When my mother got sick back in September, she was wearing this little crystal pendant. Somewhere in the excitement, either when she fell, or somewhere in the EMT/ambulance/ER confusion, it got broken. Read more
When my mother got sick back in September, she was wearing this little crystal pendant. Somewhere in the excitement, either when she fell, or somewhere in the EMT/ambulance/ER confusion, it got broken. Read more
In creating this piece I used an approach similar to what I use when improvising music: starting with a simple theme Read more
Time once again for our mid-week random selection of stories. War Crimes As Usual It will be months — perhaps years or even decades — before we have the truth about the chemical weapons horror in Khan Sheikhoun. The US government and corporate media — who both have a history of dishonesty — claim that the Assad government used chemical weapons, probably Sarin but maybe chlorine, on civilians. The Assad government and its ally Russia — who both have a... Read more
When I sat down with the guitar a few hours later, that feeling of renew came back to me, and I started with a line talking about what I'd done earlier that day. Read more
And so what is currently thought to be 68% of the universe may suddenly disappear, if these calculations hold up. Science can indeed be destructive! Read more
The idea of "cultural appropriation" has once again provoked violence from someone who decided they have the right to police the personal choices of others. (If you're new here, cultural appropriation is something we've discussed before.) Read more
Where do songs come from? In this case, from 1. Seeing a big black cat in my back yard, 2. Tweeting about it, and 3. Noticing the nice rhythm of the phase "Big black cat in my backyard". Read more
To some extent, “stability” means “resistance to change". To change an unjust system you may need to create some instability -- some holy chaos. Read more
Our usual mid-week selection of quick takes. Bad Maps: Gall-Peters is no cartographic hero Breathless news stories this week described how Boston’s adoption of the Gall-Peters projection of the world map over the Mercator one would correct “500 years of distortion” [The Guardian] and how its introduction was “blowing [student’s] minds”. [Boing Boing] Please. Yes, the Mercator grossly distorts the sizes of nations, making those farther from the equator (the US, Canada, Europe, Russia) seem bigger than those nearer (e.g.,... Read more
I'm going to try to show something about revision, and how a rough bunch of words can start to be formed into something poetic. So you're going to get two versions of some equinox reflections. Read more
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