Sagan and Reagan

Over at the ScienceBlog Framing Science, Matthew Nisbet wrote about two men that he considers to be the top communicators of the 1980s, President Reagan and Dr. Sagan:

In the years before cable television fragmented Americans into ever smaller viewership groups, both men took advantage of the broadcast television networks to communicate directly to a mass audience. Reagan would make speeches during prime time from the Oval Office such as his 1983 call to scientists to develop the Strategic Defense Initiative. "I call upon the scientific community in our country, those who gave us nuclear weapons, to turn their great talents now to the cause of mankind and world peace, to give us the means of rendering these nuclear weapons impotent and obsolete," declared Reagan.

And before The Daily Show or The Colbert Report turned late night comedy into platforms for scientists such as Neil deGrasse Tyson, Sagan would appear as a regular on Johnny Carson reaching tens of millions of viewers. The astronomer was so familiar to American audiences that Carson would even affectionately impersonate Sagan in skits.

Follow through to the original post for video.

Carl Sagan in Time Warner Presents The Earth Day Special (1990)

One of Carl Sagan's more obscure movie appearances is in a video tribute to the environmental holiday produced by Time Warner in 1990. The special mixes its message with entertaining cameos by a wide array of pop culture celebrities, from Christopher Lloyd reprising his role as Doctor Emmett Brown from the Back to the Future movies to Rodney Dangerfield showing that having eco-conscious date plans are the way to get some respect.

In one segment, Sagan appears in full Cosmos explainer mode, lecturing an attentive audience on the scientific basis for understanding global warming, ozone depletion, and acid rain. The script was written by Sagan and Ann Druyan themselves, and they also penned an appropriately Cosmos-like opening narration about Earth's place in the universe:

We have searched the skies for signals. Our spacecraft have explored dozens of exquisite worlds in the family of our sun. But as far as we've looked, there's only one place in the entire universe where the miracle of life exists: our own planet Earth. Life is so rare and precious. We must safeguard, protect, and cherish it.

Sagan is also one of the scientific advisors listed in the credits.

(I've also posted a lengthier, but less Sagan-centric, take on the special on my personal blog.)

Contact on TCM's 31 Days of Oscar

On Sunday, February 24th, Turner Classic Movies will be airing Contact as part of this month's "31 Days of Oscar", in which Academy Award-winning movies are showcased.

Check out the TCM Movie Database entry for the film. Sean Axmaker provides an excellent overview of the film, from the production history to the issues and themes involved; Sagan is described as "one of the most effective spokesmen for the advancement of science and space exploration in the world", and the entry also includes a quote from Ann Druyan:

"Carl's and my dream was to write something that would be a fictional representation of what contact would be like," explains Ann Druyan, Sagan's wife and collaborator. "But it would also have the tension inherent between religion and science, which was an area of philosophical and intellectual interest that riveted both of us."

Each night's worth of movies is organized by a specific decade (all the way from the 1920s to the 1990s and 2000s); it so happens that immediately before Contact on the schedule is a somewhat different 1997 alien contact science fiction film, Men in Black. Saganites have mixed opinions on the merits of MIB; Keay Davidson in his biography of Sagan dismisses it as a dumbed-down "mean-spirited bloodbath"; whereas pop-culture-savvy Nick Sagan slipped in an homage (or more precisely, an homage to an homage) to it in his short story "Tees and Sympathy":

I thought that was clear. The reason why I’m wearing a black suit and sunglasses is because I’m homaging Men in Black.

And Phil Plait answers the question of how "a skeptical, UFO-bashing, aliens-aren't-visiting-us-and-excoriating-cow- you-know-whats scientist-type guy" can enjoy the film in his review:

I loved this movie.

Surprised? "What's a skeptical, UFO-bashing, aliens- aren't-visiting-us-and-excoriating-cow-you-know-whats scientist-type guy going around saying he loves a movie whose very premise is that not only do aliens exist, but live among us?" you are asking yourself.

Well, the movie is awesome. It rocks. I laughed all the way through it. It's funny. It's also satirical, poking gentle but firm fun at the whole UFO and alien subculture.

(Also, for all the differences in tone, note that both films use a shot consisting of an extended zoom out from Earth to outer space to comment on humanity's place in the universe.)

"Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors" released on DVD last week

If you're wondering why you never heard of a spinoff of Cosmos based on Carl Sagan and Ann Druyan's book of the same name, it's because the film in question — a 1964 Soviet film by Sergei Parajanov — was instead the source for the name of the Sagan/Druyan book! (Also, the film is not a documentary as one might expect, but fiction.) This seems to be the first North American region DVD release. Some links to stuff about the film:

• IMDB entry
• Amazon.com page
• New York Times DVD review
• Village Voice film review
• Time Out New York film review
  
• The L Magazine film review
  

Announcing the second annual Carl Sagan memorial blog-a-thon

Later this month, on December 20, 2007, we will reach the eleventh anniversary of Carl Sagan's passing — and the first anniversary of the wildly successful first-ever Carl Sagan Memorial Blog-a-Thon. Far exceeding my wildest expectations, this became a truly worldwide celebration, with more than 250 posts in 11 languages. And for those who like nice round anniversary numbers, this year also saw quite a number of significant Sagan-related ones: the tenth anniversary of the release of the film Contact and the Planet Walk in Ithaca, NY; and the thirtieth anniversary of the launch of the two Voyager spacecraft. I am launching a new blog-a-thon exactly a year after the first one; for full details, see the main announcement post on my personal blog. See you on the 20th!

Arthur C. Clarke 90th birthday blog

Earlier this week, I received an email from a Sri Lankan Sagan fan, Thilina Heenatigala, who had among other things organized a special screening of Cosmos for undergraduates at a local college last year. He is a friend of revered science fiction writer (and science popularizer/futurist, and inventor, and humanist) Arthur C. Clarke — known as the author of 2001 (book and movie), Childhood's End, Rendezvous with Rama, "The Sentinel", "The Nine Billion Names of God", "The Star" and many others — and the General Secretary of the Clarke-cofounded Sri Lanka Astronomical Association. (In "Science Fiction — A Personal View" in Broca's Brain, Sagan paid tribute to Clarke, recommending "The Nine Billion Names of God" as an introduction to certain ideas from Eastern religious philosophy, noting Clarke's hard science background and saying that Clarke was "providing cogent and brilliant summaries in nonfictional form of many aspects of science and society.")

Since Clarke will be turning 90 this month, Heenatigala was inspired by my Sagan blog-a-thon to create a blog to celebrate Clarke's 90th birthday. December 16th is the special date! He is sending an open invitation to all Clarke fans to post birthday wishes as blog comments.

"Atheist" video by Zachary Kroger

This five-minute video in "defense of atheists" has been a hit on YouTube since its debut in mid-2006 (with more than 800,000 views and 80,000 comments, and praise from the likes of James Randi, Michael Shermer, and Penn & Teller), but has gotten extra attention from a mention in the article "God and Man on YouTube" in last week's New York Times Magazine.

Much of the video (a "video response" to icecorescientist's Pale Blue Dot video) features slides of famous people who many might not realize are atheists (similar to lists on websites like this one); and sure enough, Carl Sagan is featured:



The star of Contact also appears:

And at the end, this quote is featured:

Sagan and the Dalai Lama, a Retrospective.

Thanks again go to Larry Klaes for bringing this to our attention.

Religion and science do not have to be at odds. Science, said Ann Druyan, widow of Cornell astronomer Carl Sagan, can communicate with, learn from and even benefit from religion and vice versa.

Druyan, a writer and media producer who collaborated with Sagan for 19 years until his death in 1996, reflected on dialogues in the early 1990s between Sagan and the Dalai Lama at a Sept. 28 lecture in Anabel Taylor Auditorium. For the first time, film excerpts of the meeting between the two were shown in a public venue.

Sagan, Cornell professor and author of "Cosmos," "Contact" and "Dragons of Eden," among other books, was perhaps best known for his extraordinary ability to communicate science to the public. "He wanted to share with everyone the wonder and awe that science inspired in him," Druyan said.

She stressed that there were political motivations behind Sagan's work as well: "Carl believed that you can't have a democratic society if you have a tiny scientific elite and a public who is uncomfortable with the methods and language of science," she said.

Click here to read the whole article from Cornell University's Chronicle Online.

Galaxy Garden.

Regular Celebrating Sagan contributor Larry Klaes sent an email notifying us about the new 'Galaxy Garden' website.

The Galaxy Garden is a 100-foot diameter outdoor scale model of the Milky Way, mapped in living plants and flowers and based on current astrophysical data.

Artist Jon Lomberg conceived and designed the garden to encourage scientific education about our place in the Universe.

www.GalaxyGarden.net

Café de Sagan

While strolling along The Philosopher's Path (left) from Ginkaku-ji in northeast Kyoto this summer, my fiancé and I passed this little coffee shop, Café de Sagan. Of course we were drawn to the name, but it's location on a beautiful stone path that borders a canal known as the Walk of Philosophy made its appearance serendipitous indeed. We stopped in for tea and coffee. Inside ambient music reminiscent of the Cosmos soundtrack drifted toward the front from speakers in back, no kidding. We asked the woman serving us about the name, and with her limited English and my fiancé's limited Japanese we gathered that the two characters (seen below) are pronounced say-gun, roughly translating as "We hope you come again." A chance discovery with some karmic undertones. A lovely spot. And good, strong coffee. Been meaning to share.