A flame unfed

Do people have a specific kind of music they listen to when they're doing specific work? For some strange reason, when I'm writing I always listen to the Mountain Goats. Which seems kind of strange to me because until I hit on the Mountain Goats, I was completely incapable of writing (or reading) with singing, because all the words in the songs got mixed up with the words in my head and I got all confused and distracted.

But not so with the Mountain Goats. They totally help me to write.

On the other hand, I can't do math problem sets with them playing. I have a slightly broader range of stuff I can play for math, but generally I listen to Nickel Creek, or will loop a few songs for a while, and then switch to some others. I can't really listen to classical music when I do math though.

Buuut, I do listen to classical music when I'm writing proofs (unless I'm sitting in silence, which is more often the case).

So, does anyone else do this weird music-compartmentalizing thing, or is this just me? Does anyone not listen to music at all? Stick purely with hard rock?

Ha!

http://blog.washingtonpost.com/securityfix/2008/03/they_told_you_not_to_reply.html

http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/literature/laureates/2007/lessing-lecture_en.html

I AM THE RULER OF THE WORLD

Made of Awesome:

While Dartmouth doesn't crank out Presidents or lawyers at an alarming rate, we have managed to create some of the best children's entertainers EVER.

Firstly, and most famously, Dr. Seuss went to Dartmouth. He was actually the cartoonist for the Jackolantern (our humor magazine group, which more recently created our mascot Keggy and the drinkin time youtube video. and if you haven't seen that, it's high time you did.)

What you probably don't know is that Fred Rogers went to Dartmouth. Granted, you know him as Mr. Rogers, of MR. ROGERS' NEIGHBOORHOOD. yes. he went to dartmouth.

But most importantly - MOST IMPORTANTLY - Robert L. May went to Dartmouth. HE CREATED RUDOLPH THE RED-NOSED REINDEER.

HOW COOL IS THIS? THIS IS WAY COOL. our rare books library currently has a paper-machet six-foot-high rudolph with a light-up-nose sitting in the middle of the main study room.

THIS IS THE COOLEST THING IN THE WORLD.

my life is now complete.

http://www.dartmouthindependent.com/archives/2007/10/a-brief-history-1.html


To wit: "You can go play Beirut on your mom's coffee table and make sure to stick a throw pillow under your buttocks while you're at it."

Yes Ma'am. It's the same everywhere.
The shortest distance between two points
Is always under construction.

-excerpt from "Autobiography of the Cab Driver" by Rebecca McClanahan

Family Reunion
by Maxine Kumin

The week in August you come home,
adult, professional, aloof,
we roast and carve the fatted calf
—in our case home-grown pig, the chine
garlicked and crisped, the applesauce
hand-pressed. Hand-pressed the greengage wine.

Nothing is cost-effective here.
The peas, the beets, the lettuces,
hand sown, are raised to stand apart.
The electric fence ticks like the slow heart
of something we fed and bedded for a year,
then killed with kindness's one bullet
and paid Jake Mott to do the butchering.

In winter we lure the birds with suet,
thaw lungs and kidneys for the cat.
Darlings, it's all a circle horn the ring
of wire that keeps the raccoons from the corn
to the gouged pine table that we lounge around,
distressed before any of you was born.

Benign and dozy from our gluttonies,
the candles down to stubs, defenses down,
love leaking out unguarded the way
juice dribbles from the fence when grounded
by grass stalks or a forgotten hoe,
how eloquent, how beautiful you seem!

Wearing our gestures, how wise you grow,
ballooning to overfill our space,
the almost-parents of your parents now.
So briefly having you back to measure us
is harder than having let you go.

Valentine for Zepher, Age 12
by Francette Cerulli

The night before valentines are due,
I take you to the movie about Vincent
whose paintings you love. Too late
I realize it's a mistake. You knew about his ear
and you know the definition of prostitute,
but neither one of us was ready
to see him cut himself until he bled,
see him in the brothel
with his rotten teeth and his real women.

On the way home in the starry night we hold hands,
wonder what his parents must have been like,
what cruelty may have happened to him,
and you show me the belt of Orion,
clean and shining and always in place.

Remember this forever, then:
I cannot imagine not loving you,
even when this body is gone.

So if I ever die, look up into the dark
and find me hundreds of times there,
each place you can faintly imagine a line
tracing the shape of a valentine.

Spruce, inadequate, and alien
I stood at the side of the road.
It was the only life I had.

-excerpt from "Three Songs at the End of Summer" by Jane Kenyon

Razors pain you; Rivers are damp;
Acids stain you; And drugs cause cramp.
Guns aren't lawful; Nooses give;
Gas smells awful; You might as well live
- Dorothy Parker

the most gripping read i've done in a while. for some reason, i've been reading a lot about vampirism, and the connections between vampirism and magic (especially magic stealing), but this was much more similar to neil gaiman's short story about snow white: it showed vampirism in a completely different and new light: not only the parisitism, but the fact that it was a necessary part of human existence. in an unsettling way. this is the closest i've come to thriller in a while, but the best thing about it was Cal's voice. westerfeld doesn't feel the need to inject a lot of curse words or lewd ideas into the narrative - or constant sex cravings - to create the voice of a teenage boy. yeah, you know that he's really horny, but it's not jumping off the page at you; it's just another aspect of Cal's life that he has to suffer through. of course, it's hard to see how it would end without the girl turning into a vampire or them never seeing each other again, so the whole ending is kind of forseen, although the cat thing isn't.

i love the fact that he talks about all the parasites: it shows an incredible amount of research that went into the book; and the fact that he makes it interesting, and that he ties it into the end, about how parasites are really important, well, he hit on one of the major environmental issues that i care about: humans shouldn't try to change the world, because we don't understand why things exist. the fact that vampirism exists to defend humanity from the underground worm things is kind of allegorical, which is nice to see.

it's always interesting to see the human connection to cats come up in books: from egyptian times, where they worshiped cats, to this thing where they thought cats were sucking the souls out of people and then killed them? way cool. and clearly a book that wombat should read, because it has a lot to do with science.

i guess other than the writing, which is great, i mostly like the mastery of science that westerfeld has. it seems like something that is becoming more prevalent (at least in the circle i'm reading, it's pretty much a requirement: magic or madness, abundance of katherines, etc). that makes me really happy.

oscar wilde's last words:
"this wallpaper is killing me; one of us has got to go"

I know I shouldn't be flippant about this, but come on. This totally gets the award for Most Dramatic Headline Ever.

Dangerous Java flaw threatens virtually everything

So I'm at the outer banks (beach, north carolina) with my family. It's funny watching all my cousins (and these are nicknames); Bee a rising sophomore at Whitman (girl) is here with her best friend, and I actually feel judged all the time. I have to remind myself that I am in college and therefore intrinsically cooler and out of their league. And that it really really doesn't matter what they think of me. Then there's Lumpy, who's a boy in sixth grade who is the nicest person I know. Hands down. He's a complete sweetheart. Then there's devilchild, who is scheming and machinating, but I love him because he's my cousin, even though he totally put too much butter on his corn tonight and no one noticed because his parents aren't here. And the grandparents whom I love to death even though they're silly, and in the last few days they've been telling me all these hilarious stories from a long time ago. anywho, it's a good time, (and super duper relaxing after finals and my sister's graduation.)

we gave my dad ice cream and a zucchini for fathers' day. that's what my family is like.

and now I have to go because my sister's driveling.

WOOOOO! done with cs! for this term. and in fall term, no programming, which is going to be tres relaxing after the last two terms...

and it's amazing how many cute majors have been wandering around delirious the last few nights. who knew?

I am so ready for this term to end. I have spent 46 of the last 72 hours in the cs lab. In the last week and a half, I've spent an average of 8 hours a day in the lab. (and this is not including classes, decis, and work for other classes, ie: a 5-page paper, a take-home midterm, and a 1500 word oceanography research assignment.)

I am so ready for this term to be over. that's all I'm saying.

One day, I want to write a research paper about the strange dichotomy between the views society takes on artists - musicians, actors, painters, etc - who commit suicide and artists who overdose on drugs. In my experience (and maybe this is just me?) there is more attraction in an artist who committed suicide, because they become part of that romantic, artistic ideal that art is intangibly better than reality, and so the fact that they committed suicide makes them more artistic. Whereas artists who overdose are often indicative of the general self-indulgence and opulence that comes with fame.

Thoughts? Emphatic disagreement? Links to articles/papers that address this?

Byron is still my one true love. ( Excerpts from Childe Harold Canto III )

CS is a hard taskmaster. I've been in the lab since sunday, and only left for food, sleep, classes and decis. As in, I've been in the lab 15 hours a day. And that doesn't include work for my other classes.

I can't wait for this term to be over.