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I give a lot of credit to airline flight attendants in coach class. They have a very stressful job, and are dealing with a lot of grumpy people. In my experience, flight attendants in coach have been very professional and expert at dealing with a situation that isn’t pleasant for anybody.

But I must say that my flight from Frankfurt to NY had one perk: I got an enormous amount of work done. Lufthansa’s policy of providing an electric outlet at every seat didn’t hurt. And the fact that I had an aisle seat in a half empty plane didn’t hurt either.

The delight of finding an empty seat next to you in coach class never gets old. Sure, you are still uncomfortable, but you are not actually suffering.

And on this flight, that feeling of delight fueled a surge of creative energy. For six hours it was just me and my trusty MacBook computer, working happily together in splendid isolation.

Today, despite my jet lag, I am still riding that wave of creative energy, and still getting loads of work done. With any luck, I’ll be able to ride this wave all the way to the next flight.

The world experienced a moment of sanity, as a sane, articulate centrist candidate, who actually expressed something of substance about the issues during debates, won an election against the creepy right wing extremist. I was beginning to think that only happens in Canada.

Of course here in America we’ve moved beyond such prosaic concepts as electing a sane, articulate centrist candidate, who actually expresses something of substance about the issues during debates. Perhaps because we have our own special brand of creepy right wing extremists.

I guess everyone has a moral line they won’t cross to win an election, even Marine Le Pen. Sure, her party has ties to white supremacists and still carries the stink of Vichy, and sure, she has a loyal following among vocal antisemites, racists and xenophobes. But she never bragged about grabbing pussy.

Maybe that would have gotten her more of the vote. Apparently that’s what it takes for creepy right wing extremists to get elected these days.

I saw a really spooky scifi/horror movie recently in which everybody in the world starts to change in a deeply disturbing way. I guess you could say it’s a sort of variation on Ionesco’s Rhinoceros.

The characters spend much the time in a complete panic. Fear, recrimination, despair, paranoia — all of these negative emotions come bubbling up to the surface like a volcano.

But then at the end, after the change is complete, everyone feels fine again. and nobody notices anything amiss. After all, everybody is now normal.

I thought of this movie when I listened yesterday to Philippe Quéau speak about virtual reality at the FMX conference. He argued, from an anthropological perspective, that for us to understand the meaning of a mode of communication such as VR, we need to understand how it changes us.

Part of his point was that “being normal” is the thing that is most invisible to us. Yet it is not in any way fixed.

Each new technological advancement changes the definition of what it means to be normal. Yet after the change is complete, most people lose the ability to notice that anything has changed. They simply feel normal.

Standing outside of the assumption of normalcy to look at how a technology changes us does not make you a luddite. Yet the moment you start doing that, a lot of people wrongly assume that you are anti-technology.

The ability to take such a critical view — to not make the mistake of thinking that what feels normal is an indication of absolute truth — is essential. Without it, we may find ourselves very unhappy with the future that we are helping to create.

I listened today, after a long time, to Tom Paxton’s iconic song “The Last Thing on My Mind”.

How does somebody manage to create something so beautiful out of so much sadness?

I guess that is just one of those mysteries of the human heart.

Even at a very classy conference such at FMX, there are some delighfully cheesy moments. One occurred this evening, as we were all gathering for the speakers’ dinner.

The conference organizers had arranged a marvelously weird photo-op for us. On a red carpet, in front of a big “FMX” sign, were local actors dressed as Captain America, Wolverine, and other fantasy figures out of popular culture.

The concept was that speakers on their way into the dinner could have their photo taken in the company of these esteemed fictional personages. I loved the idea, yet something about it seemed a little off. But what?

Then I had it. I turned to a colleague and said “That’s not the real Wolverine. That’s only somebody paying Wolverine.”

I suddenly realized that my colleague was just staring at me, and I realized the absurdity of what I had just said. “You know,” I added, “I can’t figure out what’s weirder — that scene on the red carpet or the thing I just told you.”

My friend Chris Landreth, the great computer animator, has pointed out that facial expressions in film acting do not follow obvious rules. Of course there is the Kuleshov effect (you could look it up), but it goes beyond that.

Chris has shown, for example, still frames from Citizen Kane, at a moment when Orson Welles’ character is flying into a murderous rage, and just about to trash a room. If you look at his face, Welles’ expression in that scene, counter to naive intuition, is completely serene.

The theory that Chris puts forward is that in fact John Foster Kane has, at that moment, accepted that he will now act out his deepest anger and need for destruction, and so he is actually in a state of acceptance and balance. It is part of Welles’ genius that he understood this, and underplayed the moment the way he did, rather than giving in to a fit of florid overacting.

Thinking about this now, I am curious to know what other movie scenes have this property? What moments from films portray a character in a state of extreme emotion, but where in fact the actor’s expression appears perfectly calm and serene?

I t’s possible that having a madman in the Whitehouse just itching to start a war has affected the sense of humor of my friends and myself.

Today I will be traveling on a flight to Europe to attend the wonderful FMX conference in Stuttgart. A friend texted to wish me a safe flight.

Well actually, what she texted was: “Safe travels, don’t die.”

I promptly texted back: “Excellent advice! If I neglect to follow it, I will do my best to let you know.”

In Congress they swung at the fences
And gave $120 million in expenses
For guy who’s très rich
Because life is a bitch
And this country’s lost hold of its senses.

When I was six years old, my brother and I would spend hours playing with toy dinosaurs. We could go an entire day, happily making up stories about the T-Rex and Brontosaurus.

We would accompany our little plastic friends as they went on adventures, quarreled and fought, had romances. We were never bored.

When I became older I lost the ability to do this. I now look at those little plastic dinosaurs with fond nostalgia, knowing I can no longer bring them to life with such careless ease.

Now I create computer graphic worlds, implement algorithms, direct projects, script screenplays of lab demos. I have developed so many adult skills that I never had as a child.

Yet I wonder, perhaps all of this creative energy, all of the work of writers, artists, song writers, filmmakers, playwrights, the vast outpouring of culture itself, is actually a kind of compensatory energy.

We all remember, somewhere in the back of our minds, the effortless creativity of our earliest years, and in our hearts we know that we will never again regain those superpowers. So we use our adult minds to construct a simulacrum.

Maybe that is what really drives all of the cultural work we do, all of the planning, creating, inventing. Perhaps it is a kind of prosthesis, the nearest we can come to the magic of our lost childhood.

I love the question posed by Adrian in his comment on my post the other day: How much does the beauty of a sentence depend on its meaning, and how much is purely a function of rhythm and cadence?

Suppose, for example, we retained only the rhythm and rhyme of some of Shakespeare’s most famous lines, but changed the words. Would they still be beautiful?

He rests on Mars, but never felt marooned.
Could that be Jagger I see performing?
The weighty moth is best to touch.
Ensnare your brides in starch!
How cool is Portal III?

I’m assuming you can deduce the corresponding originals, all taken from the Bard’s plays. Perhaps you can also contribute a few examples of your own. 🙂