art, food, music, citylife and other mental stimuli
apalazzo | July 12, 2007From our last trip but taken by Michael.
(A photo of the jazz group Nomo)
Here are some other concert photos:
Here are some random items and signs at the jazzfest venue:
This photo says it all:
apalazzo | July 12, 2007
(Fresh water rotifer feeding among debris (200x). First prize 2001, Harold Taylor - Kensworth, UK)
Now in it's 34th year, this microscopy competition is one of the most popular around. This year the general public is invited to vote for the winner. Click here for more details.
apalazzo | July 9, 2007We spent the weekend up in Montreal where we caught some of the many shows at the Jazz Fest. If you've never been, here's what you're missing:
That's Marsh Dondurma from Israel - a friend of ours has a cousin in the band. Below the fold, I posted a couple of other clips from that same set.
Another band worth mentioning to you is Nomo. I wasn't able to record 'em due to the lack of memory in my camera and the level of alcohol in my blood - here's a vid from Youtube:
And you might be wondering, what type of person goes to the Montreal Jazzfest? Here's some examples:
As the day turn to…
apalazzo | July 1, 2007I'm out of the lab and planning to enjoy the rest of the afternoon...
(thanks BTM)
apalazzo | June 27, 2007I just read in Corie's blog that Nature's new online local community (NatureNetwork Boston) is having a pub night.
I'll try to be there. Click here for details.
apalazzo | June 27, 2007Whiteboards are a staple of scientific laboratories ... often they are filled with ideas, diagrams, models and plenty of arrows. But they often contain doodles and other creative white noise generated by our active and restless brains.
In that vain vein, here's a clip that has been circulating in Youtube for a while:
apalazzo | June 11, 2007Remember how I met this fellow Mike, from the Gilliland lab?
Well he had told us that he had a blog full of poetry with a slight tinge of ... translational-research.
Here's a taste from his blog (at his myspace page):
Wonka bars
She was not simple to attain
But once she arrived she fed me
She was complicated but it was understood
Once I got her everyone else wanted her
But she was mine and everyone else could only see her
she was my oasis and even though I would wander
her riches brought me back
when I first met her and brought her to the big ball
then they all knew about her and expected…
apalazzo | June 9, 2007
Wow. Using the collective memory of everyone on earth we can reconstruct a virtual imprint of our civilization. (+ it would be a nifty way to read the newspaper!)
[HT: biocurious]
apalazzo | April 27, 2007Well it was officially last weekend but there are events going on this weekend as well, including a model of the human genome that stretches from Kendall Square to Harvard Yard.
For more info click here to visit the official Cambridge Science Festival site or visit Corie's blog.
apalazzo | April 26, 2007There is a great post on Mike Daisey's excellent blog with regards to the aftermath of the recent vandalism incident at ART. It turns out that the man who poured water on Daisey's notes was a religious fellow whowanted to protect his high school class from evil atheist thoughts. Mike tracked down the vandal and had a quite civil conversation with the guy - a fascinating read.
apalazzo | April 23, 2007Two weeks ago we went to see Mike Daisy's monologue, Invincible Summer at ART. A great show.
Once upon a time, Mike was putting on a one man show in Seattle about the dot com life when a fire, a book deal, and some crazy ideas led him to move to New York City. After settling in to his new home, he started "working" on his manuscript when September 11th happened. In his new show he recounts all this and more.
The performance was excellent. Daisey is a master story teller. Even John Hodgemen gave it a great review on his blog (yes, John Hodgeman has a blog).
Then this afternoon I got an email…
apalazzo | March 25, 2007No video, just 44min of audio on Popper, one of the great philosophers of Science. (No I don't stricktly hold his views, but his ideas are very insightful.)
It's interesting how Popper's ideas were shaped by the progression of physics from Newtonian physics to Einstein's relativity in contrast to the inflexible theories proposed by the Marxists and Psychoanalysts.
As for the second part, on Popper's Open Society, American conservatives should listen very carefully.
apalazzo | March 11, 2007Yesterday we visited MIT's List Visual Arts Center (LVAC) to see part II of the exhibit Sensorium (for part I see Tulula's post, scroll down for the English version.) What is Sensorium? From the LVAC website:
This two-part exhibition organized by the MIT LVAC, explores various ways in which contemporary artists address the influence of technology on the sense. The impact of new technology has reshuffled the established hierarchy of the senses and radically changed people's lives. Remote sensing via telephones and screens are fundamental parts of the daily sensorium (a Latin term that connotes…
apalazzo | February 20, 2007I wasn't around for a bit - as you can tell I was overloading. Thus it was time to head down to the city. So Friday we packed our bags and headed down to NYC.
Highlights from the trip:
Although I thought that it was fading, the gallery scene in Chelsea was alive and well. On Saturday we not only gallery hopped, but attended 3 vernisages, all in the 22nd street area. A highlight of our outing was Boyd Webb's surrealistic photos of people trapped in a carpeted sea. Other notable exhibits are Wayne Atkins at the Taxter & Spengemann, and Darren Almond's large "digital" clock.
We didn't go…
apalazzo | February 11, 2007Last night we hosted a meeting of our Boston based bookclub. We discussed Orhan Pamuk's novel Snow. Next up is Pirandello's The Late Mattia Pascal.
I posted some pics at the Boston Bookclub blog. You can guess from these photos that our bookclub is just an excuse to get together and have a culinary based social event.
BTW One photo that I did not post was my homemade bread:
Yes, I have an obsession with homemade bread. If you're ever in the neighbourhood and have a good bottle of wine, you can come over and you can try some of my bread along with olive oil from my grandparents olive grove.…
apalazzo | January 28, 2007First you destroy those who create values. Then you destroy those who know what the values are, and who also know that those destroyed before were in fact the creators of values. But real barbarism begins when no one can any longer judge or know that what he does is barbaric.
Ryszard Kapuscinski, famed Polish writer/reporter who died this past Wednesday.
apalazzo | January 22, 2007Look at this beauty:
Go kiddies! Now you can be the proud owner of a Gilbert Polarizing Microscope. This must have been inspired by Shinya Inoue! ;)
For more see: A microscope is a scientific instrument. Think of it like a musical instrument: practice, practice, practice.
apalazzo | January 13, 2007As you can guess from my name, I am of Italian heritage. My mother was born in Italy and moved to Montreal when she was 9, my father's parents came from Italy after WWI. Food has been an important part of my life. When I travel to Montreal, almost all our activities revolve around food. When I come home from a long day at work, I always have the energy to cook dinner. I even bake my own bread.
And yes, I love eating out, provided that the restaurant offers something new and interesting. What I hate is Italian restaurants. It's always the same fare and it is usually done badly ... you could…
apalazzo | December 31, 2006(This is back dated as I would like to start the new year on a brighter note.)
After a long day of skiing in the green hills of Vermont, my brother , cousin and I decided to go for a swim followed by a dip into the jacuzzi at the back of the hotel. I haven't seen my cousin in 4 years. He was living in Osaka, now he's studying international affairs in London. We talk about our lives, our plans the status of the world. We talked about how over the years the winters have changed quite visibly. When we were kids, growing up in Montreal, the city street cleaners would dump all the street snow into…