The Land of Make Believe

From Planetaria Obscura - July 2016

The Land of Make Believe

Make Believe - the action of pretending or imagining, typically that things are better than they really are. Like "she's living in a world of make-believe"  

BETTER than they really are, that hadn’t occurred to me.  I didn’t quite buy that, but it was thought provoking.   Would my planetarium have an undercurrent of ‘well the real sky today sucks, so I’ve got the REAL way it should look - used to look’   That might be an easy trap to fall into, as my goal of course was to impart WONDER first and teach a little second.   Well not exactly a trap, if my goal was to educate about light pollution.  Its not so easy then, constructing and operating a land of make believe maybe.  Besides, the whole name is a bit misleading. We can’t really MAKE anyone believe anything can we.  We can try to convince them, show them what we believe.

The rest is up to them.  

Plot vs Theme in the Amusement Park

From the newsletter Planetaria Obscura - June, 2016

What’s the appeal of a home made star projector?  HPA Issue 12 had this to say:

Starlab?  I don’t want one!  I want one of a kind instruments, hand labored, eccentric, quirky, and beautiful in their own unique personalities. I like instruments that grow month by month, instruments that require hand adjustment, and ones that have permanent homes rather than living out of a suitcase.  Instruments with names, not numbers  This is not to knock commercial big boys however, when recently I visited Chris McCall’s Sudekum Planetarium in Nashville, I was impressed by the way her Spitz did a kind of ballet, whirling and even back flipping at shows end gracefully.  I was probably the only one watching the stars AND their source instead of the program being presented.

So for shows like Chris’s and the ones I’ve done, the plot (the story) here was certainly the astronomical information given.  But to me, the theme (the underlining meaning) was that the heavens are a kind of ballet.  And the projector is the dancer.  I watch both.

I liked the old amusement parks, before ’theme’ parks came into being, so really I think of my planetarium as both.  Many themes live out there, as the plots play out.  But amusements?  I’m lucky to be old enough to remember Riverview in Chicago, and Chain of Rocks on the bluffs above St Louis.  How would my planetarium measure up as a center of amusement?   I can speak of the galaxy as one big steam carousel, in a carnival of night.  See how it whirls!   Are we not on some gilded horse going round and round
forever amid the flashing lights and calliope music?  Gravity provides our roller coaster rides, invisible fingers accelerating us on a fantastic track through eternity.  Quantum physics now lures us into a bizarre funhouse of curved mirrors, stretching and flattening out our realities.  A planetarium and its atmospheric hurly burly (I always wanted to say that) puts you right on the midway.

Step right up.  

Thee Ate Er

From Planetaria Obscura May 2016

             Thee Ate Er
     
So I’ve been calling this round shed I built a theater.  This not to code, easily knocked down, tin roofed little monstrosity a theater. Its got walls of the cheapest paneling, since that bends the best.  Its got a trailer skirting roof, since it could be overlapped.  Its got rafters that are teepee’ed together, a gravity defying trick I finally trusted only a year ago when I nervously took the last supporting 2x4 out and it didn’t collapse.  Its got black vinyl plastic, the stuff I love to hate and hate but love.  The dome part is sprayed white, but continually requires touch up - I remember getting sick the day I did it - da fumes! Da fumes! Sorry.   The floor is uneven, sloped, and covered with ancient rugs. But it’s a theater because I say it’s a theater, despite its construction shortcomings.  What if I compared real theaters with mine?  Dare I??

Up at the movie house we still occasionally go to, you have to sit through 25 minutes of ads and previews.  In mine, you have to sit through 25 minutes of dark adaption.  When I recently saw a Midsummer Nights Dream at a big college, there were kings and queens and heroes and all manner of unlikely creatures. I have that.  The movie place had unlimited butter popcorn.  Mine has unlimited banter popping from me. The play had rich costumes.  Mine has me in somewhat drabber dress, but who cares in the dark.  The real theaters used to have ushers with flashlights.  AHA!  I still employ one of those.  Although he’s been asking for a raise lately, and goes through a lot of batteries…

Have You Seen the Saucers?

From Planetaria Obscura May 2016

  Have You Seen the Saucers?

When I inherited  from my late father in law an additional turntable and old vinyl collection, it went right in the planetarium. Never completely comfortable with invisible digital stuff, now I could buy 99 cent vinyl at Goodwill and sit back in a lazy-gare and contemplate the actual printed French lyrics to Dominique by the Singing Nun.  Who wouldn’t? But how to work it in though - all these soulful old discs. How is a record like a galaxy I mused. There’s a black hole at the center!  I tried to get rolling.  It spins.  It has side A and side B - like …  matter and anti matter …  light and dark matter…   Gravity holds the needle in the groove - its like the march of time from the outer edge to the innermost track.  That’s all I could think of, but after an extensive google-based search of 10 seconds, there was this:…. The linear velocity of the needle in the groove is much slower near the end of the record than at the beginning.  This means the frequency response is audibly different on the inner tracks… its always a good idea to end each side with a quiet song.  That sounds like red shifted light - the further out, the faster…  the old stars at the center quiet down while the young ones out further rage…. ..

But did Kiss end LP’s quietly? 

As Some Dreams Do (The Globe Theater)

From Planetaria Obscura April 2016

As Some Dreams Do
     
I’ve always been fascinated by Shakespeare’s Globe theater, being circular like a planetarium, but OPEN AIR in the center - feeding into my fantasy of a planetarium that could somehow double as a real star viewing area with a removable roof or something. This notion was kind of shot down when I researched it a bit -

‘Two posts upheld a cover over the stage that protected the players and their expensive costumes from rain. The audience standing in the yard had no cover, though when it rained they could pay more and take shelter in the lowest gallery.  The plays were staged in the AFTERNOONS, using the light of day, and the audience surrounded the stage on all sides. No scenery was used, except for occasional emblematic devices such as a throne or a bed. It was almost impossible not to see the other half of the audience standing behind the players. Consequently, much of the staging was metatheatrical, conceding the illusory nature of the game of playing and making little pretense of stage realism'

In the afternoon?  There went my romantic vision of original Shakespeare, under the stars.  This dream will have to remain a dream for now.

As some dreams do.  

Planetariums and .. the Beatles?

From Planetaria Obscura March 2016

I fancy myself as a bit of a Beatles scholar.

Slightly too young to be buying records until the very end of the Beatles reign, I’ve spent the years since trying to catch up, reading countless books about them and of course wearing out the LPs.  How is my planetarium like the Beatles?  Well, I’ve read that the studio engineers sat around waiting endlessly while the Beatles ‘got their ideas together’.  Surely my aged barn feels the same way as it watches me spend yet another year endlessly rearranging things till it just seems ’right’.

The Beatles wrote songs in a wide variety of styles, and I can’t seem to settle on any given configuration, show, or even star ball in my planetarium. The Beatles and I both have screamed HELP!

But there are ways that we differ as well.

I’m not a day tripper.

I never let it be.

And rest assured that no matter how dark it gets in there, I decidedly do NOT want to hold your hand.   

I'll Sit in the Door!

From Planetaria Obscura March 2016

Nobody deals with round rooms.

Well some people perhaps have turrets on their houses - Jefferson had an Octagonal Room at Monticello.  But I submit a planetarium owner (all 5 of us) have to deal with no corners in ways nobody else does. This is my preferred explanation for why my floor configuration keeps changing.  Other explanations include no attention span, easily bored etc, so I prefer  the round room difficulty theory.  I have literally returned to my original West looking configuration recently, after going from West to North (these are the real directions), North to East, East to South.  The land slopes West to East, so spectators, if any, have alternatively been looking a bit up, a bit down, or a bit sideways over the course of the past 10 years.  Endless chair configurations have ensued, along with entrances and uses for the addition I put on years ago.  My switch last year to rockers (old ones from the house, I have 7) brought the seats out from the round walls so you can .. rock.

But where should I go?

 It’s a small 15 foot diameter ’room’.  As much as I’ve wanted the console off to the side larger rooms afford, I’m always blocking SOMETHING.  Same with sitting in the middle.  I finally hit on it this morning.  I’ve returned to viewing to the West, with a semi-circular focal point stretch of sky down to the floor (totally circular seating doesn’t work with small round rooms, someone always has stars over their shoulder).  It finally dawned on me there was but one unused place in the room - the doorway.  And I had to secure the door anyway after people were in.  I’ll just put my stool IN THE DOORWAY and not block anything!   A small table to one side for accessories.

But I don’t think Thomas Jefferson did it this way.