Flesh and Stone

Math + politics = art

Wed, 29 Oct 2008 22:15:00 -0500

Less than a week before the election and if someone sends one more political ad I’m inclined to hit delete. But this one was forwarded by someone who never sends junk so I was intrigued and clicked the link.

“Thinking Man,” a video ad making the rounds on YouTube and other sites is not your typical low-grade propaganda. This is a short (2 min., 29 sec.) film, with no stone left unturned in attending to detail. Mathematics experts with Hollywood Math and Science Film Consulting (a group that reviews scripts for authenticity and accuracy for TV and films) lent their expertise. Thinking Man incorporates symbolism reminiscent of Russian classical film, a Rachmaninov score, and numerous scenes and lighting changes to create mood.

R. Larkin Clarke, an attorney in Washington, DC, produced the ad from start to finish. The music is Sergi Rachmaninov’s Concerto #3, played by Vladimir Ashkenazy.

Watch it here and then read Clarke’s thoughts behind Thinking Man.

How and why did you choose that music and those particular scenes?

One day, my friend Shaun [Dr. Shaun Harris, a specialist in organizational development who plays the Thinking Man], while listening to his musical collection, called me and suggested I take a listen to Rachmaninov #3. The 20+ minute piece creates a mood, which sparked creativity.

Will you walk us through the scenes?

It opens with a dream. I attempted to create an old Soviet sterile intellectual warehouse feel with the locked file cabinets framing the shot. The Laundromat was used because of the geometric circles of the washers, and the fact that the color scheme of the Laundromat was the same as the old USSR flag.

When he starts to think about the idea he is framed by the Soviet colors, unknowingly living in a world that might be beginning to approach that under Bush.

As he begins work on realizing the answer to the theorem, the musical mood is festive, and he is seen out during the day. As he becomes more obsessed with solving the theorem, he changes, and is only seen out at night. He is lonely and focused on solving it and nothing else.

When the Thinking Man is walking down the street on his way to the diner, the cop car that passes behind him is almost Orwellian in that Thinking Man is obtaining clarity as he works on the theorem and is moving away from the police state/thought police. Are the police looking for him because through his math he is starting to see things for what they really are?

The shot of him leaving the diner walking down the street is actually a reflection from a car side view mirror. All the mirrors: bathroom mirror with writing, car reflection, him sitting on a bed staring at the mirror in a room and then him writing on the mirror are all symbolic of Thinking Man looking within himself to "be the change you want to see in the world,” which is a quote from Gandhi.

When he solves the theorem he steps back and drops the chalk, and in the time it takes for the chalk to drop, images of Katrina, war, Rumsfeld, McCain, Bush, unemployment and other problems with the Bush Administration quickly pass through his mind.

The last shot circles back to the Laundromat and the word "change" on the wall. This is what Thinking Man subconsciously saw in the opening when he was in the Laundromat walking toward the machine.

Wet insects inspire nature photographer

Sat, 06 Sep 2008 20:05:00 -0500

Correction appended.

Nature photographer Martin Amm came up with the idea to take pictures of insects covered with dew.

He told us dragonflies aren’t his only focus but that he admires “their awesome structures and appearance.”

“This year I’m concentrating on the birth of dragonflies, that’s why there are so many dragonflies pictures in my portfolio.”

Red veined darter. c. Martin Amm. 2008

Amm of Kronach, Germany, considers photography “just a hobby” for now but hopes to make it a career. He’s a fan of Jim Brandenburg, the well known National Geographic wildlife photographer who shoots wildlife and landscapes from his home base in Ely, Minn. “He’s one of my favorite photographers. His photographs are just incredible.”

Amm’s photos are pretty incredible, too. For more of his images visit his site on Deviant Art.

Portrait of a very little dragonfly. c. Martin Amm. 2008.

Red-veined darter ll. "Taken before sunsrise when the dew covers everything." -- c. Martin Amm. 2008

Correction: Due to a long distance miscommunication error on the editor's part, Martin Amm was originally misidentified. We regret the error.

Cultivating transformation through flower mandalas

Sun, 24 Aug 2008 15:20:00 -0500

Swiss psychiatrist Carl Jung viewed the mandala, the circular design considered a universal symbol of transformative healing, as a vessel for projecting one’s Self and sometimes used them as a therapeutic tool while treating patients.

Boston-area psychotherapist and photographer David Bookbinder carries on Jung’s tradition by blending his work and art into unique mandala renderings created from photos of flowers. He wrote that his motivation for creating the flower mandalas “was to heal from a decade of physical and emotional trauma, the consequence of a near-fatal event in Albany, New York, in1993. This event, which culminated in a near-death experience, set me on a spiritual path I'm still following today.”

He said he tends to work on several mandalas at once and that the experience is reminiscent of meditation. “I use a computer to create these images,” he told Flesh and Stone. “I begin with a snapshot of a flower, take several pie-slice-

“…I knew that in finding the mandala as an expression of the self I had attained what was for me the ultimate.” - Carl G. Jung, from Memories, Dreams, Reflections.

shaped slices, and then multiply them around, often combining parts of several created images into one final candidate. Then I manipulate saturation, texture, focus, and brightness until what feels like the essence of the image emerges.”

As a therapist, Bookbinder works with artists, children and families, and people with addictive behaviors. “Clients sometimes have no reaction at all, and sometimes the images become a topic of conversation, either as a way of my helping them develop some heretofore hidden creative urge they have, or as an entry into a discussion of their artistic process. I don't explicitly introduce my work into my psychotherapy, but I know that many of my artist clients have been drawn to me because I am also an artist.”

Bookbinder plans to use selections from his Flower Mandalas blog at Beliefnet, where he facilitates a discussion on art, healing, and transformation, and his personal web site, in a book on using the power of the mandala to heal. He invites participation. “I'm looking for personal responses to the mandalas. "Ideally, I'd like to come up with one word which captures the essence of an image, and then a corresponding piece of original writing or an inspirational quote that relates to that word. For instance, one viewer told me that my pink peony image symbolized "protection" for her, though no quote related to "protection" came to mind. I'm also interested in any information about the flowers themselves. The white rose, for instance, has a fascinating history.”

People interested in participating in the book can do so by joining the Flower Mandalas Project forum at Beliefnet.

Bookbinder’s work is featured at the Griffin Museum of Photography in Winchester, MA, through the end of August.

Union of Concerned Scientists annouce winner of 2008 editorial cartoon contest

Thu, 21 Aug 2008 08:25:00 -0500

Justin Bilicki, an art director and editorial cartoonist in Brooklyn, NY, is the winner of this year's Science Idol editorial cartoon contest sponsored by the Union of Concerned Scientists. Bilicki's cartoon and the work of 11 others will be featured in UCS's 2009 Scientific Integrity Calendar.

Bilicki is auctioning off his winning cartoon (above) and donating the proceeds to UCS.

Database manager Paul Malden of Malden, MA, was a finalist. He told USC one of the reasons he entered the contest was to join the fight against government interference in science so his son can "grow up in a world where people believe in old-fashioned concepts like evolution and gravity." Malden recently launched a new cartoon web site called Blame My Mom.

UCS sponsors the contest each year to draw attention to the "misuse and distortion of federal government science." About 20,000 people cast votes online this year and other accomplished editorial cartoonists helped narrow down the 12 winning entries.

Remission

Sat, 19 Jul 2008 12:20:00 -0500

Remission

The news?

The news is good!

Five years of quarterly examinations

and surgeries ruling my life as the moon

rules the waves;

crest and valley,

crest and valley,

swell after swell dwarfing the boat of me,

the constant crescendo exhausting.

Cancer looming and lurking,

glooming the day,

haunting the night

as it toured my body,

spreading its blanket on the beach of my tranquility;

a trailer trash vacationer

leaving cans, bottles,debris and dirty diapers

in all my secret places.

And now?

Now I will rest,

re-gather,

enjoy a breath or two of summit air,

clean up the place,

water the garden

return in six months to enjoy the view

or find something new

to whine about.

For more poems by Jeff McCallum visit his web site.

Qi Gong Healing for China

Sun, 01 Jun 2008 12:30:00 -0500

There are many who scoff at alternative healing, particularly energy healing. I always ask them, “Wasn’t Christ the greatest energy healer of all time?”

The Newest Garden

Master Lin leads us,

looking older.

He has no Katrina tales,

only stories of heroes and heaven.

He tells of his time in Sichuan Province,

mediating in the caves,

the caves which collapsed,

swallowing his brothers.

Earth to universe in a manner unimagined;

devouring their brothers and sisters

as though hungry for souls.

Visualizing chaos,

souls trapped under soil and rock,

or between now and forever,

I see white light encased in dark, formless armor.

A bright half-moon replaces the left half of the Buddha’s face

as he mourns and offers hope,

weeping beside us in this newest garden of life and death.

As we chant,

dark shells crumble,

light escapes,

darts and soars

courses through the galaxies,

returning light to aid release of those

continuing on the journey.

For more poems by Jeff McCallum visit his web site.

Healing through the written word

Wed, 02 Apr 2008 04:41:00 -0500

Jeff McCallum's ability to describe with intensity the physical and emotional turmoil of cancer was called a "dark gift" by one caregiver. His ability to do so may have played a large part in his healing.

In 2006 McCallum published "Somebody's Bright Balloon," a collection of poems that many cancer survivors and current patients will recognize. He doesn’t just describe the cancer experience, he brings it to life for the reader through metaphor and imagery.

When I watched my mother bravely struggle through two surgeries and 30 radiation treatments aimed at destroying the cancer in her urethra, I realized that only someone who has traveled the same road would truly understand her fears of the unknown. The fears come from not just physical pain but the emotional pain of knowing your life will never again be the same expansive future you took for granted. It’s having to gather up your remaining strength and develop your will to accept and go on living well.

Diana Burgess, a research psychologist with the Veterans Administration in Minneapolis and mother of three young children, identified with McCallum's writing, having experienced a similar cancer and radiation treatment. "These poems captured my experience in a profound way," said Burgess. "I could not believe how much he captured -- from the mundane details to the emotions." McCallum, 56, is a commercial building contractor in Minneapolis and serves on the board of directors of Mixed Blood Theatre. He was born in the Yukon Territories and moved to Minneapolis in 1964 when his father, Sandy McCallum, became a resident actor at the newly opened Guthrie Theatre.

McCallum's cancer experience began in 2003 when he was diagnosed by doctors at the Mayo Clinic with cancer of the salivary gland. Along with surgery to remove the cancer from his parotid gland and masseter muscles (those used in mastication) along his jaw and neck came painful daily radiation treatments and a history of low survival rates among patients with similar cancers. McCallum says the diagnosis and difficult treatments brought his life into focus. The enhanced perceptions of life and death prompted him to write about the experience through poetry.

"I often think the impulse to write and express is like an immune system function," says John Fox, director of the Institute for Poetic Medicine, based in Palo Alto, CA. Fox, who lectures and gives workshops on the healing aspects of poetry, believes writing may have contributed to McCallum's own healing. By writing about his experiences, McCallum was "involved in what was happening to him on his own behalf. He stayed in touch." The healing aspect of writing has been the subject of numerous scientific studies, with neurologists, psychiatrists and other health care experts studying the physiological benefits of poetry and other expressive writing. Research suggests that repeated writing may help eliminate negative emotional responses to traumatic memories, and reduce physiological stress.

"Writing about traumatic, stressful or emotional events has been found to result in improvements in both physical and psychological health, in non-clinical and clinical populations," wrote Karen Baikie, a clinical psychologist in New South Wales, Australia writing in Advances in Psychiatric Treatment in 2005.

Cortney Davis, a Redding, Conn., nurse and published poet, joined McCallum at a writing workshop at Sarah Lawrence College that brought patients and healers together to explore writing about medical issues. "As a nurse I have cared for cancer patients, and have often been amazed at their ability to face pain, disability and suffering with hope, joy and a never-failing desire both to live every moment and to share their lives with others," said Davis. "As a writer, I know how difficult it is to write of such suffering without lapsing into sentimentality. Jeff writes with honesty and clarity about his own journey through the diagnosis and treatment of cancer. He chronicles both moments of despair and moments of triumph; most of all he digs deep into the illness experience to make it accessible to all."

Howard Spiro, professor emeritus of medicine at Yale University and founder of Yale's Program for Humanities in Medicine (its journal was one of the first to publish some of McCallum's poems), observed: "McCallum writes from the perspective of one instructed by illness and pain. If such instruction brings the kind of compassionate insight McCallum demonstrates in these poems, then suffering might be called an awful gift. We cannot escape, in life, the reality of suffering. We can only hope that we might offer our suffering and our recovery, as McCallum does, for the benefit of others."

Many of the poems were initiated during 45 days of radiation treatment at the Mayo Clinic while McCallum was a guest at Hope Lodge in Rochester. Minn. McCallum calls the American Cancer Society Hope Lodge “a home away from home” for patients undergoing radiation and chemotherapy. Hope Lodge, with almost two dozen residences around the country, provides free lodging in a homelike atmosphere. A percentage of the sales of his book are dedicated to the Rochester Hope Lodge.

McCallum maintains a web log at http://www.jeffmccallum.squarespace.com/ where he wrotes about physician-patient interactions, politics, and more and gives poetry readings.

Somebody's Bright Balloon is available through Amazon.com and BarnesandNoble.com and at Magers & Quinn Booksellers, Minneapolis.

Artwork Inspired by Pain and Healing

Sat, 01 Mar 2008 23:25:00 -0600

Porcupine Girl Impaled by Rosemary Feit Covey depicts pain as spikes.

To some, medicine is a science and an art. Both require creativity, specific skills, and an outcome.

Above: The Orthopaedist by Lee Berger, MD. An orthopaedic surgeon for 24 years, Berger has been an artist even longer.

Above: Inner Liberty by Tuy Nga Brignol, a physician and artist. Brignol was diagnosed with scoliosis at 18. She uses art as a meditation and relaxation method.

The artwork and short bios of these and 150 other artists, patients and orthopaedic clinicians and surgeons from around the world are on display in an online museum and at the Moscone Convention Center in San Francisco March 5-9 as part of the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons’ 75^th anniversary. Some works will also be displayed at the Chicago Cultural Center April 17–July 22.

The Academy invited artists to submit work that illustrated some emotional aspect of an orthopaedic condition, feelings about patient-physician partnerships, or works that depicted the history of orthopaedics or a practitioner’s reason for becoming an orthopaedist.

Take the snowflake

Sun, 02 Mar 2008 01:51:00 -0600

It’s still three weeks before the official start of spring and here in the northern climes we are entering dirty snow mound season. Insulated by road grime, some of these mounds refuse to melt even when the temps skyrocket into the 50s. In the tiresome last weeks of a cold dark winter, a fresh snowfall hides the grime, sterilizes the land and helps us appreciate the small things.

Take the snowflake.

Closely considering a snowflake can be a fascinating look into a microscopic world.

California Institute of Technology (Caltech) physicist Kenneth G. Libbrecht sees the natural beauty of winter's famous icon as he must have as a boy growing up in North Dakota, but he also studies the complex physics of snowflake designs. He’s photographed at least 6,000 different ice crystals over the last decade and has classified them into 35 basic types. Libbrecht’s web site features dozens of gorgeous snowflake and ice crystal pictures and articles about the science and history of snowflakes -- and the best place to find them. Libbrecht has also published several titles including Field Guide to Snowflakes, The Art of the Snowflake, The Magic of Snowflakes, and others. When Libbrecht writes about “winter’s secret beauty” for the non-scientist, it’s easy to follow along:

“The story begins up in a cloud, when a minute cloud droplet first freezes into a tiny particle of ice. As water vapor starts condensing on its surface, the ice particle quickly develops facets, thus becoming a small hexagonal prism. For a while it keeps this simple faceted shape as it grows.

As the crystal becomes larger, however, branches begin to sprout from the six corners of the hexagon. Since the atmospheric conditions (e. g. temperature and humidity) are nearly constant across the small crystal, the six budding arms all grow out at roughly the same rate.
While it grows, the crystal is blown to and fro inside the clouds, so the temperature it sees changes randomly with time. But the crystal growth depends strongly on temperature. Thus the six arms of the snow crystal each change their growth with time. And because all six arms see the same conditions at the same times, they all grow about the same way. The end result is a complex, branched structure that is also six-fold symmetric. And note also that since snow crystals all follow slightly different paths through the clouds, individual crystals all tend to all look different.”

Libbrecht's web site also has movies showing the growth of an ice crystal. It's enough to make you forget about dirty snow.

The Dosimetrist and Me

Thu, 07 Feb 2008 04:34:00 -0600

Solid water

not ice

but a kind of polymer

shape and density

about like the body part they are preparing

to irradiate

not like the hard water they use to cool

the gigantic machines which click and whir

as they rotate around me

solid water for a hard task

making certain the gamma rays

the protons and photons do only

their job

the fine hand of their beam cuts only

so deep

delivering just the prescribed amount

of therapy

grays

abbreviated gy

to just the proper part of me

a pre-emptive strike

with minimal collateral damage

what is acceptable dependent on age

and condition of the structure housing

the disease

the severity of the problem

as the surgeon and radiation oncologist see the battleground

plot the flanking maneuver

lay the fields just so

and pass marching orders to dosimetrist and physicist

who implement the charge

not

I find myself hoping

of the light brigade

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