If You Have to Leave Hawaii...

here is the way to do it:

1) Traveling in the first class cabin to the mainland.

2) Reading the New York Times special Science section on Charles Darwin, on the bicentennial of his birthday, 2/12/09, the exact same day/month/year as Abraham Lincoln.

3) Making a limited understanding of opera a little less limited with Opera for Dummies.

4) Having the iPod spin up a particularly fine set of tunes from the Shuffle pick as background to the readings.


1) Yes, it's a wasteful extravagence, but here's the rationalization -- first class fares are no longer 2-3 times coach for domestic flights; I'm 6'3" and the flight time to Seattle is more than 5 hours; I don't do any expensive Big Boys toys; I don't spend $40K on a car when $15K will get me from A to B just as well, oops, I don't even own a car at all.

2) Here are a couple links to the articles I found most interesting, but the whole section is worthwhile.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/10/science/10humans.html?_r=1&scp=5&sq=Science%20times%202/10/09&st=cse

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/10/science/10evolution.html?pagewanted=2&sq=Science%20times%202/10/09&st=cse&scp=1

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2009/02/09/science/20090209-darwin-evolution-documents.html?ref=sciencespecial2

From the second article, these observations: "Darwin is still far from being fully accepted in sciences outside biology. 'People say natural selection is O.K. for human bodies but not for brain or behavior,' Dr. Cronin says. 'But making an exception for one species is to deny Darwin’s tenet of understanding all living things. This includes almost the whole of social studies — that’s quite an influential body that’s still rejecting Darwinism.

"The yearning to see purpose in evolution and the doubt that it really applied to people were two nonscientific criteria that led scientists to reject the essence of Darwin’s theory. A third, in terms of group selection, may be people’s tendency to think of themselves as individuals rather than as units of a group. 'More and more I’m beginning to think about individualism as our own cultural bias that more or less explains why group selection was rejected so forcefully and why it is still so controversial,' says David Sloan Wilson, a biologist at Binghamton University."

3) The lessons in flight were two, the librettist as co-equal to the composer and the opera long-term partnerships of composer and librettist, equivalents of (pop) Lieber/Stoller, Goffin/King, Lennon/McCartney and (Broadway)Rodgers and Hart -- Mozart and Lorenzo da Ponte, Verdi and Arrigo Boito, Strauss and Hugo von Hofmannsthal, who collaborated for 23 years, lived just an hour apart and practically never met; and how to read the cues of a score.

4) A bakers dozen playlist. Rhapsody.com, among others no doubt, permits hearing the whole song instead of those annoying 30 second snippets.

Air, Slumber Party
Childish Things, James McMurtry
The Geese of Beverly Road, The National
I'm Not There, Sonic Youth
I Am Weary (Let Me Rest), The Cox Family
Racing Daylight, Kid Silver
No Danger, The Delgados
Elvis Cadillac, Rickie Lee Jones
Diamonds in the Mine, The Broken Family Band
Westbound, Blue, Castanets
Thunderbird, John Hiatt
Disappear, Dolly Varden
Mandolin Wind, Rod Stewart