essay: brian malow

It was gratifying. It was as if I’d grown up Science speaking a foreign language and then one yuks day found myself in a land where the people spoke that language. It was like coming home. If someone had told I decided to really focus on science , me when I was in high to seek out and bond with the complementary school that one day audience I knew was out there—the adenine for I would meet Stephen my thymine, the guanine for my cytosine. I Hawking and have a concentrated on performing for science organiza- meeting at NASA, I tions, museums, festivals, medical and technology never could’ve guessed companies, and conferences. the trajectory I’d follow I’ve been thrilled by the response. to get there. I would’ve At public outlets of the National Academies, assumed I had become increasingly large crowds have shown up, curious a physicist. to check out the “science .” They seem I was good at—and enjoyed—math and science, as excited and grateful to have found me as but I couldn’t decide if I wanted to be a scientist I am to have found them. or a rock star (not that there is a difference!) And I’m pleased to report empirical evidence I ended up taking the arts path, but rock star that scientists do, in fact, have a sense of humor. morphed into stand-up comedian. True, they sometimes have a tendency toward Most dream of “making it” in night- literal interpretations—like when I compared the

Photo courtesy of John Gilbey clubs and theaters. Corporate gigs and private 125-degree heat in Arizona to the surface temper- events, while often lucrative, are considered sell- ature of Venus, and a loud voice in the room outs, because you can’t do anything remotely countered, “No!” provocative. You have to edit yourself or risk not Of course Venus is much hotter than that. getting paid—or worse, not getting laughs. I was employing a comedic device known as I’ve never been particularly dirty. My act has exaggeration. Other comedians just have to be always reflected my love of science, drawing funny. They don’t have to strive for scientific on its language and concepts for analogies and and mathematical accuracy. I do, or the audience metaphors. My sensibilities were shaped more will dissect me. by Asimov and Clarke than Carlin and Pryor. I also reach out to general audiences, hoping I’m geekier—and I say that proudly—than the to dispel the fallacy that science is dull or average comedian. As one colleague put impenetrable, by using humorous analogies and it, “Your contain more information than radiating enthusiasm. other comics’ jokes.” During a recent appearance at the Koshland Museum of the National Academy of Sciences in Washington, DC, an impassioned argument “Women have passed through my life like I made in favor of the manned space program exotic particles through a cloud chamber, led to a meeting at NASA headquarters and an invitation to attend an exclusive lecture by leaving only vapor trails for me to study for Professor Hawking. At the reception afterwards clues to their nature.” I met him, spoke with him, even told him a couple of jokes. Quite suddenly, I’m meeting and entertaining A few years ago I had a revelation: I was editing some of the most interesting people on the myself more in the comedy clubs than at certain planet—physicists, chemists, rocket scientists, private gigs. Some of my favorite routines were cell biologists, entomologists…heroes. And not gathering dust because the typical nightclub just the famous ones, but people who are quietly audience isn’t likely to laugh at a whose punch advancing the frontiers of science.

line invokes the inverse-square law. I’m thriving in the ecological niche to which symmetry | volume 06 09 | issue 01 march But, at shows for Apple or Microsoft or I’m peculiarly adapted. And I’m constantly Stanford—when my audience contained a critical exposing myself to new information, expanding mass of engineers and science enthusiasts—I like the universe. could wax scientific in the voice that was most colorful and entertaining to me. I could crack a Brian Malow performs for science organizations, conferences, festivals, museums, and schools. He resides physically in joke about cloud chambers and it would be greeted San Francisco and virtually at www.sciencecomedian.com/blog. with laughter and appreciation.

36