Historia de un letrero

Short story winner of the Cannes Festival, 2008, History of a Sign
with music was composed by Luis Enr??quez Bacalov, from Argentina.

Beautifully shot, beautifully said.

Algebra!

Algebra - it's everywhere: "The very word can twist the stomachs of otherwise well-adjusted adults, dredging up memories of nonsensical X's and Y's and a lifelong loathing of math."

"I doubt if the politicians promoting this have any idea what they're promoting," said Keith Devlin, Stanford University researcher and mathematics professor, as well as the "Math Guy" on National Public Radio. "Few people know what algebra is.

Devlin would like to see "mathematicians in residence" at middle schools and high schools. They could visit schools and show students the cool side of math - like how an iPod uses algebra to play music.

Lockhart: "if I had to design a mechanism for the express purpose of destroying a child's natural curiosity and love of pattern-making, I couldn't possibly do as good a job as is currently being done. I simply wouldn't have the imagination to come up with the kind of senseless, soul-crushing ideas that constitute contemporary mathematics education."

TerraForm

In a short and fun little film, Johannes Brueckner shows us the progress, problems and solutions of globalization.

El Arranque

Meanwhile, up here in the technologically 'advanced' lands, we shuffle jukebox cover tunes of 'hits', 3 minutes a pop, pipe through FM headset mics, Bose stacks and a $12K rack of audio enhancers, and half the tables have wallflowers.

"Ok kids, here's the deal, we'll play, and you dance. Got it?"

actually, some years ago I passed by a basement club in T.O. where an acoustic acid-jazz trio was doing just that, and y'know, the dancers packed shoulder to shoulder through the hall were all having a real good time. Come to think of it, that kinda describes the old-time fiddle-jam barndance we went to some aeons ago too ...

The worldwide web of belief and ritual

Wade Davis on the worldwide web of belief and ritual: "Anthropologist Wade Davis muses on the worldwide web of belief and ritual that makes us human. He shares breathtaking photos and stories of the Elder Brothers, a group of Sierra Nevada indians whose spiritual practice holds the world in balance."

a tour of the human heart, the reality of our nature, the high-technology of myth and ritual, and how you keep the earth from plunging into ugly darkness. when people wonder why we still play our music despite commercial indifference, I recommend this lecture.

The end of music (reprise)

8tracks - the end of music: "'Many people in our society now go around the streets and in the buses and so forth playing radios with earphones on and they don't hear the world around them. They hear only what they have chosen to hear. I can't understand why they cut themselves off from that rich experience which is free. I think this is the beginning of music, and I think that the end of music may very well be in those record collections.' - John Cage conversation with Ev Grimes (1984), in Kostelanetz 1988, 235"

Cage wasn't the first, of course, in fact, John Philip Sousa marched on Congress to protest "Those Infernal Machines" saying they would make us musically mute within a generation, but I can't help but note the irony that this quote is used as a teaser for yet another batch of tune-programs to tuck into those beans in your ears!

Furby Gurdy

Furby Gurdy version 2 (batch of 4): I really shouldn't be telling you about twisted evil gadgets like this. I really shouldn't. I should just let them be. Yes, for those who wonder, you turn the crank on a synchro bank of bent Furbies and yes, your band can have one too.

Here comes the Furby Gurdy man
and he's singing songs of love
Here comes the Furby Gurdy man
and he's singing songs of love

‘Exercise’ is a mindset

‘Exercise’ is mindset as well as activity Neuroanthropology writes: "Becoming convinced that they were getting enough exercise or engaged in adequate activity to promote health helped their background activity to affect their physiology. Exercise was not just a physical activity, it was also a state of mind (more accurately, without the ’state of mind’ activity didn’t have the effects of ‘exercise’"

of course they WERE getting sufficient exercise, but the really interesting thing here is how they didn't BENEFIT from that exercise until they were made aware that it WAS sufficient, and then how very quickly the physical results were manifest.

I Met The Walrus

In 1969, a 14-year-old Beatle fanatic named Jerry Levitan, armed with a reel-to-reel tape deck, snuck into John Lennon's hotel room in Toronto and convinced John to do an interview about peace. 38 years later, Jerry has produced a film about it. Using the original interview recording as the soundtrack, director Josh Raskin has woven a visual narrative which tenderly romances Lennon's every word in a cascading flood of multipronged animation. Raskin marries the terrifyingly genius pen work of James Braithwaite with masterful digital illustration by Alex Kurina, resulting in a spell-binding vessel for Lennon's boundless wit, and timeless message.

It's all there. In a flower. In the music. It's all there.

Status: On Braxton

Gary is listening to the full Anthony Braxton keynote address from the Guelph Jazz Festival.

the really scary part is that he's making perfect sense.

Imagine Winning Gold In Beijing

Sports Are 80 Percent Mental: "Imagine winning a gold medal at the Beijing Olympics. No really, go ahead, close your eyes and visualize it. What did you see? Were you standing on the medal platform looking out at the crowd, waving and taking in the scene through your own eyes, or were you a spectator in the crowd watching yourself getting the medal put around your neck? This choice between 'first-person' or 'third-person' visualization actually makes a difference on our motivation to achieve a future goal."

"Take a look AT yourself,
if you have a sense of humour
you will laugh to beat the band."
(Billie Holiday)

Turns out this is very good advice for getting yourself TO the track. Just don't be still doing it once you're IN the process ...

Brain-Juice

Brain-Juice.com: Brain-juice is the premier internet site for information about 20th century art, film, history, literature, and music.

Initially, brain-juice???s core content will consist of top quality biographies on the most influential artists, filmmakers, politicians, writers, and musicians of the 20th century. All biographies are written by students or graduates from the best U.S. universities, with the largest concentration of writers coming from Brown, Harvard, Princeton, and Yale.

hands up all those who heard/read/saw ANY of these people in their schooling. Thought so. Well, here's an update...

The Stargate Chronicles

The Stargate Chronicles Clark C. McClelland writes: "I was the Director of the NICAP Unit-3 actual X-Files at Cape Canaveral and the Kennedy Space Center, 1958 to 1992! YES, the ACTUAL X-FILES!! Aliens ARE HERE!! They walk among US! They may be implanted into OUR various earth governments!!

What I know, they would NOT allow me to publish! I have written at least three books to release the TRUTH to all of the HUMAN RACE! I was on the leading edge of this subject, and I have met with many NASA and other astronauts throughout the years I have been involved in the Military, NASA Space Programs, 1958 to 1992! I have heard many experiences of ETs having been seen on the Moon, etc., by NASA Astronauts and I relate these and more in my books."

The ET was standing upright in the Space Shuttle Payload Bay having a discussion with TWO tethered US NASA Astronauts. I also observed on my monitors, the spacecraft of the ET as it was in a stabilized, safe orbit to the rear of the Space Shuttle main engine pods. I observed this incident for about one minute and seven seconds.

Our grip on reality is slim

Our grip on reality is slim, says UCL scientist: ???We believe that hallucinations are caused by a difficulty in discriminating information present in the outside world from information that is imagined. In schizophrenia the difficulty you have in separating reality from imagined events becomes exaggerated so some people have hallucinations and hear voices that simply aren???t there.???

???our imagination does not have too great an impact on our lives - unless the reality check system breaks down ... In our tests volunteers either thought they had imagined words which they had actually been shown or said they had seen words which in fact they had just imagined - in over 20 per cent of cases. That is quite a lot of mistakes to be making, and shows how fallible our memory is - or perhaps, how slim our grip on reality is."

You can read the full paper over at Book of Joe