The camera films a different time signature

A recent WIRED magazine article describes new high-speed cameras that can stretch incredibly fast action into minutes. This results in footage that slows action down to the smallest of elements. The entire article can be found online here.

The most amazing view is of a hummingbird as it feeds. The discovery, apparently, is the way the bird stores the water in its outstretched throat. But the most fascinating part of the film is the the hummingbird's flight: watch the wings. Incredible grace; they almost flow with every beat. The human eye only sees a mad blur of wing. The camera demonstrates how fluid and powerful the wings' ballet truly is.

The Musical Box

Pam and I worked at Proctors Theatre on Friday night. The event was “The Musical Box”, a Genesis tribute band – although the participants would blanche at that description. This group has done this show since 1993, and pride themselves on meticulously recreating the sound and staging of Genesis tours. They duplicate the clothes, the projected slide show, the exact play list, even the nuances of the guitar and voice lines in each song. They have accumulated a library of film clips and play lists for as many Genesis shows as possible, and even copy the patter between songs. Each player on stage takes the persona of a member of Genesis at the time of the concert.

They view themselves as a stage show. This iteration is a recreation of Genesis’ “Trick of the Tail” concert tour in 1976. Peter Gabriel, the leader of the group for nearly a decade, had just left the band, taking with him the more dramatic and operatic bent of their music. Phil Collins was taking over most of the vocals. Within two to three years, Collins would alter their sound and they would put together a huge string of radio hits. They became darlings of the FM music crowd deep into the 1980s.

But that’s not who the crowd came to see this past Friday. These were progressive rock devotees, groupies that shared a devotion to Yes; Emerson, Lake and Palmer; Asia; Rush; and all the iterations of the niche that Genesis filled along with those groups.

And they were male, at a ratio of about 3-to-1.

I’ve been to nine Yes concerts in my life, and I have noted this same phenomenon – albeit only when I bothered to look at the demographics around me in the last ten years. The louder and ‘heavier’ the rock group, the more it appeals to the male of the species. I could conjecture on the reasons for this, but they would be guesses. Power and volume; guitars that dominate all other aspects of the music; obscure, obtuse, or sci-fi lyrics that are unintelligible because they are totally drowned out by the driving bass beat and layered guitars. Rarely pretty, in the musical sense.

These are generalizations. And there are women at these concerts, just as there were on Friday. Some were there with their husbands, to be sure; but I bet it was the husband that did all the hooting and hollering. It’s a 30-60 crowd, of course, because Genesis’ pinnacle ended in the late 1980s.

After our bartending chores were over, Pam and I stayed for about 30 minutes of the show. The group is impeccable, and I was taken away by the music -- they did a great version of “The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway.” But our ears hurt.

And, to be honest, I wanted a beer.

Marking Spring

There are three primary events that mark spring in our upstate New York town. The first is the day the ice breaks from the Mohawk River. The ice jam starts in a couple of narrow parts of the River, or against a the abutments of a particular bridge, and creates a one-to-two mile jam of ice floes piled against each other, some reaching to the sky on their edges. Some years, this is a calamitous event which leads to widespread flooding in parts of Schenectady, including the historic Stockade area. This year the icy traffic jam only lasted a few days, and broke through after a few sunny days in the 40s. No need to invoke the flood evac plans.

The second event is opening day at Jumpin’ Jacks. Jacks is the classic burger, hot dog, and fries concession stand , with an ice cream store right next door. The owner opens on the third or fourth Thursday each year (figuring he would get the weekend customers anyway, regardless of the novelty of opening day). The TV crews always show up, cars jockey for the few parking spots, the outdoor line snakes through the switchback barriers to the windows, and plenty of cheeseburgers are absorbed by people shivering at the riverside picnic tables.

Finally, there is my favorite opening day: the first day of the baseball season. I’m still hoping that this becomes a national holiday. But as long as March Madness dribbles into April, I’m not optimistic.

Those three calendar markers have passed this year. None of them occurred, of course, in warm spring weather in upstate New York. We only get teased during the transition seasons; a sunny 55 degree day will spring up in late March, only to revert the next three days to spitting sleet and biting 30 degree winds. We are now in the third week of April, and 50 degree sun is finally the norm rather than the exception. Tulips are just starting to show their colors, and the forsythia is starting to burst.

So what are all these pics?

These marvelous pictures are from Charleston, South Carolina, a month ago. Pam and I traveled to find spring in mid-March, which is when our calendars actually identify it. Charleston is a unique place to watch spring arrive. We shed our winter skins on warm 60-75 degree days, toured gardens in the historic district, took a carriage ride through the narrow streets, and visited the largest romantic garden in the country. Pam has an eye for the colorful flowering world, besides being an inveterate gardener. She took a great collection of pictures.

This trip was a Valentine gift, and was accompanied by this poem:

Valentine

We can find spring
when petals rise and
waters warm,
where sun starts early
and rays strike later.

We can see colors
other than white
when the day marks
the solstice,
and we shed the heavy
quilt of winter.

We can touch
our ungloved hands
at the same time our hearts
remind us that we are one.