Cover-a-Week #14: "Kiss Me" by Sixpence None the Richer

Something fun and summery this week:


http://youtu.be/cBNW3JIBUkI

More palm mutes! I didn't want to copy the exact strum pattern(s) used in Sixpence None the Richer's original, and so had to come up with something that fit the music and the mood. I think this works...!

World War II in Real Time, 72 Years Later

If I used Twitter, this is one of the Twitter accounts I would most likely be following:
https://twitter.com/RealTimeWWII

It's a "real time" update feed on the events of the Second World War, transposed exactly 72 years into the present day. It includes such gems as:

Athens rumour: Greek soldier Konstantinos Koukidis refused to raise swastika over Acropolis; instead leaped to death wrapped in Greek flag.
— WW2 Tweets from 1941 (@RealTimeWWII) April 27, 2013

and

Noel Coward, UK actor & spy, reports from London: "At the Savoy. Pretty bad blitz, but orchestra kept on playing." twitter.com/RealTimeWWII/s…
— WW2 Tweets from 1941 (@RealTimeWWII) April 20, 2013

and

Royal Canadian Mounted Police are hunting 28 escaped Luftwaffe airmen, prisoners from UK who've tunneled out of a PoW camp in remote Ontario
— WW2 Tweets from 1941 (@RealTimeWWII) April 19, 2013

This is such an amazing project, not least because (I imagine) it takes a lot of research to put together. It appears to be a labor of love, or at least of deep fascination. I especially appreciate that it features events not typically covered in textbooks, true and relevant quotations, and lesser-known arenas of the war.

Cover-a-Week #13: "Somewhere Only We Know" by Keane

New video!

http://youtu.be/YNG6vOcjta8

I'm experimenting with palm muting and slightly more complex fingering (a combination of strumming and picking). They're still works in progress, as you can probably tell from this recording...

Today

is the 55th anniversary of the death of Rosalind Franklin, an unsung heroine of biophysics (Watson and Crick got all the credit, including the Nobel Prize that she should have been jointly awarded). Women like Franklin -- like Marie Curie, like Ada Lovelace -- were among my childhood idols.

I am reminded of a blog post I wrote a few months ago, wherein I discuss feminism and dead people. Perhaps mine is not the generation in which we achieve true gender equality, but it is inevitable -- I have faith that the inexorable progress of our species is headed in such a direction -- and I hope to see it within my lifetime. Someday, female scientists, artists, leaders, and thinkers will be extraordinary for their accomplishments alone; someday, no one will even think to mention that a Nobel Prize winner was female -- that she won will be accomplishment enough.

And here are some pictures of very colorful (very pretty) corn in honor of Franklin's work on the structure of DNA:
http://milkwood.net/2012/05/12/glass-gem-corn-and-other-heirloom-jewels-of-the-corn-cabinet/

Cover-a-Week #12: "I Will Follow You into the Dark" by Death Cab for Cutie

This one's an old favorite, and always makes me think of my loved ones:


http://youtu.be/mpUVpIJjJDg

The original is beautiful; Amanda Palmer also does a haunting rendition on the ukulele (it's a bit different from this one).

A Journal of the University Years

Here is a slightly fictionalized account of my evolution as an English major, illustrated entirely using armadillos:

The dark days of pre-med... ("Quoth the raven, 'Nevermore!'")

Upon overhearing my former classmates:

"And how much reading do you have?" (See, I remember exactly how much chemistry homework I used to get.) 

Or, in my case...
Everyone else: working on group projects in Gates (Stanford computer science building) until 2am
Me: holed up alone in dorm room, on the floor, open books spread out in concentric circles around me, writing papers

I look back at my blogging history from last year and cringe at the truth this armadillo speaks.

And then...

3am? That's cute. It was more along the lines of: peers blearily at the mess of paper (no longer neatly arranged in concentric circles), peers blearily at the small army of tea-stained mugs invading said papers, wades through the detritus of the all-nighter to find a printer as the first rays of sunlight illuminate the room.

But wait! Right before I hand it in...

Cue a second mad dash for the dorm printer, followed by a mad dash to my professor's office (possibly still in my pyjamas).

P.S. -- Don't deny that you laughed at the post title.

Erasmus, the Consummate Bibliophile

Story of my life:

When I get a little money, I buy books. If any is left, I buy food and clothes. 

~ Erasmus

To reassure those of you with concerns about my continued survival... I doubt I'd ever actually resort to such extremes. Library cards, after all, didn't exist in the fifteenth century.

And of course, Erasmus is one of my favorite Catholic philosophers, though admittedly, I admire him more for his humanism than for his religion. (Granted, his being Dutch -- as opposed to, say, Spanish -- during the Renaissance might have something to do with it.) In a day and age filled with all manner of extremists, he was a moderate -- a principled, rational, articulate moderate, and a champion of religious tolerance amidst rampant sectarian violence. It was all the books, of course! :-)