Leaving Las Vegas

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Leaving Las Vegas is a powerful, yet tasteful portrayal of alcoholism and love. Nicholas Cage plays a businessman who, through the overuse of alcohol, loses his family and his job. As a self-confessing drunk, he becomes brash and obnoxious. With no friends he heads off to hurl himself into the grandest human-made pit in the world—Las Vegas.

Amide the splendour of bright lights and a soundtrack of music including Sting and including My One and Only Love, we travel with Ben as he discovers a world where he can let go and fall into the pit of gambling, prostitution, drugs and, of course, alcohol. He takes a room in a seedy hotel and wanders his way into a stupor.

Elizabeth Shue plays a prostitute who befriends Ben and she eventually takes him in. Sera and Ben have an unexplainable bond and an unlikely non-sexual relationship. She is beautiful, yet showing wear from her life in prostitution; he is middle-aged with thinning wiry hair and gaining a growing gaunt look from not caring for himself and too much alcohol. Drawn closer by love, Sera spends her nights working the streets while Ben travels down his road of destruction. During the day they enjoy short bursts of being together.

While Ben is entirely out of control throughout the movie, Sera is also trapped by her life of prostitution. They accept each other, yet seem to long for each to find their own way out. Ben had instructed Sera, “You can never, ever, ask me to stop drinking.” She replies in agreement “I know.” Yet later she says, “I want you to see a doctor.” “No, no doctor,” replies Ben.

It is difficult to identify what takes a person down particular destructive roads. Ben can’t understand why Sera can care for him and calls her his angel. Someone tells him that drinking is a way of killing himself, to which he with a smile replies to the man, “Killing myself is a way of drinking.”

I found the movie to be tasteful in showing the deep extensive darkness of a world where most of our society thankfully never venture. In a scene, where Sera is tragically beaten and raped by some young college men out for a thrill in Vegas, we see only enough to understand the painfulness of such an experience. Yet it is not enough pain for Sera to get away from her slavery to that world.

In depicting alcoholism, there are no stops. Cage plays the battle with stark and shocking realism. I awoke in the morning realizing that, as we came to believe and understand, ‘there but for the grace of God go I.’

We all live trapped lives to some extent and the deeper pits are always waiting just around the corner for us to fall into. It happens to so many in our society and world. On the merry-go-round and downward spiral, it is difficult to get off. We may reach the point where we think, ‘Stop the world, I want to get off.’

Speaking of pits, my favourite jazz musician is cornet player Bix Beiderbecke who lived in the 1920s amide the early days of jazz and bathtub gin. His life was one of spiralling into the pit of alcoholism from which he never returned. His music is always clear, inspired, full of energy and life. It stands in striking contrast to his life, never hinting to the true pain he lived with.

Yesterday, I played my cornet in church with the choir. I had never done this before and never played that type of music. It was a challenge and exhausting both physically, mentally and musically. It was exhausting musically because of the key signatures and the variety of sheet music, or lack of for some songs, ranging from choral arrangements to lyrics and chords, from the seventeenth century to the present.

I think it was physically and mentally challenging because I have not really played much since I was young as a kid. I was a record collector of vintage jazz and swing from the 20s, 30s and 40s. I spent a lot of my time buying records and hanging around jazz.

While living in the US going to college, I met many musicians; some in the pits of human existence. I once took in a fellow who I found in a jazz joint; he had been kicked out of his house and with no place to go. As a child prodigy trumpet player, he had ended up playing in Las Vegas. Because of dentures, he had switched to flugelhorn. As a regular sitting-in with the band he then became a bartender there. When I would walk in, a drink would immediately land in my hand. Sadly he died before his time.

I bought my cornet from a fellow whom I was listening to regularly. He was leaving town for a new opportunity and sold it to me for $100, including a new hard case. It was the top professional cornet from the manufacturer. Thankfully he is still alive and playing today. He informed me that the other owners I also knew well. Two of them have passed before their time.

The history of human existence is littered with the stories of those who fell into a pit and were unable to crawl out. They struggle, become numb, lose traction in life and succumb. They become lost; there is only one way out for them. I fell into that pit. Over thirty years ago, I was lifted out. I know with all surety that the pit is just one step away. The movie Leaving Las Vegas is a realistic and shocking reminder.

 

Special Note:

After writing this, I did some reading about the movie. Some remarks from reviewers indicated the movie had far more explicit content than what I had seen on TV. Perhaps I was so taken by Cage’s incredible performance that I simply missed it. However, my wife would have insisted it be turned off. One remark stated that the DVD version had scenes not in the theatre cut of the film. Someone confirmed this by obtaining a copy from the library.

The movie was very compelling to me and when I discovered that there is some very explicit content absent from the version I saw, I was somewhat creeped-out and felt cheated and betrayed. I had said here that the movie was tasteful, yet it seems to have an explicit twin that is so much more like the trashy sex obsessed material that Hollywood puts out minus the happy ending. I had thought that Hollywood had finally been able to deal with some very disturbing subject matter, take it to the edge and yet not cross the line into having to show the filth.

The movie was disturbing enough in the way it portrayed alcoholism and the death wish driven addiction that goes to the heart of humanity. I want to point out and state to Hollywood that a movie can be amazingly compelling without going over the edge. I feel it is a far greater accomplishment to get the message across, be entirely artful, without crossing the line. Please Hollywood, think about this. The human mind is powerful and can get the message without being bombed.

 

See Leaving Las Vegas (too)

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In light of Facebook

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This week, Facebook has been in the news as it is going to move from being a private company to public with an Initial Public Offering (IPO). Over the past week, I have heard many comments about Facebook and they have raised a concern that has irked me for years. It seems that people, society, accept the Internet, not for what it is, but, for what it is not. What do I mean by this? Why is Facebook so popular and worth so much money? Why aren’t people more concerned about their personal information being used for purposes they are not aware of?

Take this comment I heard on the radio this week. Someone stated something that I have heard many times before leaving me to believe that it is a generally accepted truth. People seem to think that the Internet contains information and information is knowledge. To me, as someone who has been using computers for nearly 25 years, the Internet for over 15 years and who has studied the field of education to the level of a Masters Degree, I feel I can make a comment or two on this matter in an attempt to clear up some misconceptions.

Information is not knowledge. Information is information and knowledge is what you know. Well, now that is clear. No? Then let me give you an example. I have an interest in vintage jazz music and with nearly 40 years of interest in this genre of music, I know quite a bit about it. If I were to tell you everything I know, you would have information and perhaps some of the information might become, to some degree, knowledge. However, if I were to spend time engaging you in listening to jazz music and discussing it, you would begin to have an experience with it and make it familiar to you. That is learning and learning results in you acquiring knowledge, that is, you are able to use and apply the information. There, you can see, is a huge difference.

To truly turn information into knowledge, one must engage and have experiences with it. This is the purpose of education. The richer the engagement and experiences, the better the education and the resulting ability of the learner to be able to use and apply what they know. This is a concern I and many educators have about online learning. It does not, and can not, provide the same rich learning experiences that a classroom or other real life situations can. One would never want a surgeon with an online degree to operate. Well, that is a sort of extreme example, yet, you should get the point.

It seems to be an ongoing quest of purveyors of the Internet to relate it to real-life applying common nomenclature to new purposes. Even before the World Wide Web (WWW), with only text interfaces to the Internet, people searched for ways to make users feel comfortable with the service. In the early days, we operated bulletin board services (BBSs), initially with a text interface and later with a graphical user interface (GUI). As you can see, the idea of naming the service a bulletin board makes it somewhat easier for people to become familiar with it. Most people have seen and even used a real bulletin board. Some services offered methods to type back a forth in real time. This was and still is known as chatting. Chats on particular topics were called chat rooms. Not a room at all. Not really a chat either.

When graphics began to be used to enrich the online environment, designers made images that looked like real surfaces and controls with textures and buttons and knobs. These were and are fake. Why not invent something completely different. Perhaps because, the goal is to help users be and feel familiar with the environment, an environment that does not really exist.

Consider other terms used to sell users into the online world. Adapting already familiar words to digitally represented images, allows people, or users, as they are referred to, to be able to perform tasks in the digital environment. Is a window a window? Is a page a page? Do you actually go somewhere when to enter an address. Not really, These things and places do not really exist. It is all an illusion. As users, we really need to be careful that we understand what the digital environment is, what the services are and who we are in this new world. Traditional terms and understandings take on new meanings. Often, people take on a completely different persona online.

Let me return to the example of Facebook. Facebook has literally rocketed into ubiquity in our lives and I don’t think most people understand what it really is. On the surface, it looks like a way of allowing people to connect with each other and share information. That seems like a simple service and a great contribution to society. In fact, it is referred to as a social network. Yet, a comment I heard this week reveals the true nature of Facebook. Someone pointed out that, while Facebook makes people think they are customers of a service, in reality the users are the product of Facebook. So many people freely upload vast amounts of information about themselves and all that information is stored online and the privacy of that information is supposed, by the users, to be under their control and private. The true customers of Facebook are the people who can use that information and pay for it. That means advertisers. That’s correct, Facebook is providing a service where you give them information about yourself, tell them who your friends are and what you and they like. They even ask you to ‘like’ things to make sure they know what you like and to make more connections. They then sell you to corporations for money, and a lot of money.

Facebook does state that they do not sell your information. Perhaps not directly, however, what do you call it when they have a system that can use your information to show you ‘relevant’ ads. By placing an ad through Facebook, an advertiser is paying for Facebook to make sure the ad is shown to users who would be most likely to be interested in the product or service. The ad may then be shown to your friends. So, while your information is not sold for use outside of Facebook, it is part of the structure of selling advertising. The question is, how safe is your information? Can an advertiser find out who viewed and showed interest in a particular ad and then use that information to advertise outside of Facebook?

Could it be possible that our society is quite out of control. The idea of Facebook may have been hatched in innocents as a social network, however, it is much more now. Even the term friend seems to have lost it’s true meaning. How many people actually have a hundred or even hundreds of friends. Another idea that is not grounded in reality. How many people have told you they ‘talked’ to somebody on Facebook. How did they actually talk?

Communications seems to have taken on a new sort of connotation. Communications should mean a two way exchange of information disseminated through a rich environment. By rich, I mean one that allows as much information exchanged as possible and reliably, resulting in an understanding of the message. In face-to-face exchanges, over 80 percent of the message is non-verbal. This fact should be kept in mind when we consider the Internet as a communications medium.

Facebook neither has a face, is a face, allows for face-to-face, nor is it a book. It simply does not really exist and neither does the Internet, that is in a physical sense, other than the equipment used to transmit and store the data. This is an important point as the online digital world does exist, since it does affect our physical lives.

Throughout human history we value things with physical substance. Information has traditionally taken it’s value in the physical form it exists in, such as a book. Even with the development of recording techniques, it has been the physical form of the information that has carried the value. This is changing with the world of digital due to the information residing in a non-physical form and in more than one place. This is upsetting how we deal with value, copyright and what is and what is not.

Google arose much like Facebook. As the amount of information grew, so did the importance of being able to search to find exactly what you wanted. Google was not the first search engine service, however, it soon became the most used. Supposedly, it was the best. Search services have several forms. Some catalog information for users to browse through. Others, like Google simply gather information from everywhere and present it to users for them to wade through. Even the term searching is often replaced with Googling. People often say they Google something.

Google, like Facebook, also soon discovered that advertisers would pay for the ability to advertise to a particular user who was searching for something related to their product or service. So, Google could match advertising with users who might be interested or hot customers. This is target marketing.

But, how reliable is the information you Google, or any information found through the Internet? In traditional publishing methods, information is published through reliable sources. With the Internet, anyone can publish information, even those with incorrect, misrepresented, misinterpreted, unsubstantiated information. Some even maliciously attempt to do this.

Sometimes I want to learn about a product or service and use Google to locate information about it. This usually includes some of the many forum areas where other people share information and hold discussions through threaded messages. A thread is a series of messages on a topic where people comment on an initial message and the messages that are comments on another person’s comment stays with that comment in the thread of other messages, despite it’s chronological order. Forums are similar to BBSs.

One would think that a discussion by users of a product would be a reliable place to ask what is the best one to buy. Here is an example. Suppose you want to buy a blender. You can locate a forum of other people who are either users of blenders or are interested in purchasing one. Here you will find almost endless comments and useful information about which blenders are best. However, there may be employees or other people with a vested interest in pushing one particular brand. They might be masquerading as someone they are not.

Then, there are scammers. This is not new, however, avoiding scams is a bit trickier online. Anyone can look like almost anything or anyone. One may get an E-mail from a bank stating that they need to confirm their banking information. Graphics may even include the bank’s logo and that logo could be linked to from the actual bank computer server. I have even had E-mails with links to entire websites that look like a legitimate commercial website, however, many links would not actually work on the website. More of something that is not what it really is.

The point to remember is that the Internet, Google and Facebook are here to stay. They cannot be turned off or deleted. The Internet was devised as a Cold War communications system that could survive an attack on the United States. As I have written before, the Internet is learning about us as we add more information about ourselves. In a sense, we are migrating into the virtual digital world of the Internet. Is this a good thing? This is a question we really do not seem to have time to sort out. There are always people who want to forge forward into the new with complete abandon, wether they truly understand what is happening. Change is happening so fast that, for most people, they simply follow the fads and trends.

I have always been bothered by the notion that information about me personally exists as a sort of growing footprint of my life in the uncontrollable world of the Internet. It is there forever. Is it safe? Is it secure?

Let us consider banking. Many people, including myself, use online banking services. Yet, we occasionally hear of hackers stealing information and even digital money funds. I am convinced that we only hear of a very few instances. If we truly knew how often systems storing valuable information are hacked into, we would lose faith in the systems we have built our lives around. Our society suffer some severe impacts. Of course, one might say, bank robbers have existed as long as banks. Yes, however, the point here is that the amount and value of money or information is huge and the procedure of tracking the perpetrators down so complex.

You may be asking, if I have such concerns, why do I participate in and use such services. Well, it is difficult not to. There are many reasons. The services and systems are interesting and fun to tinker with, I suppose. For most people, one reason might be, that everyone is doing it and, in some cases, it is necessary. In some ways we are forced to use computer and online services either by companies and organizations requiring one to access information this way or through traditional methods becoming more expensive.

A company might find it easier and cheaper to put their brochure online. There are many perceived benefits to this. They can include more information, more types of information, such as video, and they can make changes at any time. So, now it is up to the customer to access the information and search for what they want or need to know. This can take time. What if you need to actually talk to a real person? While most companies do include a phone number, this is becoming increasingly rare, just as physical stores, in some cases, are less abundant. Some companies can do more business online. So, you may not be able to go to a physical place to have a full communication session with a real person, but, may have to communicate through less reliable means that might take extra time, due to the asynchronous nature of these methods. A reply to an E-mail may take a day or more.

For years now, I have heard many explanations for what is happening and what the digital online world means to humankind. Perhaps, the virtual reality is becoming a reality, that our online footprint is becoming who we really are, and that may well be different than who we are in the real physical world. Many people have different characteristics online than they do as a real person. Some people would even say that we are in the process of migrating into a digital existence. That we should shed our physical skins to live forever in a virtual world. Could we still be human? This is certainly extreme and I doubt it will ever happen.

I had a conversation with a friend yesterday, and he mentioned that, throughout history, mankind swings from one direction to another. It is hard to imagine the technological trend changing or even swinging the other direction. We always seem to add more technological innovations into how we live. It is also difficult to imagine unplugging from the Internet. We are there in some way and can never be erased. I guess we could change who we are in real life, become a different person to evade our online persona. Sort of like a witness protection program. One would have to disappear.

For some people, worrying about these matters is simply of less importance than actually plunging in and letting what may happen go ahead and happen. At this stage, they seem to be leading the way for everyone else. Is it possible to participate to some degree and still maintain control? Or, is it too late? Have we lost control? What could possibly happen that could be so bad?

What about genetics and DNA? It is now becoming possible to discover what diseases one is predisposed to. This raises some huge concerns. What if insurance companies knew you were going to get a disease or die. How would they insure you? Would they refuse you altogether?

There is a growing concern about the possible misuses of personal information. Many people have had a bad experience resulting from too much of their personal information getting into the wrong hands. We really do not know who knows what about us now. We often do not know who is hacking into our information. Problems can range from irritating inconveniences to personal disasters. I won’t go too far into this right now, however, I’m sure many, even most readers have experienced an inconvenience or two.

One day I decided to check my Facebook account. My attempt to log in failed. I received a message stating that someone tried to log in and the system had determined that it was not me. I had to reset my account. The reset process did not work the first time, or the second. After wasting a couple of hours, I managed to get back into my account, determine that someone not even in Canada, but, somewhere in the mid-west of the U.S. had tried to hack into my account. I then decided to minimize what I show on Facebook, tighten up my security settings and to not use Facebook very often. I even considered deleting my account, but, remembered hearing about how much trouble other people have had trying to get their account deleted.

Facebook is not the first social network, as these services are referred to, however, for some reason, it has become the largest. I remember many people using MySpace before Facebook. I’m sure there will be more, such as LinkedIn. Even Google is in the game now. I wonder why Facebook has become the defacto? Perhaps, it is because, at this stage anyway, Facebook is about advertising masquerading as a social network. Could there be a larger, more important reason? I would not doubt it. As I have pointed out, they seem to be perceived as something that is not what they really are. We should be concerned about the acceptance of things, not for what they are, but, for what they are not.

Refs for further reading & exploration:
Facebook
Facebook — Wikipedia
Information — Dictionary
Information — Wikipedia
Knowledge— Dictionary
Knowledge — Wikipedia
LinkedIn
Google+
Facebook advertising
Personal information — Consumer Reports
How safe is PI on FB — Avoid Facebook

The original bang

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Man has a bit of an obsession, and that is the origins of mankind, his world and universe. Scientists are busy working on this quest and, from time to time a bit of news surfaces concerning current thinking and the progress of this quest. When I happen to hear some of this news, my ears perk up and then I get to compare their thinking with my own.

Perhaps, I might have made a good theoretical physicist. I have always had a bit of a fancy for science and space. In my bedroom as a child, I had a rather tattered 1958 Rand & McNalley map of the solar system. I used to lie in bed looking at the planets and the information provided for each one. It always fascinated me how it was possible to provide information, such as temperature and make-up, without having gone there. How do they know this stuff. Later, I watched TV programs like Lost in Space and the original Star Trek series, as well as science fiction movies. Eventually, I graduated to more documentary type programs, such as Nova on PBS. In high school, I particularly liked physics, and can remember the thrill as the topic of Einstein’s General Theory of Relativity loomed on the curricular horizon. Most people find even the simplest tenets of this area of physics difficult to grasp, however, we had a sort of unusual teacher with an unusual voice. I remember students making fun of him a bit, but, I always had a stroke of gratitude for this little man who looked like he stepped right out of the 1930s, with his neat shiny suit, knitted vest, hair parted just off the middle and all his immaculate canvas binders of notes written on faded paper, in tiny writing by his vintage mechanical pencil with the pointy eraser added.

Yet, with all his little quirks, when he began his introduction to the Special Theory of Relativity with this story, I got it. “Once upon a time…,” he began, as if to see who might immediately get bored by this most common of fable introductions, “there were two towns of people who were at war with each other.” He continued to tell the story of how there was a mountain separating the towns and what they did was to fire canons over the mountain, the resulting trajectory, an arc created by gravity drawing the canon ball back to Earth, would allow them to hit their target without seeing them. So it was that one night, the people of one town wanted to see the other town to know what their canons had done. So, they took a spotlight and pointed it over the mountain. As he told the story, he drew it on the chalkboard, carefully checking the reaction of the students as he drew the light from the spotlight following the same arc as the canon balls. Of course, the teacher explained, this is impossible. But, wait a minute, in fact though, light can bend by the force of gravity, much like a wave in water will change direction around an object. We learned that light bends from the influence of gravity.

There were other examples. If two spaceships pass each other traveling in opposite directions at nearly the speed of light, a person looking out the window could observe hands on a clock on the other spaceship moving slower than the ones on his own spaceship. A ruler for measuring would similarly look shorter, a round object would look compressed like a vertical oval.

I have never come to understand the the math behind physics, I was scared of academics and did not enjoy school. I went to school at a time when there were less opportunities for learning assistance. Yet, all my life I have enjoyed certain aspects of science.

Science is a field that deals with theories that seek to be compared to what man can observe and or experience. In this most intriguing quest for origins, much simply can not be observed or experienced. When this is the case, scientists looks for indirect proof. For example, phenomenon like black holes could be predicted, but, not observed or experienced, however, some effects may be observed, such as from light and gravity. And, of course, nobody has observed or experienced traveling at the speed of light.

Sir Isaac Newton took up the quest and became the father of modern physics and his laws of physics held strong for years. However, the universe comprises not only what we can observe and experience, it has atomic and sub-atomic activity as well and cosmic activity. Newtonian physics simply can not provide the constructs that can explain behaviors and predict outcomes to these more complex aspects of our universe.

Theories of physics have many forces to reckon with from gravity to electromagnetism. Albert Einstein is one of the most famous physicist who took physics, in a leap, from what is now called classical physics, to the atomic, and later, the nuclear phenomenon. This ushered mankind into the nuclear age. Who has not heard of E=MC2? To Einstein’s horror, his new physics helped create the atom bomb that was dropped by the Americans on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, killing innocent people and causing such utter pain and destruction. The bomb did cause the Japanese to surrender, thus ending World War II. The world, would never be the same. Man now had, at his very fingertips, a destructive power he could never have imagined. When the Russians also developed the ‘bomb’, as it came to be termed, A new era emerged.

I grew up during the cold war. It wasn’t a war in the traditional sense. There was no actual fighting, just the threat of nuclear destruction. Both the United States and the Soviet Union had the ‘bomb.’ The political differences between the two countries, the U.S.A. being a democracy and the U.S.S.R, communist, made the two enemies. Thus, to prevent one from invading the other, they each aimed nuclear arms at each other. There was a problem, and it was a big one. By the time one side had launched a missile, the other side had the time to detect and retaliate. The result, mutual annihilation, or doomsday, as it became known. Complete foolishness.

Back to Einstein for a moment. Even Einstein realized that his theories did, at best, a poor job of explaining the universe. Quantum physics is another set of theories. Einstein tried in vain to find a unified theory to cover everything, but, could not.

Lately, the theories are getting, well, over the edge in my mind. Perhaps it is because man has had some years of using magnificent technology, like the Hubble telescope to see more than ever imaginable. The ideas are suggesting that it should be possible to look far enough out into space to see back in time to the point of the origin of the universe, thought to be the Big Bang. I have a few questions about this.

Suppose one could look all the way back to the origin. It seems to me that there would be a bit of a dilemma. Looking back far enough would mean that nothing would exist. Could one look beyond the bang to what there was before the bang? I am wondering if there might be something more of a serious problem. What exactly is happening when scientists claim to be looking back into the earlier times of the universe?

If everything began at a particular point and has been expanding out since the beginning of time, is there a way we can imagine what this might look like. I’m thinking of a nozzle spraying water. What you see as the water comes toward you is a spray of small drops. As you look beyond each drop, the spray gets denser until there is simply more water than space to look through. This might be problem one. You simpley could not see through all the matter as you look toward the point of origin. Thus, it would be impossible to see the point of origin. But, perhaps the universe is so huge and the amount of matter, galaxies, stars, planets, etc., is so minute in comparison, that it might be possible to keep seeing onward. We should also remember that our galaxy, the Milky Way, is off center in the spray, so one would be looking across the universe to some degree. Well, I think that at some point, it might get pretty thick anyway.

There might be an even worse problem. The spray of water from the nozzle I proposed above is taking place in normal time and distance. That is to say, quite different to the time and distance involved in looking into the universe. Some peculiarities surface when dealing with things like light, gravity, time and distance on the cosmic scale. For example, light travels at a certain speed. As one nears that speed, gravity, time and distance change. Time slows down. Distances seem to shrink. Gravity increases. Does this mean that, at the speed of light, time ceases to exist altogether? If one could travel faster than light, could one go back in time? If distances shrink, at the speed of light, would there be no distance between anything? What about gravity? It has been proven that gravity can bend light, as I have already mentioned.

All this can seem rather confusing. I just can’t figure how one might look at light that originated way back in time. By the time it gets here, the point of origin might not exist anymore. And, since gravity can bend light, how would one know where the light was coming from or wether it has been altered on it’s journey? Remember, the more matter, stars, planets, etc., the more light can bend. Could one trust what they would be looking at?

I simply can’t get past the notions that one would be able to look some direction in the cosmos and see something that is just beginning to exist, knowing that it was happening so long ago that we did not exist yet. Did you get that? How can we see something that took place before we and the point of our existence in the cosmos, even exists in the first place. How can light get to a point that never existed until after the origin of the light? Our place in the cosmos is moving away from the point of origin, the Big Bang, and somehow light from that Big Bang is supposed to catch up to us in a way that we can see the origin that happened before our place in the cosmos ever existed. Strange, isn’t it?

Here is another idea that comes to mind. We have all probably witnessed fireworks. After shooting into the sky, there is a starburst. As it spreads, it slows down, Could the big bang have some similar characteristics? If the bang indeed happened quickly and has now slowed down, what sort of differences in the laws of physics might come into play in such and event? So much matter bursting away from a point of origin at the speed, or nearly the speed, of light might change the story considerably. Time might be altered. Matter could be quite different than we might expect.

We already know that huge amounts of matter can implode and can even create a situation where there is so much gravity that even light can not escape. We call these phenomenon black holes. What sort of energy could create a situation where all the matter in the universe is gathered in one spot? Perhaps it might be more like a gas. Imagine breathing out into a very cold air. As the warm moist air in your breath hits the cold air, the moisture freezes, gathering more weight and density than when it started.

The above two paragraphs were written last night. Tonight, the news on TV announced that the Nobel Prize went to three men who have discovered that the universe is expanding faster than expected, even speeding up. This also assumes that the expansion speed has been uniform or, if increasing, the increase would be uniform. Uniform speed would be expected under Newtonian physics, however, as I have attempted to outline, Newtonian physics can’t account for all phenomenon at the cosmic level. Also announced tonight is the idea that the universe is cooling as it expands. Thus, the big bang may end with ice. I’m not sure where all the water would come from for the ice to form, considering the search for almost non-existent water in our own solar system is included as the first indicator for life.

Whoops, an expanding universe with increasing speed, now the characteristics might be just the opposite. Scientists have considered the possible results of a slowing universe that, I suppose would stop expanding some point at which time the universe might start to collapse and there might be another big bang. If it is speeding up, will it slow down, or keep expanding faster and faster. Could it reach the speed of light. What would that mean. Now, that really could be peculiar.

I mentioned earlier that physics theories simply could not explain every phenomenon observed or predicted by math at the cosmic or nuclear level. For the past few decades a new theory has been gaining acceptance by the scientific community. According to String Theory, the universe at the very minutest level is made up of tiny vibrating strings. These strings are so small they cannot be seen or detected directly.

What I have been writing about here was sparked last year by an interview on the radio. I have been adding to this slowly for months. These are huge topics, of course. The interview was with Brian Greene who specializes in String Theory has written several books explaining the ideas I have presented and much more. Recently, I have been watching some NOVA programs on PBS hosted by Brian Greene. I have to admit, he does do an excellent job of explaining these complex ideas. It is surprising to me just how much more is known than what was presented only a decade or so ago. I have watched NOVA for a long time. The current program, you should be doing some Googling to find out more, is supposed to be an introduction, however, it takes, what would have been considered years ago, huge leaps into the theories. It can be difficult to keep up and it seems impossible for me to come close to explaining any of these ideas any better that Brian Greene.

At best, I hope that my experiences and thoughts might be of interest to someone who then might become further interested enough to explore on their own. This piece of writing has sat on my computer long enough. I need to get it posted on my blog. I may write a sequel or two someday.

But first, a few of my own ideas.

These days, I have settled on a notion that the universe is held in something that I can only liken to a bubble. The bubble boundaries hold everything we could ever see and know. I think the scientists are correct when they describe a space time continuum. Everything we know exists at a single place at a single point of time. To be somewhere else takes time to move and nothing can exist in more than place at one time. The bubble may be expanding and that could be what contributes to the overall decay of everything. Scientists have a word for this and a more complex description of the decay. They call it entropy. The entropic effect means that, although one might be able to regather energy, one could never get back the the full original amount. Yes you can mop up a spilled bucket of water and theoretically have all the water back, but, there would always be some missing from soaking in and evaporation and other ways of loss. Everything experiences decay.

Thus, everything is winding down. Everything also has mass and exerts a gravitational force on everything else. That must mean that things are energy. That little leap came from my conclusion that a force requires energy. I alway try to simplify things. Will everything wind down completely someday? What would happen? Where would the energy go? Could the bubble pop someday? The answers to these questions are unanswerable as long as we are within the time space continuum of the bubble. We should be satisfied with the limits the bubble confines us to.

I’ll bet you are now wondering what I think is beyond the bubble and what might happen someday with the bubble. Well, Beyond the bubble is eternity. Eternity is the absence of space, time and gravity. There is no need for the substance we now have and are confined to. It is the place, or non-place, for spirit. Without space or time, think about what I said above, one can be everywhere at the same time, or non-time, as spirit. Oh there is another world of a sort, but remember, that is beyond us now. I am describing the eternity of God and God is going to burn everything up in our bubble someday. What happens to us at that time is the real question. The theories that occupy the minds of scientists are certainly interesting. More interesting is the notion that we are more complex and therefore interesting than the universe. God is more interested in us than the whole universe. Someday, I may tell you more. Or, you might explore for yourself.

Music Notes

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Those who know me know I have quite an interest in music and the genre of most interest to me is vintage jazz and swing of the 1920s, 30s and 40s. I am not much of a musician, however, I did play the trumpet in my younger years and was a collector of the aforementioned recorded music. This background is enough for me to be able to converse with musicians whenever I can. I often make it a goal to engage a musician, particularly in a setting where they may be playing to a somewhat non-attentive crowd. Thus, my goal becomes to make sure they are not playing a ‘wallpaper job.’ This term was introduced to me by a trumpet player who was heading to a gig and called it a ‘wallpaper job,’ one where the audience is not paying much attention and they can play whatever they want.

Finding opportunities to talk about my true interest in jazz music do not present themselves often. These days, I find I must keep as in tune as I can with a few varieties of music. This can stretch me a bit and that, I suppose, is a good thing. Although I was not necessarily a follower of the popular music of my youth, it was surrounding me and I seem to have soaked some of it up. Actually, relative to the current pop music of today, the music of the 1950s, 60s and 70s seems to have more substance than I ever thought at the time.

I could write a whole blog on music, but, I have to start somewhere. Let me now relate to you my latest encounter with a musician. After curling last week, we went into the lounge to talk. A guitar and sound system was sitting in the corner and I knew it probably belonged to Geoff Gibbons. My wife and I used to go to 25 cent Wing Wednesday when Geoff was playing and I have spent quite a bit of time talking to Geoff. Sure enough, pretty soon he appeared and greeted me warmly. Then he asked, “Any requests?” Well nothing came to mind, so, I blurted out Malaguena. “Malagu… what?” came the response. I described seeing Roy Clark play it on TV many years ago. He agreed that Roy Clark was a really great player. The next thing that came into my mind was something I had seen on the PBS special John Sebastian’s Folk Rewind. It was a black and white clip with Judy Collins and Pete Seeger singing Seeger’s Turn, Turn, Turn, taken from Ecclesiastes in the Bible. We had still not found a song for Geoff to do, so, I went on to talk about the Glen Campbell Goodtime Music Hour from the late sixties. Glen had appeared on the Smothers Brothers show and took over from them one summer, ending up with his own show. Glen had another musician, John Hartford, on the show to add to the musical segments. The show contained music and skits. There would be a weekly guest and they would perform and then appear in skits that often ended up with the participants loosing it in laughter.

The show was musically unique by todays standards. The stage had a walkway that led to a central circle ( I am pretty sure there is a name for this, but, I can’t think of it at the moment) in the audience where Glen sat and played with his guests and John Hartford. John played guitar, banjo, fiddle and sometimes danced on a sheet of plywood to add extra rhythm to his solos. I always looked forward to the music in the circle because, well, it was great music without the frills. I looked particularly forward to the times when John Hartford played. There was something about him that made me understand that he was the genuine article for his music and a really great talent. A couple of times I heard him do a song called “The Old Washing Machine Song.” During the song he made sounds to imitate the new and old washing machine. Very clever, I thought.

Geoff said, he would do some Glen Campbell and then played Gentile On My Mind. To be honest, I did not remember John Hartford’s name that night, so, I went home and did a bit of research. I found Roy Clark doing Malaguena and other songs. I even found Charo doing it. I couldn’t remember ever knowing Charo played guitar. She sure bent the strings. Next, I found the clip of Judy and Pete doing Turn, Turn, Turn. Then, I turned to John Hartford, who added the ‘t’ in his last name on the advice of Chet Atkins (a really great guitar player who helped many musicians). I always wondered what happened to John.

Evidently, John Hartford wrote Gentile On My Mind which became a standard in the genre of pop music. Geoff just jumped right in and played it without music. It provided Hartford with some income so he could dedicate his life to his music. He spent decades piloting a steamboat up and down the Mississippi river, playing his bluegrass music. In later years he contributed to the movie O Brother, Where Art Thou? and created a new variant of bluegrass music called newgrass.

John Hartford is gone now, but, he truly left his mark on the history of music. The other musicians mentioned here also left their mark. While Geoff plays in a variety of places around the Vancouver area, he also writes music for movies.

This musical encounter with Geoff lead me to learn a lot. I sent Geoff some of what I learned and some links. I like sharing with musicians and if we can both learn something, the encounter becomes even more fruitful.

I guess there is a link here to my interest in jazz. The river boats on the Mississippi, carried early jazz and musicians up the river from New Orleans where they eventually landed in Chicago and their music became the Chicago Style of jazz.

I have met many dozens of musicians over the years, some famous and some who simply remain in the background staying true to their music, some who have done both, like John Hartford. The world is full of truly great musicians who, for by choice of otherwise, never attain fame or fortune, or have turned away from it.

Some of the Mississippi riverboats were quite large and put on shows. They were flashy with Minstrel shows, white entertainers dressed in blackface created from burnt cork. The banjo was an important instrument in these performances. A popular stage musical from the 1920s, Showboat, depicted a showboat that brought entertainment to towns along the river. I found a clip on the Internet with John Hartford steering a riverboat and talking and performing. The wheel was nearly as tall as he was. I got the feeling that he could tell a lot of stories. Anyway, the boat was full of tourists and there was a lady behind John who was playing ‘Ol Man River on an organ, a tune from Showboat. John explained that he never liked the tune and then imitated the low voice of the person who sang the song, a reference to Paul Robson, who originally sang it.

I found many other clips of John Hartford and I am glad I rediscovered him. Encounters with musicians like Geoff are times I value deeply. These musicians are important contributers to the culture of mankind.

When I thought about writing this I considered adding links to each reference, however, then I realized that, while valuable, some readers might click on each of them as they read. This would break up my writing. Thus, I encourage you, the reader, to use copy and paste to discover for yourself what I have learned. Now, go explore music!