Dark Matter and Alternate Realities

I see that a new series is coming on May 8 to Apple+ titled Dark Matter. It is based on the novel of the same name by Blake Crouch. I read the novel a few years ago and, as TV shows go into reruns, I will look for streaming series to fill the summer.

I wrote elsewhere about the “real” dark matter. I say “real” because in astronomy, dark matter is a hypothetical form of matter that appears not to interact with light or the electromagnetic field like other matter.

Dark matter isn’t something we can see but gravitational effects which cannot be explained by Einstein’s general relativity give scientists the impression that it is present. This gets complicated but it seems to be involved in the formation and evolution of galaxies. Powerful

Crouch has said that in using the term for his novel he was thinking that life is full of mysteries, but that there are many more beneath the surface that we cannot see, hidden like dark matter but felt as a presence.

Experimental quantum physicist Aaron D. O’Connell demonstrated that subatomic particles exist in quantum superposition – a fancy way to say that occupy multiple realities. Crouch imagined that if someone could build a device that allowed a person to exist in superposition. Not time travel, but travel to an alternate reality.

Of course, the novel and series is entertainment not science but you can see how the leap to considering the nature of reality and of identity, and of questioning whether or not to trust what we see before our eyes would be easy.

I looked back at some reviews of the book since it has been a few years since I read the book. Interestingly, they label it alternate-universe science fiction, a countdown thriller, pop physics and a fantasy. They compare it to C. S. Lewis’s Chronicles of Narnia and Lev Grossman’s Magicians books. One critic, Brian Truitt, said the novel was “a nightmarish quantum-mechanics version of It’s a Wonderful Life.” I like that comparison both because I love that film and because I consider it a dark (film noir) tale of an alternate life.

Bridging Troubled Water

The poster that came in my vinyl copy of Bookends

There is a documentary, In Restless Dreams: The Music of Paul Simon, from 2023 directed by Alex Gibney. It is on Apple TV+. It is in two parts and cover a lot (not all) his career.

We find him at 82 working on his 15th solo album, Seven Psalms, and reflecting on his career. That album came to him in a dream. A restless dream? Perhaps, though that title comes from his “Sounds of Silence.” The new album will not remind you of those early Simon and Garfunkel albums. That shouldn’t surprise anyone, since Paul has always been moving forward.

I remember an English teacher presenting some of the lyrics as poetry in class. I was 13. I bought a cheap acoustic guitar and started learning the songs. I started writing poems. I never got good enough to play his instrumental “Anji” but I could pick out “Kathy’s Song” in my bedroom for a Kathy in my life. So, Paul and I go back a long way.

The documentary goes back to his upbringing in Queens, N.Y., his short-lived marriage to Carrie Fisher, rare footage of the recording of “Bridge Over Troubled Water,” the making of 1969’s “Songs of America,” and video from 1991’s Central Park concert.

At 14, I wrote a “script” and wanted to make a film using “Sounds of Silence” as the soundtrack. This was a long time before music videos and MTV.

Each of their albums takes me back to a very clear time in my life – much more so than almost any of the hundreds of albums I bought including my beloved Beatles.

The title song won Grammy Awards in 1971 for Song of the Year and Record of the Year. The other ten tracks included one of my favorites by them, “The Boxer.” I love their music and I like a lot of that album, but I remember buying the album when it came out (January 1970) and having a mixed reaction to it.

“Bridge Over Troubled Water” was a long song (almost five minutes) to be a hit single, but it was played endlessly on top 40 AM radio for six weeks until it got knocked out by a similarly long and lush Beatles‘ “Let it Be.” I thought both of those tracks – classics now – were too lush, too pop, not enough rock or folk respectively. Of course, Paul and Artie are the most successful folk-rock duo of the 1960s. Bridge Over Troubled Water sold over 25 million copies worldwide and was one of the biggest-selling albums of its decade, topping the charts for ten weeks and containing four hit singles (the title track, “The Boxer,” “Cecilia,” and “El Condor Pasa“).

That was a rough year for me and looking back on it now I realize that the music added to that downer feeling. Bridge was the fifth and final studio album by Simon and Garfunkel as they were in the process of splitting for a second time. The Beatles were also splitting up.

The track I listened to a lot that year was “The Only Living Boy in New York.” It seemed really sad. Half of the time we’re gone
But we don’t know where
And we don’t know where
I did learn that Paul Simon wrote it to Art Garfunkel because this was a time when when Garfunkel, was trying out an acting career. He left for Mexico to act in the film Catch-22. Simon, the boy alone in NYC, continued to write songs for the album and probably felt like a solo act already. In the song, Artie is “Tom”, a reference to their early days when they were billed as “Tom and Jerry.”

I went back to an earlier album. My favorite one of theirs – Bookends – came out in 1968. That year was worse than 1970. It was the year my father died after a long illness. There was turmoil in America – Vietnam – and in my own life. I was thinking about the possibility of being drafted and going to Vietnam. My year was the last draft lottery year. “We’ve all come to look for America…” they sang on the beautiful track “America” where Kathy shows up on a bus on the New Jersey Turnpike that I knew very well. My Kathy was gone. The weight of taking care of my mom and sister and being “the man of the house” at 15 was on me. I wanted to go away to college, but could I? Responsibilities. If I was going, I would have to earn the money myself. My mom didn’t have any money for college. She told me that if I was drafted, she would support me leaving and going to Canada.

One side of Bookends is a “concept album” on aging. Side one is great. It’s their Sergeant Pepper or Pet Sounds.

“Old Friends” is a sad song.
Can you imagine us years from today
Sharing a park bench quietly?
How terribly strange to be 70
I couldn’t imagine it then. I can easily see it now.
The “Bookends Theme” opens and closes the album side.
Preserve your memories.
They’re all that’s left you.

Side two is made up of songs written for The Graduate soundtrack but not used and a few leftover tracks. It’s rockier than side one of most of their previous work. The 1967 film The Graduate is one of my favorite movies and at that time in my life it was definitely my favorite movie.

Side two consists of miscellaneous unrelated songs unused for The Graduate, with many possessing a more rock-based sound than the unified folk songs that precede it. “Fakin’ It” rocks along but the lyrics are about being a phony. “Punky’s Dilemma” is light, jazzy and silly and is my favorite song on the side. Of course, “Mrs. Robinson” was the big hit. It’s not the version used in The Graduate. It’s the first rock and roll song to win Record of the Year at the Grammy Awards in 1969 and it also was Best Contemporary Pop Performance by a Duo or Group. “A Hazy Shade of Winter” is another pop-rocker that The Bangles would cover in the 1980s. But I can imagine the lyrics beinga folkier, sadder song on side one.
Hang on to your hopes, my friend
That’s an easy thing to say
But if your hopes should pass away
Simply pretend that you can build them again
And I can imagine a version of “At the Zoo” in the zoo scene from The Graduate.

The song “Overs” on side one was another leftover track from The Graduate sessions but it fit thematically with the arc of aging on side one. The same is true of “Save the Life of My Child.” Simon explained that “Overs” is a companion piece to their earlier composition, “For Emily, Whenever I May Find Her.” The earlier song is about believing in true love, while “Overs” is about the loss of that belief. In the film, it would fit as a song about the loveless marriage of Mr. and Mrs. Robin and with Simon. son.

Those albums helped me bridge some troubled times in my life. I will listen to these albums until I die. I have aged with them and with Paul Simon. He has a decade on me, so his concerns will always point to where I am going.

Time it was and what a time it was, it was
A time of innocence
A time of confidences
Long ago, it must be
I have a photograph…
Preserve your memories
They’re all that’s left you

The Arrow of Time

I had watched The Fabric of the Cosmos on PBS’ NOVA hosted by Brian Greene from his book of the same title. Part 2 of “Time and Experience” deals with something we all think about (perhaps too much) and yet don’t really understand.

I have read a lot about and written quite a bit about time, particularly time travel which has long fascinated me. I have read many versions of the “time as a river” flowing past us (the observer) with the past downstream and the future upstream.

In this program, Greene talks about the “Frozen River” and questions whether time really does “flow.” What is interesting in this approach is that it touches on some ideas that we might once have read as fringe science or new age non-science.

Greene deals with Einstein and special relativity and is a big-time legit scientist, but I think that the first times I read about the idea that time does not flow and that all things simultaneously exist at the same time, was more likely when I was reading Carlos Castaneda rather than Einstein *.

No past, no present, no future. Just now.

As Einstein discussed, we “observers” moving relative to each other have different conceptions of what exists at a given moment, and hence they have different conceptions of reality.

There is also discussion of whether time has an “arrow.”  The arrow of time, or time’s arrow, is a term coined in 1927 by the British astronomer Arthur Eddington to describe the “one-way direction” or “asymmetry” of time.  The arrow appears to move forward from chaos to organization. Or does it? Was the Big Bang origin the most coherent and organized version of the universe, and we have since moved to greater chaos?

The laws of physics apply both moving forward in time and backwards in time – time-reversal symmetry.

Which brings us to entropy. Greene gives many examples (the series is full of animations and green-screen simulations) including broken glasses reassembling and such.  Entropy can be defined as a lack of order or predictability;  a gradual decline into disorder. The beginning of the universe must be the state of minimum entropy.

What always amazes me when I listen to Brian Green explain these unbelievably complicated concepts is that I completely understand them – until he stops talking – at which point my understanding vanishes.

Today I did some searching online to find out more about this arrow. Turns out there are several different arrows.

There is a  causal arrow of time.  A cause precedes its effect.  Birth, for example, follows a successful conception and not vice versa.  Dropping the wine glass is a cause and the glass subsequently shattering and spilling is the effect. It’s never that simple. Add in the thermodynamic arrow of time (see Second law of thermodynamics) and controlling the future, or causing something to happen, creates correlations between the doer and the effect.

How would we explain the pieces of the glass in reverse assembling precisely into the shape of a glass and flying up into the my hand (since the floor cannot throw and my hand can’t move objects without contact) and why would the liquid collect itself entirely within the cup?

Get into the particle physics (weak) arrow of time or the  quantum arrow of time and I am completely lost.

Perhaps, most of us would be comfortable with the psychological/perceptual arrow of time. That at least concerns things we understand – like our cataloging of items of memory from our perception. Things we remember make up the past. The future consists of those events that cannot be remembered.

Our sense of time comes from the perception is that continuous movement from the known (Past) to the unknown (Future).

In that psychological future, there are things (dreams, hopes) that are already a part of memory, but see to be ahead of the observer.

We (Westerners) associate “behind” with the past and “ahead” with the future, but that is a cultural association. According to what I have read, the Chinese and the Aymara people’s association are that ahead = past and behind = future. In Chinese, the term “the day after tomorrow” literally means “behind day” while “the day before yesterday” is referred to as “front day” and in Hindi (an Indian language), the term used for “tomorrow” and “yesterday” is the same.

So where am I right now?

My brief period of Buddhist training told me to be in this moment. No past or future, both of which lead to suffering.  We seem to only be able to live moving forward. We only understand the present by looking back. That doesn’t give us much “time” to spend in the present. And that seems to be a sad reality.

Now I will go for a walk in the woods. Walking forward, ahead, into what I think is the future, while trying to be mindful in the moments.

* Footnote: Born in 1925 in Peru, anthropologist Carlos Castaneda wrote a total of 15 books, which sold more than 8 million copies worldwide and were published in 17 different languages. In his writing, Castaneda describes the teachings of Don Juan, a Yaqui sorcerer and shaman. His works helped define the 1960s and usher in the New Age movement. Even after his mysterious death in California in 1998, his books continue to inspire and influence his many devoted fans.

The Iceman Murder Mystery

Reconstruction of how Ötzi may have looked when alive
(Museum Bélesta, Ariège, France)

In 1991, a corpse was found frozen in a glacier in the Italian Alps near the Austrian border.  I remember the news because when I saw the map I realized that I had skied near there back in the 1970 and the corpse was there then too. In fact, it was there 5,300 years before that.

It turned out to be the most ancient human being ever found completely intact.

Ötzi the Iceman, as he became known (AKA Similaun Man, and Man from Hauslabjoch), was spotted by two German tourists.  At first, it was thought to be a modern corpse and so it was crudely removed from the glacier by the Austrian authorities using a small jackhammer.  At a morgue in Innsbruck, its true age was determined and the archaeology began.

I find the story of this well-preserved natural mummy of a man who lived about 5,300 years ago to be so fascinating. It became very much a detective story. And it did end up being a murder.

His nickname comes from the Ötztal (Ötz valley), the Italian Alps in which he was discovered. He is Europe’s oldest natural human mummy and a Copper Age European.  He has been examined, measured, X-rayed, CAT scanned, and dated and his tissues and intestinal contents have been examined microscopically.

Ötzi was about 1.65 metres (5′ 5″) tall and weighed about 50 kilograms (110 lb.) and was about 45 years of age at his death. By examining the proportions of his tibia, femur and pelvis, it was determined that his lifestyle included long walks over hilly terrain. Perhaps, he was a high-altitude shepherd.

He had a copper axe with a yew handle, a flint-bladed knife with an ash handle and a quiver of 14 arrows with viburnum and dogwood shafts.

His hair was cut. He had several tattoos. He wore a fur robe, whipstitched in a mosaic pattern, a woven grass cape, and size 6 shoes.

He carried several mushrooms that were known to fight infections. But the mushrooms didn’t do him much good because he had an arrowhead in his back. He was apparently murdered.

Ötzi when he was found

I enjoy watching the current TV show Bones and I marvel at how they find stories on bodies. Sometimes those revelations seem a bit far-fetched, but reading about what they have discovered about Ötzi makes it seem quite real.

Looking at the pollen, and dust grains on him and the composition of his tooth enamel told them that he spent his childhood near the present village of Feldthurns and later went to live in valleys about 50 kilometers further north.

Analysis of his intestinal contents showed two meals of chamois (a goat-like animal) and red deer meat eaten with grain as well as roots and fruits. The grain from both meals was a highly processed wheat bran, so it was possibly eaten in the form of bread. Pollen in the first meal was very well preserved, indicating that it had been fresh at the time of Ötzi’s death, which places the event in the spring.

High levels of both copper and arsenic were found in Ötzi’s hair. He carried a a 99.7% pure copper axe. Ötzi was probably involved in some copper smelting. Ötzi lived 5,300 years ago, and humans were not thought to have discovered copper for another 1,000 years, forcing archaeologists to re-date the Copper Age.

X-rays and a CT scan showed that an arrowhead hit his left shoulder (matching a tear on his coat) but the arrow’s shaft had been removed before his death. He also had bruises and cuts to the hands, wrists, and chest.

There was cerebral trauma indicative of a blow to the head and that most likely caused his death. Okay, but was it from a fall, or from being struck with a rock by another person?

DNA analysis found traces of blood from four other people – on his knife, two people on the same arrowhead, and a fourth from his coat.

Did Ötzi kill two people with the same arrow after having retrieved it both times? Did he carry another bleeding body? Were those deaths avenged with the arrow in Ötzi? Before his death and rigor mortis set in, who turned the Iceman onto his stomach to remove the arrow shaft?

There are a number of theories and no one is absolutely sure of the full story. It is still a mystery in some ways.

It is now believed that he died around 3,300 BCE. Forensic examinations indicate that he likely died from an arrow wound to the shoulder, which severed a major artery. This injury would have been fatal, and Ötzi likely died shortly after being wounded. His other injuries suggest that he may have been involved in a conflict or altercation before his death.

Ötzi’s body also showed signs of heart disease, including three cardiac calcifications but that didn’t kill him. The arrow was severe and he probably died from blood loss.

I think Ötzi was on the run. The effort that must have been required to chase Ötzi into those mountains and shoot him with an arrow at a distance, amid blowing snow, suggests that he must have committed some serious offense.

READ MORE
Iceman: Uncovering the Life and Times of a Prehistoric Man Found in an Alpine Glacier

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NOTE This ancient Iceman should not be confused with a modern-day “Iceman”
who I have also written about on this site.

Love Is a Mix Tape

Back in 2009, I came across a website edited by Jason Bittner called CassetteFromMyEx.com.  It seems to be gone now, but on the site, people shared their stories of lost (or everlasting) love that centered around a mix tape they made for the object of their love.

Bittner took the website idea and used it to put together a book, Cassette from My Ex: Stories and Soundtracks of Lost Loves which is a collection of stories, essays, art, and other contributions by various artists, musicians, and writers.  It’s the story of the role of the mixtape that was especially big in the late 1970s and 80s when cassette tape reigned as the way to share music.

I don’t know if anyone still makes mixtapes or mixCDs. I guess shared playlists might be the latest version, but that doesn’t seem like the same thing to me. I made lots of mixtapes and a bunch of CD mixes. I made ones for my wife to listen to in her commuting. I made ones for friends, especially to accompany them on a long drives across country or to their summer place. Before I was married, I made them for girlfriends. I carefully selected songs and sequences to convey messages. Sometimes I even added my own voice so that they sounded more like a radio program. I spent a lot of time on them. I even made artwork for the cases.

The compact audio cassette came to us in 1963 and into the 1970s after the car 8-track tape died. These inexpensive and portable tapes were part of the “downloadable” music culture long before the Internet, Napster, iTunes, and Spotify. In my no-money-for-records high school days, I would record songs off the radio on my cassette deck with the built-in radio.

Mix tapes let the DJ in you loose to create thematic mixes. Mixtapes probably fit into some categories, like the Romantic Tape, the Break-up Tape, the Road Trip Tape, even the Indoctrination Tape you made to turn someone on to a band, or to you via “your music.”

One extended story of mixtape romance is by rock critic Rob Sheffield. He wrote a memoir using 22 “mix tapes” to describe his life with his wife, Renee, from their meeting in 1989 to her untimely death in 1997. Each of the chapters in Love Is a Mix Tape: Life and Loss, One Song at a Time begins with song titles from their mixes.

I made (and still have) a lot of mix CDs made for my own listening pleasure, so that in the car I am listening to my own radio station. I made driving ones – hard rock for highways, folk-rock for byways – late-night radio sets, an hour of quieter music.

I made a series for friends of summer songs. They included the obvious ones – Beach Boys’ tracks like “All Summer Long,” and “In the Summertime,” and “Summer Breeze” as well as songs we associated with summer because they were summer hits or we just associated with summer (“Time of the Season,” “Rikki Don’t Lose That Number,” “Take It Easy”).  Then I did the sequencing after gathering them from our collected CDs and with a few iTunes downloads. I listened to all of them trying to pick out references to a month or part of summer and created June, July, and August sets.  “See You In September,” “Wouldn’t It Be Nice” and “School’s Out” are part of the June set.  For July, “Up on the Roof,” “Summer in the City,” “4th of July, Asbury Park (Sandy),” Kodachrome,” Hot Fun in the Summertime.”  The August CD included “Summer, Highland Falls,” Boys of Summer,” “Groovin'” “Summertime Blues,” “You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feeling,” Summer Wind.”

My friend Pat was a big fan of the summer set, so she (a teacher) also got back-to-school and end-of-school mixes. And I had done winter, spring, and winter into spring CDs.

I still have most of them in a plastic crate. I look back at those first mixtapes (pre-marriage) that were actual tapes I made for car rides to the beach or vacations.  Have you seen the movie As Good As It Gets? Jack Nicholson’s character makes careful mixes for a car trip in the hope of seducing the character played by Helen Hunt. If not to seduce, then at least made to reveal who he really is via the songs – something he can’t seem to do in person. Been there; mixed that.

I love making lists anyway, so making song lists is something I like doing – like the people in Nick Hornby’s novel High Fidelity and the great film version (and even the soundtrack CD).

Did you ever make or receive mixtapes in any form?
Post a comment. I’d love to hear your story.

The April 8 Solar Eclipse

On April 8, 2024, a total solar eclipse will cross North America, passing over Mexico, the United States, and Canada.

A total solar eclipse happens when the Moon passes between the Sun and Earth, completely blocking the face of the Sun. The sky will darken as if it were dawn or dusk, and those standing in the path of totality may see the Sun’s outermost atmosphere (the corona) if weather permits. So get those special safety glasses ready.

In Paradelle (and other places in the NY/NJ area) we would have to head out of state for the best view. Is that worth it? Well, this total solar eclipse is the last in the United States for two decades. The Garden State is not in the direct path of this eclipse as it travels from Texas to Maine. Nicknamed by the media as “The Great American Eclipse of 2024,” it will occur on Monday, April 8.

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A map developed using data from a variety of NASA sources shows the total eclipse path as a dark band. Outside this path, purple lines indicate how much of the Sun will become covered by the Moon during the partial eclipse. This video shows different areas of the map, and explains features that describe what observers across the country can expect to see.

New Jersey based viewers will see a partial, not a total solar eclipse, meaning that the Moon will never fully block the sun. But astronomers say it is still worth watching, as the Earth will still darken as the sun becomes partially obscured, and the sun will look as though a bite has been taken out of it. The peak of the solar eclipse maximum darkness will occur in Paradelle at about 3:24 p.m.