News – Page 3 – The Celestial Monochord

Steve Robinson: Astronaut Banjoist

Banjo Player and Mission Specialist, Steve Robinson

Believe it or not, the next Shuttle mission will send a banjo player into space. I mean, how monochordum mundi is that?

I wonder if he’ll play us Well May the World Go (When I’m Far Away) from the launch pad. Anyway, check out NASA’s official pre-flight interview with Steve Robinson:

I still want to be a musician and an artist someday when I grow up. I play music and I play guitar in a rock and roll band, and I play banjo and mandolin and bass and a pedal steel guitar.

Remember, in space no one can hear you scream "Yowza!"

The Vatican Observatory

Father George V. Coyne, S.J.
Director of the Vatican Observatory

Pope John Paul II died a few hours ago. One of his first actions after becoming Pope in 1978 was to appoint a commission to study the matter of Galileo, with an eye toward formally setting the record straight regarding the Church’s attitude toward his condemnation 350 years before. In Vatican jargon, John Paul wanted to move toward Galileo’s “rehabillitation.” In 1984, the commission presented its findings and acknowledged that the Church had been in error when it put Galileo under house arrest for the rest of his life.

The “pardon,” as it was popularly called, was taken as high symbolism by the public, but from a point of view within the Vatican, I doubt it was much of a stretch.

John Paul II said, without much fanfare, that the Bible holds no specific scientific information and discusses natural phenomena for metaphorical purposes only. He was alright with Darwin. Long before John Paul II, the Vatican had never been as backward about to astronomy as people imagine. A Vatican observatory was built in the 1500s to help with calendar reform, and was formally established as The Vatican Observatory in 1891. Since then, it’s been among the most advanced astonomical institutions in the world. It’s staffed by a bunch of Jesuits, naturally.

World’s Largest Banjo?

I know what you’ve been thinking: “When is he gunna tell me about the world’s biggest banjo?”

Well, unreliable sources claim that an object in Branson, Missouri is the World’s Largest Banjo, but I doubt it’s a real banjo. To qualify as a true banjo, you need vibrating strings and you need these vibrations to be transmitted to a membrane via a bridge for the purpose of amplification. A website describing Branson’s disturbing monstrosity makes me suspect that what they have there is a mere sculpture of a banjo:

“The neck holding five fiber optic strings is 47-feet long. A true replica of a collectible Gibson banjo, the huge fiberglass shell has a sturdy frame of over 3,000 pounds of steel.”

Perhaps Gibson’s factory in the Opry Mills Mall in Nashville (top) holds the record instead. The search continues … By the way, see Cecilia Conway’s book for an extensive analytical treatment of the features that constitute the essence of a banjo.