On The Funway

Every year, Chief AIRhead Marc Abrahams writes an entertaining mini-opera that premieres at the Ig Nobel Prize Ceremony. The 2009 mini-opera, The Big Bank Opera is now online. I heartily recommend it for its timeliness and sheer amusement value as well as the talented performers, Maria Ferrante, Ben Sears, and pianist Branden Grimmett all under the direction of David Stockton. (We multi-task. David is also the bartender.)

I had the fun of helping with the props and SMOTHRA fans will enjoy spotting various Geri touches throughout the four acts. The diapered pig wasn't mine, but the bar signs, Treasury check, bar stools, rubber ducky, playing cards, and several other on-stage touches came directly from PROmote Communications and Toad Woods. I especially like seeing Maria's blue velvet hat in the videos and photos from the Igs -- it originally belonged to carnyjack's mother. It looked so good on Maria that I gave it to her. I still have Angie Targonski's hatbox and several other hats of hers; I'm glad the blue one found a good home as well as a bit of Ig fame.

Reminder: the entire 19th First Annual Ig Nobel Prize Ceremony (including the Big Bank Opera) is also available for your viewing pleasure.

The 20th First Annual Ig Nobel Prize Ceremony will take place at Harvard's Sanders Theatre on Thursday, September 30, 2010. Mark your calendar and do consider getting tickets when they go on sale in August. It's a hoot, and a great time to come to Boston, too.

...is now online!

I've just enjoyed all four segments on the Improbable Research Vimeo page. I do recommend watching them in order, much as I won't promise they make any more sense that way. Even if you were in Sanders Theatre the night of the show and saw the whole thing live, the videos are a hoot. The cameras picked up lots of on-stage action that I was too busy running the slides (and too far from the stage) to notice during the show.

Please also take a look at the newly-opened Improbable Research and Ig Nobel Store where you can get your own "Please stop. I'm bored" coffee mug and many other Improbable items, too.

At the Igs this year, the wooden bar stool I sat on while running the slides is the same bar stool Bob Weir sat on for three hours. Alas, not at the same time as I did.

My two wooden bar stools -- the ones with the black and white striped tops with carrots painted in the center of one and tomatoes painted in the same place on the other -- were on stage along with the comfy "saddle seat" bar stool the Reno in 2011 bid picked up on clearance just a week before the bid became Renovation.

Four simple bar stools, each with a history and the stories that come from that. Stories that are rarely known or told.

A quick Google search suggests that Bob's three hours on the stool took place on April 16, 2000. Coincidentally enough, that also happened to be my sister's 50th birthday.

Elena Bodnar's Ig Nobel pulled in the lead in boston.com's White Coat Notes article about the ceremony and all of the winners.

"The Tech" from MIT printed an excellent overview of the entire ceremony.

Best overall coverage that I've seen so far is in New Scientist.

Saturday afternoon, Gavi and I will be at the Central Square Theatre for the Improbable Research Cabaret. The show is part of the Cambridge Science Festival and is also a fundraiser for the theatre.

There's a special $5 discount for tickets purchased online use the code "IMPROBABLE" to get the discount.

Here's a quick overview:

May 2, 2009 - 3pm

Join Ig Nobel Prize Winners

Presented cabaret style as part of the Cambridge Science Festival

Answering Questions like:
-- Is Coca-Cola an effective spermicide? - demonstration included!
--How do sheets wrinkle?
-- Why do people dislike the sound of fingernails on a blackboard?

Don't miss songs from the Ig Nobel Operas, the Performing Scientists from Harvard and MIT, and more! 

Tickets (before $5 discount)
Adults - $35
Students (with valid ID) - $20

All proceeds to benefit Central Square Theater. Tickets include post-performance reception with Cabaret scientists.

I'm looking forward to it! If you come, please be sure to say hi (and meet Gavi, if you've only seen me write about her).

It's National Science and Engineering Week in the UK and Improbable Research is back for the fun of it all.

Marc Abrahams will review the past year's improbable research and Ig Nobel Prize winners. Several Ig winners and colleagues will try to explain what they did and why they did it. And, yes, there's swordswallowing, too.

The first show was on Saturday in Oxford. (Sorry I didn't give the heads-up sooner.) There are 4 more shows on the 2009 Ig Nobel Tour:

Monday: Newcastle
Tuesday: Portsmouth
Wednesday: Bristol
Thursday: London

All of the shows are free and reservations are recommended (required in Bristol). Details available at the Ig Nobel Tour link above. Thursday's show at Imperial College in London is fully booked; it's possible that a very few tickets for that will become available on the day of the show.

Tonight's show in Newcastle also features the Newcastle University Gilbert & Sullivan Society in a special performance of the mini-opera Atom & Eve. I wish I were going to be there!

The duck in a truck story has drawn over 500 comments on the website of the LA NBC station that ran it in late January. And it's currently the lead post in the Improbable Research blog, thanks to Kees Moeliker, the original Duck Guy. Kees won an Ig Nobel Prize in 2003 for documenting the first scientifically recorded case of homosexual necrophilia in the mallard duck. But we won't tell Joe Mansheim that part of the story. Unless he goes ego-scanning via Google and stumbles across it here or there, that is.

Kees even has a book, The Duck Guy, coming out later this month. I'd have to read Dutch to fully enjoy it, but I'm not going to let my limited language skills stop me. It doesn't look like the book will be out in time for me to ask Vince to pick up a copy to bring to Boskone next week, but I'm going to take along some of my foreign currency in the hope that he'll be able to find a copy later and bring it over on a future trip.

(Speaking of Duck Guys, I have no idea what Minneapolis fan Mike Wood might have thought of Kees' research. He would have totally grokked the Joe & Frank story, though. I'm pleasantly surprised to realize I can clearly imagine seeing and hearing his reaction to it, even though it's 25+ years since Mike died and I never knew him all that well in the first place. Interesting.)

Update: Oops. Improbable link now fixed. In the nature of blogs, there's now a new post on top. You can go straight to the duck, or have fun scrolling through everything. Be sure to catch the Improbable TV episode about the Toe-tapping Cane Toads.

Gakked from the Improbable Research website:

Laugh-and-think doubleheader webcasts

Thursday night, October 2, offers two events — one right after the other — that might be surprisingly similar:

7:30 pm (US eastern time)—The 18th First Annual Ig Nobel Prize Ceremony

9:00 pm (US eastern time)—The US Vice Presidential Candidates Debate

Wander on over to the Improbable website for details about watching the Ig Nobel Prize Ceremony online, other details about Thursday night's laugh-and-think doubleheader webcasts, and the possible availability of last-minute tickets for folks who can be in Cambridge by evening.

All things considered, I'm delighted that I'll be spending my Thursday night laughing and thinking in person with the boisterous crowd gathered at the Igs!

My car played a trick on me, and earned a new treat in return. ( Or maybe I was the one playing the trick... )

As I wrote in minnehaha K's and debgeisler's LJs yesterday, my mailbox and other bits of frontage were included in the massive TP'ing that stretches over 3/4 mile along Monson Road. I like watching the TP draped over my power lines blowing in the breeze. It makes me feel like a member of the community, even if it would be more accurate to say the kids were simply more energetic than they've been in the past. I don't remember them ever making it past the pond before. So that counts as both a trick and a treat.

My Ravelry invitation arrived today! That's pure treat, I hope, though it could prove to be a time-consuming one. Ravelry is, in their words, "a place for knitters, crocheters, designers, spinners, and dyers to keep track of their yarn, tools and pattern information, and look to others for ideas and inspiration." Edie Stern is having a blast with it, and I hope I will, too. In my Copious Free Time, of course. snippy, I've just friended you there, and joined the Ravelry LJ group, too. But when will I have time for knitting?!?

Speaking of treats, I have a new client. Thanks to elaine_brennan referring me to rosefox, and Rose then referring me on, I'm going to be helping with layout on the bi-monthly Annals of Improbable Research! Whoohoo! And speaking of work, I'm going to toddle along and do some more of it now.

Happy Halloween, everyone! Best wishes for a treat-filled night!