新文化现象

中国作家协会会员，国家一级作家，诗人赵丽华的诗：

《一个人来到田纳西》
毫无疑问
我做的馅饼
是全天下
最好吃的

Red Moon, Oct. 27, 2004

I was archiving my old photos and came through this one, taken on Oct. 27, 2004 during a total lunar eclipse. This was the natural color of the Moon during the totality of the eclipse when it was moving through the Earth's shadow. Guess what? The Earth's shadow is not completely dark! The reddish hue of the Moon was caused by the sunlight scattered and refracted by the Earth's atmosphere.

That night, the Boston Red Sox became the World Series Champion after 86 years. And I also became a baseball fan in the last two weeks of that season.


The moon before the eclipse:




Now a professional shot of the red moon:

Red Moon Triple
Credit & Copyright: Fred Espenak

Music in My Head

My favorite this week:

Franz Schubert 1797-1828
Piano Quintet in A Major, D667 'The Trout' (1819)
Movement IV Theme & Variations: Adantino (7:30)

This Quintet is named 'Trout' after the Schubert song which provides the theme for the fourth movement variations. Isn't it lovely?

Analemma

Analemma of the Moon
Credit & Copyright: Rich Richins

I love astronomy!

I came across this photo today, and I learned what an analemma is! For an explanation, click here and follow the links within.


Added Sept. 16, 2006: This person is amazing! Check out his photos of analemma at different hours of the day, taken as a multi-exposure on a single piece of film. I especially like this vertical one:

Jan 12, 2002 - Dec 21, 2002
12:28:16 UT+2
Athens, Greece (38.2997° N, 23.7430° E)
Copyright © 2001-2005, Anthony Ayiomamitis.

Five Years

Has it been really that long ago? This human tragedy. I can never forget that day.




Dr. MacDaddy D built an ice bucket tower all the way to the ceiling last night, only to find this morning that the top had collapsed overnight. Instead Dr. D constructed a more stable ice bucket pyramid (that used all the 21 buckets in the B Lab!). I call it Dr. D's 9/11 memorial:



Now the following one is the only-at-MIT Sept.11 tribute: a fake fire truck on top of the Great Dome.

Moonrise Over Boston

Sept. 6, 2006. 7:30pm.
Focal length 210mm. ISO 100 Av 5.0 Tv 1/4 (My hands were very steady :-) )

The building says "STATE STREET"
The hot air balloon says "Sovereign Bank"

Thanks to HB for notifying me of the moonrise.

Next month the photographer will get prepared for the Harvest Moon.

节目预告

Denali photos uploaded. Blog to follow (when I have time).

Alaska, Day 2

Rainy Day

Purple Fireweeds dot the highway

Glenn Hwy

Photos are here.

It was still raining on the second day. Outside of the rear window, the mountain looked so green in the rain. Laura, the owner of the B&B, had left early for her work at the hatchery. We helped ourselves to some breakfast in the kitchen and also met other guests. There was a young couple who seemed to be very quiet and left the breakfast table early. Then there was this old couple who chatted with us for a long time. They were from Ohio, retired, and had been in Alaska for a while. They lived in Beijing and Shanghai for two years, in 1998 and 1999. The husband worked for a British ice cream company (that I haven’t heard of). They loved China. Then came the two ladies from Fairbanks. They came to visit a friend and went fishing the day before. They caught about 18 salmons.

Before I went to breakfast, I turned on my laptop, and found that there was wireless Internet. I chatted with HB and HQ and also blogged one entry. Troubadour said that I should waste no more time online, for we had 500 miles to drive that day. I hurried up and we were off by 9am.

It was rainy and foggy and misty as we drove out of town. The mountains still did not reveal their true identities to us. We stopped as we approached Thompson Pass, and I took this picture



Pippin Lake looked completely different from the day before. Compare these two pictures:

Aug. 18, 2006

Aug. 17, 2006

In Glennallen, we headed directly to the only Radioshack, because we had been really fed up with the few music CDs I had packed for the trip. We need a cable that could connect my mp3 player to the car stereo. I found a dabbing cable that looked right, but I wasn’t sure. I asked for help. Alaskans surprised me again. The guy who worked in the store first tried to find me a cheaper version of the gold cable; then he torn open the package and handed me the cable, and said, “you go to your car and try it out.” I was totally shocked by the trust he bestowed on me. And luckily it was the right thing, so I didn’t have to feel guilty about making him torn the package open.

We saw the only moose during our whole trip on this day. He was right next to the road, munching on leaves, in the rain. He was very close to Palmer.

We went to a MacDonald’s in this town, because I craved for a milkshake. I also convinced Troubadour to get a French fry to share, too. As we were waiting for our orders, we heard someone say, “你们从哪里来？(Where are you from?)” That totally surprised us. In this remote town of 4,500 people, out of nowhere! It was a young American guy. Lesson learned: never say bad things if you don’t want people to hear.

It rained harder after we turned north on to Parks Hwy. Wasilla seemed to be a large town, with its center stretched on the highway for miles, causing traffic delays. The rain just wouldn’t stop. It was down pouring (like Boston’s Nor’easter) for the three hours we were on Parks Hwy. Though it was raining hard, I could still maintain 60 mph. We passed numerous creeks and rivers. On each one there would be a sign. I laughed at this one creek for its name, Troublesome Creek (at Milepost 137.4). What a silly name. Only if I knew that one day later, it was going to wash out the highway bridge and cut off Parks Hwy.

Of course, with the limited visibility, we couldn’t see the Alaskan Range. No Mt. McKinley today.

Central Square, Central Scare

Years ago, YL told me the nickname for Central Square, Cambridge. "Central Scare! Yes! It's getting better now, but it used to be really unsafe before. Drug dealers used to do their business there at night. Don't walk alone at night. Roll up your windows when you drive through."

It sounded really scary. I carefully followed his suggestions and never walked alone at night. Central Square is a nice place during the day: I especially like the Pearl, the art and craft store; the Harvest, the local grocery co-op where you can get exotic spices in bulk for low prices; and lots of restaurants, and clubs. Maybe it would be better without those clubs. Over the years we've heard about fights, and one time a gunfight where someone got killed not far from D's purple house. I mean, that was really scary. But it was never really close to me.

Not until last night, or very early this morning, did I feel the scare. After staying late to set up a second plate of real-time polymerase chain reaction (yeah! I've finally advanced to the 21st century!), I took off around 1:30am (yes, I am still in the Mountain Time). I stopped at the red light on Mass Ave. at the fire station. I felt lucky that I didn't run the yellow light because a cop car was stopped in front of me on the right. The cops pulled over one car. The young driver was ordered to stand behind the car, with his hands on the trunk. The two cops were searching the inside, one of them shining a flash light at the passenger, the other holding a baseball bat. He looked at it for a while, and then went back to the cop car, and threw the bat to the back seat. What was going on here? Suddenly I felt really scared. What if those kids had a gun in the car? What if they just started shooting? I was too close to them. Oh I was in danger! Now I really understood why it was Central Scare. Those scary kids!

It seemed to me to take forever for the light to become green again. I drove as fast as I could without any residual curiosity at what was really going on with those kids in that car. Not far away, on Western Ave. I encountered another three cop cars and some cops outside talking. Oh my, it must be a block party for cops late at night. Again I was lucky that I didn't speed above the posted limit of 25mi/h when I approached those cops.

How Much Does a Musician Make?

That was my question to Milos when we were at a (free, thanks to Jenny and BSO) BSO concert last year. Apparently they don't make much. Some of them even work a second job to make enough money for a decent living. That sounded so dread to me. Much like us scientists (at least us students and postdocs), musicians devote their whole life to what they really love, yet they don't get paid well. That saddened me, especially when I was enjoying the music they were making.

Then I read in last Friday's NY Times that BSO's musicians have ratified a contract giving them a 13.6% salary raise over three years, to a minimum salaray of $128,180 in the 2008-9 season. The musicians of the Cleveland Orchestra also ratified a 10.5% raise over three years, to a minimum of $115,440.

Well, that sounds like good news to me. At least they are making relatively good money. But these are two of the five most famous symphonies in this country. What about musicians in less renowned music groups? They probably really have to toil (like us poor students and postdocs) to make ends meet.

我的天啦！

副标题：超女怎么啦？
副副标题：周末开心一笑

警告：非常恐怖，慎入。本博不负任何精神损失之责任。

注：需要有Windows Media Player播放。如有播放技术问题，请看source去原址。


今天浏览一年轻娱记的博客，忽然间被一阵喧哗的噪音吓住，仔细一看，原来是本周超女十进八的开场歌舞。那个方言的“你知不知道”让我怀疑是不是合肥话，感觉和“从肥东到肥西，买一只老母鸡”如出一辙，竟然有一点亲切感哩。大伙儿说呢？

要说超女唱的啥？与时俱进，“八荣八耻”啦！差点儿没把我的隐形眼镜给跌出来。我怎么发现我这么反感喊口号的宣传呢？按说我早过了少年叛逆期了啊。只能说这宣传水平太差。我想知道有多少人可以接受这“八荣八耻”的教育，除了小孩子之外。其实我觉得，那些大大小小的官员们才该带头，深入地，彻底地，认真地，长久地学习和贯彻“八荣八耻”。难为了时尚的超女，要做这样的宣传。好了，我的政治观点发表完了。

我总共看过两场超女的比赛。祖国遍地是人才啊。小姑娘们歌普遍唱得不错，绝对够王菲的水平，就差那么一点点巨星的气质。准备看今年的决赛，当然我想跳过评委的环节和所有的广告以及李大脸的主持，只看唱的就最好了。我看好我的四川小老乡谭维维，不知我的预言是否会实现。


贴给大家看看什么是“八荣八耻”：


以热爱祖国为荣、以危害祖国为耻，

以服务人民为荣、以背离人民为耻，

以崇尚科学为荣、以愚昧无知为耻，

以辛勤劳动为荣、以好逸恶劳为耻，

以团结互助为荣、以损人利己为耻，

以诚实守信为荣、以见利忘义为耻，

以遵纪守法为荣、以违法乱纪为耻，

以艰苦奋斗为荣、以骄奢淫逸为耻。


后注：贴得我好辛苦啊。以为我出了技术问题，害得我viewed my blog a dozen of times.

Alaska, Day 1

Green, green everywhere

(set of photos on Flickr is here.)

I know you are all eager waiting for my photos from the trip. So here is the first day, Aug. 17. In fact, I arrived Anchorage at 8:30pm on Aug. 16. When my flight approached the airport, I saw underneath the thick clouds a place so green that I couldn't associate it with the notion of a snow country in winter. The aircraft circled and to close in the airport from over Fire Island, an island with steep cliffs all around, covered by thick woods, in the silt-filled Cook Inlet. In a short distance, a small arc of rainbow appeared opposing the setting sun. That was the first welcome sign Anchorage showed me, only I didn't know that it was going to be the wettest August in many many years. I must have jinxed my luck by pre-posting wishing myself a drier trip.

I woke up to a rainy day, a little unnerving. But I was on vacation! Anchorage is a small city according to my standards. Besides, I was here for the Alaskan wildness. So we set off around 10am after getting the car and some food supply for the road. It rained really hard at times as we were heading north towards Palmer. Our destination today was Valdez, about 300 miles away. We took Highway 1, the Glenn Highway, towards Glennallen. From there we would go south on Highway 4, the Richardson Highway, to Valdez.

After we got into the mountains, the rain let up a little bit. Little by little, we started to see the other side of the river valley. At mile 79, we saw this river (Matanuska River). Notice the silt deposit in the river:


The peak next to the river (notice: it's all green):


At Mile ~100, we first saw the Matanuska Glacier (the source of Matanuska River):

The glacier is 27 miles long, 6 miles wide, and 300 meters deep.

Its close shot:


Peaks in Clouds:


Colorful rocks show their volcanic past:


Yet another glacier: Nelchina


Glennallen is a tiny town. It has two gas stations and a Radioshack on Glenn Hwy. We turned right at the end of the road, and followed the road on Copper River valley.

At Pippin Lake, we could see the distant mountains in east as the Wrangell Mountains (3000 to 5000m above sea level). From afar, they looked small. Notice the white dot on the lake shore. It was a float plane.


We took Highway 10 and drove to Chitina. The view of the Wrangells was spectacular. Chitina was even smaller, compared to Glennallen. The only Bed and Breakfast had this sign out:


The paved road ends in Chitina. We walked over to the other side of the cut-out pass,


and the Copper River and the Mountains appeared in front of us:


Coming back and continuing on Richardson Hwy, we saw yet a third glacier of the day, the Worthington Glacier:

Only later did I learn that it was very easy to approach. I would have hiked over there if I knew this earlier, and if the weather weren't so bad.

The famous Thompson Pass was completely trapped in thick fog. Visibility was probably 10 feet only. We carefully followed the truck ahead. We didn't get to see what I expected to be breathtaking view of the Chugach mountains. But we did see some waterfalls later on:


Then we got to Valdez. We passed the Trans-Alaska Pipeline several times on the Richardson Hwy. Now we saw it ending on the other side of the bay. It is said that daily flow is 1.7 million barrels. I think the flow was stopped right before we started our Alaskan trip up north in the Prudhoe Bay because of corrosion in the pipeline. That's probably why we didn't seen any big ships.

There was road construction close to town. Traffic was reduced to one lane. We experienced our first traffic jam in Alaska.

When we got in town, I found out that I mis-placed the address of the B&B we were going to stay. Luckily I map-memorized its location, and with the help of a GPS, we found L&L's B&B. Laura, the owner, told us that we were lucky because it was one of the best days in weeks, for we could see the mountains across the bay from the house. She also recommended the best seafood/Italian restaurant in town, Mike's Palace. We asked for a key. She said, "We don't lock our door. You know, we are in this part of the town."

Valdez is called "the Switzerland of Alaska". The harbor was very beautiful, in the overcast natural lighting at 9pm.


There we watched fishermen (and a fisherwoman) filleting fish. I marvelled at a flat fish with two eyes on one side, "big fish!" The fisherwoman said, "that one? No, it's a baby halibut. It's only about 25 pounds. It's about $13 per pound."

We watched people dumping the fish debris into the bay, and seagulls eating them. That evening I ordered a baked halibut, and it was delicious.