Day 04—A song that makes you sad.
I'm going to cheat and put two, because I can't pick between them. Both of them are by Harry Chapin. My parents both love Harry Chapin. As the story goes, they were planning on going to the free concert Harry was going to give in New York when he had a heart attack on the Long Island Expressway. I grew up more on his brother Tom's cheerful (if borderline "black-footed hippie") children's music; I have infinite respect for Harry's master songwriting, but it seems that everything he does just about breaks my heart, so I don't listen to him as much as I should.
There's another video floating around on YouTube of him on Soundstage, doing a live performance. He gives a nice little intro to it, giving credit to his wife, and then he also echoes my sentiments entirely: "And frankly, this song scares me to death."
And here's the Soundstage performace of "Mr. Tanner," with a good long introduction. Based on a real review from the New York times of a debut singer, though with poetic license taken. I still can't listen to it without a lump in my throat.
Monday, May 16, 2011
Friday, May 13, 2011
A Practical Application of Prime Numbers: Cicadas and Web Design
Cicadas, those loud and pesky vuvuzelas of the insect world, are renown for breeding in cyclical patterns. ("Cicada" is actually a Latin word meaning "buzzer." The more you know!)
Where I live, they come out in 17-year cycles. Other parts of the US it's every 13. Why the prime numbers?
Prime numbers help cicadas avoid predators. According to the article:
DesignFestival than takes this concept of using prime numbers to avoid synchronizing into regular patterns and applies it to designing backgrounds and images for web pages. That's cool too, and Alex Walker has more detail on that in the original article. I just can't get over the use of prime numbers to outwit predators!
Where I live, they come out in 17-year cycles. Other parts of the US it's every 13. Why the prime numbers?
Prime numbers help cicadas avoid predators. According to the article:
Research has shown that the population of creatures that eat cicadas — typically birds, spiders, wasps, fish and snakes — often have shorter 2 – 6 year cycles of boom and bust.
So, if our cicadas were to emerge, say, every 12 years, any predator that works in either 2, 3, 4 or 6 year cycles would be able to synchronize their boom years with this regular cicada feast. In fact, they’d probably name a public holiday after it called Cicada Day.
That’s not much fun if you’re a cicada.
On the other hand, if a brood of 17-year cicadas was unlucky enough to emerge during a bumper 3-year wasp season, it will be 51 years before that event occurs again. In the intervening years, our cicadas can happily emerge in their tens of thousands, completely overwhelm the local predator population, and be mostly left in peace.
Resourceful little guys, eh?
DesignFestival than takes this concept of using prime numbers to avoid synchronizing into regular patterns and applies it to designing backgrounds and images for web pages. That's cool too, and Alex Walker has more detail on that in the original article. I just can't get over the use of prime numbers to outwit predators!
Wednesday, May 11, 2011
WIP: Avogadro Choker
I'd start a "Work In Progress Wednesday" but I very rarely have a project so complex that it remains "in progress" for very long. I either finish something right away or lose all interest. ;)
WIP Wednesday: Brass and Jasper Avogadro Choker:
WIP Wednesday: Brass and Jasper Avogadro Choker:
Monday, May 9, 2011
Music Monday
Day 3—A Song That Makes You Happy
There's lots of music that makes me happy, at least some of the time. This is just one piece of many.
I was (am) an orch dork; I studied piano and other instruments to varying degrees of competency. "Small c" classical will always be a favorite of mine, with a special nod to "big C" Classical (as in, the actual "classical period" that spans from about 1750 to about 1825). Something about the repetition and firm sense of structure appeals to me, I suppose. I once compared listening to Mozart to "defragging your brain."
There's lots of music that makes me happy, at least some of the time. This is just one piece of many.
I was (am) an orch dork; I studied piano and other instruments to varying degrees of competency. "Small c" classical will always be a favorite of mine, with a special nod to "big C" Classical (as in, the actual "classical period" that spans from about 1750 to about 1825). Something about the repetition and firm sense of structure appeals to me, I suppose. I once compared listening to Mozart to "defragging your brain."
Sunday, May 8, 2011
Happy Mother's Day!
Wednesday, May 4, 2011
Experiments in the Baking (Cooking) Arts: Gluten-Free Shells & Cheese
I decided to try my hand at making a gluten-free dish for my boss, whose husband recently passed away. And what better food than pasta with vodka sauce—grown up mac and cheese?
I decided to go with a vodka sauce recipe from Giada de Laurentiis, using a pre-made marinara sauce instead of the tomato sauce recipe she provided. It's pretty straightforward. I used more tomato sauce than the recipe called for simply because I didn't want the sauce to be too rich—I don't really see my boss eat that much in terms of cream sauces, even if she sprinkles parmesan cheese on her salads and veggies. It still came out okay, though probably not as thick as it should have been.
To be honest, I breathed a big sigh of relief when it came out tasty. There have been some horrible recipes on the Food Network shows over the years (Sandra Lee's Kwanzaa Cake, for example, is a full-blown Shakespearian tragedy of a dessert) and I didn't know if this would be one of them. Fortunately, Giada de Laurentiis fares better than Sandra Lee, at least in this case.
I baked the whole shebang (uncovered) at 350* F for twenty minutes, which you don't really have to do, I guess. Preliminary taste test yielded positive results, and Lawyer Mom agrees that it smells delicious. Yum!
I decided to go with a vodka sauce recipe from Giada de Laurentiis, using a pre-made marinara sauce instead of the tomato sauce recipe she provided. It's pretty straightforward. I used more tomato sauce than the recipe called for simply because I didn't want the sauce to be too rich—I don't really see my boss eat that much in terms of cream sauces, even if she sprinkles parmesan cheese on her salads and veggies. It still came out okay, though probably not as thick as it should have been.
To be honest, I breathed a big sigh of relief when it came out tasty. There have been some horrible recipes on the Food Network shows over the years (Sandra Lee's Kwanzaa Cake, for example, is a full-blown Shakespearian tragedy of a dessert) and I didn't know if this would be one of them. Fortunately, Giada de Laurentiis fares better than Sandra Lee, at least in this case.
I baked the whole shebang (uncovered) at 350* F for twenty minutes, which you don't really have to do, I guess. Preliminary taste test yielded positive results, and Lawyer Mom agrees that it smells delicious. Yum!
Monday, May 2, 2011
Music Monday
Day 2 — Your Least Favorite Song
Like the first day, it's hard for me to choose a stand-out least favorite because that will change with time and taste as well. For example, right now I want to drown puppies every time I hear Adam Lambert, but only because the adult contemporary station plays that godawful single on a daily (sometimes twice-daily) basis. So again, like the first day, I'm going with a song that has the longest track record of annoying me:
Not because of anything wrong with the song itself (even though it was intended as a B-side filler and the songwriters themselves thought it was mediocre), but because this single has the worst production quality I've ever heard, ever. I remember hating this song when I was single digits in age, because the tracks are so poorly mixed—and even now I could barely stand to listen to more than five seconds in the video up there, just to confirm that it still bothered me. You can barely hear Tommy James over the scratchy and mind-numbingly boring rhythm guitar part; it's Phil Spector's "wall of sound" technique gone horribly, horribly wrong.
Because otherwise I enjoy Tommy James and the Shondells. There is a staggering gulf in the distance of production quality between singles like "Crimson and Clover" or "Sweet Cherry Wine" and...this. According to James:
No. You wouldn't have fouled it up. You would have made it tolerable. Of course, when you record it at a radio station, you take what you can get. But I can't deal with this song at all, and I think if I had been working during the summer when this came out, I would have wanted to rip my ears off.
Like the first day, it's hard for me to choose a stand-out least favorite because that will change with time and taste as well. For example, right now I want to drown puppies every time I hear Adam Lambert, but only because the adult contemporary station plays that godawful single on a daily (sometimes twice-daily) basis. So again, like the first day, I'm going with a song that has the longest track record of annoying me:
Not because of anything wrong with the song itself (even though it was intended as a B-side filler and the songwriters themselves thought it was mediocre), but because this single has the worst production quality I've ever heard, ever. I remember hating this song when I was single digits in age, because the tracks are so poorly mixed—and even now I could barely stand to listen to more than five seconds in the video up there, just to confirm that it still bothered me. You can barely hear Tommy James over the scratchy and mind-numbingly boring rhythm guitar part; it's Phil Spector's "wall of sound" technique gone horribly, horribly wrong.
Because otherwise I enjoy Tommy James and the Shondells. There is a staggering gulf in the distance of production quality between singles like "Crimson and Clover" or "Sweet Cherry Wine" and...this. According to James:
I don't think anybody can record a song that bad and make it sound good. It had to sound amateurish like that. I think if we'd fooled with it too much we'd have fouled it up.
No. You wouldn't have fouled it up. You would have made it tolerable. Of course, when you record it at a radio station, you take what you can get. But I can't deal with this song at all, and I think if I had been working during the summer when this came out, I would have wanted to rip my ears off.
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