pavlovsdog

Light travels at 299,792,458 meters per second, or 186,282.397 miles per second. Actually a meter is defined as the distance light travels in 1/299,792,458 of a second. Our sight depends on light hitting an object, reflecting off of it, and into our eyes where it is converted neural impulses that are transmitted to the visual cortex by the optic nerve. So therefore everything we see is in the past. It's miniscule really, absolutely undetectable, but it's true. You see if you're looking at something a meter away, you are looking at something that is about 300 billionth of a second in the past, just as if you looked at something 300 billion meters away you are looking at something that is a second in the past. The sun is about 149,476,000,000 so when you look at at sun as it was about 8 minutes ago. The moon is about 390,000,000 meters from the earth so we see the moon as it was about a second ago. When we look at our mirrors from about arms length we are seeing ourselves 300 billionth of a second ago. We're always looking at a younger image of ourselves.

I didn't totally come up with this. The basic idea was from this play I saw over the weekend: bobrauschenbergamerica by Charles Mee. What it had to do with Robert Rauschenberg I have no idea, but it was interesting. It was a play consisting of loosely connected scenes with many thought provoking and at the same time disturbing images. I think the playwright was trying to create a play that resembled one of Robert Rauschenberg's works. It was weird, but totally gripping.

There was also a chicken joke:

Hamlet opened this weekend. It went well. I love how people say to me: "Well a least you're (Horatio) alive at the end of the play", like it some big consolation. It's a tragedy, only the cool characters get to die, the chumps are left to mop the mess up. The play went smoothly though. I managed not to flub my lines too terribly bad. Over a hundred people attended each night, which is good for opening weekend, and good for a play that lasts a little over three hours.

I also got to see an interesting exhibit at the Asheville Art Museum:
Under the Skin: Tattoos and Contemporary Culture
It was an exhibit of Tattoo art, imagery, and objects that explores the history of tattoos, tattoo culture, and the development of tattoo design in America since the early 30's. There were lots of work from important artists but the only name I really recognized was Sailor Jerry. It was really neat. I hope to go back at take some pictures to post here. The exhibit lasts until Oct 30th so anyone in the Asheville area during that time should really consider checking it out. Here is an article about it from the SG newswire.

Well finally after about four months I finally have a few weeknights free of rehearsal or other commitments. I have no idea what to do with myself. This weekend is Bele Chere a huge weekend festival that used to be a spotlight on local art, artists and musicians, but now is a corporate sponsored hodgepodge of annoying tourists, drunken yuppies, bad art, and washed up bands that were good seven years ago. I used to look forward to it, but now I just want to stay as far away as possible. Here is last years entry about it. There are a couple of local bands worth seeing though.

Well I've got to go do nothing.