Evolution, development, and random biological ejaculations from a godless liberal
PZ Myers is a biologist and associate professor at the University of Minnesota, Morris.
…and this is a pharyngula stage embryo.
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Category: Entertainment • Local
Posted on: June 23, 2007 3:31 PM, by PZ Myers
Hey, Stevens County and all the residents thereabout: you can catch a performance of Inherit the Wind tonight at 7, or tomorrow in a matinee at 2, in lovely Barrett, Minnesota. I'll be there. My colleague in the biology department, Van Gooch, will be acting in the show, so UMM people should definitely go.
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Comments
I saw that a few months ago. It's definitely worth seeing, although I hated that one song they kept playing. Lots of good quotations.
Posted by: Oran_Taran | June 23, 2007 4:19 PM
How wonderful it is to see that they are willing to put on a play that might actually be seen as controversial at their rural location! I think too often that important issues are all together avoided just to keep the vocal right from complaining loudly in rural areas.
Posted by: Joan | June 23, 2007 5:29 PM
Excellent! It reads very well and I'll bet it's a smashing play.
Posted by: Monado | June 23, 2007 8:57 PM
I think in Minnesota, it really should be billed as Inherit the Wind Chill.
Posted by: Dan | June 23, 2007 9:01 PM
Dr. Gooch is still there? He judged my 7th grade science project. (I guess I did alright; I went on to state.)
Posted by: Chet | June 23, 2007 9:22 PM
Wait--is that the play about the fanatical evolutionists who believe that the encyclopedia isn't a metaphor?
Posted by: Bill the Splut | June 23, 2007 10:13 PM
Gooch is still here, and still going strong. He has announced that he's beginning a phased retirement next year, spread over a few years -- if you want to say hello after that, you'll have to catch him out at the lake.
Posted by: PZ Myers | June 24, 2007 12:08 AM
My one concern with the play is that it portrays Bryant as a young-earth creationist, when a plain reading of the original court testimony clearly shows that he was an old-earth creationist. I don't know why the change was made; I know it's supposed to be a fictionalized account, but it seems they could have kept that accurate without losing much of the play's effect.
Posted by: Randall | June 24, 2007 12:15 AM
Professors have no friends, if they do they are considered unintelligent. Colleagues are thier friends. You can't be as high up as the professor. Yes this had everything to do with what you posted Mr. Meyers. Yes this is totally worth your time. Sorry i am not too good with words and all smart. Most people's comments on this is that they are afraid to sound dumb. Especially you "Randall". Maybe I just duu yosi
Posted by: chips | June 24, 2007 1:34 AM
My theatre club at school did that one; unfortunately I was busy at the time and couldn't participate, but I did go see it. Great play.
Posted by: Chinchillazilla | June 24, 2007 1:45 AM
Here is a little folk song about ID, Darwin and stuff.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kpNoQaB2LT0
It's by a guy I didn't know about Chris Smither. "Origin of Species".
There is a great line about sex at the end.
Posted by: bernarda | June 24, 2007 4:10 AM
Of course, the play has little to do with historical events, but propaganda rallies like this can help make you feel good about treating people like garbage.
Posted by: Two L | June 24, 2007 8:05 AM
My favorite part of Inherit the Wind is, I think, the exchange between Henry Drummond (the Clarence Darrow stand-in) and E. K. Hornbeck (based on H. L. Mencken) where Drummond asks, "Have you ever been in love, Hornbeck?"
Hornbeck replies, "Only with the sound of my own words, thank God."
I found an old paperback copy of the play in a second-hand bookstore (the store was probably first-hand, that is, but the books all had history behind them). I was amused to see that Hornbeck's speeches were all typeset as verse, while everybody else spoke prose!
Overall, I think Inherit the Wind is much gentler on Bryan than Mencken was at the time. (Mencken was also the one to snark, "It is the four Methodists on the jury who are expected to hold out for giving Scopes Christian burial after he is hanged.")
Posted by: Blake Stacey, OM | June 24, 2007 1:00 PM
Of course, the play has little to do with historical events, but propaganda rallies like this can help make you feel good about treating people like garbage.
Nonsense, it has a great deal to do with historical events, namely the McCarthy era.
Or do you mean that it's not historically accurate? I'm sure that will come as a great shock to the two or three people who might have been led to believe that every sentence H.L. Mencken uttered was in blank verse.
Posted by: Nullifidian | June 24, 2007 11:02 PM