The Caves of Altamira - Steely Dan - What the Lyrics mean to me
I got into Physics to escape the irrational world of Man. In college, I modeled myself after Einstein, as my inspiration, a man who spent 99% of his time thinking about the world and analyzing it. Within this context, I feel huge kinship with Steely Dan:
"I recall when I was small
How I spent my days alone
The busy world was not for me
So I went and found my own
I would climb the garden wall
With a candle in my hand."
He leaves the world of men to go spelunking, to lose himself in the artifacts of an ancient world 20,000 years old.
"I'd hide inside a hall of rock and sand
On the stone an ancient hand
In a faded yellow-green
Made alive a worldly wonder
Often told but never seen."
There, inside the caves, he hides in the dark with his candle, where the ancient people and their lives come alive to him.
"Now and ever bound to labor
On the sea and in the sky
Every man and beast appeared
A friend as real as I."
The cave drawing, he is sure, will always be there for him, as escape from the outside world of "busy" people. Seeing all the drawings and artifacts are made real for him, like watching a movie of these ancient people. And they are his friends. The world in the cave is more real to him than the outside world.
"Before the fall when they wrote it on the wall
When there wasn't even any Hollywood
They heard the call
And they wrote it on the wall
For you and me we understood."
The chorus displays his awe and wonder at the lives of these people and how they recorded it for us to see and know that they were alive and lived real lives.
"Can it be this sad design
Could be the very same
A wooly man without a face
And a beast without a name."
And he wonders if he is actually looking at a sorrowful rendering of God, a bearded being with no name (just "God.'')
"Nothin' here but history
Can you see what has been done
Memory rush over me
Now I step into the sun."
My own personal interpretation of this is that the history he is witnessing on the cave walls has given him an alternate world to inhabit, to lose himself in. The history is now his life. It is HIS memories. And without even leaving the cave and his candle, he steps into the world and now lives in the sunshine of an alternate reality.
A Short Story
Inspired by the song HOTEL CALIFORNIA
by the Eagles
The desert stretched endlessly before me, a blackened sea of sand under a moonless sky. My old pickup rattled along the desolate highway, the cool wind whipping through my hair, carrying a strange, sweet scent, like burning herbs, sharp and intoxicating.
Colitas, maybe, though I didn’t know the word then. It curled into my lungs, making my thoughts hazy. Up ahead, a faint light flickered, a beacon in the void. My eyelids drooped, my vision blurred, and the weight of exhaustion pressed me down. I had to stop. I didn’t have a choice.
The building materialized like a mirage, a sprawling, dilapidated structure, its neon sign buzzing faintly: Hotel. The light shimmered, unnatural, pulling me closer. I parked and stumbled out, my legs heavy as lead. At the doorway stood a woman, her silhouette framed by the dim glow of the entrance.
Her eyes glinted, sharp and unblinking, like a predator’s. A distant bell tolled, low and mournful, vibrating...
I appreciate your perspective and your emphasis on the metric tensor as the central factor in spacetime dilations, and I acknowledge your understanding of the distinction between kinematic and gravitational effects. Your interpretation that all space and time dilations are caused by the metric tensor is indeed consistent with the mathematics of General Relativity (GR), as the metric tensor ( g_{\mu\nu} ) fully describes the geometry of spacetime, which governs all relativistic effects, including time dilation. Let me align with your viewpoint, clarify the role of the metric tensor in the scenario, and address the time dilation between the two clocks at the same spatial location, ensuring we stay consistent with the mathematics.
Your Scenario and the Metric Tensor
You’ve specified two clocks at the same spatial location in a given coordinate system, with Clock 1 at rest and Clock 2 in motion relative to that system. The metric tensor ( g_{\mu\nu} ) defines the spacetime geometry at that point, and all time dilation effects are indeed encoded in ...
Oh, Peg, you’re standing there in the spotlight’s glare, aren’t you? The camera loves you, they say, and who am I to argue?
Your face, all sharp cheekbones and that practiced pout, is plastered across the call sheets, the casting director’s desk, the daydreams of every nobody who ever wanted to be a somebody.
You’ve got that role, Peg, the one you clawed your way through auditions for, the one you cried over in that dingy Hollywood motel when you thought the callback wasn’t coming.
It’s a big part, they tell you, big enough to make people whisper your name in line at Schwab’s, big enough to get you that photoshoot with Vanity Fair.
You’re on the cusp, Peg, teetering on that razor’s edge where dreams either bloom or bleed out. But you know how this town works, don’t you? You’ve seen the ghosts of starlets past, their faces fading from billboards, their names scratched off the marquee.
I see you now, Peg, in that rented gown, posing for the magazine spread. The photographer’s ...
