Monthly Archives: February 2002

critical thinking, musings

Advertising and Critical Thinking

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I’m starting today’s discussion with advertising. No, it’s not a science thing, but I’ll get to that in a minute.

My first question is, why do some advertisers think we’re so stupid that they have to produce such staggeringly dumb ads?

Like, I’m REALLLLY going to run out and buy a Kia because they have two black women staring daggers at each other over who paid less for their cars. Sure.

Does the world really need that sort of silly crap?

How about the whiny guy who’s obviously put out at having to care for his own children for an hour or so while his wife is out getting a little time to herself doing some shopping? (The JC Penney ad.) Like what Neanderthal dig did the writers pull that crap from? (My apologies to the Neanderthals.)

Does every state in the union have some ditzy blond or ditzy married couple selling cut-rate furniture using obviously home-made ads? In Colorado it was Jake Jabs (probably still is). It was Gary and Marcy Levine until they went belly-up. In Massachusetts it’s Bernie and Phyl’s. Stupidest ads in the world. They look like they cost about 2.5 cents to shoot (and probably the writers only got a half cent and no credit). And don’t get me started on the car dealers… who cares if it’s Toyotathon time again?

(On the other hand, the two guys who run Jordan’s furniture actually have some clever ads — there’s some THOUGHT that went into those ads — which is why we bought some furniture from them.)

But, I suppose that nobody ever went broke underestimating the stupidity of what sells in advertising.

Okay, now that that’s out of my system, let’s talk about what people want to know about astronomy.

I used to do a lot of public talks about astronomy — here, there, everywhere. Contrary to popular belief, most people didn’t ask me to give them horoscope readings after my lectures. That’s because the folks who attended these talks (at planetariums, science centers, etc.) were there because they already knew something about the subject and they knew it had nothing to do with some ancient superstition. These were folks who come from all walks of life, who are obviously interested in the universe around them. They’re lucky, because when you go out questing in the cosmos, you come back with some cool stuff. If you sit on the couch and let the universe come to you, you’re not gonna get much that’s cool.

So, what interests folks about the stars?

Black holes.

Supernovae.

The end of the universe as we know it.

How the universe got started.

Life on other planets.

What will happen when the planets line up in the sky (which happens frequently but never causes any problems).

I once had the chance to lecture right after John Dobson gave a public talk. John’s a feisty guy, and sometimes he gets off on a rant about cosmology, but he’s always got something pithy to say. John had a group of kids in front of him and he had them spellbound about cosmology. Using words they could understand, he kept their attention and engaged their minds.

So you see, it can be done. How many Kias would they sell if they only used their brains instead of letting the “creative staff” hook their gonads up to the computers and play with themselves?

CCPetersen

astronomy

The First Post

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In TheSpaceWriter’s Ramblings

Note:  this blog used to be on Blogger. This was my first post.

Hi. My name is Carolyn Collins Petersen. Those of you have read through my Web site, called The Henrietta Leavitt Flat Screen Space Theater have already figured out that my interests lie in astronomy, space science, space travel, and science fiction. I’m a science writer, specializing in those subjects through books, articles, planetarium shows, a video or two, and whatever else gets me paid to write about them.

Currently I’m working on a new book for Cambridge University Press (no I can’t talk about it yet), and a script for a program about Hubble Space Telescope. And some other things that float to the top of my desk when necessary.

I thought I’d form this WeBLog to air my thoughts out on any subjects (not just the ones listed above, necessarily), and sometimes answer questions that I get from people through the Web site.

So, why start a Blog? Lots of people who have them apparently have that question of themselves, too. I was inspired by Wil Wheaton’s Blog called Wil Wheaton Dot Net. What impresses me about Wil is his willingness to open his thoughts to the rest of us, knowing full well that as a member of the acting community (and due to his work in “Star Trek: The Next Generation” and “Stand By Me”) he’s already in the public eye — and apparently dealing with it pretty well.

Anyway, I enjoy reading Wil’s thoughts, his ramblings from Inside the Entertainment Machine (emphasis my own).

So, here I am, adding to the bandwidth — sort of using this public way of working through creative blocks (when I hit them) and clearing my mind of all but the essentials that I need to keep focused on the writing project at hand.

Some correspondents have asked me how I write planetarium shows. To be sure, it’s not like writing a book, although I certainly start out with the same source material. For example, I once was asked to write a show about the Moon for 3rd graders. It had to fulfill a certain set of educational standards for kids that age, but beyond that, the approach was up to me. So, I decided to look at the Moon from the viewpoint of a cat — figuring it would give me an easy way to explain some elementary facts about Earth’s nearest neighbor. It was fun to do — and the story of a little cat guy learning about something that humans figure most cats could care less about — well let’s just say that the story was an excellent framework to hang all the info on, and 12 years later, the show is still selling like hotcakes from Loch Ness Productions (at www.lochness.com).

That one was whimsical. Others have been straight documentary, or docu-drama.

Books, on the other hand, are a slog. Hubble Vision, written in 1995 and revised in 1998, just about needed a road map to keep all the data and images straight. As I work on my new book I’m databasing all the images, press releases, chats with scientists, etc. in ACCESS so that I can keep things a bit more orderly. Now I know why writers (the ones who can afford it) have assistants!

Articles — well, articles remind me of the old Mark Twain saying (paraphrased): “Please excuse the long letter, I didn’t have time to write you a short one.”

CC