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| Suzi Quatro - godmother of Rock and Charles Darwin fan |
Happy Darwin Day – what a good time of year for the Great Man to be born, just two days before that festival of the reproductive urge, Valentine’s Day – a happy time of year with snowdrops and daffodils beautifying our Northern Hemisphere spring.
At the last
count, I was pleased to see 33 events posted on the International Darwin Day website,
plus the one I’m speaking at, and playing some music, at the University of East
Anglia Quadram Institute in Norwich, England on Monday 13th (couldn’t
resist the 33andMe ‘genetic’ pun, but I believe I don’t have more than the
usual 23 pairs of chromosomes). As part of the talk on Darwin, DNA & Music,
I’ll be playing Dave Deamer’s transcription of the gene coding for the two
chains of the Insulin protein, you can listen to that here. This was featured
in Dave’s amazing Wonderfest talk and he’s the grand-daddy of DNA music.
The value of
international cultural efforts around Darwin and Evolution in our modern liberal,
science-respecting culture is pretty high, and what wonderful opportunities and
linkages can arise from them. How else would a 1991 tribute to Charles Darwin
via ‘godmother of Rock’ Suzi Quatro, via Darwin Day celebrations in Novosibirsk,
Russia have led to a a good chance to share Darwin-music in Norwich?
This is
funny. One of the first two events posted for IDD was from the Institute of
Cytology and Genetics in Novosibirsk – well known stop on the Trans-Siberian
railway and a university town. Professor Borodin (no relation to the great composer
and chemist whose chain-lengthening reaction pathway is an essential tool in
organic synthesis) has been a champion of civilised celebration of IDD for years.
We had a nice email exchange and he sent some links of the amazing Darwin tributes
and mocumentaries his students have produced some years. Three cheers for
civilised science students everywhere, especially musically engaged.
If you want tears
of laughter to flow down your cheeks, get a load of this biopic. I never knew
he had so much trouble with those finches! And some very subtle jokes – I’m on
your wavelength guys. But imagine my surprise at the opening musical number – Queen
Suzi!
Hey
Charley, Hey Charley
Did your mind tell your heart what to do
Hey Charley, Hey Charley
Did you know that the world would be looking at
you
Ooooh, the way that they do
Where did they find that? I had to know, went googling – but someone had been on the trail before me. Step forward Professor Pallen, microbial geneticist and ruck’n’dubfan. Wow! Someone else on the Darwin music trail. If you want the full low-down on how Suzi Q came to be ‘Number 1 in the Darwin Charts’, read Mark’s entry from his Rough Guide to Evolution. So that’s how I come to be speaking at his Uni for this year’s Darwin Day.
Picture Credit Suzi Quatro website
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