Dan’s Papers February 4, 2011 danspapers.com Page 16
Bang
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ing sparkles of other worlds. Beneath our feet, our speck is a sphere of dirt that is so large it would take months and years to walk all the way around it. It is both gigantic and tiny, depending on your point of view. And there’s a whole lot we do not know about what is inside this sphere under our feet. For sure there are living things we’ve never seen, perhaps trillions and trillions of living things in the cold meaty darkness of the sphere. We stay on this speck because of the force of gravity pulling us toward the center, and that creates another inaccuracy. We all feel we are on the top of the speck being pulled down, while others are on the bottom being pulled up. But that’s just what our perspective tells us. Those on the
other side think they are on the top and we are on the bottom. Actually there is no top or bottom. Our speck, which happens to be green and blue when seen from afar, spins around like a top and takes a journey around a very hot star 109 times bigger than we are, which keeps us warmer some of the time and colder at other times depending on the wobbly nature of that relationship. There are eight other spheres circling our hot star and millions of smaller pieces of ice and other debris doing so too. What’s that all about? A small moon circles our sphere of dirt. We’ve sent people to the surface of the moon and from there, looking back out at the Earth, they’ve taken photographs of our sphere. One thing of interest is that Canada is at the top and
Argentina is on the bottom when seen in the moon’s night sky. As I’ve pointed out, though, there is no top or bottom. Question: When the Earth rises is Canada on the bottom and Argentina on the top? Or is Canada on the left sideways and Argentina on the right, also sideways. If Argentina was on the top, did the astronaut have the camera turn the image of the Earth upside down so we could relate to it? Another thought—is it possible that the Earth, from the perspective of the moon, glides along sideways as it moves from earthrise to earthset? The world wants to know. The world awaits with bated breath. Looking closer, I see that however the world sits in the scheme of things, I have awakened this morning, as I always do, in a house in a little village by the sea on the eastern end of an island that sticks out into an ocean we have named the Atlantic. And here, it has snowed. Badly. A lot. And very deep. It is also a very beautiful place to be, snow or not. I wouldn’t be anywhere else, even if I could. I like it here, all leafy and hilly and sandy and fun. It’s a place in time on a planet in a solar system part of a galaxy in a universe and here I am and so are you. We’re in this together. At least for a while. We got a lot of snow. Get over it.
Film
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the other actors all have interesting and underrated credits to them, especially Almost Famous star Michael Angarano. Angarano has a very boyish look to him that really offsets his romance with Uma Thurman, who is older and taller than he. This was a deliberate choice in the casting because the odder the romance between the two of them, the more interesting a relationship the two of them will have. It’s supposed to be an awkward love and Angarano’s character “Sam” does everything he possibly can to crash the wedding so that he can prove to himself that true love really exists in the world. Angarano’s role was originally supposed to go to Jesse Eisenberg, who we all know played Mark Zuckerberg in the hit movie The Social Network, which ended up being the right move for that actor. You also can’t help but wonder if Max’s father, Henry Winkler, had anything to do with inspiring the writer and director to set the movie on the East End because currently Henry Winkler stars in the hit television show “Royal Pains” about a Hamptons concierge doctor to the rich and famous on the East End. Henry Winkler plays the father of the star of the show played by Mark Feuerstein. Either way, the more movies that are produced in the Hamptons, the better it is for the area. Films set in the Hamptons show off how beautiful it is here, promotes tourism and interest in the East End of Long Island and provides jobs and money to the community. Be sure to catch Ceremony when it hits theaters in April.