Author: barry.belmont

  • Again and Again

    You will find yourself Reaching out into that starry starry night In that darkness between those voids You will learn something very true You don’t matter And all the things you thought you knew Are stories that we tell ourselves So why not love and share a few? It doesn’t matter how hard you try…

  • Washington, D.C.,
    a year after

    The year, 2021. The week, exactly one year after the election of Joseph R. Biden Jr. as President of the United States of America. The week before he was inaugurated comprises, by the published record, the largest mass death event (from a single cause) in United States history thus far, with approximately 4,170 – 4,406…

  • Marginalia from Zoom University

    In trying to teach an introduction to biofluid mechanics for students during the pandemic (BIOMEDE 331, Fall 2020 at the University of Michigan), I tried to teach a little more, scribbling as much as I could into the margins. Though often forgotten, much can be learned from the marginal. This series of vignettes represents those…

  • There is a certain look

    There is a certain look one can catch in the eyes of those performing scientific experiments. If one is lucky enough to see it, I submit that moment is a high drama comprising at least five distinct acts: preparation, anticipation, (un)expectation, revelation, and understanding. Having had the opportunity to teach my fair share of youngsters…

  • Shanghai

    It will always be presumptuous of the visitor upon their return home to say they understood a locale, and to claim capture of a jewel as gleaming as Shanghai within the ornate crown of China is certainly brazen, but after 99 days in Shanghai I feel I understood something of the locale. Sensations, too fleeting, words, too…

  • Dayton, Tenn., July 10 – 21

    Thirty-five thousand sixty-four days after The Rev. Cartwright opened the proceedings at Rhea County Court House one Friday morning with a prayer (“Oh, God, our divine Father, we recognize Thee as the Supreme Ruler of the universe, in whose hands are the lives and destinies of all men”), I began reading “A WORD-FOR-WORD REPORT” of the State…