Walking down an unfamiliar street last week, I turned a corner and saw a sign announcing in a 70s art deco font on a rich burnt orange background: LAUNDERETTE. Squinting against the midday sun, I smiled and thought of this great song from Belle and Sebastians’ 2006 The Life Pursuit. Catchy country-rock hooks bring you in and subtle changes in each repeat of the chorus keep you there. There’s even a great sustained organ chord at the beginning that lends a momentary but endearing Hall and Oates vibe, not unlike the sign at my particular launderette. (This is not even to mention to video, which I love.) Needless to say, walking the rest of the way down the street humming this gem was no hardship. Continue reading “Earworms generally, and mine in particular, ft. Belle and Sebastian’s “Blues Are Still Blue””
I now understand why people like Robert Heinlein…
Unfortunately, many classic sci-fi writers are widely famous for works that serve as a poor introduction to their writing. After reading Stranger in a Strange Land, I didn’t get why people found the author of such overbearing verbiage so compelling. Philip Dick’s A Man In the High Castle on a first read was enjoyable, but it didn’t blow me away. C.M. Kornbluth’s Not This August seemed like a generic work of 50’s Cold War angst.
Eventually I figured out what’s so great about Philip Dick and Cyril Kornbluth, and now I’ve had my Heinlein epiphany. Continue reading “I now understand why people like Robert Heinlein…”
Sunday Poem
Not much science in this week’s Sunday poem, but since Monday is the U.S. Memorial Day, and since Walt Whitman’s birthday is May 31st, I think an appropriate selection is the following passage, one of the most sublime sentences in all American poetry, from Walt Whitman’s memorial poem, “When Lilac’s Last in the Dooryard Bloom’d.” Memorial Day began as Decoration Day, originally designated to honor the U.S. Civil War Dead. In this passage, Whitman breaks a sprig of lilac as a memorial offer to the assassinated Abraham Lincoln and all of those fallen in the Civil War.
In the door-yard fronting an old farm-house, near the white-wash’d palings,
Stands the lilac bush, tall-growing, with heart-shaped leaves of rich green,
With many a pointed blossom, rising, delicate, with the perfume strong I love,
With every leaf a miracle – and from this bush in the door-yard,
With delicate-color’d blossoms, and heart-shaped leaves of rich green,
A sprig, with its flower, I break.
If you’re not familiar with this great poem, go read the entire thing here. And if you are familiar with the poem, go read it again.
“All art is useless”
The other day, I had a twitter debate with @dellybean about the nature of “good art”. Of course, @dellybean was wrong (Michael Craig-Martin’s “An Oak Tree” is brilliant), but art would be dull if we all agreed.
As is wise in such matters, I think it is best to defer to the man I would most like to have gone drinking with, Oscar Wilde (from the preface to The Picture of Dorian Gray): Continue reading ““All art is useless””
Don’t make biology boring
This was my experience – “Learning Biology by Recreating and Extending Mathematical Models”:
Although biological systems generate beautiful patterns that unfold in space and time, most students are taught biology as static lists of names. Names of species, anatomical structures, cellular structures, and molecules dominate, and sometimes overwhelm, the curriculum and the student. Cookbook labs may demonstrate advanced techniques but have a foregone conclusion. Not surprisingly, students often conclude that biology is boring.
The Finch and Pea 