Archives: March 01, 2005

Your mistakes are as valuable as your successes

Wednesday, 30 March 2005 01:18 AM

Certain MIT grads have received unpleasant scrutiny of late, so it's nice to turn attention to an Institute fixture whom everyone liked: Dr. Harold Edgerton, inventor of high-speed flash photography and many other electronic marvels. Pittsburgh-area residents have a few more days to see some of his classic photographs in person, at the Silver Eye Gallery exhibit, "Seeing the Unseen: Photographs by Dr. Harold Edgerton."

As an undergraduate, I had the good fortune to take Strobe Lab (course 6.163 in MIT-speak). Dr. Edgerton didn't teach the course: by then he was Professor Emeritus. But he was a real presence, stopping by the darkroom and labs along Strobe Alley and attending Institute events frequently. My parents met him during one visit -- in place of business cards, he handed out postcards with his Milk Drop Coronet on the front. And he was in the class photo, which of course was taken in the dark with a flash. (I think we're all laughing because Doc Edgerton cracked a joke. Here's an annotated version of the photo.)

I never knew what to say to him. Here was this amazing innovator, someone who'd recognized what others hadn't and found ways to engineer solutions, and who was I? A spoiled kid following the steps of the lab exercises, like making recipes from a cookbook. I couldn't imagine what he thought, watching me and the rest of the students mimic his ground-breaking discoveries ... and fail sometimes to produce anything as interesting or beautiful as what he'd created. Yet he was unfailingly patient and nice, and perpetually wore an amused expression and an air of wanting someone -- any of us -- to surprise him.

In fact, the lab was a very good class; I'm sure it still is. Despite my lack of aptitude for solving equations -- and despite nearly shooting my boyfriend when recreating the bullet/soundwave experiments -- I'm sure I soaked up at least a little sense of lab procedure. And given that I took the class to fulfill the Institute-wide lab requirement, I suppose that was the main point.

One other big thing I got out of the course was a small collection of photographs that my lab partners and I took: tiny milk drop crowns, swinging golfclubs, bullets shooting through chalk and balloons. As un-innovative as they may be in the grand scheme, I find I'm quite proud of them.

You can see a few if you click the link below.

Taking a picture of a flying bullet isn't so hard. What's tricky is shooting through the playing card sideways.

Then again, a bullet does move quite quickly when it's shot from a rifle. We had lots of these pictures, with exploded chalk and no bullet.

The thing holding the cards and pieces of chalk was a standard-issue chalkboard eraser. Perfect for this application: stable and adjustable, and never flinched when the gun went off.

(In case you are questioning the wisdom of handing a full-fledged, loaded rifle to a bunch of undergraduates: The gun was bolted onto two sawhorses. To aim, you moved the sawhorses. The tricky thing was that the experiment, and therefore the shooting of the gun, happens in the dark -- the sound wave from the bullet triggers the flash via a little microphone and some electronics I never understood. So the lab team needs a clear protocol to ensure everyone has cleared out of the bullet's general target area before the trigger is fired. And it turns out that the whole team becomes a little tense if anyone, particularly the trigger person, fails to observe the protocol, even if it was an accident and the trigger person just sort of drifted off for a moment and squeezed the trigger without meaning to. Which tension is, of course, quite reasonable.)

Using a slightly different photography technique, you can photograph the sound waves of the bullet and of the reverberations of the thing it hit (in this case, a playing card turned to face the gun).

My lab notebook, each page dated and signed, with the contact sheet of our milk drop photos taped in.

My favorite of our milk drop coronet photos.

Changing gears here...

If I may differ a bit from the write-up from the Silver Eye:

Although the intent behind Edgerton’s research was scientific, there is no doubt that he cared passionately about the aesthetic properties of his images. In Seeing the Unseen (The publishing Trust of George Eastman House, 1994), Douglas Collins wrote, “What Edgerton cared about was the perfection of the picture, and he had the dedication required to turn creativity into a piece of well-formed work. His rightly famous photograph titled Milk Drop Coronet is a perfect example of an insistence on picture quality that has almost nothing to do with the image’s use as a piece of scientific data.”

Actually, we were told in class that Edgerton cared more about coming up with new ideas and innovations than he did about aesthetics. There's no doubt that he had a good eye for an eye-catching picture, but when he was experimenting he didn't waste time in making the perfect photograph.

Then again, when it was worth his while to create a stunning picture -- perhaps to promote his work, with the aim of getting funding for future projects -- he put in the time and effort and produced the photos for which he has become well-known. I'm reasonably sure that the famous milk drop photos were taken long after he'd come up with the idea and moved on to other problems: the famous color milk drop photo is from 1957, the famous color bullet-through-the-apple shot was taken in 1965, but the original black and white photography experimentation happened in the mid-1930s.

I believe he returned to those photos and made flashy, color images as a promotional gambit. It was smart marketing, which is nothing to feel bad about. But to interpret his attention to aesthetic detail in certain photos as a focus on visuals over science is to misunderstand his attitude toward experimentation.

A mutual sight for sore eyes

Tuesday, 22 March 2005 12:25 AM

The only way this song could be any more perfect in my view would be for it to be peformed live in my living room.

Having been exposed to it (via TMFTML) I googled up Devin Davis's website and ordered the CD. In the week since it arrived, I have listened to the whole thing no fewer than four times per day, and to certain tracks several times in a row daily. The album is perfectly full and lush, yet raw and naive, sublimely surreal, both pop-historically aware and modern.

Most amazingly, Devin Davis played all the instruments on the recording (with a few small exceptions), and recorded the whole thing himself. Then, while working as an engineer at a recording studio, he arranged, engineered, and produced the CD during unbooked studio time. As far as I can tell from the result, he is a god, and I wish to bear his children.

More MP3s can be found here, in case you need more convincing. Please listen, then buy, so he gets enough of a following and working capital to make another perfect album.

I do not have time for this

Saturday, 05 March 2005 09:12 PM

It's a Saturday night, and I am home specifically to work, very hard, on client-oriented tasks. I am here and not out, enjoying several delightful Martinis or other lovely beverages. And the last thing I need is this.

I hereby swear not to look at it again until all the tasks I have assigned for tonight are done. Honest Injun.

(Link via Ze Frank first -- when I managed to resist it -- and then Screenhead -- who broke down the last of my resistance)

Everybody knows about those cheese balls

Wednesday, 02 March 2005 10:35 PM

I'm going to be in a play, and you should come see it.

The Butler Little Theatre's next production is "The Book of Liz," written by Amy Sedaris and David Sedaris.

The story centers on Sister Elizabeth Donderstock, a member of a Squeamish community. She makes cheese balls (traditional and smoky) that sustain the existence of her entire religious community, Cluster Haven. Sister Donderstock faces personal crises, loses her way, finds it, reconsiders, and confronts questions about her faith and place in the world. It sounds serious, but actually it's outrageously comical. It's almost impossible to explain, so you'll have to come see it and enjoy.

The play is directed by Phil Ball with assistant director Randy Krampert, and produced by Dan McChesney, Marge Bankert, and Bob Meals. It features Nedra Casey, Dennis Casey, Fred Scasso, Terri Schultz, Amy Evans, and Cynthia Closkey (me!!).

This is a one act play and runs a little longer than an hour. If it had a movie-style rating, it would be PG-13 (language and situations).

And for me: I'm a huge fan of David Sedaris and Amy Sedaris. David Sedaris is my idol as a writer, and Amy Sedaris is a terrific comic writer and actor. So of course I wanted to be part of this production. But also, I find the play to be very funny and witty, especially in its use of casting actors in multiple roles, and I thought it would be an interesting challenge and lots of fun. And so it has turned out to be -- this is a great cast and crew. If anything, I wish the play were longer because it's terrific to work on.

Beyond being a comedy, this play has an offbeat style, full of satire and farce. The writing just kills. The characters, the situations, the lines: I laughed out loud when I first read it, and I still laugh reading it now, after umpteen readings and rehearsals.

Special note on making reservations: Due to constraints at our theatre, phone reservations can be taken only between 7 and 9pm on week nights. Don't be dismayed -- call soon!

Performance Details:

The Book of Liz, by the Talent Family, Amy Sedaris and David Sedaris
Butler Little Theatre, One Howard Street, Butler, PA
March 11 - 13 and 15 - 19, 2005

Curtain Times:
Friday, Saturday.......................8:15 p.m.
Sunday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday...7:30 p.m.

Tickets: $8 each
Reservations are accepted by phone at (724) 287-6781, Monday - Friday from 7-9 p.m.
Advance Reservations open to the public: Thursday, March 3

See also the Butler Littler Theatre website.

Copyright © 2004 – 2007 Cynthia Closkey