Seattle - Science Fiction Museum

I have a confession to make. Earlier this year when we were in San Diego, we actually skipped the zoo and actually went to an exhibit at the Space center on Star Trek. We even had our picture taken as a family on the bridge of the Enterprise.

So, these are geeks we're talking about here.

But, I have to say that the Science Fiction Museum in Seattle, which is in the same building as the Experience Music Project (near the Space Needle), is well worth a visit. 

What they did really well was to mix together the work of many different science fiction creators, and show how their ideas influenced one another. And, they had really cool artifacts like a model of the Death Star used in the movies and the plastic raincoat from "Blade Runner" (which appeared in a pretty gnarly scene, so it's a grownup thing, but just hanging there it's no big deal).

Science fiction is like one big thought experiment, where people try on various realities and decide what happens. Star Trek was a huge breakthrough when it put people of multiple races and genders on the bridge together. And there are so many other examples. 

Anyway, if you are a sci fi nerd like me, it's totally worth it to see such a massive number of artifacts and props and stories and personalities so well presented.

Seattle - Experience Music Project

As I mentioned in my previous post, we're just back from Seattle. While there we got to the Experience Music Project and the Science Fiction Museum. The EMP was both nostalgic and interactive simultaneously, with tons of artifacts from Seattle-area artists and bands arranged chonologically. There was also, of course, a memorial to Michael Jackson outside and a small case containing his sequined jacket and glove from when he first performed the "moonwalk." And, a really big room with Michael's music playing where people could just dance around and watch the back wall light up. What a great space.

But the coolest part, especially for kids, were the soundproof rooms where you could take ten minutes and jam. There were keyboards, drums, guitars, and computerized lessons on how to play them. There was even a room for vocals, although we didn't get into that one. But I did manage the bass line from "Smoke on the Water." Thank you, I knew you would be amazed.

Anyway, these exhibits really showed people of all ages the basic structures of music on lots of different instruments. And the way they did it, with exhibits and with soundproof rooms, meant people with little or no exposure to making music could goof around in a way that made them comfortable. 

We have a spinnet piano in our house, and I'm observing as my daughter makes progressively more structured sounds with it. She doesn't take any formal lessons, but you can really hear her thinking as she noodles around. I wish all kids had something like that. I think you could accomplish a lot by just providing some boxes or upside-down buckets and a paper towel roll to use as drums and drumsticks.

I really recommend those exhibits and rooms for anyone of any age. If you're near there, go. It's right near the Space Needle.

Seattle - Jim Henson Exhibit at the EMP

We're just back from a visit to Seattle, where we got to go to the Experience Music Project and Science Fiction Museum. I highly recommend both, although we are bigger geeks than your average bear...

They currently also have an exhibit on Jim Henson's work, including Muppets and a lot of storyboards and sketches. It's fascinating to look at proposal covers for the Muppet Show, done by hand with ink pens and whiteout. This stuff was put together waaaay before desktop publishing.

I also really enjoyed seeing storyboards and sketches for what were called "counting films," which you may remember from Sesame Street as the bright animated shorts in which they counted up to some number using fabulous shapes or characters and music. I love seeing the thought process, and for kids it's cool to show them all the thinking that takes place before anything ever shows up on a screen.

In fact, it was really striking how low-tech most of the productions were. And, as an added bonus, there was a sketch showing exactly how the puppeteer gets inside of and operates Big Bird. 

And, as a nice touch, they had a notebook out with a pen where you could sketch out a character just the way Henson used to do it. I loved how that made the exhibit about inspiring people, not just showing them what someone else did.

Anyway, if you're in Seattle before August 16th it's well worth seeing both for the nostalgia and for the peek at the ideas taking shape.

Where Do They Get This Stuff?

If you've ever watched "Star Wars: The Clone Wars," you'll recognize these fellows as the not-so-smart droids that are everywhere. But look closer - these droids have their own disco ball. And, they are dancing on one of those light-up disco dance floors. I have no idea how this particular combination occurred - perhaps the artist saw part of "Saturday Night Fever" in the last week? But I was impressed by how thorough this is. Go droids!

Drawing Over Time

This drawing, on a white board, looks like there's a ton going on - and there is. The space-invader-like creatures are battling the black rocket things, everyone is shooting at each other, and there's even a lot of yelling of "Zowee momma!"

But what's also interesting here is that this drawing was made over about 45 minutes. It started as one alien, then another one attacked, then someone's friend showed up, then people started yelling "Zowee momma," and things went from there. Along the way, a lot got erased also as the story developed. So this was not just a single drawing at all - it was a whole movie. Zowee momma!

Drawing in Reverse

I just spent a week at my son's school teaching a drawing camp - we used white boards, and paper, and drew from books and from our imagination. We even took the white boards out to a park one day and drew under the trees (no paper, since that would have gotten all over the place).

Since we had shiny new dry erase markers, there was a lot of ink (good thing these were the non-stinky kind). This meant the kids could color in the entire board and then erase to make their drawing. As you can see here, that's especially good for making space scenes. If you look closely, there's a rocket leaving earth to go visit some distant planet.

Studying the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter

On Thursday, NASA will launch the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, or LRO, and the LCROSS or Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satelllite. So we've set about studying the LRO first, to see what it looks like, what its payload will be, and how long its mission will take. The kids then took some clay and made their own LRO displays. The second one is a little more free-form, sine my 5-year-old mainly wanted to make a Lunar landscape, but you get the idea. The LRO is kind of a blunt-looking vehicle, and that's the moon over on the right. We used clay and then colored it in with paint and markers. You can see more about it on the NASA site.

This is gonna be some cool stuff and tell us a whole lot more about the moon. They're going to study radiation, craters, resources, and more. I'm hoping we can see the launch on Thursday!

On another note, I heard that there's actually astronaut poop on the moon. I'm not kidding. I mean it makes sense, given the *ahem* in's and out's of those space suits, but that's certainly not something I had considered. I've said enough - if you want to know more, you can go here.