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“Basking in the Glow of an Imagined Future”
[Image: illustration from a December 20101 post, "The Time Travelling Brain," at the Neuroskeptic blog. The orange-highlighted region of the brain is apparently used both in remembering the past, and imagining the future. See also this article in Discover.] in spite of everything which breathes and moves, since Doom (with white longest hands neatening each crease) will [...]
Midweek Music Break: Hayes Carll, “Another Like You”
Thanks to all the new(ish) music I’ve been listening to over the last couple years, I’ve found myself a fan of a genre I didn’t even know existed. It’s sort of a loose super-genre, actually: Americana or “roots music,” incorporating elements of bluegrass, folk, country/western, blues, rock… The instrumentation and arrangement lean acoustic-wards, and often [...]
Swept Away by (and for) Books
My Old Kentucky Blog recently highlighted two of the films nominated for this year’s Oscar in the short-animations category. One of them really struck me, and I think it will really strike you as well — if you are someone who’s ever had a little jolt of excitement at opening a new book… or dreamt of adding [...]
Unquiet Large, Quiet Small
From whiskey river: In the point of rest at the center of our being, we encounter a world where all things are at rest in the same way. Then a tree becomes a mystery, a cloud a revelation, each man a cosmos of whose riches we can only catch glimpses. The life of simplicity is [...]
The Absorbing and the Absorbed
[Image: a Menger sponge overgrown with vines, found here. Wikipedia explains how to construct a real Menger sponge, noting -- without elaboration -- that the resulting object "simultaneously exhibits an infinite surface area and encloses zero volume."*] From whiskey river: You know when you see something like a marvelous mountain against the blue sky, the [...]
It’s Right in Front of You
[Image: unretouched photograph of an anamorphically-painted building interior, by French artist George Rousse; I found it here. As suggested at that site, be sure to see the video about Rousse's "Durham (NC) project." And while you're at it, check out the similar but sometimes entire city-sized work of Swiss artist Felice Varini. I couldn't decide which artist's work to [...]
Midweek Music Break: James & Bobby Purify, “I’m Your Puppet”
So there was this front-page headline in the morning paper: Music legend Robert Dickey dies at age 72 Er, I thought; Who?!? I mean, I hardly know every (well, possibly any) music legend in town. But I’ve been here for almost 20 years and couldn’t recall the name at all. As it happens, Dickey — that’s [...]
How to Keep Your Pooch Happy
Answer: roll the car window down sometimes. (We do have a little nervousness about doing this, with reason; The Pooch gets so excited that she seems to lose her basic sense of or concern about where she is in 3D space. Which isn’t a prescription for keeping the windows rolled up — it’s a prescription for [...]
Sunday Extra Music Break: Kate & Janelle, “Star Witness”
A great back story, great voices, professional recording job, words and music by Neko Case… and a ukulele! What’s not to like??? [Lyrics] [h/t to Jules]
“I Carved These Places, This Flower, This Bird”… with Gunpowder
From Chinese artist Cai Guo-Qiang: And then there was Black Ceremony, a recent daytime fireworks exhibition in the desert sky over Qatar, kicking off his exhibit at the Arab Museum of Modern Art:
