Our first 'MetaQuizzical Cafe' went splendidly at the Beyond Exhibit yesterday...the 'Saturn Room' was full! Giovanni Mandala played some beautiful finger-style acoustic guitar as folks streamed in. He did a great job on an instrumental version of the Police classic, 'Walking On the Moon".
To begin the hour we sang our hearts out on my new song, 'Macro 2 Micro'. I was amazed people had no shyness and jumped right and sang the 'nerdy' stuff! Next I delivered some science news about the long-awaited discovery of the 'Higgs-Boson Particle' at the Hedron Collider in Cern, Switzerland last week. Referred to as the 'God Particle' by the media and the 'Champagne Bottle Boson' by a jury of physicists, this discovery aims us closer to that momentous day when we discover the source of gravity! . Talk about disruptive. Imagine making phone calls to your other selves in other universes! Spacebook will replace Facebook!
Next I told the story of the launching of the two Mars Rovers 'Spirit' and 'Opportunity'. I fumbled with my notes on a clipboard rather awkwardly but I got through it well enough...next time I'll use a music stand...it was fun to see people's reactions to the backstage stories of the scientists and engineers as they went through their feelings about building and releasing their kids/robots to another world. The most amazing thing I learned while researching these stories is the rovers only get about one command a day from JPL. The rest of the time they're on their own making their own decisions on the Martian ground. We finished this segment by singing my tune 'The Loneliest Thing in the World' as an homage to the mired 'Spirit' rover. It was a very sweet moment!
Then Marilyn Schlitz the president of IONS institute gave a masterful and inspired speech about Noetic Science and the frontiers of studies on consciousness and what it means. She also brought us up to date on their founder Apollo 14 astronaut Edgar Mitchell who continues to work and travel at 80 years old. His trip to the moon changed his whole way of looking at life. We are so pleased to have IONS there with their great work and urgent messages to the world. The audience had some lively questions...a very attentive and playful room of people!
Lastly, I led the crowd in a rousing sing along of Elton John's 'Rocket Man'. Our voices bounced warmly off the glorious pictures of Saturn and it's myriad of moons which frame the 'MetaQuizzical Cafe' so perfectly as we trailed off in the bittersweet coda..."...and I think it's gonna be a long, long time...".
After that we went over to the Petaluma History Museum's excellent big screen TV and watched the music videos we have looped and running there for the length of the Exhibit. We watched Angie Schultz's video of 'Macro 2 Micro' using beautiful public domain images and donated clips about the patterns of nature, and the two gorgeous 'Shot of Life' videos made in Paris, France using live actors and locations to enact visual parables of my songs '4%' and 'Said the Dark to the Light'. Having music videos of my songs is a new experience for me and at first I was nervous and looking for a place to hide, but everyone was full of praise for how they turned out and they kept playing the videos over and over again.
We finally stumbled out of the museum at around 4pm full of love and appreciation for what just happened. See you all next Sunday! 1 to 2pm to sing and talk about 'Sidewalk Astronomy' with Al Stearn of the Sonoma County Astronomical Society. I think there'll be a telescope (or two) set up to view the god 'Helios' out in the parking lot!
To begin the hour we sang our hearts out on my new song, 'Macro 2 Micro'. I was amazed people had no shyness and jumped right and sang the 'nerdy' stuff! Next I delivered some science news about the long-awaited discovery of the 'Higgs-Boson Particle' at the Hedron Collider in Cern, Switzerland last week. Referred to as the 'God Particle' by the media and the 'Champagne Bottle Boson' by a jury of physicists, this discovery aims us closer to that momentous day when we discover the source of gravity! . Talk about disruptive. Imagine making phone calls to your other selves in other universes! Spacebook will replace Facebook!
Next I told the story of the launching of the two Mars Rovers 'Spirit' and 'Opportunity'. I fumbled with my notes on a clipboard rather awkwardly but I got through it well enough...next time I'll use a music stand...it was fun to see people's reactions to the backstage stories of the scientists and engineers as they went through their feelings about building and releasing their kids/robots to another world. The most amazing thing I learned while researching these stories is the rovers only get about one command a day from JPL. The rest of the time they're on their own making their own decisions on the Martian ground. We finished this segment by singing my tune 'The Loneliest Thing in the World' as an homage to the mired 'Spirit' rover. It was a very sweet moment!
Then Marilyn Schlitz the president of IONS institute gave a masterful and inspired speech about Noetic Science and the frontiers of studies on consciousness and what it means. She also brought us up to date on their founder Apollo 14 astronaut Edgar Mitchell who continues to work and travel at 80 years old. His trip to the moon changed his whole way of looking at life. We are so pleased to have IONS there with their great work and urgent messages to the world. The audience had some lively questions...a very attentive and playful room of people!
Lastly, I led the crowd in a rousing sing along of Elton John's 'Rocket Man'. Our voices bounced warmly off the glorious pictures of Saturn and it's myriad of moons which frame the 'MetaQuizzical Cafe' so perfectly as we trailed off in the bittersweet coda..."...and I think it's gonna be a long, long time...".
After that we went over to the Petaluma History Museum's excellent big screen TV and watched the music videos we have looped and running there for the length of the Exhibit. We watched Angie Schultz's video of 'Macro 2 Micro' using beautiful public domain images and donated clips about the patterns of nature, and the two gorgeous 'Shot of Life' videos made in Paris, France using live actors and locations to enact visual parables of my songs '4%' and 'Said the Dark to the Light'. Having music videos of my songs is a new experience for me and at first I was nervous and looking for a place to hide, but everyone was full of praise for how they turned out and they kept playing the videos over and over again.
We finally stumbled out of the museum at around 4pm full of love and appreciation for what just happened. See you all next Sunday! 1 to 2pm to sing and talk about 'Sidewalk Astronomy' with Al Stearn of the Sonoma County Astronomical Society. I think there'll be a telescope (or two) set up to view the god 'Helios' out in the parking lot!