cakehat: October 2009

Wednesday, October 28, 2009

Passions of the Brain

Another great NPR story..."According to new neuroscience studies, emotion has a strong influence on how the human brain makes decisions."

Listen (or read) here

Also, Radiolab's Stochasticity ("which is just a wonderfully slippery and smarty-pants word for randomness") segment is INCREDIBLE

Listen here

Tuesday, October 27, 2009

miike snow #2

This is the same song that i posted last month... but a different video!

Monday, October 26, 2009

i've always liked ryan adams, but never infatuated. however a good friend insists that i spend some more time with him and i'll admit... he's growing on me. this song is lovely (and the accompanying picture is priceless...)

Saturday, October 24, 2009

REM cover

joshua james (love) did a cover of "losing my religion" for daytrotter. it's fantastic!

go download it (and everything else)

Friday, October 23, 2009

the sexes

sometimes to help my students understand writing assignments i will do the assignment with them and show them what i've done as a sort of model. today we chose a broad topic together, relationships between the sexes, and brainstormed possible directions for research-broadened personal essays. This is the rough fastwrite that i did and showed my class. i'm thinking about expanding it into a real essay...

Men and women think differently. Someone told me once that a woman's mind is like an air-traffic controller. It stands in the middle of a VERY busy airport, with glowing batons and an orange vest, directing all the hundreds of hovering thoughts, emotions, and ideas that circle around and around waiting to land. That same person also told me a man's mind is like a waffle. It can only be in one pocket at a time and just hops from pocket to pocket.

Wednesday, October 21, 2009

freedom of speech

Richard John Neuhaus:

“In a democracy that is free and robust, an opinion is no more disqualified for being ‘religious’ than for being atheistic, or psychoanalytic, or Marxist, or just plain dumb.”

Tuesday, October 20, 2009

NYC

group jump shot in DUMBO

jamie and me in Central Park

Monday, October 12, 2009

Stealers Wheel

so sometimes there's something that's been around for YEARS and you had no idea... well, today the song "late again" by stealers wheel entered into my life, and at long last this band is part of my obsessed collection.

Sunday, October 11, 2009

Scribendi

Utah State University has a creative writing competition every year called Scribendi.

Go check out last year (ignore the html problems)

Friday, October 9, 2009

Freeze Me, Blast Me, Shatter Me

Don't wanna waste money and land space when you die?

Listen to NPR on "alternative burial"

Thursday, October 8, 2009

The Book Thief

It's a book that anyone keen on something different and somewhat astonishing should attempt. The author, Markus Zusak, has put together a remarkable story -- written with emotional detail in such a way that it isn't just another account of Nazi Germany, but a character-driven homage to kindness and cruelty as well as life, death, and books. As put by a NY Times reviewer: "It will be widely read and admired because it tells a story in which books become treasures. And because there's no arguing with a sentiment like that."

Narrated by Death, the tone is ironic yet tender, and very frank -- just like Death himself:

"On many counts, taking a boy like Rudy was robbery-- so much life, so much to live for -- yet somehow, I'm certain he would have loved to see the frightening rubble and the swelling of the sky on the night he passed away. He'd have cried and turned and smiled if only he could have seen the book thief on her hands and knees, next to his decimated body. He'd have been glad to witness her kissing his dusty bomb-hit lips.