The Cambridge Science Festival high in four steps
I am leaving the 2014 Cambridge Science Festival early, with three days and dozens of events still to go. I’m happy to be headed to other festivals, but can’t help feeling a tinge of remorse that I won’t get to see this one all the way through. Here are some quick reflections from the field.
Science festivals can make you high
[caption id="" align="alignright" width="385" class=" "]
Photo from 201 Cambridge Science Festival[/caption] These are all reasons to be in high spirits, but it is the Cambridge Science Festival that really has me high. Here’s how they’ve done it: 1. Make the city look better. The festival’s colorful banners are up on several miles of streets and have been joined this year by creative art/science displays in storefront windows. Cambridge is festooned with bright reminders that the science festival makes the city a happier place. 2. Pack the schedule. It isn’t just that there are over 150 events in 10 days. It is that every time you think about going to an event you realize that it will mean you are missing two or three other great sounding programs. The festival schedule is an overwhelming smorgasbord, a gluttonous feast of rich programming. 3. Don’t shy away from mental gymnastics. It started with Big Ideas for Busy People, with 10 quick talks by 10 brilliant scientists on 10 completely different subjects. It isn’t just knowledge you soak up at this event. Under the pressure of a countdown clock, each speaker stretches your mind in a different direction, pulling you as far as they can as you try to keep up with their thought processes. And it doesn’t stop there: several of the events I made it to yielded this kind of intellectual exercise. It is both overwhelming and refreshing, it limbers up my brain, and I can almost feel the new neural networks firing. 4. Layer on community. Thousands upon thousands of people turned out for Saturday’s Science Carnival. To quote a friend, “Every family in Cambridge must be here right now.” (“And more,” was my quick response). But the feeling here isn’t just one of sheer numbers. It is one of genuine community. We all live here, this is our place, these are our people, and meeting each other at the annual science festival is what we do. This feeling continues to echo from event to event. I met people at festival events that I fully expect to be friends with for a long time to come. The end result? I’m on a high. I am seeing associations and overlaps everywhere. Not just between different topics covered at festival events, but in discussions with friends and family, every time I turn on the radio or TV, even in the grocery store and on the sidewalk. New revelations are so commonplace in the festival that I notice I am looking for them even in mundane moments, like riding the elevator. And I feel more connected than ever to the place I live, the history, the geography, the buildings, the traffic, the wildlife, the people. What a gift! Thank you Cambridge Science Festival.
Production value is important, but it isn’t everything
I’ll keep this one short. Big Ideas for Busy People is a signature event of the Cambridge Science Festival. It is the first event every year, and always features stellar talent among its speakers. But in terms of stage production, it is amateur hour. I know the festival team works hard to make the event go smoothly, but the event would make any staging professional squirm. Bad lighting, speakers roaming all over, AV issues, crazy people with access to the mics during Q & A, signage is set up asymmetrically, and we’re all sitting on hard benches. My notes from the event start off frustrated by these production issues. People: if you’re putting on a stage performance and you haven’t wondered whether you need to work with a professional, the answer is that you need to work with a professional. But as the event goes on, my frustration fades. The speakers are each gems, and their radically different personalities really shine through in this setting. A bestselling author uses his five minutes, in part, to share with us intimate memories of his daughter’s wedding. One brilliant speaker comes on barefoot and spends time sitting on the ground while talking. I’m getting to know these people. The audience gets as much time to voice questions as the speakers have to put their ideas forward. Getting up to speak in the historic first-ever Unitarian church is like an act of testifying. Afterwards there is a reception with cookies on tables in the back, and I am reminded of church bake sales from my youth. You can walk right up to any of the speakers. I notice two strangers from the audience meeting each other, ignoring the experts to discuss among themselves the question one of them asked during the event. The last words I write in my notebook for the event are: “accessible and human.”
What do you do with your section at the ballgame?
The festival coordinated with the Red Sox to inject science programming into a Sunday evening home game against the Orioles (we won in the 9th with what I can only call a walk-off steal). It was possible to buy tickets for the game through the festival, and I was aware that the people sitting in my section had all come there through the festival. Several times during the game I turned around to look at the section and thought about how we all had this connection. I felt like we should have a science chant, a moment on the Jumbotron, or something. It seemed like an opportunity to show some festival spirit, and I was left wondering what could have been done to harness this somehow. [caption id="attachment_2077" align="alignright" width="409"]
Photo from 2014 Cambridge Science Festival[/caption]
Find the collaborators that bring a fresh perspective
Several events in the schedule came about through a collaboration with Berklee School of Music. I was lucky to participate in two of these (a performance and a talk), and both approached the science theme from angles that I’m not used to. The talk, by MacArthur Genius Vijay Iyer, was remarkably refreshing. For example, when asked about his explorations in mathematics and music Iyer responded, “I’m not interested in fetishizing mathematics. I’m not trying to portray the beauty of mathematics. I don’t care about that at all. What I care about is people.” I understood his point to be that the human experience is primary. This intellectual breath of fresh air was set in motion by the festival reaching out to a college of music.
