Random Stuff
esiegel | July 25, 2009There is so much good music out there that never, ever hits the mainstream. But if you dig a little bit, you can not only find some good ones, occasionally you hit the gold mine. Such is the case with The Bridge, a Baltimore-based band that I'll almost definitely come see September 5th when they come through Portland. Take a listen to one of my favorite jams of theirs, Jeremiah Jones:
And you know what's something I've never posted as a Weekend Diversion before, somehow? A poem. So, I present to you O Captain! My Captain! by Walt Whitman, a beautifully sad one written just after the…
esiegel | July 20, 2009As many of you know, I am raising money and volunteer time for charity by shaving my head. Yes, I'm nervous about it, and yes, I'm definitely going to do it once we get 100 donors. If you'd like to donate, some fantastic charities that I can recommend are:
Heifer International: providing livestock and training in poor areas around the world, helping people to lift themselves out of poverty, while requiring them to, in turn, train others and donate some of the animals' offspring.
Kiva: providing no-interest loans to entrepreneurs in impoverished areas, allowing them to lift themselves out of…
esiegel | July 17, 2009I was driving to work one day this past week, thinking about how to make some positive change in this world, while this song -- Lochs of Dread -- by Béla Fleck was playing:
And a great idea hit me. You see, all over my town, small, local, community-based non-profit organizations (such as museums, libraries, hospitals, parks, etc.) are facing huge shortages, both financially and in terms of workers. I give a little bit of money to charity, and I volunteer a couple of times a month at my local science museum on the weekends, but that's really all I can do.
Until now. You see, I believe that if…
esiegel | July 11, 2009It's time for an easy weekend for everyone. To kick it off, here's a song that almost everyone knows of, by the Eagles. Only, the Eagles didn't write it. Jackson Browne was screwing around in his flat with this song that "wasn't quite done" according to him. He played it for Glen Frey, and was stumped after the line "standin' on a corner in Winslow, Arizona, such a fine sight to see." The Eagles' contribution to the song was:
It's a girl, my lord,
in a flatbed Ford
slowin' down to have a look at me.
That's right; Take it Easy is a Jackson Browne song. (And, incidentally, Winslow, Arizona was…
esiegel | July 7, 2009Okay, so you've seen the famous photos from the Apollo Moon landings:
And you've been around the block enough to know why we really landed on the Moon. But let's say you wanted, for some reason, to stage your own fake jaunt on the Moon.
The band Rammstein did an excellent job with the first 30 seconds of their video, Amerika:
So how do you do it? Well, first off, you need some nice, Moon-colored dirt. You've got two options here. One is to go someplace where you can see something like Craters of the Moon national monument in Idaho. After all, this will do nicely for an area to film:
But…
esiegel | July 3, 2009I've only recently become musically acquainted with the artist Slaid Cleaves, born in Maine and living in Texas. This weekend, I present to you a heartbreaking song, Lydia, about a kind, wise old woman who can't quite pull her life together after the death of her son.
Oh, Lydie, let him go. The boy is gone.
Her mother struggled as she tore him from her arms.
Oh, Lydia, your tears are heaven's rain.
But she never was the same.
He hasn't hit it big yet, but his music is good enough that I think he ought to. Listen for yourself:
But there's something else -- that's also wonderful -- that is…
esiegel | June 26, 2009All the day long whether rain or shine
she's a part of the assembly line
she's making history working for victory
Rosie the Riveter!
One of the most iconic images, spawned by this song:
is that of Rosie the Riveter. For the first time in the United States, women were not only entering the workforce, they were doing men's work, and doing it completely, competently, and basically driving the production of the American manufacturing industry.
This started in around 1939/1940, when American resources were starting to get sucked into World War II, and was in full swing by 1943. I had seen some…
esiegel | June 21, 2009Somewhere in my mind, I like to try and construct a timeline of all of human history. Yes, there's the obvious stuff, like the discovery of fire, the learning of what foods will and won't kill you, the domestication of the dog, and all the similar things that led us to become successful hunter/gatherer tribes. Yes, these were incredibly important steps, which allowed us to do things like eat more meat without getting sick through the power of cooking, find out that some poisonous plants are actually edible when you either boil them or eat only the proper part (hi, rhubarb), and the start of…
esiegel | June 5, 2009Nothing too crazy this weekend, folks. Why not? Believe it or not, because for the past 7 days, I've been on a road trip! We've been through Oregon, Washington, Idaho, Montana, North Dakota, Michigan, and Wisconsin, and we're now headed back through Iowa, South Dakota, and possibly Wyoming. The weather is gorgeous, the landscapes, skies, and adventures are all outstanding, and I have thoroughly enjoyed my week's "vacation." (Of course I've still been writing for you, too!)
So what can I give you to help you chill out this weekend? Well, I'd love to give you my favorite rendition of…
esiegel | May 29, 2009Looking back on this week, I had a post about astronomy with a wide-angle lens and about the Tunguska blast. For this weekend's music, I'm going to rob South Park and show you South Park Elementary's #1 TV show of all time:
And for your weekend amusement, I'll refer you back to my story on Tunguska, which is about one crazy Russian and his insistence that an alien spaceship saved the Earth from an asteroid. Since then -- on this site and in person -- the following theories have been advanced to me:
Nikola Tesla caused Tunguska with a secret, never-been-reproduced energy weapon,
The…
esiegel | May 28, 2009The website 3 quarks daily is having a contest for best blog post of the past year! The only rules? It must have been written since May 24, 2008. Check out the full contest rules here. You're here at scienceblogs, and you've got a chance to help pick the winner!
The best science blog post of the year contest is underway, and they will be accepting nominations by simply doing the following:
The nominating process is hereby declared open. Please nominate your favorite blog entry in the field of the natural and social sciences by placing the URL for the blogpost (the permalink) in the…
esiegel | May 22, 2009One of the great things that comes along with warm weather is outdoor concerts! Click "play" below to hear one of the greatest live performances of All Along The Watchtower ever recorded.
Any idea who that is, rocking out on the guitar? Sounds a bit like Carlos Santana, doesn't it? Sounds talented like Hendrix, but the sound is too clean to be him. Who is it? Let's have you take a guess (before you scroll down).
Time for the answer? The guitarist who's rocking this song so hard is Jerry Garcia. Seriously, who knew the lead singer of the Grateful Dead was such a fantastic, talented…
esiegel | May 15, 2009Rather than a real song this week, I instead point you to an internet classic, inspired by those Wilford Brimley commercials you see during The Price is Right. Yes, I watch The Price is Right when I can, and hence I know all about important products like Fibercon, the Scooter Store, Depends, and, of course, Liberty Medical. This video is one of the most bizarre things I've ever seen, and no, I never really noticed how oddly this man pronounces the word diabetes. There is a reason why some now call it "the beetis" in honor of him.
But on a slightly more serious note, even if you have health…
esiegel | May 8, 2009This week's song comes from Merle Haggard, one of the greatest story-song writers alive today. There are many great choices, but my favorite Merle Haggard song is the one that -- I think -- tells the best story: The Silver Ghost, a song about a ghost train as told from the perspective of the switchman.
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When I was a very little kid, I was always amazed, when we went to visit my Dad's parents, at the huge, elevated…
esiegel | May 1, 2009First off, the music for this week comes from a duet known as Rodrigo y Gabriela, two amazing guitarists who team up as a duet and just blow my mind. I discovered them when I was in Tucson, and they are amazing live! (Well, as long as you can find a venue where the audience is quiet enough so you can hear them.) As a decidedly amateur guitar player, here is a combination of two outstanding things: Rodrigo y Gabriela and Stairway to Heaven, one of the greatest guitar songs of all time. Feel free to hit play while you read the rest of the post.
So, following the "Stairway to Heaven" theme, I…
esiegel | April 24, 2009Do you remember when music videos were brand new things, and ranged from Cartoonish Violence to Eclectic Pleas for Individual Freedom? Well, one of my favorite videos was by the Norwegian band A-Ha, whose surreal, romantic fantasy video for their single Take On Me won me over instantly. I think it holds up pretty well, even nearly 25 years later:
But someone had the brilliant idea of changing the lyrics around to actually match what's happening in the video. Have a few of those weekend beers, and then check out the literal version of A-ha's Take On Me:
And -- if you like -- you can…
esiegel | April 17, 2009Our song this week comes from the little-known band Elsinore, based out of Champaign, IL, and named after a city (with a great landmark) in Denmark. (Hi, Sili!) They've got just a couple of albums out so far, but here's one of my favorites for you to listen to -- the song Cannonballs off of Nothing By Design -- which you can download here.
While you listen, here's something I've been thinking about. I always worry about the scientific process of "data collecting" when you rely on humans to self-report accurately. The most notorious example is that we still don't know how long the typical…
esiegel | April 10, 2009What better way to celebrate Easter weekend than with an old spiritual song about the birth of Jesus? This is the gospel song Last Month of The Year -- an old Southern American Spiritual -- sung and arranged by Jackson C. Frank. This is my favorite version of the song by far, as I really like its simplicity and the minor tones to go along with it. Take a listen:
alt : Last Month of the Year.wavWell, Good Friday is when he died, and then we have the following Bible Quotes to go off of to figure out what came next:
Acts 2:24 -- But God raised him from the dead, freeing him from the agony of…
esiegel | April 9, 2009Last night, I had the pleasure of going to the Portland-area showing of the International Documentary Challenge. From March 5th-9th, 142 documentary filmmaking teams from 16 countries made short documentary films on the topics of Hope & Fear. I found out about it because I got solicited to be a co-star in one of them -- focused on fear -- on the topic of Dark Matter.
Dark matter makes for both fascinating pictures and for a fascinating subject. Well, there was a huge reason why I was a major player in this: this is an obscure topic that most people know very little about. In fact, nearly…
esiegel | April 3, 2009As a new tradition since we're on a new site, in addition to giving you a post about fun stuff on the weekend, I'm going to try exposing you to some new music, either by an uncommon artist or a song that really caught my fancy. This week's artist is Chicago-based bluegrass musician Colby Maddox, singing the old classic Shady Grove. Feel free to listen while you read on:
So I was looking around the internet the other day, and I came across this scientific study, which -- I kid you not -- is on the effects of tinfoil hats.
Now, the whole idea is that you can shield yourself from…