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The Glenrays :: Haunted By Repetition

You may be surprised to hear that the soundtrack of day-to-day life in the laboratory was not written by Thomas Dolby. In science, those blinding ‘Eureka!’ moments are few and far between. Unless perhaps you happen to be uncommonly lucky or especially brilliant—moving with God-like intuition through that Pyrex labyrinth—your average yeti in a lab coat operates more on rigor and reproducibility than wizardry or perhaps evil genius. Harboring certain autistic tendencies is helpful.

In the era of ‘Big Science’ you ask small questions with fine focus. The puzzle is a masterpiece but sometimes you’re left feeling like a beat cop working the sidelines in the off-shift just across town from the forensic investigation of the crime of creation and being. The soundtrack gets boring. My day-to-day lab work sometimes feels like a begging and often repeated conversation between me and the reticent bacteria I married, I mean ‘study.’ Thus, playing god is more like playing a slow game of tennis than the average mediocre tennis player may realize. You volley a question, wait for the answer, react, repeat, repeat, repeat…

But don’t be sad! The soundtrack is always changing. And maybe the next track will be Thomas Dolby.

Haunted By Repetition (1.5MB MP3)
The Glenrays (homepage)

dave said on wednesday, july 16th, 2008

Poppy said on monday, july 21st, 2008