through it with minimal flubs to the German which was supposed to be memorized.

I've just come from performing Mahler 2, and much to my surprise, my welcome surprise, I really enjoyed it. The first hour was performed absolutely beautifully by the LSO and I was pleased to find that instead of tedious and confusing, this music was lovely and moving. Perhaps this work is just very stylistically and structurally different from the 3rd symphony, but I like to think that in the past 4 years being surrounded by music in Lamont's beautiful conservatory atmosphere has taught me to understand and appreciate music that previously lay well beyond my realm of enjoyment. In those 4 movements of beautiful music surrounding me and filling up every inch of he fabulous Gates Concert Hall, an experience shared tonight by something like 1,000 people, I knew that the music degree which I will be receiving in just a few days really does mean something. In fact, it means a lot.

I couldn't believe how fast those first 4 movements seemed to go by, I was so afraid they would drag on forever. Before I knew it the beautiful alto solo had begun and I was overcome by the triumphant melodies permeating everyone and everything. It all seemed so fitting, the perfect musical statement for the triumph of a successful college experience coming to a close. Next, the orchestra became quiet, so quiet and gentle. It was a moment of introspection. As I looked around the stage at all of my amazingly talented friends an colleagues, I thought about where we had started and how far we all have come. I am so honored to know these people and be to be a part of what we all made tonight, I can't wait to see where our lives will take us and what fantastic things they will bring to the world. Then, from offstage all around me, the famous "great call" began with disembodied horns and trumpets which seemed to hearken in a celebration of the collaborations of the past while looking forward to what the future holds. Before I knew it, the orchestra went still and quiet save for the low trembling of a timpani and I and about 100 other talented singers were ever so softly intoning the most shimmering, clear chords. It was so slow and thoughtful, quiet and meaningful. Then, as we sang on, the orchestra came back beneath us and together we mounted up to a glorious exclamation of "what we have overcome". Just then, hundreds of musicians and hundreds of music lovers, joined as one for a few brief moments as every neuron and synapse in the room fired simultaneously taking in the power that only live music can create. I sang out the last triumphant note at a full forte though I knew my voice was trembling and stopped the sound purposefully and precisely at the conductor's signal. My part was over and as the orchestra divulged a few more glorious bars of music I failed to blink back the tears.

This is what music is about. This is why I came to Lamont to study it for the past four years. I cannot imagine a more perfect end to this musical chapter of my life. Mahler, I've got to say, I guess you aren't so bad after all. Sorry for making fun of you all these years.

An Ode to Kevin

     I'm not into luxury cars. I get around alternately in my dad’s half ton Chevy pickup or a beat and battered 2000 Honda Civic that we inherited from my grandma and have since dubbed Kevin. Kevin is a reliable ride. It gets good gas mileage, it's cheap to fill up, it's cheap to repair and maintain, and it came with so many dents that getting caught in a hail storm is nothing to worry about. In fact, I suspect that a good hail storm could actually do the body some good if it would just pound down the high spots in between the dents left by Kevin’s last encounter with the evil frozen sky balls. I mean, sure, there’s not enough torque in the engine to get him up small hills when the air conditioner is on. With a 1.6 liter engine putting out something like 106 horsepower you can’t really be surprised. Theoretically Kevin could go 0-60 in something like 8.3 seconds but I would never attempt to replicate this result for fear that the muffler would fly off. The thing is, I don’t need to go from stopped to sixty in 8.3 seconds to get through my daily driving. All my usual driving requires is a top speed somewhere around 80 mph, brakes, steering, and possibly some turn signals to get me from A to B.   

     So we have established that Kevin is nothing special to look at, unless you enjoy mocking the zip ties and welding clamps that hold the front licence plate on or trying to play the matching game with the wheels (just a heads up, you won't win that game). Even if he were in mint condition the civic has never exctly been a pedigree breed. We can also say with absolute certainty that he is nothing special to drive.  The engine is standard, at best, and there are certainly no optional extras on this model to supe up its performance. In fact, the closest Kevin has ever been to performance anything was the time the muffler came ever so slightly loose and made race car noises during acceleration and really goofy pitch changes when the gears changed. I almost crashed laughing. Another thing Kevin is not is luxurious. Sitting in the notoriously uncomfortable driver's seat you can reach out and touch nearly everything in the car without actually having to shift in the seat. However, much shifting is involved in attempting to keep your pelvis from turning to dust on long drives. There are no power windows, the central locking doesn't work when it's below 50 degrees, the seats are plain grey fabric, and the dash is pure utilitation plastic. It does have paper napkins scrupulously collected by my mother from every restaurant, Starbucks, and gas station in Colorado jammed in each of it's two glove compartments which do prove to come in quite handy. Because I can be a bit sloppy.

     Kevin is the bare minimum of a car. Nowadays peole expect satelite navigation, hands feee parallel parking, and wifi in their cars (seriously, all of these are real options on various current models) and Kevin doesn't even sport back seat cup holders. But I love Kevin and I honestly, genuinely would rather drive him than the vast majority of the cars on the market today.

     Kevin's simplicity is also his charm. You get in and you drive, that is all. And truth be told, Kevin drives really well. The little 4 cylinder engine is practically unnoticeable when you're cruising steady but give it some and it will respond quickly and with all its might. I was once driving an unfamiliar stretch of highway and found myself in the far right exit lane when my mom pointed out that we really needed to be in the far left lane to get onto a different freeway. In an example of the kind of driving I abhor from others and religiously abstain from myself I had to put the brakes on right there on the ramp (no, no one was behind me). From there I had to mash the gas pedal down and dart across the other two lanes before anyone caught up with me and blend seamlessly back into the regular flow of traffic. Not only did Kevin do it, a feat that may well have caused a wreck or at least a jam if attempted by, say, a Dodge Neon of similar age, but he did it joyfully, like a small child running around with his arms out making engine noises who completely believes that he is an airplane. There was a slight but confident chug as the automatic transmission found the gear it wanted in a fraction of the time it usually gets to decide, the modest but definite hum of the engine climbing into ever higher registers as the RPMs climbed well past their usual range (though we'll never know just how far as Kevin does not has a tachometer). Finally, with my foot hard down, there was the satisfying lurch of accelleration and restrained flick of lithe steering as my modest little Civic zoomed up the highway in a brief moment of glory and  then casually resumed his position amongst the pack where he would slip by, completely unregarded by most. Yes, a bit like Superman. 

     Let's be clear here, none of these functions hold a candle to the same functions in a more high powered, high tech, well engineered car. Surely the steering in a Lotus is about 47 million times more responsive than Kevin's and where Kevin can eek out a burst of speed occasionall, a Ferrari will happily go from 0 to 750 mph in 2.3 seconds. I'm not saying that Kevin's capabilities are absolutely astounding, they're not. I'm saying that they are pretty damn good for a cheap, mass produced, economy vehicle.  

     My point here is that Kevin is fun to drive precisely because he has so few other features. You may think that it's low to the ground because it has to be compact to get good gas milage and be economical to produce. That is true but its low stance also gives it a ton of stability and grip so you can have a tiny bit of fun trying to hit racing lines on windy roads instead of worrying about rolling your Jeep Wrangler. Sure, there are no gadgets or luxuries on the inside but that keeps the whole car lighter and more nimble. No, the engine doesn't put out as much power, torque, or the great noise of a V8 but it's perfectly suitable for most driving and it has character; goofy, slightly wimpy character. After all, that's what makes any great car great, its character, its soul. Kevin's soul was not painstakingly hand crafted by a bunch of romantic Italians at the price of a bazillion dollars and a flashy emblem. It certianly doesn't stem from the beauty of precision imbued by a team of Germans, either. Kevin was designed to be cheap, simple, and reliable and that he is in spades. Kevin's soul is unassuming and modest but unwavering, commited to a fault, and just a little spunky when the mood strikes. And that is why I love my Kevin.      

Last Monday I had to drive to work downtown because I missed my train. By the time I got there,
the people with full time jobs had taken all of the parking spaces that weren't snowed in. I was
desperate so I parked Kevin face first in a snowbank despite the front wheel drive-ed-ness. I gave
him a little pep talk before I left, he spent the next 5 hours strategically planning and come 5:00
he pulled himself out like the champ that he is... or the snow melted. 

Aging Rockers #2: THE WHO!

     My life is now better than it has ever been before because I have seen The Who live in concert.


The motherf-king WHO!!!

The Who has got to be the most rock and roll bunch of mods to have ever graced the planet. They embody everything that rock and roll has come to be. Smashing instruments, riding motorbikes through fancy clubs, buying and ruining fancy cars, The Who has done it all. And they deserve it, if only true rock gods can pull off stunts like this, these four boys are beyond worthy. Moon, Entwhistle, Townsend, and Daltrey; these are the (very British) names of rock and roll.

Keith Moon was a revolutionary drummer whose drum kit never stopped expanding over the years... except for the times when he blew it up. He was not content to just be the rhythm section, he played with an energy that many say has never been paralleled. His distinctive style shines through every classic Who track and already the bar is set up a notch.

John Entwhistle, The Ox, is quite possibly the coolest bass player to ever exist. With bass being another one of those instruments that the average listener could take or leave, Entwhistle sure as hell took it to a place it has never been since. Go look at a bass guitar, those four strings are thick and stubborn. Where many bassists are content to roll out bar after bar of tonics and dominants in a nice steady rhythm, Entwhistle was creative and  really thrashed. If the words "bass solo" mean anything to you it's probably because of him.

Pete Townsend is right near the top of every "greatest guitar players of all time" list ever made. This is no mistake. His playing is powerful yet meaningful at the same time. This is also the man who brought us the windmill which has become synonymous with face melting. Beyond his guitar genius are layers of creative genius, composing genius, and lyrical genius. As the main song writer for The Who, Townsend has gifted us with such works as the rock operas Quadrophenia and Tommy, as well as dozens of amazing songs, Baba O'Riley springs to mind.

And, of course, where would any band be without lead vocals? Jesus, what is there to say about Roger Daltrey that one note from his rock God pipes couldn't broadcast to the universe? He is quite possibly the most vocally expressive rock singer out there. He will sing himself ragged to do Pete's songs justice. He commits to every single note he produces and backs up all of that raw emotion with sheer talent.

Behold

 

When I heard that The Who were touring Quadrophenia and were stopping in Denver I knew deep in my classic rock loving heart that I would be at that show. I got my tickets the day before they went on sale... It was an accident, I got over excited and maybe, sort of got them through a third party source, a little bit. Whatever, I don't even regret it! After the initial excitement of obtaining the tickets came many months of waiting. There were times when it seemed like the concert would never actually come and the tickets were just a figment of my imagination that were really persistently hanging around my the top drawer of my desk. My delusional excitement was kept alive though by an outpouring of rave reviews for the show as it played in other cities.



Finally, the day of the concert had arrived. I woke up with The Real Me running through my head. I worked out a the perfect blend of rocker and mod fashions and rocked the look through a full day of classes and meetings. I literally felt too cool for school. I met my dad at school and we went straight to the Pepsi Center. Pro tip: when going to old guy concerts, always take an old guy, you would never guess it but they know how to rock!







I insisted on getting there really early,
every seat was filled for the concert.

First, shirts. Of course I had to get my concert swag to mark this auspicious occasion. Yes, the price was unholy but I don't think I've taken it off since. Then, drinks. What did the mods drink? I don't know, I had a whiskey Dad had a Pepsi. Another perk of taking old guys to concerts, you can attempt to peer pressure them and it's hilarious. Next, seats. Nosebleeds, about a thousand miles from the stage but they were dead center meaning the sound would be excellent so I was happy. Opening act, Vintage Trouble. They were good, very bluesy rock. Then it was just waiting for the big moment.

 

 

 

 

Finally, the big moment, and damn it was a big moment. The house lights drop, the screens come alive with waves, the opening sounds of I Am the Sea are heard and two tiny figures enter from stage right. I could have died. Straight away the music took off and the boys were powering ahead into Quadrophenia. About halfway into the second song (The Real Me) Pete hit his first windmill, the crowd exploded and there was no going back, we were rocking.

 

Quadrophenia is a rock opera about, a boy named Jimmy, an English teenager living life among the mods and the rockers in 1965. Jimmy also happens to have four different personalities. The story is deep and the whole piece is seriously excellent music, truly an outstanding example of its genre.

 

*warning: music nerd rant follows...

 

Qudrophenia's composition is surprisingly sophisticated; technical in nature, but powerful and beautiful in sound. Pete modeled each of Jimmy's four personalities after one of the four band members and each personality is tied to a distinct bit of music within the piece as a whole. In music jargon these are called leitmotifs and you know who else used them? Just some little composers like Richard Wagner, Claude Debussey, and John Williams. Pete deftly weaves these bits together throughout the piece and the result is emotional, poignant, and musically compelling. In the penultimate song, The Rock, all four of these themes come together for a few glorious moments with one acting as the chord progression, one as the melody, one as a counter melody, and the last as the lead guitar part. I suspect that part of what makes this music so enthralling to see live is how engaging it is. It’s not the kind of thing that you could play on autopilot like My Generation. The band was clearly completely committed to and focused on the music and that translated to one hell of a live performance.

 

... end nerd rant*

 

Quadrophenia closes with the rafter-shaking, heart-stopping Love Reign O'er Me. Roger nailed it. Bolstered by the rock solid, face melting yet somehow sensitive chords blasting from Pete's guitar, Roger sang this one like it was the last time anyone would ever hear it. I was absolutely entranced by how passionate he was and couldn't take my eyes of off the tiny speck of his body until he let that last note soar. The whole album builds to that point and Roger did not let anyone down. Both he and Pete performed to what seemed like their absolute fullest potential. Completely in sync on this last piece, the culmination of 50 years of music making filled every inch of the arena. It was genuinely one of those amazing moments that affects you so deeply and can only come from the organic making of music. It is a moment which I expect will stay with me for a long, long time and I am more than happy to have it.



twirling

Other high lights of Quadrophenia include: Roger committing to one of his crazy acrobatic microphone twirling sessions and nailing it like a Russian gymnast. Also, every single time Pete hit a windmill. Then, on 5:15, rather than reworking the music or letting someone else play it, the screens were filled with John Entwhistle’s legendary bass solo from Royal Albert Hall in 2000. The crowd loved it and even Roger and Pete turned to watch. It was so expertly blended, it honestly felt like he was there and that really lent something to the wholeness of Quadrophenia. As similar thing happened on Bell Boy when Keith Moon appeared and took over the vocals. It was old footage and his young face looked right at home there with Roger and Pete who are still so young at heart. In both cases I think it was the perfect way to handle the absence of these integral band members. It kept the album feeling complete and was a great homage to two excellent musicians who were loved by everyone in the place.

Windmilling

After Quadrophenia, the boys took in the thunderous applause for a few minutes and then introduced the band. Of course we all knew Roger and Pete. Simon Townsend, yes, Pete’s brother, was also there shredding on rhythm guitar. Some families have all the talent. Zak Starkey, son of Richard Starkey, you know, Ringo Starr, has been playing drums for the first part of the tour but unfortunately he’s had a bit of tendon trouble. Luckily a guy called Scott Devours stepped in and as Pete told us, “came in and played it perfectly the first time. He’s been fucking it up ever since.” If that’s true I didn’t notice, it sounded great to me. Some guy called Pino Pallidino was on bass and though he was no Entwhistle he certainly didn’t detract anything. Then there were 3 guys on keyboards to achieve all of the complicated layered stuff on the studio album and two guys on horns, whose names I didn’t catch. They were all good to be sure but I’ll be honest when I say they were far from my main focus.

Townsend the younger and various other band members

From there, it was straight back to rocking with a short greatest hits set. The screens went from the serious and evocative array of photos and clips that Roger had compiled to accompany Quadrophenia to mod graphics and the party was on. They kicked off this set with Who Are You and kept everyone rocking and singing along to Behind Blue Eyes, Baba O’Riley, and Pinball Wizard (which they absolutely flew through, perhaps because Pete apparently kind of hates it). At the end of Baba O’Riley, Roger replaced the world’s most gut busting violin solo with the world’s most rockin harmonica solo. The old adage held true, everything is better on harmonica! They closed the show with Won’t Get Fooled Again. It was energetic, a little mean, super loud, and featured a top notch Daltrey rock scream. It really was the perfect song to end on. As excellent as Quadrophenia was, I’m so glad we got these hits as well because, hell, these are what made The Who The Who.

 

After the crazed applause and chanting died down, Roger and Pete went acoustic and brought it on down with a lovely rendition of Tea and Theatre. Roger, being ever so British,  even had his Union Jack mug on hand. It was fitting to end the Who-centric, retrospective extravaganza with a piece that was just Roger’s and Pete’s; it really brought us all back into the here and now. After more thunderous applause Pete thanked us for welcoming them to Denver and mentioned how much they loved it here though they wouldn’t have time to go driving around seeing things or make it up to the mountains to smoke dope like they used to. I couldn’t quite tell if that was a joke or if they were actually a little bummed. Roger gave a nice little wave and a word of thanks and off they went; on to the next for them while the biggest night of my year (life?) came to a close. It. Was. AWESOME.

  

Sadly (?) no instruments were harmed in the February 12th show



The thing about seeing The Who live in 2013 is that they are rock icons and have been so for many years at this point. You know all of their songs and you’re more than familiar with their sound. It’s hard not to go into it without holding some expectations but you know that you shouldn’t because this isn’t their 1970’s heyday any more. It is honestly a tiny bit nerve wracking waiting for the show to start. You just wasn’t a slice of that talent and soul and rock but you know that the fact of the matter is that the just aren’t what they used to be. Roger and Pete are both 69 now and they have certainly earned the right to go a little flat or tone down their energy levels. But they haven’t! Sure, there were a few times when Roger didn’t go for the high notes from the album. But when he didn’t it felt like the organic improvisation that is characteristic of any great performance; he didn’t go there because he didn’t want to, not because he couldn’t. In those moments where the high notes really matter Roger gave them to us. And Pete’s voice isn’t that distinctive tenor timbre that it used to be. It’s a bit gravely and bluesy now and I loved how it fit into Quadrophenia and even those old hits with just a bit of wizened edge. If anything was lost to the effects of age it was more than made up for with the effect of experience and the musical expertise that comes with it. I could not have expected anything more or been any happier with this show… that is, unless by pure happenstance, I ended up back stage with Roger and Pete and we all became best friends. 

 

Good news, you can blink faster than a snake can bite!

I've always liked animals and I've never really been the silly girly girl type who freaked out about worms or bugs or other such, non-furry animals. I mean, I do prefer the cute, fuzzy ones but these are certainly not the only viable cuteness factors. Look at this turtle, not fuzzy at all but way up there on the cute scale regardless. Just look at the joy in his little reptilian eyes (not amphibian eyes, I checked)!

I wish I could be that content with only a soggy strawberry to my name!

But enough about turtles. This story is not about turtles, it's about snakes. Snakes are, admittedly, not very high on the cute scale (even one restricted to reptiles, there's a lot of adorable lizards out there) but that didn't stop the eleven-year-old me from wanting to hold them. I blame this phenomenon on Steve Irwin.

Oh yeah, this looks like a good example to be setting for impressionable, young children.

As an avid fan of the Crocodile Hunter and his 30 minute show on Animal Planet I began to fancy myself quite the reptile expert. They are animals too and they need to be loved just as much as their cuter, fuzzier counterparts! And that is undoubtedly what I was thinking when I decided to spend that fateful lunch period in 6th grade "playing" with the class pets. Yes... yes, they were snakes.

Perhaps now is the time for some background information; it was your typical 6th grade class room in your typical charter school only the teacher let us sit on the floor instead of in desks and we had two red tailed boas as class pets instead of hamsters. The snakes, Fred and Ethel as I had so nerdily dubbed them, lived together in a fish tank lined with newspaper that was a morally questionable home for two, three-foot-long snakes. Over the course of the year, our innocent 6th grade eyes were assailed by our class pets being mauled in the face by the mice they were supposed to be eating and then later regurgitating the same mice onto the floor. That is wholesome learning right there.

You may wonder why, given the information that you have so far about our dear Fred and Ethel, I ever felt the need to get any closer to them than peering in from the other side of the glass of their tank. Looking back at it, I can honestly say, I wonder too. But I did. So great, in fact, was my desire to show these little serpentine beasts that they were loved - and in so doing show all my classmates that I was a cool kid who wasn't afraid of no serpents - that I figured some one on one man handling was just what the doctor ordered. No, the cruel irony is not lost on me now.   

So all of this is what lead up to me putting my crocodile hunter skills to the test and fishing one of the snakes out (I don't even remember if it was Fred or Ethel) and "playing" with him/her one day instead of just going outside for lunch and recess like a normal kid. I did, in fact, have permission to do this. The teacher was in the room with me the whole time, granted, he wasn't paying much attention. After all, I had assured him multiple times that I was basically a professional and he could trust me. He should not have trusted me. So there I was displaying my snake know how to another kid who had chosen to dine in the classroom that day. Sadly, my "snake know how" consisted entirely of holding it with your thumb right behind it's head so it couldn't bite you. And really, this is still a very good thing to know, it is completely true. If you take anything away from this let it be this crucial information... or amused pity at my stupidity, that's good too.

In an effort to really accentuate how cool it was that I was holding a snake to the only other kid in the room I tried to get him to hold it too. He, being a rational thinking person, decided that no, he didn't really have any desire to hold a snake. How wise he was. I remember asking him in what I can only assume was an impressively incredulous tone, "What, you think it's gonna bite you or something?!" How stupid I was.

It must have been roughly 2 minutes after that when I decided that I had exhausted all my opportunities for impressing people with my fearlessness and should put the snake away. Here is a tip for you all; when you need to move the mesh topper that is keeping one snake inside the tank in order to put the one your holding in, do so with the hand that is not holding onto said snake's head. This is not what I did, and let me tell you, a snake with a free head only needs one chance to bite you in the face. 

Did you know that a snake bite to the eyelid will result in a shiner that looks just like some one punched you in the face? Well it does! It was right around the time I discovered this for myself in the girls bathroom that all of the other kids came in from their much less exciting, albeit safer lunch period on the playground. Perfect timing. From there on, the rest of my school day was a blur of explaining the story at least 50 billion times, allowing the secretary to play nurse while she gave me an eye test that she clearly made up, and breaking the news to my mom. That was fun. I remember very clearly my teacher calling her up and saying these words, "Well, our class pet... you know... the snakes... seem to have mistaken your daughter for a small rodent." My poor mom.

But here is the bright side, if there is a bright side of getting bitten in the face by a snake: a) it wasn't a poisonous snake, so that's good! b) you get to tell your epic battle story to basically everyone you see (however that is only fun the first 50 times) and c) when you have to go to the dentist later that day to get a tooth pulled, every single dentist and hygienist in the place will certainly have heard about the girl with the snake bite and walk through the room to see for themselves as you're getting hunks of bone ripped out of your jaw. I know it doesn't sound like that's the bright side but they all bring presents and popsicles!

And that is the story of the last time I enjoyed a trip to the dentist. 

The Great Debate

     I think I was in London when I learned that DU would be hosting the first presidential debate of 2012. Then it seemed like forever away, unfathomable, and now there is no trace of it ever having been here. For life having been nothing but completely normal right up until the week of the debate and going back to normal literally over night, a pretty astounding thing has happened in the mean time.

     I will freely admit that I, in my usual non-political, don't-want-to-deal-with-it attitude, planned rather rebelliously to ignore the entire debate. The way I saw it, there was nothing that either candidate could say that would get me to change my vote. (And there wasn't.) But someone called me out on that being a crappy reason not to watch the debate and be an informed voter. He was right.

     I had blissfully, defiantly not registered for DebateFest, the big party that DU was putting on rather than attempt to hold classes when the campus was swamped with security and press. I planned, instead to hole myself up in my apartment and merely watch the chaos unfold below. It was a plan I held onto happily right up until the fences started popping up. As you may imagine, an event featuring the President of the United States and his opponent needs to be a fairly secure deal. Not the type of thing that just any old mad man could wander into. For DU, this meant fences. Everywhere. Miles of fences went up all over campus a few days before the big event. Naturally, this meant that some of the campus footpaths were blocked and students would have to take different routes to class. I'm sure all of the good, sane people of DU didn't mind working around this minor inconvenience for a few days for the sake of the prestige of hosting the debate. It, however, drove me absolutely crazy. I think it started with a particularly trying fence experience I had when trying to get all the way across campus and into the Ritchie Center (the sports facility which housed the arena the debate was being held in) for curling practice. Despite the debate being nearly a week away at that point I had to circumnavigate one of the biggest buildings on campus several times, stopping and starting due to fences, and finally walk through a dodgy alley before showing up to practice 20 minutes late. It was late, I was tired, and this annoying experience had primed me to be annoyed by the whole debate.


The epicenter of the irritation.

     Registration for DebateFest had been closed for quite a while and I was perfectly fine with it even though it was beginning to seem like I was the only person on campus, certainly among my friends, who wasn't going. Then, the Monday before the debate, I woke up from a "power" nap to find an email on my phone reminding me to register for DebateFest. So I did. It was a random decision on a whim but I thought - Hey, if they are going to harass me with all of these infuriating fences I may as well get a free concert out of the deal. 

     Fast-forward a day and a half to me and my roommates plus some friends sitting on one of DU's  brick paths for an hour waiting to go into DebateFest. I honestly was never excited until the line started moving and we walked in to DebateFest, on the other side of the fences! Then, seeing all of the informational booths, the stage, the huge screens and the students and community members bedecked in the gear of their candidate of choice I realized that this was a pretty cool event and I was glad to be there. 

     The rest of the afternoon was a lovely break from classes on a lovely day at an event with a sort of low key, local music festival vibe to it. We snagged a spot on the grass to spread out our blanket and then spent the rest of the afternoon listening to local bands, chatting (sometimes even about politics), and wandering the transformed campus. We were entertained by Zach Hekendorf, Nathaniel Rateliff, and The Lumineers. We saw, or in my case tried really hard to ignore, a hot dog eating contest and watched as an artist created a huge painting of the two candidates while rocking out to music. We even got a few little pep talks from Governor Hickenlooper and Mayor Hancock. All said it was a really enjoyable afternoon, certainly better than being in class. And, yes, better than being holed up in my room alone.


The Lumineers

     After the last band had played and the sun had begun set and it was time for the main event. The debate was broadcasted live from a building just a few blocks away to two huge screens on the main campus for students, professors, and community members who were huddled together, freezing to death under blankets on the grass. I think that my pelvis is still out there somewhere, turned to a pile of dust on the DU's perfectly manicured lawn.


I know you can't tell but this is actually the candidates being introduced.

     Despite the crowd, the close call with frostbite, and the irreparable damage to my hips I will be the first to say that it was a really great experience. It was cool to see so many people, mostly students, taking an interest in the future of our country. We also got to enjoy the debate live and without commercials. It was interesting to see how other people, from both sides, reacted to various parts of the debate. People laughed and booed when gaffes were made and cheered for things they agreed with. My group kept tally of Obama's well delivered one liners, Presidential Burns as they were soon dubbed.


This is what a  well informed voter looks like.

     Of the debate itself one moment stands out vividly to me. Toward the very end of the debate Jim asked the candidates what they thought the government's role in education should be. It felt as if President Obama were speaking directly to me, to all of us out there on the lawn, when he talked about how in every college, even DU, there are kids who can't turn to their parents to foot the bill for eduction. He sees it as the government's duty to help those students to have the same opportunities for education as those whose parents can afford it out of pocket. I am no stranger to student loans. I love the fact that Obama had student loans of his own and understands what it's like to face that straight out of college and knows what it means to pay them off. In that moment of the debate I was glad to be out there in the cold with my fellow students. There and then listening to the President speak reminded me, hopefully reminded us all, that it is us who make up America, not just the president, and it is up to us to ensure the future of our country is bright by being smart,  being informed, and voting.

The Trilobite Mission

    
Today I did something super cool! Well, I say super cool, really most people would probably call it impressively nerdy. I bought a fossil!

Yes, I have always found fossils in museums interesting. Sure, I like dinosaurs as much as the next person. But ever since taking Dr. Platt's Evolution and Speciation class a few quarters ago I have had a new found appreciation of the fossil record and all of the fascinating information it provides to so many fields of science. I got it into my head that I would very much like to own a little piece of this most prestigious record of all of history. However, finding fossils on the internet is dodgy at best and I put it on the back burner. For the past several weeks I have been seeing billboards all over Denver advertising a gem, mineral, and fossil show. Upon spying those massive yellow beacons I realized that it was time to resume the search.



My favorite dinosaur: archaeopteryx.

I then completely forgot about the fossil show. Seriously. I had made a mental note that it was the weekend after school started and tentatively planned a little visit for Friday. Well the week got away from me. Then Saturday escaped. Luckily, the billboard struck again, and on my way to lunch with my parents today I realized I had to get to the coliseum!

Flash forward a few hours to my dad and I pulling into the parking lot after an encounter with a large puddle that left me wishing the electric windows had a faster motor (real nice, Dad). Upon leaving the car we found ourselves wandering by several large tents in the parking lot displaying everything from 8-foot-tall geodes filled with purple crystals to box upon box of rocks that looked like they could have come from my yard. Inside, the entire upper floor was devoted to beads, gems, gold, and silver. This is where all of the cool, artsy women milled around scouting out one of a kind components that they will undoubtedly make into designer jewelry or top dollar sculptures. I drug my dad straight past all of that only glancing at these many, many booths and tables. We were there for a different reason, fossils!

To get to our goal we had to go downstairs to a much less densely populated area. Honestly, the signs may as well have read - Get in the Basement you Dinosaur Weirdos. I have seen that very floor occupied by cheerleading competitions and rodeos but today it played host to, well, a lot more gems. And some fossils! I wandered the floor browsing some very interesting, almost artful collections of fish fossils. We saw fossilized pine cones, enormous teeth of ancient sharks, and even a few fully mounted dinosaur bones on loan from a museum. While these were all fascinating and even beautiful in their own ways I really already knew what I wanted. I was on a mission to leave that show with a trilobite.

Beautiful and exotic, right?

Now, a cool kid (are there cool kids at fossil shows?) would want a T-rex tooth or a Raptor claw but I had my heart set on, well, basically a bug. But there is a good reason for this, several in fact! For one thing, these guys are extremely old. They first showed up around 526 million years ago and they didn't go completely extinct until the mass extinction 270 million years ago. Furthermore, at one time there were about 17,000 species of these guys in Earth's oceans ("Trilobite" is an umbrella term for all of these species, meaning "three lobes"). These little creatures literally ruled our earth for those 250 million years. You've got to respect that! It is an amazing jolt of perspective to think that the outline of a body in a hunk of rock was an actual living creature walking the earth, or in the trilobite's case, shuffling around the ocean floor, something like 350 million years ago. Seriously, that is so cool.

It's not terribly hard to figure out the morphology on these.

So there I was in a convention hall full of fossils, searching for my perfect arthropod. I first spotted a few teeny little trilobites in a case at one of the larger booths. These turned out to be a bit too expensive for me to justify. I next came across a fairly large specimen at another table. It was already cheaper and the owner would almost certainly have haggled it down a bit as he was clearly looking to get rid of as much stuff as he could on the last day of the show. I just couldn't quite commit to such a big fossil. Plus, the moment I showed even the slightest interest in it another man looked ready to pounce. Not having seen the perfect trilobite I toyed with the idea of fossil fish instead. After browsing a booth with a ton of cool fish specimens I just couldn't quite do it. I really wanted a trilobite! Also, I thought it might be a bit cruel to keep a fossil fish on my desk in view of my living fish and constantly remind poor Archibald of his own mortality. (Seriously, this was a concern, what is wrong with me?)

Not having come to the fossil show in the right frame of mind to face a moral dilemma over prehistoric sea bugs, I had very nearly resigned myself to the idea of just giving in to the expensive, little trilobites. But, as luck would have it, on my way back across the floor to the first booth, I noticed a table I had missed before. Lo and behold, trilobites! This particular specimen was almost as much as the first ones but it was bigger and it came as a pair! My dad, having been sucked into the exciting world of fossils himself, offered to split the price and keep half of the pair. Deal!

The pair!

We are now the proud owners of two (and a half) trilobites! The super cool thing about it is that the reason they were a pair is because they are actually the positive and negative side of one individual fossil plus half of another! This means that when the fossil was found and the rock was split open, both the three dimensional, raised fossilized body parts and the impression these left on the other half of the rock remained intact. We have both halves and I am beyond pleased with my purchase! Here's to my own little piece of deep history!

The positive side inverted on the negative side.

 

Thinking of going to a fossil show?

Pro Tip: If you are a young woman falling in the gap between the usual female fossil show demographic, younger than 10 or older than 50, be prepared to be chatted up. The guys may be cute, geeky sorts but they will be very bad flirts. And given that you are at a fossil show you're probably pretty terrible at it yourself. It will be awkward. Your dad will see.

 

    

SciFi Review: Childhood's End

     In case you didn't know this about me, though I don't know how you could not know this about me, I'm a little bit of a massive nerd. I love science fiction, especially classic SciFi novels. There are enough reasons behind this obsession to fill an entire post but I suppose the main thing is my love of science and how it affects every aspect of our lives. From the computer I type this on to the fingers with which I type, science is there. Science is in art, in business, even in religion. There is literally nowhere we can go and nothing we can do which isn't in some way concerned with science. I love that notion and so do SciFi writers.

     The great thing about science fiction is how philosophical it can be. Many of the best works of SciFi are structured upon astute concepts of life and death, the scope of the universe, the capabilities of the human mind, and so forth. Other genres certainly do this too but the thing that draws me to science fiction is that creative spark melded with actual science. So often it has been the case that a SciFi author in the 50's dreamt up a futuristic gadget or idea based upon some new or rudimentary science and any number of years later another appreciator of science reads this work and realizes that with modern technology such a thing can be made (an entire series on the Science Channel called Prophets of Science Fiction speaks to this fact)! Let's face it, there will never be Harry Potter type witches and wizards who can cast wondrous spells with a magical stick (and even if there were it would be based upon science at some level) but there may just be stardrives powering interstellar space travel in our future. I guess at the core of it, what I love most about science fiction is its ability to be almost unbelievably fantastic yet always based upon some shred of truth which leaves you wondering.

     With that said let me tell you about my latest SciFi read. If you're into this kind of thing and find this review helpful I could not be more pleased but if you don't care in the slightest and have already clicked away from this nerd fest that is fine too as I feel that writing about literature helps the mind to process and absorb it... so, yeah, I guess you could say I am doing this for my health.

Childhood's End

by Arthur C. Clarke

Cool Science Moment: "He was peeping through a microscope into what looked like a small bomb. Presumably it was a pressure-capsule containing some specimen of deep-sea life, still swimming happily around under its normal tons-to-the-square-centimeter conditions."

Cool Fiction Moment (still a bit science-y): "Miss Morrel's mind was the channel that, if only for a moment, let through knowledge which no one at that time could possess. It could only have come from another mind immediately linked to hers. The fact that it was a mind not yet born was of no consequence, for Time is very much stranger than you think."

     Arthur C. Clarke is most definitely one of the greats of classic SciFi. His stories tend to be very philosophical and often deal with religion at least obliquely. His short story The Nine Billion Names of God is one of my all time favorite pieces of science fiction. It essentially discusses using science/technology to prove the existence of God and the consequences that may come of this proof.

     Childhood's End also looks at the role of religion in human society but only in brief snippets relating to the larger story of mankind's possible future. The story not so much follows as touches on then moves away from various characters' lives as they deal with the arrival of an alien race dubbed the Overlords on Earth. When the Overlords reveal themselves to man they make it known that they are in charge, all powerful, and will be guiding mankind to some distant but specific future. Though man never knows what this future is a few individuals find the courage to seek it, this is their story perhaps more than it is the Overlords'. Under the reign of the Overlords, Earth becomes a utopia which opens the narrative up to the contemplation of what constitutes a utopia (a world where every person has the necessities of life and the freedom and education to pursue only their own interests?) as well as the price at which such a utopia would come (namely boredom). Erring more on the side of fiction than of science this is at once a very beautiful and extremely sad story of the end of mankind.

     Though there are many interesting characters in this story few are well established and seem to blink out of existence just as their role gains momentum. This can make the beginning sections of the book a bit hard to get through but it is worth it. What the book may lack in dramatic story telling or adventurous plot it more than makes up for in beautiful passages that broach concepts such as what it means to be human and man's place in the universe with incredible force delivered with equally incredible delicacy. The ending of the book, and indeed of man, is absolutely beautiful though there are many preceding passages which earned a folded corner for reasons of scientific and literary greatness.

     To the established SciFi fan I whole heartedly recommend this book with the warning that it is more the thoughtful type than the adventurous type. For those just setting foot in the SciFi realm I would caution the story's somewhat disjointed nature and slower passages which may or may not be made up for by its more artistic and thought evoking passages. Certainly have a go at it but don't swear off SciFi if it's not your cup of tea!

     Now promise me this; if you do read it or have read it, let me know what you thought!