Time-Lapse Auroras over Norway

NASA's picture of the day a few days ago, not actually a picture this time, but a really cool, really pretty video of atmospheric and cosmic (to an extent) phenomena:

http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap110328.html

Courtesy of Wendy.

Baby + Tuba

That is all.

R.I.P. Diana Wynne Jones

Diana Wynne Jones passed away two days ago. She was practically an institution unto herself, at least in the book world (especially in the scifi-fantasy community). She is, among writers, best known for the wonderful The Tough Guide to Fantasyland, and among the rest of the world, for Howl's Moving Castle, which was turned into a Miyazaki film of the same name. She was also known for mentoring aspiring and debut writers, of which Neil Gaiman was one, back in the day. He wrote a moving eulogy for her, a much more intimate and eloquent one, which may be found here: http://journal.neilgaiman.com/2011/03/being-alive.html

A titan has fallen. She will be missed.

Washington Post: Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge

This is a beautiful set of pictures of the Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge. It's a major pit stop along the Atlantic Flyway, and it's in Maryland, and I would dearly love to go see it one day. The photographs are spectacular:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/conversations/blackwater-national-wildlife-refuge/2011/03/11/ABNme9Q_gallery.html

Enjoy!

Donate via Text Message to Help Japan

 Note (03/12): Because this is an actionable item, this post will stay at the top of the blog for a week.

I'm sure you all know about the situation in Japan right now. Here are a few quick and easy ways to help:

Text "REDCROSS" to 90999 -- donates $10 to Red Cross efforts
Text "TSUNAMI" to 50555 -- donates $10 to Convoy of Hope efforts
Text "JAPAN" or "QUAKE" to 80888 -- donates $10 to Salvation Army efforts

NYTimes: Plants and Animals are Not So Different After All

I have been asked, quite a few times over the years, why I am not vegetarian. To those who know me, my personal sense of ethics and morality seems extremely compatible with the values espoused by many vegetarians to justify their choice. I have never quite been able to explain myself to the complete satisfaction of the inquirers; this article does a very good job of it:

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/15/science/15food.html

What do you think?

Music Video for Vienna Teng's "Gravity", and the Making Thereof

Despite it being the weekend before finals, I spontaneously went to a concert yesterday. I think I was justified; I had just finished two papers, my first final isn't until Wednesday, and it was Vienna Teng. I've mentioned her here before. One of my all-time favorite musicians, and one of the few "modern" musicians whom I really love.

Anyhow, she has one music video (that I know of, at least, but I checked), for her song "Gravity", and it's beautiful -- too beautiful not to share, so here it is:



And then, I found this (the making of the "Gravity" video):



Enjoy!

The New Adventures of Queen Victoria: Her Majesty on Angry Birds

There's this iPhone game called "Angry Birds" that seems to be all the rage right now. (It doesn't sound that interesting, but then, I've never played it. A lot of games/shows/songs with really inane premises seem to catch on spectacularly regardless.) Anyhow, here's Queen Victoria's (rather humorous) take on it:

http://www.gocomics.com/thenewadventuresofqueenvictoria/2011/01/24/

I was amused.

NYTimes: Disunion (A Blog Series)

Every so often, The New York Times runs an extended blog series on a particular subject, usually something very interesting and slightly off the beaten track. I recently found this one, and I think it's brilliant:

http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/category/disunion/ 

It's about the American Civil War, it's wonderfully written and analyzed, and of course, I would find it interesting. I'm more of a European history person than an American one, generally, but I'm enough of a history buff not to be choosy. The Civil War is one of my favorite periods in US history; I think I've been interested in it ever since I read The Killer Angels almost a decade ago. (It's a really great book; if you haven't read it, you should.) I think the Civil War (and that book) is probably the conflict that really taught me about shades of grey (Robert E. Lee, tragic antihero, for certain definitions of the term, and possibly my favorite American general of all time), a concept I've applied to literary analysis ever since.

And then, several years back, I read Doris Kearns Goodwin's Team of Rivals, another truly excellent book, and the one which cemented Lincoln in my mind as my favorite US president ever (yes, I have favorite US presidents -- and so?). It's on my Kindle, and I still reread parts of it from time to time. Especially Lincoln's speeches; I have those bookmarked. The man was a genius, I tell you.

Anyhow, read the blog; it's quite good.

Universality

I realize that this post must strike the readership as deeply ironic, given -- well, given me -- but I find myself somewhat vindicated in this quotation:

Everyone, in some small sacred sanctuary of the self, is nuts.

~ Leo Rosten

Yes, he was a humorist. (So what?)

It's rather true, I find; even beyond the people I tend to hang out with, who are admittedly a self-selected and odd crowd, most people are really weird in some unexpected way (and in some expected ways, too). It's just that some people try harder to hide it than others.

The Brick Thief: a Lego Short Film

I posted one of these a long while ago; I found this one recently, and it's equally surreal and almost as good:



Rather creepy, isn't it? It would make a great premise for a science fiction short story, methinks.

A Dance with Dragons Release Date Confirmed!

I just checked George R. R. Martin's blog; it comes out on July 12th -- four months away! The announcement is here:

http://grrm.livejournal.com/198534.html

I've been waiting for this book since my sophomore year of high school (when its prequel, A Feast for Crows, came out). I am now in my junior year of college -- gosh, that's a long time! I anticipate rereading all four of them in June, because I've probably forgotten so many of the details! (I'll probably do a marathon A Song of Ice and Fire reading some weekend in June.)

They're really, really awesome. They're basically the War of the Roses for scifi/fantasy nerds (a double win for medieval history buffs like me!). Although it's only fair to warn potential readers that it's brutal (one of the reasons it's so good). None of that fluffy-bunny-and-rainbows fantasy stuff. People die. In scads. Especially people we care about.

I'm excited -- and you should be too!

NYTimes: Food Art

It's a bit like the heart-shaped pancakes or creatively-cut sandwiches I used to try to make as a kid, but about a hundred times more awesome:

http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/03/05/how-do-you-want-your-eggs-scrambled-or-smiling/?hp

One of the things I've always wanted to get better at is cooking. I figure it's about time, since I'm a year or so away from graduating, and I'd like to have more than just basic competency on that score when I hit the Real World. Chances are, I'll end up living at home for some time (until I'm in a position to live on my own, in New York City, no less), but building a repertoire in cooking takes time.

And of course, artistic sandwiches are always a plus. :)

The Stanford Daily: StanShakes Triumphs with "Julius Caesar"

An article I wrote last week:

http://www.stanforddaily.com/2011/02/25/stanshakes-triumphs-with-julius-caesar/

Julius Caesar is amazing -- I went through several phases of "favorite Shakespeare play" and it's my most recent favorite. I loved A Midsummer Night's Dream in elementary and early middle school -- I thought it was absolutely hysterical. It was also the time, at least in elementary, when kids were obsessed with the notion that the other gender had "cooties". Go figure. Then, in middle school, I really liked Hamlet. I think it might have been the brooding, misunderstood, woe-is-me element of it; most teenagers angst and have persecution complexes and think their parental figures don't understand them (I wasn't so far removed from that myself; I merely had... different ways of expressing it). And then, in early high school, I started taking Latin again, and rediscovered a love of Roman history and political structures. Hence the especial fondness for Julius Caesar. Somewhere in there, I briefly liked Macbeth (oops, sorry, I mean "that Scottish play"), but my tenth grade English teacher sort of ruined it for me. I was, apparently, reading it too much in historical context, rather than as pure literature. But that's another story.