Music

If you're desperate for something to fill your Friday afternoon, and not the comment-leaving sort, you could do a lot worse than spending an hour and a half (give or take) with Chuck Klosternman and Bill Simmons in their two part ESPN podcast. It's nominally about sports, but they spend a good bit of time talking about Michael Jackson (in a sensible way, not a vapid-entertainment-reporter way), the effects of fame, the effect of writing for an audience, and a bunch of other interesting stuff. It's about a week old, but I only got around to it yesterday. It's worth a listen, though. It also…

I have a new appreciation for Cathy and Amanda and the rest of the infant room staff at the day care center, after two days of chasing a fully recovered SteelyKid around the house because she still had a couple of coxsackie virus blisters on her hands. They're earning the money we're paying them. She's back in day care today, but my brains have turned to cheese, so here's a lyrics-guessing game. Same drill as before: each of these two-word phrases identifies a song; if you know it and want to guess, leave your guess in the comments, and include a two-word phrase from a different song for…

In a comment to Friday's classical music post, Chris Evo recommended a TED talk by Benjamin Zander that has the goal of convincing his audience that they love classical music: If you're not able or inclined to watch it, he goes through a Chopin piano piece in detail, and explains how it plays off our expectation of a particular chord sequence. He's a charismatic guy, and it's a great presentation. It does not, however, convince me that I love classical music. This isn't a problem that's limited to music, of course. As a general matter, a lot of people confuse lack of enjoyment with lack of…

There's an interesting discussion going on in a place I can't link to, spinning off a comment to the NEA post from the other day: The point is that the amount of people who see value in or are trained to appreciate more esoteric, more difficult, less accessible music **may** have dropped. The basic idea is that the decline in the audience for "high art" forms of music may be attributed to cutbacks in musical education in schools. People just aren't educated enough to know that they ought to like classical music, or some such. This led to a discussion of people's experience with music…

One of the PDF-only studies that I complained about earlier is a hand-wringing report from the NEA on how public appreciation of art is on the decline. As summarized by Inside Higher Ed: Compared to the NEA's 1982 survey, the steepest decline was in ballet, which that year was seen by 11.0 percent of college-educated adults, but in 2008 was seen by only 6.3 percent. Declines were seen in every type of art considered: jazz (from 19.4 percent to 14.9 percent); classical music (33.1 percent to 20.1 percent); opera (8.0 percent to 5.2 percent); musicals (40.5 percent to 32.7 percent); non-…

There's a nice write-up about the World Science Festival in the New York Times today: The second annual World Science Festival, a five-day extravaganza of performances, debates, celebrations and demonstrations, including an all-day street fair on Sunday in Washington Square Park, began with a star-studded gala tribute to the Harvard biologist Edward O. Wilson at Lincoln Center Wednesday night. Over the next three days the curious will have to make painful choices: attend an investigation of the effects of music on the brain with a performance by Bobby McFerrin, or join a quest for a long-lost…

As you can guess from the title, I've done this twice before when I had stuff to do that precluded quality blogging. Kate's in Rochester for a court appearance, leaving me home with SteelyKid, so this seems like a perfect occasion for a third go-round. The pairs of words in the following list are consecutive words from pop songs that I think might be identifiable given just those two words.The songs range from kind of obvious to impossibly obscure. If you think you know the answer, post a comment completing the line, and then suggest your own two-word phrase from a different song for other…

I spent most of yesterday huddled under a pile of blankets on the couch-- being feverish and light-headed is great if you're in a Pink Floyd song, but not so much if you're trying to be a functioning adult. It seems to be the Thing That's Going Around this term, though, and while I'm feeling better today, I have a lot of catch-up to do. So, no Deep Thoughts today, but here's a pop-culture topic to pass the time: I recently found myself buying the Radio Edit for "Toe Jam" by "The Brighton Port Authority," a Fatboy Slim side project. It's a bouncy little song with silly lyrics ("A boy looks at…

Everything I've read about the Hold Steady says that they're a great bar band, which always seems a little improbable. I mean, the songs are complicated, with tons of words and odd subject matter ("I dig those awkward silences, 'cause I grew up in denial, and I went to school in Massachusetts"), and Craig Finn looks like a middle school teacher. It's hard to imagine him as a charismatic front man. Hard as it is to believe, though, it's true. He came on stage in a plaid button-down shirt, enhancing the middle-school teacher look, and he does the dorkiest lead-singer dance I've ever seen, but…

I usually post something here about what panels look interesting when the Boskone program goes up on the web. This year's program went up over the weekend, and I'm just now getting around to making a list of worthwhile items. This tells you what kind of week I'm having. Anyway, I looked the program over this morning, and here's what I came up with: Friday 7:30pm Independence: Reading Rosemary Kirstein We won't be able to leave Schenectady until 4pm or so, so the odds of making it to this are pretty slim. I'm really curious to know what the status of the Steerswoman books is, though. Friday…

I was thinking of trying to post something really erudite about science today, but a series of minor catastrophes has completely derailed that plan. Now, I'm just hoping to get through my afternoon lab without punching anybody. So, in place of the science stuff, here's a pop music topic. While on the way to pick up SteelyKid from day care the other day, I heard "Live and Let Die" on the radio, which famously includes the phrase: "this ever-changing world in which we live in" A few hours later, the cable tv music channel brought up "Small Town" by John Mellencamp (I don't recall whether there…

This is a much more idiosyncratic sampling than usual, for the simple reason that I bought very little music this year-- probably the least since I started buying my own records. This was a combination of pre-SteelyKid austerity measures (do you know what day care costs these days?), post-SteelyKid lack of time to listen to music, and, most recently, a nearly full hard drive on my home computer (which will be replaced soon-ish, so I'm trying to eke out a few more weeks with this one). Anyway, here are the five-star songs from 2008: "I'm Not Gonna Teach Your Boyfriend How To Dance With You ,"…

I'm beat, and I have a ton of stuff to do today, so here's some seasonally-appropriate filler. I spent a while in a big chain bookstore's cafe area yesterday, doing some edits on the book-in-progress (I can't do this effectively anywhere where I have Internet access), and was stuck listening to some sort of "quirky" piped-in Christmas music-- "O Holy Night" played on a banjo, or some such. So, here, as a palette cleanser of sorts, is the official list of Christmas songs that don't suck, as determined by me. These are the four- and five-star rated songs from my iTunes Christmas playlist (there…

On the way in to work this morning, I was switching through stations on the radio, and heard a bit of "Only" by Nine Inch Nails ("Only" on last.fm) followed by "Hitchin' a Ride" by Vanity Fare ("Hitchin' a Ride" on last.fm). I was struck by the unsettling realization that the chorus of "Only" would fit the tune of the dippy little flute line in "Hitchin' a Ride." And now I'm stuck with the image of some hippy singing "There is no you, there is only me" like a bouncy little pop song. Since I can't shake it, I thought I'd share it. Don't all thank me at once. Other examples of alarming…

I've got meetings and phone calls most of the day, so here's something to keep you amused. Each of the following two-word phrases is taken from a pop song, some well-known, some faintly obscure. If you think you can identify one, leave a comment containing a more complete version of the line in which it appears-- enough to indicate that you know the whole song. Then supply a new two-word lyric for other people to guess (or don't-- it's all good). strobe-lit space rowboats landing devil jumped wearing tulle she cat-sits circus floor said, quote talking allegorically wrestling gators spare bulb…

Last weekend's post, The Innumeracy of Intellectuals, has been lightly edited and re-printed at Inside Higher Ed, where it should be read by a larger audience of humanities types. They allow comments, so it will be interesting to see what gets said about it there. I may have some additional comments on the issue later, but it's a little hard to focus while going crazy waiting for FutureBaby. (There's also a tiny chance that this will be noticed by some of my colleagues, which could be interesting. I know that some of them read the Chronicle of Higher Education religiously, but I'm less…

Currently in heavy rotation at Chateau Steelypips (links to last.fm): "Do the Panic" by Phantom Planet. I'm a sucker for the "Ba ba ba" chorus... "Sequestered in Memphis" by the Hold Steady. "We went to some place where she cat-sits." I had to Google that. "Glad It's Over" by Wilco. "I hate you one hundred percent/ I mean that kindly." "I'm Not Gonna Teach Your Boyfriend How to Dance With You," by the Black Kids. Not that I could teach anybody how to dance... "Lost in the Light," by the Heavenly States. Because I have to list at least one song that's not on the radio... "Aluminum Park," by My…

A question raised in comments to yesterday's rant about humanities types looking down on people who don't know the basics of their fields, while casually dismissing math and science: [I]t occurs to me that it would be useful if someone could determine, honestly, whether the humanities professors feel the same sense of condescension among science and engineering professors. This is obviously not a question I can answer, but I agree that it would be good to know. So, how about it?

I know nothing about art or music. OK, that's not entirely true-- I know a little bit here and there. I just have no systematic knowledge of art or music (by which I mean fine art and classical music). I don't know Beethoven from Bach, Renaissance from Romantics. I'm not even sure those are both art terms. Despite the sterling reputation of the department, I never took an Art History class when I was at Williams, nor did I take any music classes. They weren't specifically required, and I was a physics major-- my schedule was full of math and science classes, and between that and the boozing,…

Via Matt Yglesias, an interesting twist on the shuffle-play "meme": 1. Take out your iPod (or Zune, I guess...really, who buys a Zune?) 2. Press shuffle songs. 3. Answer the following: a) How many songs before you come to one that would absolutely disqualify you from being President? b) What is that song? This sounds like fun. Whooosh goes the randomizer... And I'm screwed. The first song up is "It's Alright Ma (I'm Only Bleeding)" by Bob Dylan. He's a former hippie radical, much too divisive a figure to be associated with. Also the song is kind of a downer. And "Even the President of the…