Tidbits

Here are some places I have recently taken notice of light where I wouldn't have before:

1. In playwriting class, one of the writers presented the beginnings of a science fiction play, in which a character "sucks all the light in the room into his body." When we gave feedback I mentioned that this would be a fascinating technical challenge. What would you do for that? Maybe bring all the other lights down while bringing up some backlights so it looks like the actor is glowing?

2. While walking over the library bridge I noticed that the sunlight shining through a gap in the railings made a pattern on the the ground that looked excitingly close to the shape of a Fresnel lens.

3.In the Fike studio where I take my Yoga class there are three light switches, and before class one day the teacher was fiddling with them to get the room appropriately dim. She finally achieved her objective, but not before switching on one look that caused one of the bulbs to flicker, which made me wish I knew how to make it stop flickering. Why do lights flicker? At crosspoint church it's because of the quirky dimmer. Or is it just bad wiring sometimes? Bad bulb?