Never say never again

         (Originally posted on Apr 25, 2007 - 00:15) 
 

         A long time ago (yep another of those old stories), when I was 15 I used to skateboard. And I was not bad at it. Long hair, dressed in red and yellow and doing crazy things like hitch hiking several Km out of the city and skateboarding back to the city on the interstate road (Me and 2 friends got caught by the highway patrol twice) and constructing a 2.5 m tall half-pipe in my backyard... Lots of fun. 

When I turned 16 I kinda outgrown my skateboard fever and abandoned it for a guitar and I thought I would never go back. And I certainly never imagined that 25 years later I would do it again.
Until yesterday. 


         A friend of mine invited me to go roller skate in the park with some friends. I told her I don't know how to roller skate. That didn't stop her. She said she doesn't know either and she just got her rollers and is going to try for the first time so we could do it together. Hmmm... I knew she wasn't going to let me off the hook easily, so I had to think fast. And it went on these lines: If I get some roller skates it may be fun and it will be good to go out and enjoy the fresh air... IF I learn how to skate. And that was a huge IF. Otherwise the only fun would be that of the people watching me get a mouthful of asphalt every time I get on my feet. It was Saturday evening. Damn. No way I could go buy some rollers and have a crash course till tomorrow. And I certainly wasn't going to go buy the rollers on Sunday and put them on my feet for the first time in a crowded Herastrau!

         So I decided to take the path of less resistance. I told her that maybe I could consider the hint of a possibility of perhaps getting myself a skateboard instead of rollers because I used to skateboard when I was a kid, so who knows... maybe I could, perhaps, you know... kinda... try it again. She said bine. I thought she would probably forget it the next day. 

         In that same evening I had the birthday party of another dear friend of mine to attend. I didn't drink much, just some beer and some champagne. And a frappuccino to be able to walk home safely. I mean, I wasn't even dizzy but I took the coffee thing just in case. No, really.

         Next day I woke up at 11:00 with a headache the size of Belgium. I checked the damage report: 

         Dehydration level, 45%. 
         Recall of previous evening, 2%! 
         Embarrassment factor, 91%!! 

         Whoah!! I didn't know the frappuccino was THAT strong!! Oooo I knew I shouldn't have taken it... erm... :-D 

         I stumbled to the kitchen and made myself a big coffee. Stumble to the living room. Sat in front of the computer. Log in on Yahoo msgr to tune LAUNCHcast on Classic Rock because I wasn't in conditions to choose mp3s. As soon as Y! Msgr logs in, up pops a msg: "I really hope that right now you're getting ready to go buy a skateboard" Ooooo I had forgotten about it! (No wonder, with a recall level of 2%!) But apparently she hadn't! So I put on my poker face (which wasn't necessary because we weren't on webcam. But come on! I was in deep mahmurish mode! I wasn't thinking clearly. Or at all.) and told her, sure I just got dressed to leave and I was going to ask you what time we meet at the park. She said we meet in 120 minutes. But I swear it sounded like "you have 88 minutes to live, doc. Tic-tac, tic-tac" with the digitally muffled voice and all.

         So off I went to Carrefour, carrying my Belgium sized headache. I found the section with the roller skates but... no skateboards... Oh dear... What to do? It was such a nice day for the race outside... But jogging after my friend on rollers doesn't sound good... She said she's going to try the rollers for the first time. Oh what the hell... Be brave. I'll get myself some rollers and try it for the first time too. 

         Ok. I've decided. Let's find a nice one that fits me. 
         Now that's when Murphy's Law rules, right? If it looks nice, it's expensive. If it looks right and the price is right you can't find the right size. The only ones that fits your size, either you wouldn't get yourself caught dead wearing it or are so cheap that they would break just by looking hard at them.

         And in my case it was even worse. I chose one. Good looks. Good price. They have all numbers. What can go wrong? Well, my shoes are 42. I tried 42: Too tight. 43: Still tight. 44: STILL tight! 45: too big!!. Huh? Helloooo? Is there a 44.5 somewhere? No, of course not. I give up. 

         I'll either stay home or jog around. Stay home, most likely.
         Then I was browsing other sports gear. Tennis rackets, ping-pong rackets, baseball bats, skateboards, golf putters... Stai... Skateboards?? There they were, among rackets and clubs and bats. Well maybe here they use it for something else than skating... Then I overheard this comment from two kids checking the baseball bats: "Hey, these are good for smashing cars!" Yep. No wonder I thought the skateboards were in the wrong place. Maybe they use them for swatting bikers off their bikes or something like that.

         So I got the board. A fair cry from the custom assembled one that I had 25 years ago, with Tracker Trucks axles and Sims (Pure Juice!) wheels and a beautiful mahogany board, but I thought that for the moment it would do. 

         Well, it would have to do.
         Off to the park. 

         I met the gang at Herastrau. My friend was not the only one trying the rollers for the first time. I felt better. I was not going to be the only one embarrassing myself.

         So, after 25 years I was skateboarding again. I was quite rusty and the skateboard that I got wasn't performing its duties properly. It wasn't turning as well as it should. But I guess you get what you pay for. 

         As for my friend, she got proficient in her skating surprisingly fast. Now if I decide to switch to rollers I'll have a lot to catch up. 

         I also played something that I've never done before: Badminton.
Now that's a weird sport. I mean, I used to play tennis when I was young so I feel like all the physics of badminton is wrong. The air resistance of the bird is too big and that of the racket is too small. And the dynamics of it is also wrong. You hit the bird hard and yet it flies too slow. And because there's no bouncing on the ground you have to move yourself faster to keep the bird in the air. But after I got used to it, it was fun. 

         And then there's the day after.
         Ooooo... There's a big price to pay for moving like that after 25 years without practicing any sport. I feel pains in muscles that I didn't know existed. Actually I feel like my muscle pains start 2 meters from my body.
And I received a threat from my friend: We're going again next weekend and the next and this is going to become our regular activity. In her own words: 

         "You will wish it will rain in the weekends!"
         Oh dear.
         I guess it's no pain, no gain, right? 

Give me another dose

(Originally posted on Mar 20, 2007 22:33)   

Sometimes I wonder if music shouldn't be treated as a controlled substance or even illegal. No, seriously. Have you never had your mood altered by music? Have you never felt some strong emotions when listening to a certain music? Haven't you never felt depressed by listening to Pink Floyd? Have you never wept listening to Barber's Adagio? Have you never felt a rush while driving under the influence of Deep Purple's Highway Star? Never felt nausea listening to manele? Never felt the hair on your arms stand up and your spine tingle when listening to Beethoven's 9th? Never felt nostagia listening to Dvorak's 9th?

         Music is powerful stuff. Ask Charles Manson and his "family" who claimed that they committed several murders under the influence of Beatles' Helter Skelter.
Ok, that's not a nice example because they were obviously all mental institute material but ask anyone who had felt those sensations that I described above. And if you've never felt them, then I suggest you get yourself checked for catatonia or catalepsy. 

         When I was in high school (yeah, yet another story that starts with “When I was young…” symptoms of that malady called Age) I had one of those quasi-religious, life-changing, mind-altering experiences with this drug called music.

          In that period I was deep in to rock music but by chance I stumbled upon this record (yes one of those big black records, not the small shiny silver ones) called Switched on Bach, by Wendy Carlos (well, in that time she used to be Walter Carlos) in a record shop. 

         I thought the cover was amusing and it seemed interesting to me because I have this fascination for electronic synthesizers since I was 10. So I bought the record, took it home and started listening. When I listened to the Brandenburg Concert nr.3 I felt that rush that we usually relate to drugs. Now that was something new to me and it hit me on the face like a ton of gold bricks wrapped on lemon slices and without a license plate. It was like “Whoa! Oh your god!! What was that?? Where have it been all my life? Why haven’t I never heard this before?? Why am I listening to rock and not this??” And the next thought was “I need mooooore!!!” Ha! Signals of drug addiction on the first try! Now THAT is potent stuff!

         The next day I went running to the record shop to look for more Bach and then I’ve found the album that really changed my life: The complete Brandenburg concerts by the Collegium Aureum, on period instruments!! 

I could barely wait to get home to listen to it. And if the synthesizer version gave me a rush, this one shot me way past the speed of light and made me time-travel to the 17th century!! And the big advantage of this type of drug is that there’s no time lag from the moment the drug enters your system until it start making effect on your brain. It’s almost instantaneous! Well, the speed of sound is negligible in this case. And ooohhhh what an effect!! I spent the whole afternoon and evening listening to those concerts non-stop. And my thought was “too bad I have to listen to them one by one… I wish I could inject them all at once!” Yep. That was addiction, alright. Since then I always thought that if one day I get hold of a time machine, this is the moment that I want to relive again. The moment I was illuminated by Bach. How I wish to feel again that first big rush when the Brandenburg 3 invaded my brain and etched it’s undeletable marks on my cortex!!

         And without knowing I became not only addicted, but also a purist! For in the next day I asked a friend of mine who liked classic music to let me borrow his recording of the Brandenburgs for comparison. And he his version was by Karajan with the Berlin Phillharmonic. Oh… What a difference it was!! That huuuuge orchestra lumbering like a geriatric dinosaur! Compared to my version with the small orchestra and period instruments, so vibrant, so dynamic, this one was horrible!! From that moment on I became a true purist and only accepted historically informed performances on period instruments. Of course, in that period, in the early 80s this is not what they were called. They were just labeled “authentic performances” but alas, the politically correctness of 90s took over and now they are called “Historically Informed Performances” or HIP. But I digress…

         So I was bitten by the Bach bug. And I couldn’t get enough. In the next day I was back to the record shop, digging for more HIP Bach. And I found another Collegium Aureum record with the concert for Oboe and Violin BWV 1060. Whooosh! Another big dose of my favorite drug!!
And the next one was the Goldberg Variations with Gustav Leonhardt on the harpsichord. 

          Strangely enough, the Goldberg Variations rush was delayed for several years. Not that Leonhardt’s interpretation wasn’t good, but somehow it didn’t hit me on the face like the concerts. 

          It was only a few years ago that it finally made it’s effect. And even more strange is the recording that caused the effect: Glenn Gould on the piano. 

         When I started my Bachmania I was reading everything that I could find about Bach and his works and I was always searching for the best possible interpretations. And I heard a lot about Glenn Gould. First of all I was apprehensive about him because the last thing you could call him was “authentic” or HIP. On the contrary. All the Bach purists always criticized him for the liberties he took in his interpretations. But I didn’t want to be intolerant, especially without even giving the guy a decent try. So I bought a record with some piano concertos and some solo piano works. And I had to agree with his critics about the liberties taken. But what was worse to me was his idiosyncrasies. He SINGS while he play the piano!! Oh your god!! I couldn’t believe!! And he doesn’t sing the melody that he’s playing!! He sings something completely different. And quite off key!! So I practically banned Gould from my collection. Until recently, when I started relaxing my rule about non-HIP recordings and started searching for a good piano version of the Goldbergs. And everywhere I read about it the verdict was almost unanimous… Gould. So I decided to give the guy a second chance. I admit that it took some time for me to cast away my prejudice about his tempos and lack of baroque ornaments and his annoying singing. And then… it finally clicked!! But the Goldberg/Gould is not a stimulant to me. It's more like a calmant. Whenever I am nervous or anxious it helps me feel better. I also like to listen to it while I'm cooking. Unless I'm cooking pasta. Then it has to be Pavarotti.
And when I am really depressed I usually make an intensive treatment with Bach. In the veins, if necessary. Never had an overdose, so far.

         So, Bach is my favorite drug.
         As I said, I am surprised that music is not a controlled substance. But I am happy it isn't and I hope it won't be. 

         And today, March, 21st is a special day: Bach makes 322 years.
         Happy Birthday, Johann!!
         And give me another dose. 

Halley

         (Originally posted on Mar 17, 2007 16:13)

         And talking about comets, March 15th also marked the anniversary of my encounter with yet another comet 21 years ago. The Halley. 

         Since I was about 9 years old I was fascinated by astronomy and since I was in high school I was an amateur astronomer.

         Being an amateur astronomer in Brazil in the 80s was a very frustrating activity. In that period the Brazilian government was trying to kickstart the domestic industry by forbidding imports. So if you were a musician, for example, you couldn't get your hands on high quality imported musical instruments, you had to content yourself with the low grade Brazilian made copies. And in the case of amateur astronomers it was even worse. There wasn't any Brazilian made telescopes at all, not even low grade ones. So, if you wanted to be an amateur astronomer in Brazil in that period you also had to be an amateur telescope maker. So when I was in high school me and another astronomy buff friend of mine started making our own equipment and research. It was fun and it consumed half of my free time (the other half being consumed by my other hobby: playing guitar and singing in a garage rock band. With a low-grade Brazilian made electric guitar, of course) to the horror of my mother who used to give me a hard time for fumbling with non-profitable, time-wasting activities instead of studying. She used to yell at me that I would never make any money with this astronomy nonsense. Ha! She couldn't be more wrong. Well, actually yes, she was even wronger when she forbid me to take paint and design classes because I would never make money with it... But I digress. 

         So astronomy and telescope making were very time consuming. Can you imagine how long does it take to grind and polish a block of glass by hand until you have a perfect parabolic surface? But it was fun. I loved it. We used to skip geography and history classes to get together with the physics teacher and discuss astronomy and astrophysics.

         And then by the end of 1985 we started preparing for Halley. All our equipment were specially made to photograph deep space objects. For the comet we needed a wide angle, high luminosity astrocamera. We were already developing a big telescope. We already had the mirror, a 30Cm monster that took hundreds of man-hours of painstaking polishing. But in no way this equipment was going to be ready for Halley. By chance we stumbled upon a derelict copy machine and after some major surgery we extracted from it's interior the lenses that would be our new astrocamera. And from some scrap metal and an old washing machine timer we made a motorized equatorial mount and on March, 15th, 1986 we became the first amateurs to photograph the Halley comet in Brazil.

         Here's a transcript from the article in the photo, condensed and without the unnecessary tabloid bla-bla for your convenience:

        Halley - Amateurs make equipment to take photos

         Equipped with a newtonian reflector telescope of 120mm diameter and 870mm focal distance, a telephoto lens of 180mm and a 400mm astrocamera, the students Marcos Sakaguti and Anacleto Domingos Espinosa, residents of the city of Piedade, located and photographed the Comet Halley last Saturday night in a place 3 Km from the city. All the equipment were handmade by the students.

         Sakaguti declares that all he knows about Astronomy he learned from books and doesn't intend to follow Astronomy as a career. He intends to computer sciences and have astronomy as just a hobby. Even so, both Sakaguti and Anacleto are members of the Union of Amateur Astronomers, based in São Paulo and they maintain contact with the physics professors of Sorocaba Faculty of Technology. 

         Sakaguti tells us that when he photographed the comet last Saturday the sky wasn't in good conditions for this kind of astrophotography but even so the comet could be seen through their equipment. The observer explains that Halley was located South-East at an altitude of 25 to 30 degrees. 

        He was the first amateur in the country to locate and photograph the comet.
As the best views of the comet are reserved for the next few weeks, both students intend to obtain more detailed photos. 

         Before the event of the "Halley fever" both amateurs were already busy with astronomy and astrophotography. And when they are not in the field using their equipment, Sakaguti and Anacleto are busy with another activity: the fabrication of their equipment. With lenses, mirrors and tubes in a modest workshop they produce equipments that can't be found even in the specialized market. 

About their handmade equipment, Sakaguti explains that the newtonian reflector telescope, contrary to what people believe, works not with lenses, but with parabolic mirrors. 

         Intending to get better astrophotographs, both amateurs are developing a much bigger telescope with a main mirror of 300mm of diameter and a focal distance of 1680mm, which will be the biggest amateur telescope in the country. "With this equipment we will be able to observe and photograph the most faint galaxies and nebulae", explain the student. 

         The photos and observation date of Halley obtained by Anacleto and Sakaguti are being forwarded to the National Institute of Space Research in São Jose dos Campos and to the International Halley Watch in NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory as data obtained in the Southern hemisphere are scarce and highly needed. 

         About the spectacle that the Halley will give to the brazilians, Sakaguti warns that too much expectancy may end in frustration: "The spectacle will be fascinating, I have no doubts, but the communication media and the commerce are making too big a deal about it and this may frustrate a lot of people". He reminds us that in 1910 in it's last apparition, the comet was 8 million Km from Earth. "This time it's closest approach will be no less than 63 million Km. And that's a very considerable difference" warns Sakaguti. 

         It's so frustrating how journalists have the ability to mess scientific information (er... Monica, if you're reading this, read it "most of the journalists"). They not only messed a lot of the information that I gave but they published the wrong photo! In the same negative I had several shots that I made while testing the equipment and then some really good shots of the Halley. And of course they had to publish the worst of the test shots. Aaaaargh!

         Even so, this article helped me get one of the best jobs I've ever had. When I was in Japan and still working in a factory I made some friends in the amateur astronomy community in Nagoya. When I showed them the astrophotographs that I'd made in Brazil with my crude hand made equipment I got the respect of those who were using state-of-the-art equipment. After some time one of them, who was a manager of a big telescope maker company (actually one of the greatest telescope company in the world) offered me a job in the company. 

         As I am an amateur I have no curriculum in the astronomical field. But I had my photos and this newspaper add and they were enough to convince the directors of the company to hire me. 

 

         That was such a great job that I never thought I would have the slightest right to dream that one day I would get.
And it was offered to me because when I was a kid I used to waste my time "fumbling with non-profitable, time-wasting activities instead of studying." 

         Mooom! Pay-back time!! 

Wish You Were Here...

(Originally posted on Feb 22, 2007 15:34)

"So, so you think you can tell Heaven from Hell,

blue skies from pain.

Can you tell a green field from a cold steel rail?

A smile from a veil?

Do you think you can tell?

And did they get you to trade your heroes for ghosts?

Hot ashes for trees?

Hot air for a cool breeze?

Cold comfort for change?

And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage?

How I wish, how I wish you were here.

We're just two lost souls swimming in a fish bowl, year after year,

Running over the same old ground.

What have we found? The same old fears.

Wish you were here."



I used to sing this song a long time ago, when I was 19 and I played in a garage band.

In that time it used to be just a pretty song to me.

Now that I got to this age, far from home and many of my friends got into the habit of being dead or somehow gone, I can feel the pain in it.
And it hurts.