Living in 3 - 1/2 Dimensions

I'm warning you now: this will probably be a long entry. The plan is to use this blog entry as a technical journal, a review article, and a "inner monologue" diary... so here goes.

The simplest one first. It's July. Last you heard from me, I was talking about the relationship between people and their surrounding environment as well as doubling the fact that if I stayed in one spot over this summer, I would probably be bored out of my mind already. Well, I continue to be busy, so at least I'm not bored. In the past week-and-a-half, I had a series of mini-trips.

First, I spent a few days with my uncle and grandparents. I helped my uncle out with some outdoor work (setting 1,320 pounds of concrete is definitely a lot easier with two people instead of one) and the only downside was getting notable sunburn on my arms and head. Then, I spend the weekend with my sister and brother-in-law. They hosted a bbq on Saturday night so a few people were over. (I got to try out the 4-player Super Mario Brothers Wii for the first time.) It would have been nice to have more adventures/outings with Tess, but we were able to go see the Dead Sea Scrolls on Monday at the Science Museum. Everyone got these devices the size of a cell phone that you would program in numbers on the wall and hear about parts of the exhibit. We also got to see an IMAX show about Arabia and it was pretty sweet (although we did have to rush through the end part of the DSS exhibit that had all the stuff with the St Johns Bible.

After that, I spent a few days in Minneapolis. It was nice to spend some time in Uptown (the weather was GORGEOUS everyday) including trying out the new "Uptown Cafeteria and Support Group" as well as Bryant Street Bowl, which is a combination restaurant/bowling alley. (I'm refraining from my pure stream of conscious because it includes a tangent about the oddity of using buildings that were originally movie theaters/grocery stores/bowling alleys for something else.) Other than that, I wasn't necessarily running around the Cities to excess, but it was nice to simply get back in that environment. When I was in St Cloud (yes, I know, backtracking without simply typing this earlier, how dare I), I had dinner with an old resident and she made the comment about she thought me living in Minneapolis just fit. She elaborated by going into the theater/music aspect, but I did really enjoy living in the Cities over those 4 years. Who knows, maybe I'll come back to work there again someday.

Anyway, my time in the Cities definitely had a different feel to the week I spent in Spring Break, but part of that was definitely the different time frames. I came back via bus (even with adjusting the time table multiple times, thank you Jefferson Lines all the same), and now I have a few days in town to celebrate the 4th, see some family, and get ready for my road trip to Chicago/South Bend! Whoo!

(Oh, and today, I had a dentist appointment and I didn't have anything to worry about. No staining or "you have a lot of plaque buildup"... it's a little feat, but I'm happy.)


So this is the point where I transfer from calendar report to theater review. I was driving around town today when I heard an advertisement for a show at the Playhouse. It was "Picasso at the Lapin Agile" written by Steve Martin which has its last performance on Saturday night. So I figured that since I didn't have anything going on, I wanted to support the Playhouse, and Steve Martin writing a play intrigued me, so I went to the Playhouse and picked up a ticket probably 3 minutes before the house lights went down.

I'm going to start off plain and simple: the show was awesome. If you just happen to be in the Bemidji area and read this before Saturday night, this is the perfect thing to make your evening. Okay, I realize that this show may not be for everyone, but I absolutely loved it. It's as if Steve Martin was living on my floor my freshman year of college and saw budding connections and moments of singularity between people from two different fields: math/science and art/music. If you happened to know people who really liked math and science but also were in a music group, you may already have had a conversation about how math and music are strangely similar: both follow patterns but both can have some chaotic elements introduced and both can be broken into many sub-fields/genres.

The play's plot follows a fictional meet-up between Albert Einstein and Pablo Picasso in a Parisian bar just four years into the 20th century. Both men are still unknown on a global scale (Einstein is relying on his patent clerk job and Picasso is trying to get his art out into the world by way of an art dealer), and in an interview with Steve Martin about the play, he said that he selected this time because both men were on the verge of something great and "being on the verge is interesting". (In 1905, Einstein published the Special Theory of Relativity, while in 1907, Picasso painted "Les Demoiselles D'Avignon", a painting today's general public knows by sight, but not by name.) That's all I'm going to give away about the plot, because it's better to see it unravel in front of you.

The script is, of course, the foundation of any play, and the script of "Picasso at the Lapin Agile" creates an amazing foundation. Steve Martin wrote a show that easily goes between general silliness, a thought-provoking moment about the future or connectivity between Einstein and Picasso, a nerdy joke delivered by Einstein, and shattering the 4th wall. Lines that break the 4th wall (for example, someone saying "I can't be out in front of so many people" when the stage is otherwise empty) can seem gimmicky when used too often, but the lines make your mind snap back into the real world for a brief moment, and then the storyline continues and you get sucked back in again. As I mentioned before, there are great moments that show the similarities between the works of Einstein and Picasso, which is best played out in a show down moment between the two (believe me, it works).

Now, the delivery. I came into the show knowing little (with one of those pieces being that the show was written by Steve Martin), and I'm not sure if this was the actors'/actresses'/director's/etc choice, but there were moments where it felt like I was practically hearing the jokes right from Steve Martin's mouth. This was particularly true for Gaston, an older bar patron. Michael L was perhaps the best choice for Schmendiman the Playhouse could have picked because Michael was able to burst on stage with amazing energy and keep it up the entire time. Jessie L was tasked to play three different female parts and she did a great job making sure that the characters all didn't mesh into one (and this was definitely more than just the different costumes and wigs). Of course, Ari H and Ryan K should both be commented for excellently portraying Einstein and Picasso respectively. (The only thing that made me scratch my head a little was why Einstein, his love interest, and Picasso seemed to be the only characters with dialects that weren't American. Then again, the play revolves around a German physicist and Spanish painter winding up in the same Parisian bar. While Picasso did spend part of his time in Paris, the patent office Einstein worked in was in Berne, Switzerland, which is 6 hours away... in other words, I let the accents go and chalked it up to the magic of theater.)

Other aspects quickly. The set nicely laid the scene while not being overbearing and the cast definitely filled out the stage throughout the entire show. The costumes all worked well together (especially with the distinction between the normal bar workers/patrons, Einstein and his love interest, and Picasso, his love interest, and his admirer). The lighting design was good overall, although having some lights flicker on and off during the normal bar scene was distracting at first. I realize that the intended effect was most likely to give character to the bar by giving it a light on the verge of burning out, but like I said, I found myself looking skyward the first time or two it happened. The properties people deserve credit for getting a 1900's camera including enough flash powder for each show. One thing that I wasn't expecting is that the play was simply one act. Well actually, it was just one scene. The lights went up, all the characters did their thing and when the lights all went down, it was done. It's something that isn't the normal theater procedure, but again it works, assuming you don't need to use the restroom halfway through and hope for an intermission soon.

Like I said before, I loved this show and I'm really glad I got to see it. I realize my geekiness added to my personal enjoyment of the show, but the other audience members were laughing at the nerdy jokes in addition to everything else.


Well, that was nice to get that written down. I felt like I was channeling a movie critic that I follow online (MovieBob for those of you who are looking for someone to tell it like it is). After I saw the show, I had this nice little "inner monologue" going, similar to the one that inspired "People Make the Place". In fact, my thought process included many of the same elements but took things another step forward. Unfortunately, it's been a few hours since I was walking down the street, so I can't remember everything I was thinking.

At the end of the show, all the cast was toasting to the new century ahead and talking about what they thought the next 100 years would bring. I think that the same mindset can be applied to the present day. Yes, it's 2010 but in regards to the 21st century, it's still pretty young. There are loads of things just sitting past the horizon and we as a species need to not only consider what could be out there, but also simply thinking about the long-term effects of the decisions we are making now. (When I walked home, I didn't include this thought which could easily go into an environmentally conscious tangent, but it kind of fits as well.) Also, at the end of the show, there was a feeling that the characters were looking at their time ahead as precious, which made me think of 3-1/2 dimensions mindset.

Now, we can all agree that we live in a three-dimensional world. When you are standing up, you can sidestep left or right, walk forward or backwards, and jump up or squat down. Now, I like to think of time as the fourth dimension because it's something that is always in existence (the simplest example is that space is a void except for the three spatial dimensions and time). When you look at one of the spatial directions (for example, sidestepping left and right), you know that we can control where we are in regards to that dimension as well our velocity. You won't explode if you tiptoe to your right and then scramble to sidestep to your left. This works for the three spatial dimensions but with time, we have no control. We can't flip directions and go backwards in time, and even though people always hope, we can't slow down time to enjoy good company or speed up time to finish the driving/flying sooner. Time is basically a train that just chugs along at 1 sec/sec and we're just sitting in a passenger car with a "do not disturb" sign on the engineer's door. So, since we don't have full control over that fourth dimension, I think of it as 3-1/2 dimensions. (Yes, I realize that you can't actually have just half a dimension, but I think I explained my reasoning just now. Also, most fields of math and modern physics don't use time as the fourth dimension but instead go into the theoretical concept of a dimension that is perpendicular to all three known dimensions at the same time... but I'm not making this mindset to publish it any time soon.)

So, 3-1/2 dimensions. With time continuously moving forward, it's really our responsibility to use the past as a reference, use the future as potential goals, but really sink our teeth into the here and now. I mean, it *is* called the present. (Yeah, it's corny, but it works.)

I've also been thinking about this stuff with respect to this summer. I'm definitely busy with trying to see lots of people. I realize that my time is limited (in fact, I'm right around halfway through my Minnesota summer) and so I'm trying to fit as much stuff in while I have the time. As an odd counter-balance to this, I was also thinking about the times I've had to say no. It may not be physically saying 'no', but just realizing that some things just won't work out. After the show finished and everyone left the theater, I saw a family I've known for years in the other aisle. Did I rush over and give them all a big hug? Well, no. Did I feel bad about simply walking home without saying hi? Yeah, at first. The more I thought about it, however, the more I thought about my limited time. When I graduated high school, my sister made me this booklet that was filled with her thoughts/advice/stories about college and one big piece was that "life is a balancing act". We all have to find the right combination between work, personal time, time with family, time with friends, sleep, time for groups/hobbies/religion, etc. I thought that if I tried to connect with everyone that I saw at the distance while I was here, I would burn myself out (which is kind of the opposite of an ideal summer).

Another quote that came to mind when I was walking home was from an Academy student. She interviewed a second-year student who told her "if you don't take time for yourself, you'll burn yourself out" or something of that respect (I don't have the exact quote with me). It's basically a rewording of "life is balancing act" but I think it can really articulate the need to set aside time for everything. In other words "if you don't take time to (fill in the blank), you'll run out of steam". Whether that blank is "sleep", "talk with family", "do absolutely nothing" or even "play video games", it's important to keep you going... to keep me going.

Yeah, those were the two points that really hit home. Since I have those written down, I should definitely get some shuteye. I will definitely be glad when I have the A/C units back in Missouri because the heat in the house during the day is just kind of ridiculous. Just saying. Night.