Admittedly, I have a little too much fun teasing Chris about being sexiest geek, but hey, he's the only official one I know. I'm a geek too of course (sans title and glory), who gets seriously excited about anything and everything space. That's SPACE mind you.. astrobiology, supernovas, galaxies, wormholes, and Sagan. Not to be confused with being a Trekkie/Battlestar Galactica geek. [Note: THAT is a link worth clicking]. You see, I want to be an astronaut whereas those folks dream of cylons. Two whole different subsets of geekdom altogether.
Now that I've cleared that up, I'd like to turn your attention to something really cool related to space that the National Symphony Orchestra is doing near the nation's capitol tonight. Picture it.. Wolf Trap, 2007: Eco-inspired masterworks from Beethoven, Debussy, Vaughn Williams, and Stravinsky performed live while images from NASA are projected onto high-def large screens around the park. It's called Fantastic Planet and footage brings you on the journey to an underwater volcano, through the Grand Canyon, over Antarctica, and into space.. oh and Chris, did I mention there's also a flight into the eye of a hurricane?!
All happens this evening at 8:30, 20 minutes down the Beltway from DC. Details here. You can even download the podcast of the conductor's commentary to listen to while watching the show. I'd be there if I could, but headed further north to Beantown..
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I wish that I could be there...what an absolutely wonderful, soothing way to enjoy an evening. Sounds ideal!
Looking forward to going. Even listening to the podcast - although there just seems to be something inherently wrong with listening to an iPod while at the symphony. But I guess that if the conductor is the one who made the podcast...
Um, are there any females on that Trekkie site you link to? All of the pics on their front page are of men...or really androgenous women... I mean, women can be fans of Trek and still hold on to their feminine wiles, right?
A quick search for 20-35 yr olds in NC yields a 6:1 male to female ratio so it appears odds are overwhelmingly in our favor.
Sheril - a quick review of the concert last night, from over at my blog:
Remember Fantasia? Walt Disney's masterwork of animation set to classical music? Now imagine that the animated fairies and dancing hippos have been replaced by footage of dolphins leaping across the ocean, erupting volcanoes, and distant planets and nebulae. Last night's performance by the National Symphony Orchestra was absolutely excellent - and I whole-heartedly encourage this type of collaboration to continue. Of special interest was the conductor's podcast, which I was a bit perplexed by at first. Talking through the Symphony? I must say, however, that the commentary was mainly limited to the quieter moments in the music to avoid being too distracting and the information (ranging from background on the composers and previous uses of the music in film to riots following the first performance of "Rite of Spring" and stories about the video footage) was very interesting. Perhaps we will see more of this multimedia concert going in future concerts?
Thanks for your review Emily. Wish I could have been there.
Sounds at least as good as last year's performance of Gustav Holst's The Planets, with NASA photos and live commentary from Leonard Nimoy.