The Drake Equation and A Drake equation

far stars

K.I.A.

Oct 31, 2023

TL; DR: celebrete of renoun in the hous of fame

Drake walked from the restaurant site to his SUV (parked in front of Ballenciaga), surrounded by his posse. When he paused to talk to an employee, the rest of his team spread out, positioned like posts in an electric fence. The sun was low and behind towers; it was getting cold, and very few people passed by — or rather, around — Drake’s loose but wide human barrier. One exiting shopper called out to him, but there was no eye contact back or acknowledgement of them, or anyone.

The Drake Equation (1961) was developed to calculate the likelihood of the existence of intelligent life in our galaxy. The formula has various components: what fraction of stars have planets x what percentage of those planets are in habitable zones x what portion is intelligent enough to develop communication… and so on.* Back when the equation was developed (by Frank Drake), we had no proof of Earth-like planets; now we know of over 5000. Our star, the sun, is 93 million miles away. Proxima Centauri B, the nearest star to ours with an exoplanet with possible life, is 4 trillion miles away.

There is another Drake equation (2023), which calculates the possiblity of capturing the rapper (D) in a candid photograph (p) taken directly from your window. Dp = the fraction of time an Aubrey Graham appears privately in public x proximity to a Ballenciaga shop, or if nighttime, a club + likelihood of NBA game in town x impending album drop - availabilty of a posse (professionals or pals) ÷ fraction of times the artist photographer has insomnia and happens to look out The Window at 3 am, or if daytime, a visiting collector says “Drake’s outside”. And so on — it’s a long equation, there’s some “square roots of Rihanna” and other complex numbers, and fame math is hard, but here’s the answer: twice. The many-songed mogul appears late at night, fully phalanxed, in Part 1 of The Window, and then at twilight, uh, staff enfenced, in Part 2. (Notice the spooky detail in the second photo — the prolific celebrity wordsmith is wearing a jersey emblazoned with the word Window(s), the very name of this photo series/installation. This is confirmation of quantum photon entanglement, amiright? More about that topic in this paired-photo pictorial).

The man just above is prepping to get a celebrity’s autograph. (You can see him in line in the top photo. He was around for hours, strategizing, stargazing.) Chaucer is credited with one of the first uses of the word celebrity**, with an early reference comparing famous people to stars, by nature of having a “shining reputation”. In one of his poems, “The Hous of Fame”, Geffrey, the narrator, asks if the god Jove will “me stellifye” - turn me into a star. (If Geff had had a smartphone and a ringlight, Jove would have lost his job as Hous starmaker to a Tiktok algorithm.)

The Dunbar number states the maximum number of people with which one can have stable relationships. It arose from a study that shows people are cognitively developed to know and interact with about 150 people (the average number of your “tribe”, since ancient days, and the upper limit of interpersonal connections you can keep track of.) This may explain why there is little eye-contact in big cities… you encounter daily many times more than the Dunbar number. Drake and other celebrities meet thousands and thousands of people every year. Perhaps that’s why many celebrities have bodyguards for shopping and/or have “no eye contact” clauses in their work contracts — the number of uncelebs who think they are in the star’s orbit and want to interact would fill a small planet.

Beneath the kerchief, the man’s face in the image below is entirely covered in metallic silver makeup. He’s also wearing a sequined hat and shoes. Sequins and silver signify want-to-be or actual celebrity — like Lil Nas X at the Met Gala, shine like a star. But the musty sleeping bag in the man’s hands belies all that. This day (and previous ones), as he walks by, there is no eye contact with other people. Just like a celebrity. Except in reverse. Most passersby act as if they wish he were 93 million, or 4 trillion, miles away.

NOTES:

-**Who said it best, Chaucer or Bowie?: 1) “What demest þou þan..þat is ryȝt clere and ryȝt noble of celebrete of renoun” or 2) “Fame puts you where things are hollow”. Answer: Mr. Stardust did of course; english from the 1300s is too fucking hard to understande, amiryȝt?

-*Entire (real) Drake equation (the likelihood of discovering extraterrestrial life in the Milky Way galaxy): N = R* x FP x Ne x FL x FI x FC x L, where N= number of civilizations with which humans could communicate, R*= mean rate of star formation, FP= fraction of stars that have planets, Ne= mean number of planets that could support life per star with planets, FI= fraction of planets with life where life develops intelligence, FC= fraction of intelligent civilizations that develop communication, L= mean length of time that civilizations can communicate (which I think is a sciencey way of saying “length of time before they destroy themselves”.)

-Hous of Fame, more Chaucer: "And therfore Joves, thorgh hys grace, /Wol that I bere the to a place/Which that hight the Hous of Fame, /To do the som disport and game...” i.e. Drake chauffeured /to Madison Square Garden/ to sit courtside at a Raptors game

-“Candid celebrity” is a fameoxymoron. All the photos in The Window series are candid… except the ones of famous people, because they are always aware of being watched. Of course, people taking selfies in public are uncandid too. And if they have a blazing ringlight (as did the woman who positioned herself at the balcony window in the photo above), well, they are anticandid. And in a big city, with windows and security and phone cameras everywhere, everyone knows they are being watched. So what I’m saying is, only the shots of animals are truly candid. Except for that shot of the parrot on the bicycle. (He was as ready for his close-up as Norma Desmond). And the one of the terrier driving a tiny remote-controlled BMW convertible down the street while wearing sunglasses and a bonnet (as thirsty for likes as a bikini-clad-knife-weilding Britney Spears), or that be-sequinned snake that… ohhhhh.

-First mention of an actor being a star: “You may Shine the brightest Theatric Star, that ever enliven’d of charm’d an Audience” -Bays in Council, 1751

-The farthest star from Earth: Earendel. Its light takes 28 billion years to get here.