Another day in the life of a scientist

Long day in the lab yesterday. One of those days that leave you dead-tired, so that when you get home you just want to find the couch, turn the TV on and just do nothing. Got my morning coffee first. Workday started off with me doing a procedure called western blotting—104 cell samples loaded manually (by me) onto four plastic-like gels and pushed through them by electricity. Point of procedure? To separate proteins in the samples according to their molecular weights. Just the sample loading took over an hour. Have to pay attention--very easy to make a mistake and load the wrong sample in the wrong place. Made buffers after that. Found all the accessories needed to complete the procedure. Lunchtime in my office. Knock on my office door. Impromptu visit from the big boss. Shoveled in my salad while talking about my future—lab frock on and thoroughly harried. Thought about that. In my younger days I wouldn’t have eaten a bite while talking to the boss. Would have been too nervous. Now I do. No longer nervous. Getting used to all these conversations. Back in the lab. Two more hours of finishing up this gel procedure. Nice results. A reward for the hard work and long hours. Not always that way. A quick coffee break. Meeting with my student--discussed results. Hers and mine—she does the same procedure to get data so we can discuss what’s happening in her cells. Interesting project. She will get her thesis done. Hope there will be an article out of it. Cannot predict that when you first start the work. Do all this work for several months and suddenly a dead-end. That’s research. Used to disappointments—makes success all the more enjoyable. Scanned in some data, transferred it to the computer, sent it on to my student. Finished up paperwork before heading for home. Bought a grilled chicken, fried up some mushrooms, made broccoli—voila—dinner on my own. Hubby out with his lab group for dinner. TV night for once—not often that happens! The King’s Speech, Game of Thrones, The Way We Were—well-worth the watching time. Monday starts another week, more long days in the lab. Wonder how I did this when I was younger—long long hours in the lab, sometimes twelve per day. Dead-tired a lot of the time. Like being in the lab though. Will probably be doing that till I retire--white frock on, in front of the lab bench, alone. Not a bad way to work given the new workplace propensity for long unsatisfying meetings these days. Would rather be in the lab, all things considered. 

The music of Sherlock

I am really enjoying the BBC series Sherlock, as I wrote the other day in my post The Fascination with Sherlock. Have just seen the third episode from the first season, and am hoping that NRK continues right into the second season, which I believe has only two episodes (the first season had three). I think it is a high-quality production with some really terrific acting and plots, and I hope it continues in that vein. What I didn’t mention in that earlier post is that the music from the series is also top-notch and very catchy—just perfect for the show. 

Here are some links to two of the themes:

Sherlock Opening Theme: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XLlt0cK4uA0&feature=related

Sherlock's Theme by David Arnold and Denis Yeletskikh: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ECV064U6ygw

Some of my favorite books

As promised in my post about writers from a few days ago--some of my favorite authors and their books:

·         Thomas Hardy: Jude the Obscure; Tess of the d’Urbervilles; The Mayor of Casterbridge; Far from the Madding Crowd

·         Henry James: The Portrait of a Lady; The Golden Bowl; Washington Square; The Wings of the Dove; The Turn of the Screw

·         Charles Dickens: Great Expectations; A Christmas Carol; A Tale of Two Cities; David Copperfield

·         Francois Mauriac: Viper’s Tangle; Therese; The Woman of the Pharisees; The Desert of Love

·         C.S. Lewis: The Screwtape Letters; Mere Christianity; Surprised by Joy; Miracles; The Problem of Pain

·         Jean Rhys: Wide Sargasso Sea; Good Morning, Midnight; Smile Please; Quartet

·         John Le Carre: A Perfect Spy; The Spy Who Came in from the Cold

·         John Steinbeck: The Winter of Our Discontent; Of Mice and Men; Cannery Row

·         Dorothy Sayers: Whose Body?; Strong Poison; Have His Carcase; Hangman’s Holiday; Gaudy Night; Busman’s Honeymoon

·         Milan Kundera: The Unbearable Lightness of Being; Life is Elsewhere; Immortality

·         Rollo May: The Meaning of Anxiety; Love and Will; Man’s Search for Himself; The Courage to Create

·         George Eliot: The Mill on the Floss; Silas Marner  

·         Charlotte Bronte: Jane Eyre

·         Emily Bronte: Wuthering Heights

·         Henry David Thoreau: Walden; Civil Disobedience

·         Ray Bradbury: The Martian Chronicles; Something Wicked This Way Comes; Fahrenheit 451; Dandelion Wine; The Illustrated Man

·         Michael Crichton: The Andromeda Strain; The Terminal Man; Timeline

·         Stanislaw Lem: Solaris

Ideas in the darkness and in the light of day

The best time for planning a book is while you’re doing the dishes.

— Agatha Christie

If Agatha Christie said this, then it is not so difficult for budding writers (like myself) to admit the same. I think of all the times when I’m doing housework, and ideas pop into my head, and I make a mental note to write them down before they just flit away into the vast cosmos. I wonder if there is a world somewhere—the world of lost ideas. I wonder if there is a way of entering that world, in order to retrieve some of the ideas that got away. Because they do slip away if you don’t catch them when they first appear. Many of them appear while doing mundane chores. But many of them come vividly to life in the darkness. How many times I lie awake at around 5am and ideas rush into my head, and I ponder each of them, turning them over and over in my mind. Can this work? Can I write about that? How will I develop this or that character? Should I do so? And so on. Some of the ideas don’t pass muster in the light of day. It’s odd what the early morning darkness will do for your creativity. Some of the ideas are wild, fantastical, and completely irrational—but they are exciting to think about because there is an element of dare and bravado to them; that can disappear in the waking light. My mind is somehow braver in the dark, and it is an aspect of me that I don’t understand. This can also be true for finding solutions to problems—personal or otherwise. I come up with such wonderful solutions in the dark—things I’m going to say (and mean), decisions that will be irrevocable--the new me with a tough no-nonsense attitude. I come up with quips and sarcastic retorts to rude people and can plan out my replies to those who like to talk over me when I try and speak. And then the dawn breaks and in the light of day I’m not so tough. I have to struggle to be brave and to remember my promises to myself made in the dark. And it is the same with writing. The ideas are there--hundreds of ideas. I don’t lack for ideas for what to write about. The problem is choosing the one idea I want to focus on. The ideas have probably been there for years, inside of me, waiting for an opening. Sitting down and actually writing about them releases them, expands them, solidifies them and makes them real. But in the darkness they all seem so viable. In the light, they are not. In fact, some of them can seem quite ridiculous.

I try to pay attention to my inner voice, the one that tells me what path is probably best to follow these days. My heart is in accord with this inner voice. So I have often experienced that my inner voice tells me to have several projects going at one time—I work a little on one of them during one week, and then suddenly the following week, my inner voice suggests that I focus on another project. I don’t know if it is like this for other writers. For example, I am currently working on a book of short stories and a science fiction novel, but the book that is ready to go at present is a book of reflections about workplaces and the work world that I’ve been mulling over for the last month or so. Most of the essays and reflections that make up the book were written during the past two years, but it is the actual compilation of these that took some time. How best to present them, which ones should come first--that sort of thing. It all fell into place, and once again I marvel at the creative process. I understand so little of it, but it is so exhilarating to experience. The freedom associated with it is like nothing I have ever experienced before, and once you taste that freedom, you will not trade it away for anything. 

Writers I’d like to interview

This idea came to me during a conversation with my husband this morning on our way to work. And then I started to think about some of my favorite books and their authors. Who would I like to have a really interesting conversation with, and would that necessarily be the result if it was possible? Some of the writers who came to mind (both living and deceased), in no particular order, are as follows: Thomas Hardy, Henry James, John Le Carre, John Steinbeck, Ray Bradbury, Stanislaw Lem, Charles Dickens, Francois Mauriac, CS Lewis, Jean Rhys, Milan Kundera, George Eliot, Rollo May, Charlotte Bronte, Emily Bronte, Henry David Thoreau, Michael Crichton, and Dorothy Sayers. These are just a few of many; but I think these particular writers had a remarkable influence on me at different times in my life. I’ve read at least one book by each of these authors; in many cases, three or more.

I wonder how it would be to interview them; I certainly have many questions I’d love to ask them. Questions about how they write; the process of writing--do they sit and write each day? Where do they get their inspiration from? When did they know that they had this talent, this ability to put words on paper that ended up being a book, and when did they decide to reveal that talent to the world? I would ask them how it felt to finish their books; especially the first one. How did it feel to read a review of their first book? How did it feel to earn a living by writing, and was/is it possible? Or do you always need to have a backup job in case the writing doesn’t provide a comfortable-enough living? Do they associate with other writers? Do they share their writings with others during the process, or do they wait until the book is finished before they show it to someone else? Are they ever nervous about how their books will be received? How long did it take to write their individual books? Do they re-write and edit constantly? Do they believe in a collective unconscious—a collection of the archetypical personal experiences of many individuals that can be shared with all those who wish to learn from them or utilize them for their creative works? I will include some of these authors’ books in a future post—the ones I call my favorites.

Some famous quotes about heaven

Just to balance out yesterday's post--famous quotes about hell--here are some famous quotes about heaven. The different views of heaven and resulting quotes are as different as the individuals who have uttered them. That was true for yesterday's quotes about hell as well.

Heaven means to be one with God.

Confucius

Death and life have their determined appointments; riches and honors depend upon heaven.

Confucius

Our life of poverty is as necessary as the work itself. Only in heaven will we see how much we owe to the poor for helping us to love God better because of them.

Mother Teresa

Words without thoughts never to heaven go.

William Shakespeare

Ignorance is the curse of God; knowledge is the wing wherewith we fly to heaven.

William Shakespeare

The love of heaven makes one heavenly.

William Shakespeare

Aim at heaven and you will get earth thrown in. Aim at earth and you get neither.

C. S. Lewis

No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don't want to die to get there. And yet death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be, because Death is very likely the single best invention of Life. It is Life's change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new.

Steve Jobs

The "kingdom of Heaven" is a condition of the heart - not something that comes "upon the earth" or "after death."

Friedrich Nietzsche

To see the world in a grain of sand, and to see heaven in a wild flower, hold infinity in the palm of your hands, and eternity in an hour.

William Blake

Heaven is under our feet as well as over our heads.

Henry David Thoreau

Pennies do not come from heaven. They have to be earned here on earth.

Margaret Thatcher

We ought to fly away from earth to heaven as quickly as we can; and to fly away is to become like God, as far as this is possible; and to become like him is to become holy, just, and wise.

Plato

Nothing but heaven itself is better than a friend who is really a friend.

Plautus

You have to go on and be crazy. Craziness is like heaven.

Jimi Hendrix

Heaven and hell suppose two distinct species of men, the good and the bad. But the greatest part of mankind float betwixt vice and virtue.

David Hume

Ask yourself whether the dream of heaven and greatness should be waiting for us in our graves - or whether it should be ours here and now and on this earth.

Ayn Rand

If you are not allowed to laugh in heaven, I don't want to go there.

Martin Luther

A happy family is but an earlier heaven.

George Bernard Shaw

My home is in Heaven. I'm just traveling through this world.

Billy Graham

A man content to go to heaven alone will never go to heaven.

Boethius

Music is harmony, harmony is perfection, perfection is our dream, and our dream is heaven.

Henri Frederic Amiel

Blessed be childhood, which brings down something of heaven into the midst of our rough earthliness.

Henri Frederic Amiel

The true object of all human life is play. Earth is a task garden; heaven is a playground.

Gilbert K. Chesterton

You think dogs will not be in heaven? I tell you, they will be there long before any of us.

Robert Louis Stevenson

What some famous people have said about hell

I happened to run across this quote the other day--"Hell is other people"--and I didn't remember who had said it. So I googled it and found out that it was Jean-Paul Sartre who is the responsible party. Interesting quote--makes you wonder in what context he meant it. Was he surrounded by babblers and sycophants his entire life? If so, then I can imagine that would have been hell to a philosopher and thinker who required solitude in order to think and to write. Or was he just a miser with his affections and love, a man who hurt those who loved him? Because to say that hell is other people is really quite a drastic statement. If he was still alive, I'd ask him what he meant by this. But that's not possible. So I found some other famous quotations about hell. If nothing else, they make you think.

The darkest places in hell are reserved for those who maintain their neutrality in times of moral crisis.

Dante Alighieri

If you're going through hell, keep going.

Winston Churchill

It is better to conquer yourself than to win a thousand battles. Then the victory is yours. It cannot be taken from you, not by angels or by demons, heaven or hell.

Buddha

Marriage is neither heaven nor hell, it is simply purgatory.

Abraham Lincoln

I don't like to commit myself about heaven and hell - you see, I have friends in both places.

Mark Twain

Hell is empty and all the devils are here.

William Shakespeare

The safest road to hell is the gradual one - the gentle slope, soft underfoot, without sudden turnings, without milestones, without signposts.

C. S. Lewis

I never did give anybody hell. I just told the truth and they thought it was hell.

Harry S. Truman

Paradise was made for tender hearts; hell, for loveless hearts.

Voltaire

I'm going to let God be the judge of who goes to heaven and hell.

Joel Osteen

Every man is his own hell.

H. L. Mencken

A man is born alone and dies alone; and he experiences the good and bad consequences of his karma alone; and he goes alone to hell or the Supreme abode.

Chanakya

Hell is a half-filled auditorium.

Robert Frost

I hold it to be the inalienable right of anybody to go to hell in his own way.

Robert Frost

Hell hath no fury like a bureaucrat scorned.

Milton Friedman

War is hell.

William Tecumseh Sherman

Maybe this world is another planet's hell.

Aldous Huxley

Hell isn't merely paved with good intentions; it's walled and roofed with them. Yes, and furnished too.

Aldous Huxley

There is not a fiercer hell than the failure in a great object.

John Keats

Despair is the damp of hell, as joy is the serenity of heaven.

John Donne

To consider persons and events and situations only in the light of their effect upon myself is to live on the doorstep of hell.

Thomas Merton

If you want to study the social and political history of modern nations, study hell.

Thomas Merton

The mind is its own place and in itself, can make a Heaven of Hell, a Hell of Heaven.

John Milton

The road out

I’m often asked how I dealt with leaving my birth country for this one, especially since I did so as a young adult and not as a child. I answer—it was difficult to do so, but my situation was quite different than for many other foreigners here. I was not an immigrant or political refugee looking for a new life in a better place or an opportunist seeking materialistic gains. My decision to move was made carefully, but it was made in order to give a personal relationship that was still a seed, a chance to grow. I knew that if I did not give it that chance, that I would regret not doing so down the line. At the time I chose to move to Norway, my life was ready for change—both professionally and personally. There were a number of factors that came together in a type of synergy at that time, that made moving here the right thing to do. And over twenty years later, I can say that I don’t regret having moved from the USA to Norway since that budding relationship and my life generally changed in ways that have been mostly positive, challenging, and rewarding. But the past twenty years have not been a bed of roses either. Nothing good is ever achieved without struggle and frustration; that I’ve learned. I’ve also learned that nothing is ever handed to you in this life. At least that has not been the case for my life. It has rarely, if ever, happened that any road I’ve chosen has been an easy one initially. We all choose our respective paths to follow. Mine happen to be strewn with other types of challenges than if I had chosen to remain for the rest of my life in the town of my birth. If I had done that, I am sure that I would have faced other types of challenges. But that is not my life story. I had no idea when I was starting out in the work world that I would end up working and living in Europe.

The difficulties any foreigner faces when in a new country have mostly to do with learning the language and trying to understand the new culture that you find yourself in. Scandinavian culture is not very unlike American culture in the sense that we enjoy the same things—a materialistic way of life that does not lack for most things—food, clothing, shelter, vacations, cars, and luxury items, political freedom, family interest (focus on the nuclear family mostly), a mostly secular lifestyle, interest in books, movies, and other media, and many other things. It does not feel foreign to live here as it might have felt had I moved to a poor backward country or one that was a police state or totalitarian regime. When I go out to the malls here to shop, I could be anywhere in America at a big shopping mall. The only difference is the language spoken. So yes, that is a difficulty and it takes several years to learn to speak a new language. For some it may go faster; for me it did not. It is the subtleties in any culture—the unspoken codes of conduct at work and even in social situations, that also make living in a new country difficult. Some of those codes are impossible to crack, or if cracked, impossible to understand. I have given up trying to understand some of them here; I used about ten years doing so and after that I folded. I don’t think like a Scandinavian from the start point. I would have had to have been born here for that to have happened. So I believe in myself, in who I am as an American, am proud of my heritage and my roots, and have truly reclaimed my identity as an American living in a foreign country, despite all the problems in America, the crazy politics and politicians, the contradictions, the inequalities, the disparity between rich and poor, all those things. Scandinavian societies do not have such disparity between the rich and the poor, but there are other problems associated with most people having more or less the same standard of living. It might sound utopian to those who do not live here; it is not. It leads to an odd kind of social conformity, one that I am not particularly comfortable with. It also leads to a kind of complacency that is the result of knowing that the government will take care of most of your needs.

The biggest difficulty for me in living abroad is not being able to see my family and friends in the USA as much as I’d like. And even though I know that I wouldn’t see them all that often if I lived in New York now, it would be easier to do so because the physical distance between us would not be large. It is the possibility of doing so that I miss, perhaps the spontaneity associated with socializing. My annual visit to New York each year is a well-planned event; I start preparing for it many months ahead of time. I hope to spend more time in my country again when I retire; retirement is still years away, but it is not too soon to plan for it. And I am doing that, slowly but surely, so that it will be possible to visit with friends and family for longer times.

The fascination with Sherlock

There have been many actors who have played Sherlock Holmes in both movies and TV films/series over the past eighty or so years; Wikipedia provides a long list of them—too many to list here in this post: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_actors_who_have_played_Sherlock_Holmes. I grew up watching the classic Sherlock Holmes films from the 1940s with Basil Rathbone as Sherlock Holmes and Nigel Bruce as Dr. Watson. Basil Rathbone has defined the persona Sherlock Holmes for me for many years with his intelligence and authoritative demeanor. We used to gather as a family on Saturday evenings in front of our black and white TV set and watch Sherlock Holmes solve one mystery after another with his colleague Dr. Watson. Memorable films include The Hound of the Baskervilles (with a hound trained to kill) and The Pearl of Death (with a deformed killer known as the Creeper who broke the backs of his victims). All of the films were entertaining thrillers, but these two films stand out in my mind as the most frightening, especially for a child. But we apparently enjoyed being scared along the way to the solution of the crimes, and we looked forward to our Saturday evening movie experiences.

Jeremy Brett’s portrayal of Sherlock Holmes in the TV series The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes that ran from 1984-85 is also memorable; the series was quite detailed, gritty and realistic, especially in dealing with Holmes’ drug addiction and visits to opium dens. Sherlock Holmes and the Case of the Silk Stocking from 2004 with Rupert Everett as Sherlock Holmes was quite entertaining; Everett’s Holmes was less arrogant and a bit more friendly. Guy Ritchie’s first foray into the world of Sherlock Holmes was in 2009 with his film Sherlock Holmes, with Sherlock played by Robert Downey Jr and Watson played by Jude Law. Of all the Sherlock Holmes films I’ve seen, this one has to be the most action-packed. It was one long action film interspersed with crime-solving and was enjoyable to watch, although the character of Holmes as played by Downey is completely different than most other portrayals I’ve seen; you will either like that or you won’t. I enjoyed Ritchie’s first Sherlock film but have not yet seen the second.

And then—a new Sherlock Holmes—a truly pleasant surprise, in the TV series Sherlock (2010-present). The actor who plays Holmes, Benedict Cumberbatch, owns the role. His Holmes commands attention with his fierce intelligence, arrogant air, offhandedness and condescending attitude toward people he thinks are stupid—all those things that make the detective great. He may actually end up surpassing Rathbone's portrayal of Holmes. His Holmes is quite likable, in the way that difficult and infuriating people often are. Watching him makes you realize that geniuses like Sherlock in the world are thinking at a rate of speed that none of us can match. Cumberbatch manages to impart that important aspect of Holmes’ intelligence. He is way ahead of most people around him. This series has moved Holmes and Watson to London in the present time, and that by itself makes for some interesting changes—the use of cell phones to text, call or to take pictures, as well as the use of computers—all of these aid in the solving of the crimes. Doctor Watson, as played by Martin Freeman, is also a smart man, if a bit slower in his reasoning. He is feisty when he needs to be and can hold his own with Holmes. Here’s hoping that the series can sustain audience interest and survive to entertain us for the next several years.

A little milestone

Today is the day that my blog reached a little milestone--15,000 page views! Thank you to all of you who read the blog, to those who comment, to those who have written to me personally--I appreciate each and every one of you, your interest and your input. As long as there are topics to write about, I will continue to blog, because I really enjoy writing A New Yorker in Oslo.

Sing-along

I attended a very enjoyable dinner party yesterday evening; a friend invited about fifteen of her good friends to share her birthday celebration with her. Get a group of women together, and you know the evening won’t lack for enthusiastic and interesting conversation, and it didn’t. But this evening ended up being a heck of a lot of fun in a whole new way. The hostess sings in a choir, as do a number of her friends. In other words, she loves to sing. So she invited us to a sing-along, in this instance, to the film The Sound of Music. In between eating dinner and dessert, we watched the film from start to finish and sang the different songs as they showed up in the film. We had been dealt out our respective roles, many of which overlapped with others at the party. For example, I was dealt out the singing role for Rolf, the nun, and Gretl, along with two other women at the party. I had never done this before, so naturally I was a bit skeptical (as I always am) to anything that might place me at the center of any unwanted attention. I also love to sing, but reserve it mostly for when I am puttering around at home alone or in the shower or in the typical places one might sing—mostly alone when no one is listening. I have been told that I have a good singing voice, but I don’t sing in a choir and am unlikely to do so at this point in my life. But I have to say that this sing-along experience was an incredibly uplifting and fun group activity, with no particular focus on any one person, and that made it all the more enjoyable. At different points, I found myself listening to us as we hit the high notes, and how our voices all soared in unison, and it was a rush. I sometimes get that feeling when I am in church and the entire congregation sings and the united voices lift you to a whole new place. It’s a wonderful experience and one that will move you out of yourself if you let it.

I was very young when I first saw The Sound of Music; seeing it again was a moving experience, because Julie Andrews and Christopher Plummer and the children were wonderful to watch. All of us watching the film shared our memories of the time in our lives when we had first seen the film. Some of the women had been taken to the theater by their parents, some by their schools—but all of us had been touched by our original experience of the film. And I have to say that it was like being at a teenage slumber party again listening and watching grown women hoot, holler and comment when Maria and Georg kissed for the first time, or when the Baroness tried her best to keep Georg and Maria from being together. It made me realize that there is a common bond among women that transcends cultures, if allowed to surface, which is what this film was able to accomplish for us last night. There was a lot of laughing as well as singing, and it was all a great deal of fun. I’d love to do it again. 

Creatures of the night

Up late the other night—of course I regretted it the following day, but the reason I stayed up late was to watch the vampire film The Hunger from 1983 (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0085701/) on TCM. I can never really pass up an opportunity to watch yet another stylishly-made horror film, and TCM is a great channel to find all those kinds of classic films, horror or otherwise. I won’t say I was enthralled by the film, but it didn’t disappoint either—it had its moments. It is definitely a film from the 1980s—I read somewhere that a critic had said it was like watching a long MTV video—chic and stylish with cool music, but without much substance—that was the gist of it. The Madonna song Vogue came to mind when I was watching it. The actors and actresses (David Bowie, Catherine Deneuve, and Susan Sarandon) did a lot of posing for the camera, but that was the way things were done then. The film was about modern-day vampires in an urban setting, who frequented New York City nightclubs looking for potential victims. These vampires were unlike most of the vampires we’ve come to know about--they could tolerate the light of day, they murdered their victims with small knives shaped like Egyptian ankhs, and they could see their reflections in mirrors. The story had to do with David Bowie’s vampire John trying to find a cure for his rapid aging that had suddenly set in and that would doom him to eternal life without his vampire lover Miriam (Catherine Deneuve) who had made him a vampire in the first place. The film was probably controversial when it came out due to some graphic scenes of violence and sexual (lesbian) activity. I don’t recall much talk about this film from that time, nor do I remember that it opened in many theaters (according to IMDB it opened in 775 theaters nationwide in the USA, approximately 15 per state if it opened in all of them—that’s not many). Perhaps it was considered an ‘art film’, in which case it would have opened at one or two theaters in Westchester County where I grew up.   

I’ve seen many vampire films in my lifetime—starting with the House of Dark Shadows from 1970 directed by Dan Curtis, with Jonathan Frid as the vampire Barnabas Collins (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0065856/), followed by Scars of Dracula and The Satanic Rites of Dracula (among several others) from 1970 and 1973 respectively (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0067713/; http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0070634/) with Christopher Lee as the vampire (he made many Dracula films). These were followed by the original Nosferatu film from 1922 directed by FW Murnau with Max Schreck as a very scary Nosferatu (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0013442/), as well as Nosferatu the Vampyre from 1979 directed by Werner Herzog, with Klaus Kinski as Nosferatu (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0079641/). I remember the New York Times review of the latter film talking about the furor in the Netherlands (where the film was partially shot) over Herzog’s wanting to release tens of thousands of rats for one of the scenes in the film.  Talk about the quest for realism on the part of a director.  

The classic Dracula from 1931, directed by Tod Browning, with Bela Lugosi (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0021814/), and Dracula from 1979, directed by John Badham, with Frank Langella http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0079073/, are very good films, as is Interview with the Vampire from 1994, directed by Neil Jordan, with Tom Cruise as Lestat (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0110148/). But in my opinion, the best vampire film I’ve ever seen is the 1992 film Bram Stoker’s Dracula directed by Francis Ford Coppola (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0103874/). I remember watching it for the first time when it came out and being totally drawn in by its mastery and haunting atmosphere. I’ve since seen it several more times, and each time I watch it I admire it more and more as a nearly-perfect Dracula film. Gary Oldman as Dracula was brilliant casting—he did an incredible job, as did Keanu Reeves, Winona Ryder, Anthony Hopkins and all the others. It is the specific scenes in Coppola’s film that are unforgettable and haunting and that make it my favorite vampire movie—when Jonathan Harker (played by Keanu Reeves) arrives at Dracula’s castle and the shadow of the vampire precedes his entrance, Dracula crawling down the walls of the castle on one of his nightly outings, the appearance of the female vampires in the castle and their seduction of Jonathan, Dracula’s meeting with Mina, and so many more.

Besides Gary Oldman’s Dracula, I have to say that Jonathan Frid’s Barnabas Collins is my vampire of choice. I’m not a fan of the Twilight vampire movies; I saw the first film after reading the book and it was not for me, but I understand that many people do like it. I might have liked the series as a pre-teenager, but somehow I have the feeling that my entrance into the world of vampires was forever shaped by Dark Shadows. However campy the series might have been at times, it took itself seriously and has amassed a large number of fans through the years. I’m looking forward to Tim Burton’s version of Dark Shadows and Johnny Depp’s portrayal of Barnabas, but I doubt that anyone could ever surpass Jonathan Frid’s portrayal of Barnabas Collins.

Some people have all the luck!

Some lucky people in Norway got to see spectacular light shows last night–the Northern Lights made their appearance as a result of a lot of solar storm activity lately. We were told by the media that the Lights would be visible all over the country (true for the rest of the Northern hemisphere as well according to the media), so I was awake and ready with my camera, but Oslo had cloudy skies and little visibility–thus no Lights. So I have to be satisfied with looking at these gorgeous photos!! Time to plan a trip north to see the Lights! I want to experience them in person. I've realized lately that my particular interest as a photographer is the fascination with anything that has to do with light--the way it plays on water, in the sky, or the way it produces colors and contrasts, rainbows after a storm--all those things. 

http://nrk.no/nyheter/distrikt/nordland/1.7967958


And here is another link, this time to a video of the Northern Lights, filmed by Alister Chapman on the evening of January 24th in Tromsø, Norway. It's called Dance of the Spirits, and it's a very apt name--beautiful.


http://dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/01/29/solar-storms-spawn-hyperactive-aurora-boreali/?smid=tw-nytimesscience&seid=auto

The beauty of the Akerselva river in winter

Two short videos taken on Sunday January 22nd 2012 when I was out early in the morning walking along the Akerselva river. The first one shows the mallard ducks swimming in the icy river--you've got to love these birds. I love watching them. As I often say, birds rule. The second video shows the waterfall near Hønsa Lovisas house and the ice buildup and formations at the base of the falls. Pretty cool looking. I have always been fascinated by rivers in winter--especially when they freeze, either fully or partially. I remember back to my teenage days when I took pictures of the Hudson River (in Tarrytown, New York) that had almost frozen over. It was like watching a land of ice come to life. Very solitary, very beautiful.

Lean Mean Fighting Machine

Christine Koht, a Norwegian media personality and program leader, is also a columnist for A-magazine, Aftenposten’s weekend magazine. Her column this past Friday was about the Lean management philosophy, how it has invaded Norwegian workplaces, and the effect it has had on many employees, whom as she described, are just so tired of being told how to be better. She lectures and entertains at many different workplaces around the country, and described how many of the employees she meets in her travels are feeling these days about their workplaces (translated from Norwegian):

‘I travel quite a lot around this country, entertaining at different workplaces, and everywhere I go I encounter the same ideal—continuous improvement. Counting and measurements and endless documenting are presumably what it takes to find out how everything can always be better. But everyone is so tired of it. Doctors and plumbers, engineers and teachers--all of them are finding that their workdays and their job enthusiasm are being drained dry by the perpetual need to document everything they do’.  

I have to admit that this was the first time I had ever heard about this management philosophy. First it was New Public Management (NPM), now it's Lean. So I decided that it’s time to read up on these business philosophies that have taken over the workplace. I’ve already written a post on New Public Management. Actually, we're knee-deep in NPM in the public sector and rather stuck there, so how did Lean get a foothold? I am interested in these philosophies because I see what they are doing to workplaces. The first thing that came to mind when I saw the word Lean was the old expression ‘lean mean fighting machine’. And it seems that this management philosophy is all about reducing waste and continuous improvement, so that your company ends up ‘fit for fight’—a lean mean fighting machine in a competitive global economy. It seems to have started as a management philosophy for manufacturing—how to improve efficiency of production by focusing on waste reduction. For the life of me, I cannot imagine how this philosophy can be applied to public sector organizations. For one thing, it is the exact opposite of NPM as far as I can see. Correct me if I’m wrong, but NPM has only led to massive increases in layers of administration and administrative positions—too many chiefs and not enough Indians, in other words. So if Lean is now the management philosophy of choice—what possibilities exist to eliminate waste? Should the Lean business consultants, strategists and gurus start by ‘removing’ the very layers of administration that NPM set in place? Because anyone with an ounce of common sense can see that it is the exponential growth of administration that is clogging the system, reducing efficiency and causing waste. The administrators need to administrate and to control the employees who are doing the actual work. The numbers of actual workers are decreasing relative to the number of administrators set in place to administrate them.

I also see what these different trends in management philosophies have done to workplace leaders, how desperate some of them are to effect change, any change, in a panicked attempt to leave a legacy behind them when they go. They also have to be able to say to a new employer—‘I managed to implement this or that change in my former workplace, and it’s working very well. I can do miracles with your workplace if you only give me a chance’. Or I can at least imagine that this is what they are desperate to achieve, otherwise why do so many of them—men and women alike--look so harried and haggard? When you meet with them, they come up with yet another idea for how you can be better, how you can improve your workday, how you can best serve your workplace and those ideas are completely different than the ones they were so adamant about your accepting just a year ago. And when you remind them of what they insisted upon a year ago, they get irritated and don’t want to hear about the past. The past for them is the past—gone, non-existent (as though it never existed), passé, and a taboo topic of conversation. It’s all about relativeness (changing with circumstances) these days. When you remind them that you personally might want to learn from past mistakes, they don’t want to hear that either. They also don’t want to hear that you want to take your time now in making a decision that will affect how you perform your work duties for the next few years. They just want you to accept what they want you to accept—NOW. It doesn’t matter if they change their minds again in six months. 

When will workplace leaders realize that efficiency is the last thing that results from incessant poking and prodding and change? Employees work best and most efficiently in an environment that lets them do the job they are paid to do, in other words, in a stable and supportive environment. They work best in an environment where the infrastructure in place supports them in their quest to do a good job, rather than hindering them, as is often the case in overly-bureaucratic and overly-administrated environments. There is no stability in an atmosphere of constant change, in an environment that incessantly pokes and prods its employees at every turn in an effort to get them to produce more and to be more efficient. There are many employees who have done a terrific job, who have produced for their companies, and who are tired. Just plain tired—of being told they haven’t done enough, that they aren’t good enough, that they need to change, that they are resistant to change, that they are too set in their ways, or that they need to just ‘adapt’ to yet another way of looking at their job. What if the new management philosophy could be one with a laissez-faire focus, one that led to appreciation of employees and to company management which understood that employee competence and expertise are the reasons that employees were hired in the first place, which understood that ‘more and better’ all the time doesn’t lead to efficiency and that if employees are appreciated that they will produce in ways that a company could only dream of? What if companies understood that enough is enough and that better is often the enemy of good, and that more means never enough? Management should back off and let employees be. But that would mean treating employees like adults and not children. Are company managements up to that? Only time will tell.

I’m not arguing against all forms of self-improvement; I’m actually a proponent of self-improvement in the personal arena. By that I mean—striving to be the best person you can be in the situations in which you find yourself. We can always learn new ways of looking at things, always have new and different responses if we’ve learned from our mistakes. My problem is when self-improvement/job improvement is forced upon you by people who have little to no idea of what they’re doing and who have no idea of who you really are or of what you need in a workplace setting. So let’s see if I can get this right. If I need advice on how to be a better scientist, I will consult a highly-successful scientist, not an administrator. Likewise, if I need advice on how to be a better friend or spouse, I’ll consult people who have good track records in both departments or who work in the psychology and social work fields, but not an administrator. By documenting all that we do, administrators conclude that they know us and that they are competent enough to tell us how to do the jobs we were hired to do. But they are not. However, if I need help with balancing a budget sheet or with filling out a complicated form, I’ll consult an administrator. But that is very seldom. So perhaps these management philosophies are more about finding valid work for the administrators to do. The employees they are administrating know for the most part what they are doing and why, and how to reach their professional goals without administrative interference. The more time we spend on administrative tasks, the less time we have to work at our real jobs, and then productivity and efficiency fly out the window.