Philip the Bard's Harappan Blog: Inside Max Gavaskar

Welcome mighty readers. Thanks for being here.

We’ve been discussing some of the people in Max Gavaskar’s life. People who had an influence on her journey. I’ve also spent a great deal of time over the past year discussing Max her self. What it was that drove this woman who became the most important individual in the Milky Way Galaxy.

There isn’t one thing you can point to that set Max on her path beyond her discovery with the problem of the Illumadrive.

What was it about her that drove her to stick her neck out, to put her life and heart on the line? How did she find the strength to oppose the powers of the Galaxy? She was being pursued by one of the most vile assassins of all time yet she gave one of the most impassioned speeches, certainly one of the most important speeches of all time.

Max herself would tell you she just showed up and did what was needed at the moment. Yeah, sure. Not everyone would have been able to pull off what she accomplished in Estonia and beyond.

So this week we’ll delve in the mental processed that Max went through that brought her to the point of being able to speak to all of the Galaxy and do so with power and influence.

In the mean time . . .

Never mix red wine and Oodo.

Philip Normer

Kushan Year 88

Earth Year 2480

Bubba the Science Fan's Friday Science Blog: Honoring what we don't know.

Welcome joyous readers. Thanks for being here.

OK to get with the practical first. The Santana concert was awesome. His son did a fine warm up set and Carlos played most of my favorite classics, the right amount of new stuff and did several unexpected bits that I loved (a Jimi Hendrix tribute and many licks interspersed that were references to old songs and TV jingles).

Now to my science blog for this Friday.

What we don’t know.

I have on many occasions recently remarked about what a great time to be alive. We are more peaceful and more free than we have ever been as a species on this little blue gem of a world. We have in the past few decades discovered an amazing amount of information about our Universe, and our understanding is growing at an ever increasing rate.

Further, I occasionally debate creationists and I regularly run into the argument that science doesn’t know everything leading to the “God of the Gaps” argument.

So, what don’t we know? A lot, it turns out. I was recently reading an article in Scientific American which detailed a current controversy in particle physics. Apparently physicists have been looking for something called “supersymetry”. It is a crucial component of the “standard model” which is the assumed explanation for the nature of matter at the very small level. The Large Hadron Collider was built in part to find “supersymetry”.

Well . . . we’re still waiting. The LHC has found some wonderful and amazing things (the Higgs Bosun) but it hasn’t (yet) found “supersymetry”. There will be a higher power run next year and scientists are hopeful that then they will find what they seek. 

If they don’t find supersymetry they will have to scrap many of their cherished theories. This begs the question “Do we really know anything?” If new discoveries can completely trash assumed reality than how stable is reality? Do we really know anything?

The comforting answer is “Yes, we know quite a lot.” Our understanding is expanding. It is not yet complete and there is much left to learn. But the fact that our scientific world is still open to ignorance is a great sign that we are in good hands. At times in the past the scientific community has become intrenched in it’s own dogma and rigid in it’s beliefs. 

Today’s scientific community is being accused of just that but politicians and others with a political ax to grind. However, looking at how much is changing in the science world, how many formerly cherished theories are being dumped into the trash indicates that currently science is on the right track. Our current crop of scientists are eagerly throwing out ideas that no longer have validity. That is how science should be done. New information brings new theories.

. . . and no, there is nothing to suggest that evolution and natural selection are not the way we all got here.

Never mix red wine with Oodo, but cider is fine.

Earth Year 2014

Philip the Bard's Harappan Blog: The Salmo Hotel

Welcome joyous readers. Thanks for being here.

Yesterday we told a little about Dusty Waters, a friend of Max’s from her time in exile on planet Lava. Dusty now lives on planed Kusha.

She moved here about thirty years ago, when the grand kids had moved out and she wasn’t babysitting anymore.

Dorian Thain set Dusty up with a nice apartment near Harappaholm. It’s not part of the complex proper but very near, and close to the town square.

Dusty has her regular visits and card games with Sanderson and up until very recently she went for regular visits with Max. With Max’s health being such an issue she has had to curtail some of her visits.

I recently talked with Dusty. She said she doesn’t miss Lava at all. She doesn’t regret her time there. She met the Mother of the Galaxy there after all. Said she actually enjoyed running the brother and promised that she treated her boys and girls very well. One of her former employees there is still running the place, and it is still called the Salmo Hotel.

Never mix red wine and Oodo.

Philip Normer

Kushan Year 88

Earth Year 2480

Philip the Bard's Harappan Blog: Dusty Waters' Business

Welcome lovely readers. Thanks for being here.

Yesterday we mentioned that Miles Sanderson still has regular card games with Mary Waters. Mary is more commonly known as Dusty. That is what she went by when she lived on planet Lava in the town of Salmo which is where Max hid from the SID.

Dusty ran the Salmo Hotel which was not really a hotel but rather a brothel. Some historians question wether Max knew this fact or if she was unaware that there was a brothel right across the street from Max’s Saloon. Well that is just silly. Of course Max knew what was going on. I mean, after all, isn’t Max Gavaskar the smartest person in the Milky Way? Don’t you think she would have figured that out?

If you read the novelization The Gavaskar Field which tells the tale of Max’s exile you’ll learn that Max knew about the brother and in fact she spent time there visiting with Dusty and she even got to know some of the young people that worked there. It’s rumored that they came to Max’s aid when the SID tried to close the noose on her.

The story was that one of the girls working for Dusty who looked a little like our Max dressed in some of Max’s clothes and served as a decoy while Max escaped town with Kiki. That would indicate that Max knew these people and that their relationship was a good one.

Never mix red wine and Oodo.

Philip Normer

Kushan Year 88

Earth Year 2480

Philip the Bard's Harappan Blog: Sanderson Today

Welcome kind readers. Thanks for being here.

Some months ago I spent some time discussing some of MIles Sanderson’s mis-spent youth. I recounted how he got in trouble in school hacking and crashing. What history knows of him is simple. He was a troubled youth who rose to prominence in the SID (Science and Industry Division) physics department. He worked on the first illumadrive engine and he discovered the Gavaskar Field problem with faster than light travel. That exiled him to Lava where he crossed paths with our little Max.

Then he disappeared into the prairies of Kusha.

Not completely disappeared. He doesn’t have a big public life but he has occasionally gotten involved in local politics. Some of his friends insist he’s become political as a result of his partner Kiki. She has always had a bent for taking up arms agains injustice. Sanderson was once a part of the Kushan Council. He ran for office to represent the prairie villages when the Harappa City delegates tried to enact some laws that would have hindered the developments to our north.

He negotiated a settlement that divided resources so that the prairie villages could continue their growth without taking from the development in Harappa City. Then he left office.

Now he mostly stays on his ranch. I see him in town occasionally. He visits with Max on a regular basis. I know he spends some time at her bedside every week. He also comes to town for a regular card game with his friend Mary “Dusty” Waters.

Never mix red wine and Oodo.

Philip Normer

Kushan Year 88

Earth Year 2480

Philip the Bard's Harappan Blog: Sanderson, just Sanderson.

Welcome honorable readers. Thanks for being here.

When we look over the story of Max Gavaskar, The Mother of the Galaxy one name keeps popping up. Sanderson, just Sanderson.

Though he preferred to drop the first name and he eschewed publicity with great vigor Miles Sanderson certainly was one of the most influential persons in Max’s life.

He was there in Salmo during her exile. I guess he was even on the bus that took her from the spaceport in Colonial to the dirt dry town that was Max’s home for most of a year.

He was there on Earth with her when she was being chased by Agent Gary Meyer and of course Sanderson was instrumental in Max’s famous call for peace in Estonia.

Not many people know who Sanderson is. He disappeared from public life after the Estonian incident. He moved to Kusha with his partner Kiki. The still live here. They have a ranch about twenty clicks from Harappa City. I’ve been to the place with my friend dorian Thain several times. It is quite lovely. It is on the Junction Prairie a place of wide open space and big sky.

Tomorrow: More on Miles Sanderson.

Never mix red wine and Oodo.

Philip Normer

Kushan Year 88

Earth Year 2480

Bubba's Friday Music Blog: Seeing Santana Tonight

Welcome happy readers. Thanks for being here.

Normally I spend my Friday Blog espousing some science theme or discussing humanities connection with peace . . . but today I’m all about music. You see, tonight I’m going to a concert to see my favorite musician, Carlos Santana.

I heard him when I was seventeen and he and his band totally blew my mind. This was even before they appeared on the stage at Woodstock. I grew up in Lake Tahoe California in the sixties.  The music scene in Tahoe then was totally Rat Pack. I saw a lot of those guys live in the show room of Harrah’s Casino. The local radio stations played Rat Pack music and quit playing the Beatles after John Lennon’s “More popular than Jesus” comment, despite a protest by local high school students. I just wasn’t exposed to very much new music. I played sax in the HS Jazz band. I listened to Dizzy Gillespie, Don Ellis, Miles Davis, Buddy Rich and other jazz greats. I heard some of the pop groups on the Ed Sullivan show and was not very impressed.

Then Santana played at a place called the Fun House. It was the old Safeway store that had been converted to a concert hall. It was closed every couple of weeks due to pot smoking. Then they raised the age limit to eighteen. I couldn’t go in but I could hear the music from the outside.

There was rock. There was jazz. There was blues. There was latin. There was an awesome lead guitarist, a great keyboard player and excellent percussion. I was blown away.

Then several years later Santana blew me away again with the Caravansari album. It was jazzier with some of the jazz I grew up with only brought into the rock arena. I loved it. For a long time I went to sleep listening to this album.

Carlos blew my mind again when he released his “White Album” which is what I call the first album he did with John McLaughlin. It’s not an easy listen. It is very complicated and technical but it totally blew my mind. I never knew you could do that with a guitar.

Carlos Santana hasn’t blown my mind since but I am a huge fan. I play Santana songs almost every night on my guitar. AND most of the songs I play every night are on the set list for this concert I’m going to tonight.

This is certainly a “bucket list” concert. I’ve seen Santana a couple of times but in large out door arenas where I was so far away it was hard to tell which person on stage was Carlos Santana. Tonight I have box seats near the stage. It is a smallish venue and I expect a good sound. 

Of course I’ll have a review here this weekend.

Never mix red wine with Oodo, but cider is fine.

Earth Year 2014