Amy Tan on Creativity and All Matter of Things

Amy Tan on TED. This is an amazing talk. It's not short like YouTube. It lasts all of about 20 minutes or so. Remember when sitting and watching one amazing lecture for 20 minutes wouldn't have seemed like a long time? When my kids were little I read an article about Sesame Street, the wonder show that was supposed to teach kids letters and numbers and all matter of interesting concepts. The article I read was on the printed page. The letters didn't transmogrify, an A becoming an apple, an aardvark, an airplane, all in dazzling colors. They just sat there and formed words. I thought, hmmmm, time to turn off the television. So for eight years it was off. Here it is, lots of years later and, at least around my house, we've all got our heads stuck in our computers and I think we're becoming YouTubed: Definition - unable to watch anything for more than three minutes.

Amy Tan is brilliant and funny. It's worth every minute if you can find the time to listen. If you find a transcript let me know. I'd like to read it.

Oh so scientific

In my day tattoos were considered, for lack of a gentler word, disgusting. Welcome to 2008. Julia's goodie-two-shoes, childhood friend Stacey took herself to get a dinner-plate size phoenix tattooed on her back on her 18th birthday. They're all doing it - blonde, pony-tailed soccer girls, jocks, preps, emos, you name it, and, as it turns out, Scientists and 57-year olds.

In August, Kristara and I travelled with Julia to San Francisco to escort her to college. We stayed for a week. It was my birthday and Kristara decided she wanted to give me a tattoo. Our first stop was a tattoo place in the Castro where, it turns out, walk-ins are welcome but there's no time for them. They called their other store on Haight. Sure thing. Rob had time. We drove on over and sat around and waited while Rob ate his burrito and rice in it's Styrofoam take-out container and visited with his girlfriend. He then humored me, this lady old enough to be his grandmother, getting a purple star, no larger than a dime, tattooed on her wrist.

I was flush with pride. Ecstatic. It was only my first. But enough about me.

Ever visit The Loom? It's science writer Carl Zimmer's blog. Among other fascinating things you'll find there is his gallery of Science Tattoos. They're fabulous - organic compounds, mobius, formulas, a microscope, a capsacian molecule, lots more, all with short, interesting explanations. The ruler, pictured above, is that of Mikey Sklar. He says he uses it a lot at Green Acres Hot Springs, described as an environmentally friendly bed and breakfast in Truth or Consequences, New Mexico. If you've got a science tattoo yourself, Carl Zimmer welcomes it to his set of 131 and growing.

I'd send pictures of mine but something tells me a dancing Snoopy and befuddled Woodstock just aren't gonna cut it.