A Scientist at the Movies Reviews by Greg Paris Some Personal Information

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Reviews from Video Reviews of the Classics Personal Background

In my day job, I have returned to doing science, hands-on, supporting oncology drug discovery and design with computational chemistry, cheminformatics and bioinformatics. I am an "ex-" many things: librarian, oceanographer, microbial physiologist, sailing instructor, rock climbing instructor, software designer and programmer, small business entrepreneur and consultant, Scottish athlete, executive director, manager and administrator. Besides movies, in my copious spare time (?!) I have been known to officiate at Scottish games (but not for several years), judge science fairs, mentor for the Science Olympiad and the Cambridge School Volunteers (CSV) NetPals, read technical textbooks onto tape for blind and dyslexic students(Learning Ally (previously known as RFB&D), generally at theCambridge studio),or just read.

Tastes in humor: Broad -- from Monty Python, through Mel Brooks, to the Marx Brothers; including Four Weddings and a Funeral (1994), the Avengers (TV), Rob Reiner, and the wit of Oscar Wilde. Physical humor can be quite funny, but I avoid explicitly scatological and obscene "cable comedy" -- and I tend to lean away from the attitudes of Jim Carrey and Will Ferrell. I recommend browsing over the list compiled a few years ago by the American Film Institute (AFI) of the100 best comedies of the past 100 years.Although they miss a few of my favorites -- like Hopscotch (with Walter Mathau, 1980), The President's Analyst (with James Coburn, 1967) or The Princess Bride (by Rob Reiner, 1987) -- it is a gold-mine of excellent films. (Alternate links include: the Wikipedia version and the FilmSite version.)

Tastes in network TV: I don't watch a lot of broadcast television (or I don't think I do...; you tell me). In the regular season I have been watching "Fringe," "NCIS," "Castle" and "Bones". From new series, I've started watching "Person of Interest", "Grimm" and "Once Upon a Time" -- assuming they last the term. In the summer season I favor "Eureka". Some of the networks seem to have lost all sense of "season", and so I've been catching new episodes of "Leverage" and "Warehouse 13" whenever they're broadcast, and liked "Haven" (also on SyFy) and await its periodic re-emergence.

In the past (and this goes back several decades), I have enjoyed "Lost" and "Medium" (both of which finished their runs), "Numb3rs", "Cold Case," "FlashForward" and "The Event" (all of which were killed), "Eleventh Hour," "Sanctuary" (the first season; the second season was decidedly inferior and lost my interest), "Moonlight," "The 4400," "Invasion," "Joan of Arcadia," "John Doe," "Dark Angel," "The X-Files," "Millennium," "Northern Exposure," "Fraggle Rock" (entire seasons are now released on DVD: hoorah!), "The Avengers" (the original series with Patrick McNee and Diana Rigg), "Star Trek" (the original series), "The Outer Limits" (the original series), and "Rocky and Bullwinkle." No doubt you see the dominant pattern here: science fiction into fantasy, dark and edgy -- shows that often accrue but a small audience and, alas, don't typically seem to last very long.

And from my youth, I just barely remember "Crusader Rabbit," so if anyone has any old tapes or memories of this antique, please write me (I've already struck out at New York'sMuseum of Television and Radio).

Tastes in reading: Broad and continuous, with a strong emphasis onscience fiction (recent recommendations, 1993 to 2001),fantasy (20 years of recommendations, up to 2001),general science and scientific essays, and Neolithic archaeology. A favorite theme is the hidden or undiscovered document, as for example in:

• Possession;
• Knowing;
• An Instance of the Fingerpost (Iain Pears, 1998);
• The Name of the Rose (Umberto Eco, 1983); or
• "Eifelheim" (the novella by Michael F. Flynn; Analog 106 (11): 138-176, November 1986 -- and not obviously reprinted since); this is perhaps the best novella in any genre I've ever read (although "The Ebony Tower" by John Fowles comes close), and I was pleasantly surprised to find that 20 years later, it recently has been expanded into a reasonably goodfull-length novel (Oct-2006).

This theme has become somewhat more popular lately with the advent of some of Dan Brown's novels, the movie version ofDa Vinci Code,and Disney's entree intoNational Treasure.What really interests me is knowledge or documents or artifacts that are hidden, forgotten, denied, unrecognized, lost, concealed, and/or ignored -- and this applies to more than mere fiction.

In recent years, I've developed a taste for a few traditional (and not-so-traditional) gumshoe mysteries, including:

• Peter Tremayne's Sister Fidelma series (medieval Ireland: Absolution by Murder),
• John Straley's Cecil Younger series (coastal Alaska: The Woman Who Married a Bear),
• Glen Cook's Garrett series (TunFaire fantasy: Sweet Silver Blues),
• Irene Allen's Quaker series (contemporary Cambridge: Quaker Witness), and
• of course, Robert B. Parker's (RIP) Spenser (Boston).

Although I say I will read almost anything, I seldom read current best sellers -- fiction or non-fiction -- but will on some occasions listen to an audio-books version while doing distance driving (Kostova's Historian worked well). But I broke my own habits for the Harry Potter novels in hardcover, and the Jim Dale audio recordings of this series are absolutely wonderful.

As a long-time reader of Analog, I enjoy keeping up with science fiction short stories. I recently re-discovered (through an Alternate View article in that magazine by physicist John Cramer) some recordings of old-time radio broadcasts of classic Golden Age sci-fi short stories turned into radio plays, programs called "Dimension-X" (1952) and "X Minus-One" (1955-58). Check out OTRR). MP3 versions of these recordings are now available from wwww.archive.org via links Dimension-X and X Minus-One, from which you can download them into your media player for enjoyable listening on the road or walk. If you liked reading Clifford Simak, Ted Sturgeon, Robert Heinlein, Murray Leinster, Ray Bradbury, Isaac Asimov, Fredric Brown and Robert Sheckley -- then you're in luck!

Tastes in music: Narrowly focused in a variety of areas, but slowly evolving. In my youth I favored orchestral and grand choral works -- Bruckner, Mahler, requiems (requia?) and "light" German opera (e.g., Wagner). Today I prefer smaller scales: classical concerti and chamber music (my favorite instruments are the cello and the Japanese shakuhachi, but the violin is not far behind), and soloists such as Jacqueline Du Pre (RIP), Mstislav Rostropovich (RIP), Yo-Yo Ma, Anne Sophie Mutter, Nadja Salerno-Sonnenberg, Hilary Hahn and Sarah Chang.

After being gifted recently with an iPod, I've returned to my roots and am re-exploring a lot of classical composers whom I'd previously overlooked, or never knew existed. This is one reason why some of my movie reviews are taking longer to see web-publication: another (elder) interest has seduced me and taken away evening & weekend time. I'm still focused on chamber styles and cello works; I've embarked on a collecting project to acquire every cello concerto in print and am about 25% of the way there, based on the Wikipedia list, even though I need to add a few to that list found while browsing Amazon & ArkivMusic. However, I'm also browsing more broadly through new composers & new works. For example: work from Scandinavia (Aho, Atterberg, Englund, Hallgrimsson, Harerik, Holmboe, Klami, Kokkonen, Langgaard, Melartin, Merikanto, Nordgren, Norgard, Norholm, Rautavaara, Sallinen, and Tuukkanen), continuing exploration of Eastern European music (Bartok, Dohnanyi, Janacek, Kodaly, Martinu, Penderecki, Schnittke, Szymanowski, and Vasks), some lesser known Russian composers (Kabalevsky, Khrennikov, Miaskovsky, Shchedrin), and some new Japanese music (Takemitsu and Yoshimatsu). I have rediscovered my enthusiasm for the Classical & Romantic periods, and especially enjoy discovering new (to me) piano concertos from these timeframes. Any suggestions are welcome!

No less important is Celtic music -- all types: both popular and obscure Scottish and Irish folk, pop, ceiligh or rock groups. This includes bands and groups such as Clannad, Wolfstone, Capercaillie, Altan, Solas, Lunasa, Runrig, Gaelic Storm, the Rankins, Cherish the Ladies, Anuna, Naven, Enter the Haggis and Sephira; fiddlers such as Natalie MacMaster, Alasdair Fraser, Liz Carroll and Winifred Horan; and female vocalists such as Moya / Marie Brennan, Karen Mackenzie, Enya, Loreena McKennitt, Mary Black, Karen Casey, Isla St. Clair, Talitha MacKenzie, Kate Rusby, Cathie Ryan, Susan McKeown, Cara Dillon and Julie Fowlis. My favorite radio music show is Brian O'Donovan's Celtic Sojurn broadcast on Boston's WGBH on Saturday afternoons (also available streaming from the web), followed closely by Garrison Keillor's Prairie Home Companion and Says You, a game of words and whimsy.

Also occasional oddments such as Varttina, Starship, October Project and The Corrs. You can imagine that my iPod has some eclectic content and an unusual set of playlists -- with a backlist of rock that raises memories of the 60's.

Tastes in art: Photography (mostly landscape, sometimes B&W), and both Inuit sculpture and prints. The photography ranges fromAnsel Adams, to Tillman Crane, toRodney Lough,to my brother, Jeff Paris. Inuit sculpture and prints decorate much of the shelf and wall space in the house; we specialize in "critters with attitude." Although we've slowly acquired our Inuit collection from a variety of places, we have had long and happy experience working with bothAlbers Gallery (San Francisco, CA) andInuit Images (Sandwich, MA).

Tastes in single malt Scotch: I like peat reek and smoke, the very unsubtle in whisky. Preferences include…:

• (a) Islay whiskys, includingArdbeg (both pre-1976, and some newer releases following its late-90's purchase and re-opening by the Glenmorangie group),Port Ellen (alas, long defunct and only available in exponentially increasingly priced special editions by independent bottlers),Lagavulin, and youngLaphroaig;
• (b) Campbelltown whiskys, bothSpringbank andLongrow; and
• (c)Highland Park;followed...
• (d) by a smattering of Speysides in sherry casks, includingLongmorn,Macallan andGlendullan.

There are a few independent bottlers that I favor, trust and do business with, includingCadenhead's andGordon & MacPhail's.

I've started enjoying a few American bourbons, although I'm not quite as knowledgeable and discriminating in this genre, and have just begun sampling some of the specialty items. I likeBooker's, andBulleit,and will takeMaker's Mark if these are not available. I've found by experimentation that I do not like a lot of rye to contaminate my bourbon, but rye on its own may not be bad.

Tastes in sports: Damn few. I've never been interested in team sports, and even few individual sports have held much attraction. I don't consider myself all that competitive, nor interested in watching most others compete. Bicycling (including riding in the 2008 Pan-Mass Challenge, a 2-day 150-mile-plus bike-a-thon in support of cancer research) and occasional hiking (often to find remote archaeological sites in Scotland) are my sole activities outside the gym; rock climbing and winter mountaineering were major activities in my youth. For about a decade I participated in Scottish heavy athletics -- large men throwing large objects -- and then moved into officiating when my shoulder started giving me problems. In summer Olympic venues, I enjoy watching fencing and sailing (and participated in both long ago). In winter venues, I enjoy cross-country skiing and speed-skating (but only participate in the former), and have begun to appreciate the subtle art of curling (only as an observer, so far).

Tastes in dogs: Bearded collies, definitely; we have four of them. They keep us young and frazzled. The dogs themselves deserve a home page, what with all their interests, titles and awards in obedience, conformation, sheep-herding, rally and agility. Via my wife Joanne, several of our critters are actively involved in herding (sheep & ducks), obedience, rally and agility -- take a look atBeau,Belle, andFlashin action. If you want to find out more about this occasionally thrilling spectator sport, check outthis BAD page. Our new expanded Massachusetts backyard is currently an obstacle course of agility equipment -- no on-site sheep for herding, although we do co-own some in Newburyport and occasionally rent-a-sheep to train...

(updated, 4-Feb-12)

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