Back to SoCal

Greetings Trivialoguers! I am sorry to be so long in writing but it’s been a hectic time with my new responsibilities but I am starting to be able to carve away some time for my scholarly work and writing as I get to know those ropes. Best of all, the semester has less than a month left so I hope to get on a more regular schedule after commencement.

Travelogue

I do have a couple of things to report here! First, during the third week of March (which was also our Spring Break) I flew to Los Angeles to attend a conference (more about that later) that was held in Pasadena. I didn’t get to do a lot of looking around when I was there but I was lucky enough to fly in on a Wednesday afternoon and was thus able to play trivia again at O’Briens Pub in Santa Monica! It was a special night there as O’Briens regular Pam Mueller was appearing on TV in the Jeopardy Invitational Tournament that night. I arrived just as the Jeopardy round was ending and joined in cheering Pam on. Unfortunately for her, her opponent Andrew He (who ended up being a finalist) hit both Daily Doubles in Double Jeopardy which led him to a comeback victory. I joined trivia pals Rob and Andre again along with another player whose name I’m not pulling right now for another set of challenging questions (with only 2 minutes to answer in Round 1 and one minute to answer in Round 2, diabolical handouts that include even more questions that the team has to solve while answering the regular questions, and playing against top-notch competition. Working with a team of 4 (most teams have the maximum of 5 which helps with the multi-tasking) we still managed another fifth-place finish out of almost 20 teams. I came in handy on questions about Bob Dylan and neuron structure while they carried me on a movie heavy handout as both work in the industry. Pam’s team won in the end, so I hope she found some solace in that.

Then, of course, last Monday was the solar eclipse, and Fayetteville was just a short distance from the path of totality. We had an unexpected guest for the event as family friend Bruce, who was traveling from California expecting to view the eclipse in Austin, called us at the day before and asked if he could come visit us as the weather forecast for Austin was pretty awful at the time. Of course we said yes, and the three of us headed about 100 miles east into the Ozarks to find a viewing spot. Lots of others did the same so the usual empty country roads had more traffic on them as usual but we managed to stay away from the worst traffic jams on the interstates. We ended up viewing the eclipse at a large rest area and scenic overlook on Arkansas Highway 7 which is a beautiful road. We were joined by a couple hundred other eclipsians and had perfectly clear skies for the totality which lasted over 3 minutes at that spot. It was beautiful and awe inspiring, easily worth the time in the car, and it was great to see Bruce, whom we had last seen on our trip to Santa Cruz in October.

Here are some pictures from the past few weeks.

Ozark vista during totality

The West Fork of the White River during a disc golf round

Early spring late afternoon light over Fayetteville

Psychologue

Oh yes, the conference! This was a meeting of the Cognitive Development Society, which is the scholarly organization that I am currently most closely aligned with. The conference always starts with a ‘preconference’ day in which half-day or all-day sessions are offered on a variety of specific topics. I attended the preconference on the 30th anniversary of an influential book called “Mapping the Mind” which was edited by Susan Gelman and Larry Hirschfeld. Susan was also a one of my post-doc mentors as well. The organizers not only brought them back, but brought back most of the authors of the chapters in the book including many of the most influential thinkers (and some of my intellectual role models) in the field of cognitive development. It was fascinating to hear the speakers reflect on how their views had changed (or not) over the past 30 years and also to think about how this work has influenced the field over those years. Related to the topic of the modularity of intelligence, the main thrust of the book is that children’s developing knowledge looks like the development of theories over the history of science and that children/humans develop domain-specific understanding of areas such as number, the mind, biology, physics, and the social world. While some of these bold claims have stood up to empirical work (the domain of number in particular) others have not fared as well. In any case, it was a fascinating day during which I was able to catch up with a bunch of friends and colleagues over the course of the day, and at the rest of the conference.

The regular two days of the conference were also terrific and I attended many sessions on topics both in and out of my research wheelhouse. I brought back several things to integrate immediately into my graduate developmental psych course this semester. The poster sessions were also fun, well-attended, and in a room in the Pasadena Convention center that had ample space both at the posters and sitting areas outside of them. My student Christina, of course, did a fantastic job at our posters presenting our first passes at our work on intellectual humility and conspiracy beliefs. Several of the scholars that she was most hoping would come to the posters came almost immediately to them and the provided excellent feedback to her and to me as well. We also caught up with my former student Lani Girgis (my co-author on the two papers that were published during my sabbatical) and had a lovely meal together with her. My next conference is for the International Association for the Study of Child Language in Prague in July! Expect posts about that! Also, we are just about to dive into data analysis for our big IH-CB studies and Christina’s dissertation work that we have been collecting data on for the past several months, so lots more Psychologue to come on that as well! More pics!

SoFi Field on the approach to LAX

Pasadena near the Convention Center

Christina holding forth at her poster!

Dim sum! Soup dumplings and turnip cakes.

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Trivialogue

This week’s questions are on, of course, eclipses!

1. The recent total eclipse occurred because the moon passed between the earth and the sun and completely occluded the sun from our view for a matter of minutes. However, when an eclipse occurs when the moon is more distant from the earth and thus doesn’t cover the entire disc of the sun, it is called what kind of eclipse? One of these was visible to some of the western parts of the USA in October, 2023.

2. If you were in the path of totality and had the Soundgarden song “Black Hole Sun” running through your head, then we should talk. The late Chris Cornell provided guitar and vocals for this song as well as most of the Soundgarden discography, but he also was a member of two other bands that are considered to be supergroups. Name either one of these supergroups, with honorary bonus points if you can name both.

3. The Eclipse was a sport compact car sold in the USA between 1989 and 2011 that was manufactured by what Japanese automaker? Other models formerly sold by this automaker included the Lancer and the Galant.

4. Fill in the blank in this…literary…sequence: Twilight, __________, Eclipse, Breaking Dawn.

5. I’d do anything to finish with another music question: Jim Steinman wrote Bonnie Tyler’s 1983 number one hit “Total Eclipse of the Heart.” Primarily known as a composer, lyricist, and producer, he wrote songs not only for Tyler, but for acts including Air Supply, Celine Dion, and what larger than life artist born Marvin Lee Aday? Mr. Aday passed away in early 2022. One more bonus: How many times are the words “turn around” sung in Total Eclipse of the Heart? Give yourself credit if you are within 2 of the correct number, which is three fewer than the number of times Bill Withers sings “I know” in his hit “Ain’t No Sunshine.”

ANSWERS BELOW!

1. Annular: Though it appears that this word might refer to some type of yearly event, the term derives from the Latin annulus/anulus meaning ring or ring-shaped. In an annular eclipse, one can still see the edges of the solar disc around the moon’s shadow, a phenomenon that is often called the Ring of Fire.

2. Temple of the Dog, Audioslave. Temple of the Dog was a project Cornell put together for his friend Andrew Wood, the lead singer of the band Mother Love Bone, who died of an overdose at age 24. In addition to Cornell, the band included current and future members of Mother Love Bone, Soundgarden, and Pearl Jam. Pearl Jam released its debut record months after Temple of the Dog released a self-titled record, its only one. Audioslave was a project of Cornell with Tom Morello, Tim Commerford, and Brad Wilk of Rage Against the Machine. The group released three albums between 2002 and 2006.

3. Mitsubishi. Mitsubishi is an industrial conglomerate that is probably best known in the states for its cars. It still sells a few models in the US including the Eclipse Sport and the Outlander, though its market share here has hovered just under 1% in recent years.

4. New Moon: As the father of two Late Millenial/Zillenial daughters, there was no way that I would not be aware of the Eclipse book and movie series. I was definitely Team Jasper.

5. Meat Loaf (Bonus answer = 23). Steinman wrote many of Mr. Loaf’s theatrical numbers including all of the tracks on Bat Out of Hell (1977) and Bat Out of Hell II: Back into Hell (1993). The latter featured Meat Loaf’s only #1 hit, “I Would Do Anything for Love (But I Won’t Do That).” And of the 23 “Turn arounds” on Total Eclipse, nearly all of them were sung NOT by Bonnie Tyler, but by backup singer Rory Dodd! The track also featured E Street Band stalwarts Roy Bittan and Max Weinberg.

How’d you do on this week’s questions? Let me know in the comments! And thanks for reading Trivialogue!