Teaching Physics in Texas---Again

 November has come and we are almost at Thanksgiving. I am spending a peaceful Monday in what feels like a moment of weightless calm amidst all the activity lately. On Nov 9 we flew to Dallas to attend the second Threadfest conference, where as before I was a speaker.  At the previous one in April in Nashville I gave a talk called "Nashville and Narrative", which I later transcribed as a movie to my Rumble channel here. The subject is the history of American media and technology, as it relates to the Cultural War against traditional values and middle/rural America. The talk, and the conference as a whole, were massive hits and I got much positive feedback.

This time the conference was in Southlake, Texas, which is closer to the home of the organizer of the conference, Patrick, who became a friend of mine last year when I met him at a patriot's conference in Las Vegas. I reminded him of that this time in Texas, and we both marveled at home much the world has changed since October 2021, when we still felt in exile.

So much has changed even since April. I went to Europe and gave my first real physics talk in over two decades, and it too was a big hit in its own way. When I told Patrick about it, and mentioned the subject, he was greatly intrigued, and he asked me to do a lay version of it for the next Threadfest. Up until the last minute, I was not sure I could pull it off, but this time too was a huge hit with the attendees---several hundred in the hotel ballroom. It was my first time "teaching physics" in Texas since 1998, a fact I mentioned to the audience.  The title of my talk was "Does God Believe in the God Particle?".  I'm hoping to do an online version of it as well using Apple Keynote and iMovie.

Just as at the first Threadfest, I helped Patrick out by being "co-emcee" at the event, and stepping in to during transitions when he was occupied, and introducing a few of the speakers. I love doing this kind of thing. It brings back my own limited theater training. One of the things that I told Patrick we needed at the first event was to make it "not only a conference, but a show." It was almost a huge disaster, of course, but we pulled it off, and this time it was much easier, in part because Patrick thoroughly vetted the venue by multiple visits. He has already declared that the next Threadfest, in November 2023, will in the same location. He likes the hotel staff and he actually made money this time, instead of having to be bailed out from the room commitment as he did in Nashville. 

The theater part is fun for me because it feels as if I contributed "classical knowledge" to all these younger folks, at least half a generation younger than me, who did not get the benefit of coming of age during a time when classical arts of all time were still being passed along. I just imagine what would Johnny Carson do. We need people on our side who understand the power of theater. 

At the first time event, I even prepared a humorous karaoke number, poking fun at us and our "mini-movement". It turns out there was not a good time for it in Nashville (The show must go on!) but I put that up on my Rumble channel as well. You won't get the inside references, but you can at least hear me sing.