Reasons to Be Happy, March 18, 2014

1. There's proof of the Big Bang. Because I had a criminally dreadful science education, I didn't fully grasp the importance of yesterday's announcement about gravity waves. But I think this NPR post lays it out pretty well. Here is the gist of it:

   The Big Bang has been the dominant theory explaining the history of the universe for more than a half-century. But puzzles inherent in the idea (and in the data) led to a major addition to the theory in the 1980s: inflationary cosmology. Since then inflation, as it is called, has been a sometimes contentious but stalwart pillar of our cosmic understanding. To get inflation on solid scientific ground however meant finding ways to see farther back in time than ever before.
   
   And that is what has been announced today.

   Basically, this is really, really cool and opens up all kinds of possibilities for future research. And--bonus happiness--here is how scientist Andrei Linde reacted when he learned of the discovery.
2. I'm reading a fantastic new biography of Queen Anne. Queen Anne: The Politics of Passion, by Anne Somerset. I've always enjoyed Tudor history, but I knew next to nothing about the Stuarts. Anne and her sister Mary (who also preceded Anne as queen) prove to be absolutely fascinating women. Perhaps a little batty--when Anne's father James was king, Anne was absolutely convinced her stepmother faked an entire nine-month pregnancy and subsequent childbirth--but who wouldn't be when trying to live in the pressure cooker of an eighteenth-century royal court? Reading this book is like reading a shorter, less bloody Game of Thrones. That really happened.
3. Blissology is a thing. Blissology is Eoin Finn's yoga empire, which includes DVDs, podcasts, a blog, and in-person retreats and classes. I find both the word "blissology" and Eoin Finn himself just a bit too twee. (At one point, during a stretch, he tells us that we should feel like we are having "ice cream licked off your body." Really, Eoin? I mostly feel like I am stretching my hamstrings.) But oh, how I love his yoga DVDs. I own all of them and I do one practice every day. In an ideal world, would I be doing yoga in my basement instead of at a yoga studio? No. But we don't live in an ideal world and in the meantime my hips feel nice and loose, which as Eoin would tell you, makes me feel more youthful and reduces the effects of aging.
4. An anecdote in a Jaron Lanier interview. I'm not going to lie, the interview taken as a whole is thought-provoking and a little depressing. But it contains an intriguing little vignette that I just loved:

   One of my favorite stories, which might be apocryphal — I can’t tell you for sure that this is so, although photographers traded this story for many years. But the way the piece of folklore goes is that during the Civil War era, and a little after, the very earliest photographers would go around with a collection of photographs of people who matched a certain archetype. So they would find the photograph that most closely matched your loved one and you’d buy that because at least there would be representation a little like the person, even if it was the wrong person.

   Can you imagine? Imagine rifling through a stack of pictures looking for the one that reminded you most of someone you loved. Maybe it never happened, but it is such a lovely and evocative image.
5. Batwoman. Yes, Batwoman. I am an unapologetic geek, but I admit I am a little self-conscious about some of my interests. It's sometimes not socially acceptable to tell people that I--a grown-up responsible mother of three--like to read about superheroes. But I just started reading the 2011 reboot of Batwoman, and it is so good: moving and complex and interesting. I've read all of Batwoman: Elegy--which opens with an intro by Rachel Maddow, so I guess it's a little more socially acceptable--and I'm about halfway through Batwoman: Hydrology. Seriously, the stories here are great, and J. H. Williams's art is freaking gorgeous. If it makes you feel better, just think of the books as "graphic novels" rather than "comic books."