Here, There, Everywhere

STORY TIME: For the past five weeks, we've been involved in a special project. It involved going to Pacific Science Center one a week to participate in a program sponsored by PSC, the University of Washington, the National Science Foundation and Seattle Public Libraries - all favorites of ours!

There were a number of facets to the program, but the number one thing was we were given a Chromebook, a Hummingbird (motherboard), electrical components, and an empty box, and tasked with telling a story about our family using eletronics, art, and robotics. 

Needless to say, it was super fun. 

 So, how do you put a story in a box?

After our very first meeting, right away we began thinking up ideas for our diorama. Our talk almost immediately turned to politics, because our family talks about politics a lot. We found ourselves talking about the proposal to build a wall on our country’s southern border and how distasteful our family finds that idea. As we discussed more about this, we realized that politics alone wasn’t a personal enough topic to tell a family story. 

However, because we had been talking about a wall, we then thought about another wall that was a fun family story. Specifically, in 2013, our family went all the way to London to see Roger Waters, the lead singer of CJ’s favorite band, Pink Floyd, perform their concert “The Wall” in Wembley Stadium. We realized we could share the politics we discuss and an amazing trip we took by recreating the concert in our diorama.

We used actual photos of Wembley Stadium for the background, and we wrapped our box in a world map as the story is about travel and world politics. We purposely made the audience very diverse, and choosing the sound clips was a fun creative process, starting with a sound byte about building a wall today, and the lightning and thunder symbolize trouble or a storm that is brewing in world politics. We included some actual Pink Floyd music clips, and a clip of former president Ronald Reagan urging another nation to tear down their wall, which we find somewhat ironic nowadays. 

Naturally, we had to build a wall, as that was a central feature of the concert we saw. Ours was out of LEGOs. We had to snip and sand off the little LEGO nubs on some of the pieces, so we could build a wall that would stand when we wanted it to, and fall down at the right time.

Our biggest challenge was making the pig, quite literally fly. You may wonder, “Why a flying pig?” but the flying pig balloon is a staple of Pink Floyd concerts. We talked about adding more elements to use more of the hummingbird components, but in the end realized that what we had here told the story we wanted to tell.

https://youtu.be/y2Mp754acB8

A diorama we created using a Hummingbird motherboard. It tells the tale of our family going to Wembley stadium to see The Wall performed a couple of years ago, but it's also an allegory for present day politics. The flying pig is a Pink Floyd icon; we thought it only fitting that it broke the wall down.



By the way, the kids were caught in a 'windstorm' last time we went to PacSci. Fortunately, they survived unscathed.

SMALL BITES: Sunday morning, we were invited to meet for breakfast by Kennedy and Abby. They suggested Dim Sum (which translates to small bites, according to sources I read online).

We had never "dim summed" before, but were game to try. We met in Seattle's International District. They scouted for places that could seat our party of six, and we wound up at the Purple Dot. 

Oh my. SO delocious! Seriously, every single bite was wonderful. I'm really not  sure what all we ate, but it was all good and we can't wait to go again sometime! 

It was so much more fun than going out for a Sunday morning breakfast of biscuits or pancakes or some similar, familiar fare. 

SURPRISE FIND: Trying to avoid traffic in Greenwood a few days back, we were detouring through random residential streets. All of the sudden, in the middle of a bunch of single family residential homes, we happened upon this structure. 

I'll let CJ tell you a bit about it. ...

On my birthday, we went by the Sakya Monastery of Tibetan Buddhism, located in a residential section of the Greenwood neighborhood. According to their website, the purpose of Sakya Monastery is to share and preserve Tibetan Buddhism and Tibetan culture. The Sakya Monastery does this through teaching and practicing traditional Tibetan Buddhism and by upholding Tibetan customs and traditions.

The Sakya Monastery caught my attention because I have a fascination with Shar-Pei, an ancient Chinese dog breed, and the Monastery is Chinese in origin.
I would like to visit the Monastery on some weekend.

WHAT IS THAT?! We were down in Des Moines (a bit south of Seattle) this weekend and saw a statue from a distance that made us pull over and get out of the car to check it out.

From a distance - and up close, frankly - it looked like a large fish attacking Albert Einstein.

So, it turns out that wasn't what it was. Rather, it's a statue called "The Great Catch," by artist Richard Beye. 

Not understanding what, exactly, we were seeing, we were happy there was a plaque at the bottom statue explaining it. 

"Legend of the 'Big Catch: Long ago, a beautiful young maiden fell in love with a handsome fisherman. To her dismay, the Wicked Witch of Puget Sound fell in love with him too. The Wicked Witch cast a spell and turned the maiden into a fish. For years, the sad fisherman searched all the waters of the Sound looking for his maiden, to no avail. One day, while fishing at the Des Moines fishing pier, he saw a big fish in his net. He knew it was his love. He pulled her up, kissed her, and she was transformed back into his beautiful maiden. They were married and lived happily ever after."

So there you have it. You can read a bit more about it here: : http://www.roadsideamerica.com/tip/1388#sthash.YHDHF3vi.dpuf

Monday Movie

ORGAN-IZED: Monday morning, we took a field trip to one of our favorite destinations, the lovely Paramount Theatre. 

Our reason for visiting was the Paramount's annual/ongoing silent movie series. 

I'll let CJ tell you a bit more about our visit.

On the morning of 24 April, my family went to the Paramount Theatre, (a historic theater for plays, and, to a lesser extent, films) for that day's Silent Movie Monday event. At the Paramount Theatre, Silent Movie Mondays are events where the theater plays various silent films, with a live soundtrack (as in, played by humans along with the visuals).

First, we were introduced to Tedde Gibson and Paul Hansen, the musicians present at the Silent Movie Monday. Tedde Gibson played a large Wurlitzer organ, which was literally connected to the walls. The Wurlitzer organ has several "sub-instruments", like a regular piano, as well as something that could make flute sounds. Paul Hansen had various Foley-studio esque objects, that would allow him to make various sound effects.

The first of the films we were shown, "A Portal for Fools", was actually a new film, created in the style of of classic silent films. A Portal for Fools was a story about a girl building a portal to another point on the planet, only for her and a friend of hers to get lost in the portal. Two of the girl's friends have to go looking for her, which culminates in a Scooby-Doo-styled-chase scene where they try and find each other. A Portal for Fools was made for a contest, in which students aged 20 and under could make a silent film for a reward of hundreds of dollars, if they succeeded. A Portal for Fools was apparently last year's winner.

The second of the films, "The Battle of the Century", is a classic Laurel & Hardy comedy from 1927. For several decades, the film was thought to be lost (save for the climactic pie fight), until 2015, when most of the rest of the film was found.
The Battle of the Century was one of Laurel & Hardy's first shorts, before they knew each other very well or were famous. The short starts off with a boxing match, evidently set up to look like "The Battle of the Century". Laurel, one of the opponents in the match, ends up losing, to Hardy's dismay. Hardy seeks insurance, and the insurer tells Hardy that if Laurel has an injury, Hardy can pocket the insurance money.

While in the city, Hardy takes a banana peel, and throws it on the ground, hoping that Laurel will slip on it. However, a chef slips on it instead, and the chef throws a pie at Hardy. This starts a legendary pie fight that everybody in the city takes part in, including the mayor. This turns out to be the actual Battle of the Century.

Annabelle weighs in, as well ...

Once a year, the Paramount theater has a field trip for schools to go on a tour of the theater and see their Silent Movie Monday feature. We didn’t go on the tour, but we did enter the theater with a group from our school to see a student-made film from a local elementary, and an old (surprisingly complete) Laurel and Hardy skit. The student film was about a young scientist girl creating a portal, which her over-eager friend decides to jump into. The scientist girl hops in after him on a rescue mission, as her other friends wonder why he hasn’t shown up for lunch. They discover her missing and the portal activated, so they too join in on a rescue mission. What ensues is a comical chase scene where all 3 groups routinely miss each other while running through hallways and asking a (very angry) woman where their friends are. Eventually, they all literally run into each other and leave the alternate world. After a thorough scolding from the scientist, they all agree never to jump into random portals again.  The second silent film we were shown was a Laurel and Hardy skit that recently had the majority of the film found and restored. It was titled “The Fight of the Century”, starting with two boxers fighting in the ring. The crowd is pumped for the popular favorite to win against a comically stupid opponent. However, as the idiot’s coach shows him which hand to punch with, the idiot actually knocks out the favorite with a punch to the face! The entire crowd leaves when the idiot goes down for 2 seconds. Later, the stupid boxer and his coach are walking down the street when they bump into a pie shoppe owner, slipping his entire tray of whipped cream pies. The pie shoppe owner decides to throw the pies at them in spite, but ends up missing. The pies hit other innocent people, and what ensues is the real fight of the century, with about 30 people in a huge pie war! Apparently during filming 3,000 pies were used. That’s a lot of baking! The silent movies were hilarious, and even more so with the accompanying organ and Foley sound effects. I love watching silent movies at the Paramount!

The L&H movie is available on YouTube via several posts. This one looks to be one of the longer ones, so maybe it's most inclusive. It's a fun watch if you have 15 minutes to spare.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p_OUL8hzNx8

Standing up for Science

SOLIDARITY WITH SCIENCE: Saturday morning, we left the house around 10:30 to head to Seattle Center. From there, we caught the Monorail to Westlake park, where we planned to join the Seattle March for Science, one of over 600 marches around the world in support of science and scientists.

We got ot Westlake a little before 11:30, and the parade didn't start until 12, so rather than stand around, we decided to start walking up Pine street toward Capitol Hill, the parade's genesis. 

We walked and walked and walked some more, all up hill, and before we knew it, we were at the parade's starting line!

 We were happy we got to walk the entire route and experience the entire event! Above, CJ and Annabelle stand near the starting line, with Seattle Police Officers leading the way.

Below is the banner that led the march.

 We stood for awhile along Pine, watching the people and their signs pass by.

Both genders and ages were well represented.

We appreciated the time people took to make posters and share sentiments important to them.

 Below is a look down Pine, heading toward downtown from Capitol Hill. 

  

 We crossed over Interstate 5 on our way up Pine to the event's start, as well as on our way down, as marchers. 

 Galileo was represented at the march!

 Let's take a little break in here to let CJ tell you a bit about his march experience.

Back on 21 January 2017, I participated in the Womxn's March, 

As with the Womxn's March, my family made various signs to march with. My sister carried a hand-drawn sign, featuring a unicorn scientist. My sister's sign said (if I remember correctly) that science is true, no matter what you believe. My sign had two signs. One of them said that science are not "Alternative Facts", and the other side featured Mr. Spock, explaining that science denial is illogical.

All kinds of groups were at the march, from Socialists (specifically, this fringe "Socialist Freedom Party") to Satanists (specifically, a local chapter of the Satanic Temple). At one point in the march, a reporter had a short interview with my sister (embedded).

Next up is the People's Climate March, to be held on 29 April 2017.

 And here we'll take a quick break to share Annabelle's march impressions. ...

The Science March in Seattle took place on April 22^nd, also known as Earth Day. We went to the start of the march at noon and marched until 1:30. According to Google Maps, we walked 2.8 miles during the march (Probably closer to 3, walking to and from the car). The signs we saw were awesome and I loved seeing the creative sayings and puns people came up with. I saw many signs that said “I’m with her” with a picture of the Earth (A reference to Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign) and signs about climate change and how real it truly is. I dressed as a unicorn and held a sign with a scientist unicorn on it saying “Science doesn’t care what you believe”. The march was held in pouring rain, but we kept marching on. It was super fun, but I still can’t believe we have to march for this stuff.

 Below, the kids make the turn from Pine to Fourth Avenue, where we started heading north toward Seattle Center. 

We were happy to see Paul Allen's Cinerama had March for Science messages scrolling on its marquee.

 Along the way, Annabelle's unicorn costume caught the eye of a KIRO 7 reporter.

She wound up on the news that night. Go unicorns!
http://www.kiro7.com/video?videoId=515270094&videoVersion=1.0

After about an hour of walking, we found ourselves at Seattle Center, the end of the road for the march. 

 Annabelle found a couple of other unicorn-minded people there. 

 There was an enthusiastic band, and they even played the "Bill Nye the Science Guy" theme!

This was a sight we saw on our way home.  Even Science Marchers need some cash, it seems. :)

All in all it was a great day. We talked to lots of interesting people and we're glad the steady drizzle didn't dampen the spirits of thousands of pro-science people at the local event!