Author: Stacy Horn

There are all sorts of gaps in my education. I remember there was one personally traumatic year, the 7th or the 8th grade, nothing genuinely horrible happened, it was regular growing-up stuff, but I don’t think I paid much attention to what went on in school all year and to this day I’m fuzzy about how a bill becomes a law.

Luckily, I find pretty much everything interesting, so I’m always looking up something or other, trying to find out more about it. But unluckily, unlike the stuff I learned when I was a kid, within months or a year, I forget whatever it is I looked up. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve had to look up how a bill becomes a law, except I don’t really keep looking that up, I’m just using it as an example. A better example: I have a map on my desk because I don’t want to be one of those people “who can’t find Iraq on a map,” except within days I forget where it is and I have to keep looking it up repeatedly.

The biggest gap in my education is in science, which is such a shame. I really have to wonder about all those science and math teachers who made it seem like the most dull, irrelevant subject in the world. I regularly have my mind blown when I read the science Times or go to a lecture. I would be hard pressed to come up with anything more exciting than science. Thinking … having a revelation when you’re in therapy. Not that it does you any good, but better to know than not know! It might even be fair to call that science. Anyway, there’s probably more examples of equally exciting things, but still.

My problem is often I am without any foundation to truly grasp what I am reading or hearing. I’m trying to make up for it, like reading Natalie Angier’s book The Canon. I perked-up yesterday at the movies (M. Night Shyamalan’s The Happening) when the main character, a science teacher, was telling his students to remember the scientific method as they ran out the door. “Identify the variables, design experiments …” It went by too fast, alas.

I would love to see a TV show, with an ensemble cast of actors playing scientists, where this process of discovery is regularly dramatized, something really high-level though, not crappy. Where the scientists are people and not cartoon nerds. There’d be challenges to doing such a series, but there are plenty of ridiculously talented people out there. Get on it, talented people!

The picture is from Nasa’s website and the caption reads, “A Perfect Storm of Turbulent Gases in the Omega/Swan Nebula (M17).”

Photo lost! I don’t know where it went!

LOVED the opening number last night, loved it! Hated the camera editing though, as usual. It was so frenetic I couldn’t really focus on the dancers. I don’t envy the camera people, there was a lot happening on the stage, but still. Just hold onto each dancer or group a little bit longer, just little, little bit longer. Less with the jumping around, okay? Please.

I agreed with the choice of who went home, though. I don’t agree with all the criticism being leveled at Matt, however. Jesus, Nigel. If he wore a bra with beads would you be happier?

As usual, I love reading other people’s recaps. Here’s a favorite from this morning about last night’s show, from Levy on tv.

Oh, hey, look, it’s a group of dancing prostitutes. What’s that, they’re a popular band called The Pussycat Dolls? Ok, got it. There’s a group of dancing prostitutes on stage called The Pussycat Dolls. The song is atrociously bad, with no melody or, you know, singing to speak of. At least they’re dancing though, which most musical acts last season did not do. I have to say, I truly hope they’re not lip-synching because then the song is actually that atonal and spoken. Yikes.

In other news: Two fun movies opened today! The Happening and The Incredible Hulk. I’m going with The Happening first.

So I was walking home from the library, and I was stopped on Fifth Avenue by the sight of these paintings in the windows of Lord & Taylor by Spanish painter Juan Genoves (courtesy of Marlborough Gallery). Art! At Lord & Taylor! I think even in this low-res photograph you can get a sense of how amazing it is.

– Got a pedicure (pictured).
– Went through all the copy edits for my book. (Apparently I don’t know when to use the word “that” and when to use “which.”)
– Made a few phone calls to California law enforcement about the Bruce Kremen case. (Waiting to hear back.)
– Also tried to follow up on a New Jersey murder. (Freaking amazing that I tried to stay far away from murder and my book ends up having murders in it. Not amazing in retrospect, given the subject, but it didn’t occur to me at the time.)
– Wrote the acknowledgments for my book. (No-win. I’m sure to have left out someone I shouldn’t have.)
– Emailed a few people about physicist Hugh Everett’s many worlds theory. (Wish I had studied science in school.)
– Finished my legal issues to-do list. (Phone call meeting today.)
– Ordered a Father’s Day gift online. (And second guessed myself immediately after.)
– A bunch of reading. In fact, I will post soon about what I’m reading. It will be a post about science. But I was reading from The Elegant Universe, and The Canon (a book about science for people who know nothing about science, a nice overview, thank you Natalie Angier).

Out there. Even though it’s already pretty over here on the West Side, by the Hudson River, they are working on making it even prettier. Here is a worker taking a break. It might be too small to see, but behind him are pots and pots and pots of what look like grass. That doesn’t make sense, right? Surely there are better ways to lay grass.

Today’s to-do: doctor’s appointment, copy edits, write acknowledgments, write up a couple of paragraphs about parallel worlds, follow-up with detectives, pedicure.

To-not: be outside very much if at all possible. It’s supposed to hit 100 for God’s sake. For instance, I was going to go to the library. That can wait. Oh and the gym, the gym. Yeah. Hmmm. I don’t think so.