davidvanwert.com

Tonight (well, last night at this point) I ran the light board for Built to Spill’s concert in a tent out back of the Pyramid Alehouse in SODO (south downtown) Seattle.

This was the coolest rock-show light-board gig to fall into my lap since running the board for Tool at the (gone, sadly) Avalon in Chicago back in ‘92. I also ran the Avalon board for a little group called Pearl Jam that same year. Everybody at the Avalon was really excited about this Pearl Jam combo. I thought, “Yeah, they were okay…” But I didn’t get really excited about anyone we hosted there until Tool. Though Tool has a pretty solid following, and I prefer them to this day, this little story is a lovely example of how David can’t see a sure winner when it plays “Jeremy” right in front of him.

Oh well. Built To Spill was a great show, Tool was a great show, and Pearl Jam have done okay for themselves… so everyone wins.

If we ask, for instance, whether the position of the electron remains the same, we must say “no”; if we ask whether the electron’s position changes with time, we must say “no”; if we ask whether the electron is at rest, we must say “no”; if we ask whether it is in motion, we must say “no”.

Robert Oppenheimer, ‘Science & the Common Understanding’, 1954

It moves. It moves not.
It is far, and It is near.
It is within all this,
and it is outside of all this.

from the Isha Upanishad, 500 B.C.

An elementary particle is not an independently existing unanalyzable entity. It is, in essence, a set of relationships that reach outward to all things.

H.P. Stapp, ‘S-Matrix Interpretation of Quantum Theory’, 1971

Material objects derive their being and nature by mutual dependence and are nothing in themselves.

Nagarjuna, circa 100 A.D.

In space-time everything which for each of us constitutes the past, the present and the future is given en bloc… each observer as his time passes discovers, so to speak, new slices of space-time which appear to him as successive aspects of the material world, though in reality the ensemble of events constituting space-time exist prior to his knowledge of them.

Louie De Broglie, 1949

It is believed by most that time passes; in actual fact, it stays where it is. The idea of passing may be called time, but it is an incorrect idea, for since one sees it only as passing, one cannot understand that it stays just where it is.

Dogen Zenji, ‘Shobogenzo’, 1253

Tis that special day, that day that comes but once a yearrr — International Talk Like A Pirate Day. On this day we rejoice in the community of spirit that fills us all when we join together to talk like pirates.

If you need any help, just watch this important educational film. It covers all the important do’s and don’ts for the heretics who haven’t been observing this holiday.

And if you happen to read this post after September 19th, watch the filmstrip anyway so you’ll be prepared for next yearrr.

And now, my favorite pirate joke:
A little boy is trick or treating by himself on Halloween, dressed as a pirate. At one house, a man seeing the boy alone asks, “Where are your buccaneers?” The little boy responds, “On either side o’ me ‘buccan’ head!”