Helen Fields » I know everybody

a night at the theater

Helen — Wed, 11 Apr 2012 17:05:55 +0000

Last night at the Shakespeare Theatre I enjoyed (greatly) the play Strange Interlude with an unusual set of fellow theatergoers: a scientist I’d written a story about and the editor who edited the story.

I must admit that I was dreading the nearly-four-hour play, but the editor and I agreed it was completely entertaining. I didn’t ask the scientist’s opinion, but let’s just assume he liked it–he made it to the end.

best issue ever?

Helen — Mon, 05 Mar 2012 14:05:49 +0000

I wasn’t totally complete, it turns out, when I posted earlier about all the people I know in the March issue of Smithsonian. Yes, Sarah Everts, Andrew Curry, and I appear on three consecutive even-numbered pages. But three pages before Sarah is a story by another Sarah, of the Zielinski variety, and in the big feature “The New Stars of Photography,” one of the stars is my buddy Chris Linder, who took me along to the Bering Sea three years ago.

So here’s the full list of things you ought to check out in the March issue:

Visualize This by Sarah Zielinski
Sweat and Tears by Sarah Everts
Why So Blue? by me
Truth and Beauty by Andrew Curry
a truly delightful penguin photograph by Chris Linder
And, of course, much behind-the-scenes work by editor Laura Helmuth.

So it’s the best issue of Smithsonian ever, if the metric you care about is how many of my friends are in it.

oh, that’s fun

Helen — Wed, 22 Feb 2012 20:31:29 +0000

The March issue of Smithsonian arrived today. I was delighted to find this:

I’m sandwiched between two of my friends! Andrew and Sarah both happen to live in Berlin and are excellent human beings (and writers).

I know everybody: neighbors

Helen — Thu, 21 Jul 2011 17:49:11 +0000

Recently everybody I know has started moving into my apartment building. Ok, not really everybody. But a friend from college moved in, then a friend from grad school. Another friend from college is moving in next month. None of these people are totally dying to live near me; they’re all just moving to D.C. and needed a nice place to live. My building is nice, and they’d all heard about it from me.

Then the other day I was walking along a basement hallway and who did I see? A former college roommate. She’d just moved in, too.

(I don’t really know everybody, but I like to pretend I do. Read about it.)

art and science

Helen — Tue, 04 Jan 2011 17:42:38 +0000

I love things that relate art and literature to science, so I enjoyed this story in the Smithsonian Mysteries of the Universe Collector’s Edition about a scientist who likes to investigate the astronomy and other science behind art and literature. He’s investigated lots of neat things – like figuring out that a reference in one of the Canterbury Tales to the rocks disappearing from the shore corresponded to a time when there were particularly high tides, and figuring out what Walt Whitman was referring to in his poem “Year of Meteors, (1859-60).” Read the article here.

Whoa. In an odd coincidence, if you google “Year of Meteors,” about half the results are for an album by someone I went to college with. I’m listening to it now and, wow, she’s good. Here’s the Whitman poem.

I know everybody: husbands of acquaintances

Helen — Sat, 25 Sep 2010 03:37:20 +0000

This afternoon the phone rang and the caller ID said it was “T. Szymanski.” Well, that’s a pretty unusual last name, and I thought, that’s odd, is the T. Szymanski I know from college calling me for some kind of fundraising thing or something? I don’t think she’s ever been involved in such things before, but who knows, maybe she got inspired.

But it wasn’t her, it was the scientist who was going to call me that afternoon when he managed to get his daughter to take a nap. I asked about the name on his caller ID and – yeah, he’s married to the T. Szymanski I know.

The world is very, very small.

And just think – I would never have known this if he hadn’t called me (which is unusual) from home (I usually talk to people in their offices) and his wife hadn’t both kept her name and used it when signing up for phone service. I wonder how many other scientists I’ve talked to who are married to people I went to college with, and I’ve just never realized it?

(I don’t really know everybody, but I like to pretend I do. Read about it.)

animal-like fossils from a really long time ago

Helen — Mon, 23 Aug 2010 13:42:19 +0000

Last week I reported on some strange rocks from South Australia that may preserve the oldest animal fossils. Or may not. Ok, nobody knows. But they look kind of like animals. Read about it here.

I like that the function of the journal article was basically to throw the idea out there, see if any other geologists come across anything interesting. There’s plenty of rock of the right age exposed on the planet; you just have to tell geologists to look for it, and other samples of these animals (or whatever they are) could turn up.

In the I know everybody category, the lead author’s name sounded vaguely familiar. Before I called him I looked at his website, and indeed – he went to Carleton College at roughly the same time as me. We have four friends in common on Facebook. Fifteen years ago, I might even have been able to pick him out of a lineup. Today, his name just sounded vaguely familiar.

I know everybody: crochet coral reef

Helen — Thu, 29 Jul 2010 15:05:49 +0000

At the crochet coral reef workshop, I hung around with the beginners – I did, technically, already know how to crochet, but I really only knew how to crochet continuously in one direction. So, if I wanted to make spirals, I was fine, but it seemed useful to learn some other skills, and also to learn what the different stitches were called. Also, the friend I brought with me (MJ) was a beginner.

So the beginners were chatting, and I said I was writing a blog post for the Smithsonian, and one of them said, oh, I work at the Smithsonian. Turns out she’s a VIARC volunteer – they’re the ones who answer questions at the information desk. And I said, oh, my mom does that at the Freer and Sackler, and she said, I think I’ve met your mom, she works with my sister-in-law, Sandy. Who I know.

Then the sign-up for the mailing list came around, and the last name on it was someone I knew a little in high school – I was good friends with her little brother. It’s a fairly unusual name. I wandered around the yarn store until I found someone who looked vaguely familiar, asked, and indeed, it was her. She didn’t remember me at all.

(I don’t really know everybody, but I like to pretend I do. Read about it.)

I know everybody: baseball

Helen — Mon, 26 Jul 2010 13:14:59 +0000

I’ve often said that I run into people at every event I go to – except baseball games. Well, that was a lie, it turns out. Saturday night I went to see the Bethesda Big Train, a team in a summer league for college students. Revels was performing, and they’d given us a bunch of free tickets. Before the game, I was waiting with some other Revels folks to sing the national anthem when I saw Alan Mairson standing a few feet away. Alan and I both left jobs at National Geographic in November, 2008. He now writes the blog Society Matters and is the bat boy/girl coordinator for the Big Train. Ok, and he also has a day job.

Photographic proof:

(I don’t really know everybody, but I like to pretend I do. Read about it.)

I know everybody: fourth of July

Helen — Sun, 04 Jul 2010 23:34:48 +0000

Every year I march in the Takoma Park Fourth of July parade with a group from the Washington Revels. We dress all in white, carry [fake] flower garlands and dragon heads and hobby horses and a giant shrub, and sing songs about spring and summer and stuff. It’s great fun. Part of the fun is being in a small town parade – the streets are lined with people in lawn chairs, and marching groups include local daycares, a dog training school, and a lady on a horse. We won third prize for costumes. The parade starts near the co-op grocery store and ends in front of my elementary school.

So, naturally, a lot of the fun is seeing people I know along the way. As we were walking to our line-up spot in the morning, my friends asked for a prediction of how many people I’d see that I know. I figured it would be in the 20s. We couldn’t decide if I was allowed to count every kid who was with the adults I saw, so instead I counted family groups. My total: 21. Some of those are individuals, but most are between two and four people, so I figure I came out in the 40s at the very least.

I realize there’s nothing at all remarkable about this if you actually live in a small town. But I live in Washington, D.C., which is allegedly a big city. It’s a nice surprise here to see people you know. Well, ok, by the fourth go-round on this parade, it is in no way a surprise to see people I know. But it’s still nice.

(I don’t really know everybody, but I like to pretend I do. Read about it.)

photo: me, 2007