Standing O for the Symphony of Science
If you didn’t catch the release earlier this week, the groovy folks at Symphony of Science have released a new video. This one features Carl Sagan, Robert Jastrow, Michio Kaku and some Richard Dawkinsy goodness.
Now I know you want to get your galactic groove on to the rest of the videos. Man, the song from the first one just sticks in your head and doesn’t let go.
You can also order “A Glorious Dawn” on 7″ vinyl, which has a B-side that’s out of this world:
Third Man Records, in conjunction with United Record Pressing, fabricated a special “Cosmos Colored Vinyl” of which 150 copies will be available…50 randomly inserted into mail orders for “A Glorious Dawn” and the remainder to be made available at the Third Man Records Nashville store front at noon on November 9th.
The one-sided single features a very special etching on the flipside. Reproduced from the original artwork, the etching copies the etching included with the Voyager Golden Record, set off into space in 1977 as the most elaborate message-in-a-bottle idea ever imagined.
I have a big spot in my heart for the Symphony of Science creations – it reminds me of my planetarium days, where I actually got to to create science music videos on a giant domed screen 60 feet across for a living.
In the 90s, I worked for a company that did the laser shows you would see in planetariums, like the Pink Floyd and Led Zeppelin shows you’d go to with your friends when you probably should’ve been studying in a library somewhere. A few weeks after Carl Sagan passed away, I was asked to create some sort of planetarium show tribute to him to a group of planetarium educators for an upcoming planetarium conference in Philadelphia. Whoa – no pressure there! Just somehow give a deserving tribute to the most famous astronomy educator to the collected group of my educator colleagues!
I went to work at my Pro Tools console, with a video tape collection of the entire Cosmos series to make the soundtrack. With Sagan’s words and the then out-of-print soundtrack to Cosmos and Vangelis’ Heaven and Hell (where the main theme from the TV series came from), Carl Sagan slowly came back from beyond. Under the planetarium dome in Boston, I slaved away on laser-created imagery, and mapped out a storyboard for visuals for a digital star projector that they had there in Philly, and coordinated with the programmer there about what visuals to put where. I didn’t know if it would all come together at the last minute when I got to Philly, and even if it worked, I didn’t know how people would react to what I created in just a few weeks. I was trying to pay tribute to a giant in a room full of hardened astronomy educators who were very familiar with Sagan’s work (some of whom knew him).
I got to Philly, and found out that my show was scheduled to be the last thing people saw at the conference – the grand finale – and it was to be a surprise to the delegates. As my boss introduced my show to all assembled in the large, round theater, I sat in the planetarium and laser control console in the rear, trying to remember the complicated sequence of events to pull it all off; it was a live performance – like playing some arcane musical instrument being conducted by Sagan himself. I only had a chance to rehearse the show once in the wee hours of the night before – it could all crash and burn at the moment, given all the different technologies hacked together. The lights slowly faded, I hit play on the reel-to-reel audio tape, and merged the darkness into a vibrant cloud of a multiwatt violet laser nebula with the first notes of Vangelis’ piano.
laser lumia sample by http://www.lightshow.cc/
As Carl’s words merged with the powerful music in the darkness, I flew the audience through galaxies, into DNA molecules, then skimmed the surface of planets. I was completely caught up in the performance, and everything around me seemed to fade away. After about four minutes, the starry heavens evaporated with Carl’s words, “I believe our future depends on how well we know this Cosmos in which we float like a mote of dust in the morning sky.” Our own morning came in the form of theater lights. As the spell lifted, there was silence. I slowly glanced around at the circular room full of friends, colleagues, and current and former coworkers.
The renovated Fels Planetarium at the Franklin Institute in Philadelphia
Huge applause erupted in the dome, and as my eyes adapted to the soft light, I noticed some people were crying. It hit me how much we all missed him. As planetarians, as astronomy educators, we had lost our champion. We were so used to having Carl Sagan out there talking to the world as an eloquent advocate for exploration and rationalism, that it took something like this to remind us all of how irreplaceable he was.
As folks made there way around to the exit, they thanked me, and were nice enough to say very kind words about the show. Unfortunately, I can’t post the show on youtube or DVD – it was made in a place and time with things that can’t be recorded like giant domes and coherent photons. The light, sound and emotion was an experience in the moment – very much like we all are in this life.
