Don Barry

My picture gallery is also available through this link.

Interests

• Marxism/Leninism and socialist philosophy: We're returning rapidly to the era of giant monopolies and robber-baron owners. The last time this happened, in the 1880-1920 period, the "solution," a mere band-aid, required mass action by labor, inspired leadership by strong nation-states, and suppression of an entire activist movement. This time it won't be so "pretty." The nation-state is gone as an entity independent of capital, capital itself is more fluid than it has ever been before ($6 trillion in real goods traded internationally in 1993, $50 trillion in capital traded internationally in that year), and the efficiencies of production (21% of USA population in manufacturing now vs. 60% in 1920) means that fewer scabs can keep the factories open, pitting more and more people against each other. I concur with Wallerstein's prediction for an unstable "quiet before the storm" lasting another decade or two, and then the deluge. Quite frankly, I don't think we'll deal with it very well here (I recall the collapse of Weimar). In Europe, with a social-democratic tradition, I think things (this time) will go better. Will they light the way out?
  I wrote the above paragraph in the 1990s. As of 2007 the police state is well underway, thanks to the connivance of both major political parties. I urge people to study the work of the Socialist Equality Party and support its candidates. I do.
  Some favorite things I've read:
  • The Case of Comrade Tulayev , by Victor Serge, Journeyman press, 345 Archway Road, London N65AA (try finding this in your local bookstore - good luck!) Serge was one of the most perceptive social writers of our century, combining Dreiser's monumentality of form with a precision of language and miniaturist bent that gives him the scope to plumb both the interior and exterior of the political upheavals of the early century. Here's a brief excerpt.
  • The World Socialist Web Site, the most vital daily source of news and penetrating analysis now available on the web.
  • International Socialism, Once great, now rather comprador with a tendency to grasp somewhat desperately at entryism, though some authors are still worth reading.
  • Perry Anderson's thin volume In the Tracts of Historical Materialism, an astounding reposte to the preposterous claims of structuralism and its descendents to have superseded Marxian analysis. Anderson has since followed those he mocked into obscurantism, but at his peak he was well worth reading.

• Education: I've tried to unbuild walls between scientists and their communities. Years ago, I formed an astronomy outreach organization structured along the lines of an amateur club. At its peak, my colleagues and I had a structure for involving the astronomically curious in our work outside the formal settings of a classroom. We further used the interest of our 250 participants to reach out to visitors at most of the state parks of Georgia and involved tens of thousands of people annually in a personal astronomy experience. Sadly, the experiment of "hyper-democracy" in this organization made it unstable to manipulation by unscrupulous amateurs with no vested interest in astronomy per se, and eventually led to the suspension of our support for the group. I'm convinced now that our educational system at large needs to be reformed along syndicalist lines, perhaps one of my main areas of rapport with our distinguished social critic and theorist Noam Chomsky. As in a society at large, science flourishes within professional societies and collectives of scholars and students when its progress is directed by those with a stake in it. There must be a social contract between a scientist and his syndic, and an exit penalty for kamikaze runs outside this setting (dissension within a syndic is fine, no Lysenkoism here, but the Edward Tellers and Pons and Fleischmanns of the world who operate outside the morality of their colleagues must earn their recompense).

• Obscure classical composers of the late 19th and 20th centuries: I'm a subjectivist in music, preferring performance of music that reveals it as the art uniquely mixing creative and recreative aspects. The score is but a scaffold: the performance must strip it away and create something anew. I'm a fan of Furtwangler, Mengelberg, Fried, Nikisch, Jarvi, and Bernstein among interpreters. The music of Havergal Brian, Allan Petterson, and Sergei Taneyev joins the canon of Nielsen, Bruckner, Mahler, Elgar, and Ives among creators close to my heart in this century's oeuvre.
  A few random examples:
  • Havergal Brian, Symphony #1 The Gothic , Marco Polo 8.223280-281.
  • Allan Petterson, Symphony #7, Antal Dorati conducting (long out of print, but the performance by Sergiu Commissiona is also sensitively interpreted).
  • Charles Ives, Symphony #4, Leopold Stokowski conducting the Philharmonia Orchestra.
  • Anton Bruckner, Symphony #8, Wilhelm Furtwangler conducting the Berlin Philharmonic in 1944.
  • Ludwig van Beethoven, Symphony #9, Wilhelm Furtwangler conducting the Berlin Philharmonic in 1942.

• Gastronomy and Oenology: I've always enjoyed cooking, and seem to cook even everyday foods either in the French or in a southeast Asian (French-influenced) style. My tastes parallel those of the physicist Fritz Houtermans: if it originated within the boundaries of the Roman Empire (outside it, potatoes were merely boiled with salt), then I'm likely to enjoy it now. I particularly like trying to recreate flavors in sauces. I do less baking, because it's harder to experiment and get edible results! For wine, my tastes are simple. It must be French (I have become more flexible on this point), and it must be red.

• Travel and hiking the great outdoors: I'm an avid hiker, and have done too little exploration in the Appalachians, Rockies, and sections of Alaska. I rock climb, and since moving to the northeast have added XC skiing and ice climbing to my outdoor skillset. I consider myself as a mountaineer with a climbing problem, as opposed to some of my friends who are climbers with a mountaineering problem.
  Some past favorite stomping grounds:
  • Bighorn Mountains, Wyoming: Plenty of wilderness, none of the crowds of Yellowstone.
  • Shining Rock Wilderness, North Carolina: bald knobs of rolling 6,000 foot peaks, infinite microclimates of water, soil, and stone.
  • Jasper National Park, Canada: miles of trail above treeline, snow in August, rugged and picturesque vistas.

• Antique scientific instruments: I am a bit of an antiquarian, and keep (and use) a collection of old instruments, such as K&E slide rules, Curta and HP calculators, etc. Many of these instruments were once the property of my departed friend and scientific advisor Peter Burum Sherry, who molded my early development as a scientist. One of my most sentimentally evocative instruments is a Spitz 1-A planetarium projector, the personal instrument of distinguished planetarian and friend Julius Dirk Willem Staal, which he passed on to me a few months before his death in 1986. I've tried to honor his memory in its restoration, and through its use in public presentations. Memories inhere in the instruments which someone uses in life. Of these two departed friends, Belarius' words from Cybeline (Act V, Scene V) ring true: "The benediction of these covering heavens fall on their heads like dew! For they are worthy to inlay heaven with stars."

• Ultimate Frisbee: For many years I played Ultimate Frisbee, the most aerobic team field sport, according to a University of New Mexico study. In Atlanta and Austin, I played with several teams long since defunct. I was a mediocre to average player depending on particular skill, but could not imagine a better sport or a better group of people to practice it with. In Ultimate, we used to play without referees, and abide by sportsmanship, respect for our opponents, and the spirit of the game. We formed a community: almost a microcosm of what a more functional society must one day achieve.

  Sadly, optimism and radical social experiments did not easily survive the 90s. Within two years of my retirement from active play, the Ultimate Players Association was hijacked by those whose ambitions lay in the visibility of the sport and not its ethic. A professional manager who had never played the sport was hired to lead it. Grass-roots play remains in many places adherent to the egalitarian and utopian vision of the sport's youth but its direction from above is now subordinate to marketing and profiteering interests.