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The DNA Symphony
Mar. 28th, 2011 09:27 amI don’t think I’m romantically attracted to him – I probably would have been had I met him ten years ago. But I suspect he has a good 10 years on me – maybe more; and even though I’m close to 60, 70 sounds really, really old to me.
But I do like him an enormous amount. He’s really brilliant and playful. Consider this: some years ago, he decided to transpose the fruit fly’s genome to music. It was kind of like solving a cryptographic puzzle – he examined the amino acid codons, assigned C major – the most common note in music – to the most common codon, and so on from there. You can hear the results here if you're interested.
It’s melodic. That’s what just floored me. Because I don’t think his transliteration process carries an inherent bias that would make it melodic. It just is. The music of the spheres, the music of the genomes… I can hear Euclid muttering to himself from the other side of the ectoplasm.
And, of course, he’s a writer so much of our conversation is about the meta-aspects of writing which for me is like coming upon a water fountain spouting Perrier in the middle of the Sahara desert.
I think we’re well on our way to becoming Best Friends. More? I’m not closed to the possibility, it just doesn’t leap at me.
But I do like him an enormous amount. He’s really brilliant and playful. Consider this: some years ago, he decided to transpose the fruit fly’s genome to music. It was kind of like solving a cryptographic puzzle – he examined the amino acid codons, assigned C major – the most common note in music – to the most common codon, and so on from there. You can hear the results here if you're interested.
It’s melodic. That’s what just floored me. Because I don’t think his transliteration process carries an inherent bias that would make it melodic. It just is. The music of the spheres, the music of the genomes… I can hear Euclid muttering to himself from the other side of the ectoplasm.
And, of course, he’s a writer so much of our conversation is about the meta-aspects of writing which for me is like coming upon a water fountain spouting Perrier in the middle of the Sahara desert.
I think we’re well on our way to becoming Best Friends. More? I’m not closed to the possibility, it just doesn’t leap at me.
