Hype yourself blatantly here.

[Adam Gertsacov]

This is the place to hype yourself!

I'll start!

Two great articles recently appeared about the flea circus:

http://www.trainedfleas.com/currentscience.html

(which apparently goes out to 1 million students and their teachers grades 6-10-- put out by the same people who put out THE WEEKLY READER) This just appeared in the Dec. 15 issue.

http://www.trainedfleas.com/rimonthly.html

Article appeared in RI Monthly in the December issue.

Also, I just received a grant from the State Council on the Arts to help publish a children's coloring/learning book about Rhode Island. It will also have notecards, magnets, and other gift products attached to it as well. If all goes well, the book will be finished by March or April.

[Peter Voice]

Hi Adam, see it was easy.
This subject may get lost here though, so I suggest you copy it and put it up again in "Announcements" where it might get you better exposure. Doesn't mean it won't work here but ...

[Adam Gertsacov]

I want to point out that EVERYONE is welcome to hype themselves here. It just has to be BLATANT AND OBVIOUS!

[Brian Wilson]

I have NEW and used Cowguys Tshirts for sale. Just wanting to get rid of some. Email me for information. New ones go for $15US, $20 Cdn. shipping included.

The shirts have a cow crossing logo on the front and a witty slogan on the back like "Good Clean Holstein Family fun" or "Moo Me Milk Me Herd Me Brand me." Shirts are white or black.

Was that blatant enough?

[Adam Gertsacov]

That was perfectly blatant! (It also reminds me!)

I've got some very funny Election T-shirts available over at CafePress.com. You can see them at this page

http://www.acmeclown.com/electile.html

I'm going to try to include the image of George Bush and the Supremes here:

Ah fuck it! I can't figure it out!

Go to the website abouve

[This message has been edited by Adam Gertsacov (edited 12-19-2000).]

[jester]

I am the greatest jester called Jonathan the Jester, in the world.

http://www.jonathanthejester.co.uk

[Andy]

Just gotta do it!

Play the Plate Spinning game at...

http://www.andymartello.com

[Adam Gertsacov]

New T-shirt -- Mad About George (which morphs George Bush and Alfred E. Neuman!)

http://www.cafepress.com/madbush

[Adam Gertsacov]

Well, here's another little hype for myself!

(Hey, somebody's got to flog the dead horse!)

A clown play I wrote a while back (The Death of Rasputin) has been selected as a semi-finalist in a festival in Chicago. They select 30 plays out of a couple of hundred as semi-finalists, and then select 16 of these for a production Plays are the wrong word-- these are sketches less than 10 minutes or 8 pages long. Anyhow, I'll let you guys know if my play makes the final grade!

[Adam Gertsacov]

And I believe that it was that post that jumped me up to being a regular member instead of a Junior Member!

Hurray for me!

[Peter]

Daffy O'Dill and I (Paddy the Clown) are the FINEST restaurant entertainers in the Tri State area of Ohio, Kentucky, and Indiana. We do face painting and balloon animals (well actually balloon cranial decorations) that keep the wee ones happy while their folks can eat in peace.

[Adam Gertsacov]

My Call for Clown Art appeared on the front page of absolutearts.com!

I'm not sure if it leaves today or not, but it still seems to be there!

http://www.absolutearts.com

[Tom Noddy]

In a land long ago and far away, there once lived a scientist who they called Lord Kelvin. Clever guy ... worked out laws on thermodynamics and such. He once pondered soap bubbles. Others had shown that they always join 3 walls along an edge at 3 equal 120degree angles. It was also known that the edges always joined 4 edges to a point and always at an angle of 109degrees 28minutes 16seconds (California time) (No that was a joke).

Given that limitation, there are some 3 dimensional shapes that they can make and some that they can not make. The fact that the walls can be flat or curved (forget Euclid, even space is curved) means that they can make some shapes that we don't associate with those exact angles ... but there is a limit. One big limitation is that they can only make shapes that have three way corners (the fourth edge is always part of an adjoining interface among three OTHER bubbles).

So Kelvin wondered what shape would be the "ideal shape for uniform froth". That is ... if all of the bubbles in a froth were the same shape, repeated over and over, what shape would that be?

It was just a sciency sort of speculation ... nature doesn't generally go about it that way. Froth (suds for those of you who go that way) is generally composed of a mixture of many different shapes all stacked together and fitting perfectly. But IF ...?

Kelvin reckoned that it would be a truncated octahedron. 14 faces, 8 hexagons and 6 squares, arranged symmetrically. It is a shape with three way corners, it can be regular (all the edges equal length), and ... it is capable of "stacking" with itself. (like stacking cubes, they fill all of the space, no gaps between the cubes ... but cubes stacked would require too many edges meeting at the corners). The truncated octahedron can fill space with itself and still meet the requirements that limit a bubble.

This shape became known as the "Kelvin cell". People set about looking for this shape within froth. In the 1930s an American scientist named Matzke made the most uniform froth that he could devise (using compressed air, a needle valve, soapy water). He studied this with a binocular microscope and noted what shapes he found (scientist are busy people).

20% irregular dodecahedrons
14% ...
.... tetrahedrons

etc.

He did about 600 bubbles and none of them was the truncated octahedron, the "Kelvin cell". The book where I first read about this said "Apparently nature never heeds Kelvin's suggestion." (they require too much set up, but scientist can really crack me up).

I thought about it ... 600 bubbles? Sounds like a lot for the poor guy who has to count the shapes ... but that is a very small sample. The last time I did the dishes I made millions. To conclude that nature "never" makes a truncated octahedron after searching even billions would be, I think, premature.

Let me try it another way ... I'm pretty good at manipulating soap bubbles (I already do a bubble cube in my performance ... a tetrahedron, a dodecahedron). Let me try to make the Kelvin cell ... then, if I can do it, then nature can do it and if nature CAN do it, I reckon that she is making bubbles in that shape all the time. All that sea foam, spittle bug froth, beer, bread, bubble baths, the spit of all those baseball players?

I used a tried and true method ... I got random. Well, I knew that it had to be fourteen bubbles with one inside. I just started making clusters of fourteens. Big ol' droopy, drippy clumps of bubbles with no discernable order to them.

I did that over and over (and over ... but you don't need all of the details, do you?) After awhile I started to see things (yeah, that too). I followed some thoughts that entered the picture ... no, still some damn pentagons here ... Pop!

Then I found an arrangement that I thought would do it. But for each attempt I only had the time it takes for the first soap bubble to pop. I had to get faster and faster at making that arrangement before I could get it to last long enough to get a bubble inside. Over and over (and over ... but ...).

I had to invent a new method to fill the space inside ... the bubble inside wanted to jump out and be a fifteenth bubble in the outside.

To make a long story short (wink)... I did it. The Kelvin cell ... a truncated octahedron.

It has never entered my show. It takes a long time to make, I can't make it every time, and if I do people look and say " ... hm, oh yeah, I see it ... it's like that other one, only different ... hm."

But the physicists and mathematicians get excited when I can pull it off in their presence. I have several math events coming up right now and I have just found a better method for constructing it ... I should be able to pull it off for them now.

Hey ... it ain't brain surgery or rocket science, but ... it is my own little part of the world.


[This message has been edited by Tom Noddy (edited 01-21-2001).]

[Adam Gertsacov]

That's a pretty damned great hype!

I'll be in Toronto in a couple of weeks for the International Children's Theatre Festival Showcase. I'm not showcasing-- I took out a booth....

There I'll have to hype myself blatantly too!

[Peter Voice]

Hi all,
We've been doing a new project involving full Body Art and Performers and have started putting up the new pics. Check out http://www.chalkcircle.com.au/bodyart/
We really don't know where it's going but it sure is fun to do.
The first pic is of Karen Murphy, and the three guys following are Sergei Droujina (beautiful, slow handstand acrobatics on a high apparatus, Moscow Circus), George Filev (aerialist, tissue routine, Circus Oz) and Abey Feleke (fast tumble, somersault, backflip etc, Ethiopian Circus). Their shows are all brilliant. The artists were Bev Isaac, Ulla Taylor and myself and most of the photos were taken by David Simmonds.
There are dozens more in the series coming soon, but our site needs work and this lot is enough for now. Hope you like them.

PS. Who might be in Melb. this year and doesn't mind being a naked victim of our strange obsession?

[This message has been edited by Peter Voice (edited 01-23-2001).]