Expectations.
This subject I've heard comes up in Planetarium discussions all the time, with the usual lament being that to wit: Kids and Adults today suffer from expectation overdrive. Special effects in the digital realm have rendered the star projector obsolete goes the refrain! Just visit any major facility and you'll maybe get 5 minutes of stars, and the rest an explosive 3D movie no doubt narrated by either William Shatner or Mark Hamill. Expectations are WAY TOO HIGH for a simple home managed planetarium to overcome. Woe is me! Why bother, who can compete!
This is what I've heard anyway. But to my mind it may be the exact opposite if you look at it the right way. Thats right. Expectations dont run too high. They run way too low!
I submit that this may be the case because todays audience .. todays kid if you will.. is probably oversaturated with effects. Jaded even. Blockbuster after blockbuster ups the ante until the ante cannot be upped anymore, and where might that leave an audience? Hungering perhaps for substance? A real story? Real myths .. real facts .. real stars! Expections may be lower than you think .. a millenial kid coming into a dome is just waiting for the explosions .. the black holes .. the singing and dancing molecules, and they may actually be pre-yawning. Not expecting anything to sink their teeth into. Not ready to be challenged with natures true majesty, which requires no adorning digitially. Not ready to be asked to imagine pictures in the stars above.. these low expectations may well be shattered and a new love and awakening achieved. Precisely because todays 'seen it all' kids havent seen it all. Chances are they have NOT seen the stars in their glory. Their low expectations may play right into your hands, and they may leave with more awe, more wonder, and more questions (and a few answers) than they ever did leaving the latest superhero extravaganza.
Perhaps the lesson is this .. never assume your audience has even imagined what you are about to show them. And its something they may struggle to see again anytime soon in todays world.
Go in imagining you will raise their expectations, not try to meet them. You just might be surprised.
Sunday, October 26, 2008
Tuesday, October 14, 2008
Night at the Museum
Imagine Late Nights!
In the museum .. when humans sleep and the fantastic may come alive.
A blue light appears as if by itself. the faint music of 2001.. a Space Oddyssy... begins but then a faint whirring sound obliterates all ..
In the Museum.. Late Nights!
Stella comes alive and beams Arcturus over to a sleeping Mercury.. this awakens him with a start! Mercury shakes off sleep, whirls about slowly, and casts his Aldeberan into Emmons slumbering eye.. Emmons turns grudgingly at first.. his is an everymans pipe fitting mount, not the polished bearings of his companions.. yet he is among peers and kin and he blazes from within... and sends his best Capella up to his giant Minolta brethren ..
The Minolta giant comes alive .. in the museum.. Late Nights!
Minolta beams everywhere at the same time ... the Spitz Dodec hums with power, having been energizes, his 50's circuits beaming.. a slow whirring dance commences .. and faintly at first..
The 2001 theme begins anew, playing as night has fallen in the museum and the projectors have awakened each other .. and dawn here will only come.. dawn here will only come... when they say so.
Imagine Late Nights! in the museum
(dedicated to Owen and his Musuem of Planetariums
In the museum .. when humans sleep and the fantastic may come alive.
A blue light appears as if by itself. the faint music of 2001.. a Space Oddyssy... begins but then a faint whirring sound obliterates all ..
In the Museum.. Late Nights!
Stella comes alive and beams Arcturus over to a sleeping Mercury.. this awakens him with a start! Mercury shakes off sleep, whirls about slowly, and casts his Aldeberan into Emmons slumbering eye.. Emmons turns grudgingly at first.. his is an everymans pipe fitting mount, not the polished bearings of his companions.. yet he is among peers and kin and he blazes from within... and sends his best Capella up to his giant Minolta brethren ..
The Minolta giant comes alive .. in the museum.. Late Nights!
Minolta beams everywhere at the same time ... the Spitz Dodec hums with power, having been energizes, his 50's circuits beaming.. a slow whirring dance commences .. and faintly at first..
The 2001 theme begins anew, playing as night has fallen in the museum and the projectors have awakened each other .. and dawn here will only come.. dawn here will only come... when they say so.
Imagine Late Nights! in the museum
(dedicated to Owen and his Musuem of Planetariums
Wednesday, October 1, 2008
This is For All the Lonely People
This is for all the lonely people
Stars were what they had at the North Drivein up in St Louis county when I was a child in 58 . Stars were what they had at Levi Jackson state park in 68 when dad drove us from Detroit on vacation towards eventual rain rain rain at Greenbo Lake in kentucky (according to my log).
But this is for all the lonely people for whom stars are the background like they used to be for me. Maybe they were to speak secrets to. In Tolkien they always blazed outside a glazed window, or in a forest cathedral. Sam even saw one from the reek of Mordor, and knew that there was high beauty forever beyond the reach of shadow.
Right now Carly Simon is singing ANTICIPATION, and I remember waiting for my first telescope.. and staying up camped in the backyard all night from suburban Chicago, in Ohares flight path no less, splitting doubles. No one told me about light pollution.
I remember my mother telling me abouat 71 not to go observing on New Years eve, .. we in Detroit drove 20 miles west out around Wixom for better skies - now thats a close in suburb.
Carly just sang THESE ARE THE GOOD OL DAYS. I wish I could believe that. I wish I didnt know now what I didnt know then.
This is for all the lonely people who dont look at the stars.
You might have to come here to see them. I've thought of recreating a Drivein. Paul Newman just went up into the sky .. think you used enough dynamite there Butch?
But this is for all the lonely people who sat up at camp late .. who went out into the snow . who like me in 68 went up a hill and tried to see Perseids ...
this is for all the lonely people
The stars are confessors.. as are comets.. they tell no tales of what they hear
Messengers. Harbingers
As I age the stars still really have no answers, but they never said they did. But they help us ask the right questions.
Im still one of the lonely people. But with the stars, indoor or out, not too alone
They can be yours too
You never know until you try
Stars were what they had at the North Drivein up in St Louis county when I was a child in 58 . Stars were what they had at Levi Jackson state park in 68 when dad drove us from Detroit on vacation towards eventual rain rain rain at Greenbo Lake in kentucky (according to my log).
But this is for all the lonely people for whom stars are the background like they used to be for me. Maybe they were to speak secrets to. In Tolkien they always blazed outside a glazed window, or in a forest cathedral. Sam even saw one from the reek of Mordor, and knew that there was high beauty forever beyond the reach of shadow.
Right now Carly Simon is singing ANTICIPATION, and I remember waiting for my first telescope.. and staying up camped in the backyard all night from suburban Chicago, in Ohares flight path no less, splitting doubles. No one told me about light pollution.
I remember my mother telling me abouat 71 not to go observing on New Years eve, .. we in Detroit drove 20 miles west out around Wixom for better skies - now thats a close in suburb.
Carly just sang THESE ARE THE GOOD OL DAYS. I wish I could believe that. I wish I didnt know now what I didnt know then.
This is for all the lonely people who dont look at the stars.
You might have to come here to see them. I've thought of recreating a Drivein. Paul Newman just went up into the sky .. think you used enough dynamite there Butch?
But this is for all the lonely people who sat up at camp late .. who went out into the snow . who like me in 68 went up a hill and tried to see Perseids ...
this is for all the lonely people
The stars are confessors.. as are comets.. they tell no tales of what they hear
Messengers. Harbingers
As I age the stars still really have no answers, but they never said they did. But they help us ask the right questions.
Im still one of the lonely people. But with the stars, indoor or out, not too alone
They can be yours too
You never know until you try
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