Groove down with Steve Jobs

Ok, so let's say you didn't want to spend two hours in front of your computer watching Steve Jobs introduce the iPhone from the stage at MacWorld.

In just four minutes you can listen to the arguably inevitable, and surprisingly danceable remix of two key moments--when he reveals that the iPod, phone, and internet communicator he's introducing are all in a single device, and when he reveals that the device doesn't require a stylus.

The crowd, you can hear, goes absolutely nuts.

(Of course if you did want to watch the whole speech, it's available as a free podcast download here.)

Dissecting Trends in Package Design

A New York design consulting firm shares its grocery shelf research on patterns found in package design for related products.

Their January report, "Crunch", analyzes color, form, typography, illustration, and visual texturing found on packages for chips, crackers, cereal, and other things that crunch.



You can also check out earlier reports on Energy Drinks, Children's Cold Medicine and Sliced Bread.

"...the kind of theatre that Mark Twain would have told stories in."

This two-story octagonal chapel was built in the of 1880s for the Lucy Cobb Institute to host not only religious services, but cultural events, lectures, drama productions, and graduations. It later was absorbed into the University of Georgia. Abandoned after WW2, it fill into disrepair until local donors and preservationists restored it in 1997.

The Seney-Stovall Chapel in Athens has a Victorian interior, with a raked stage and 240 seats.

Storyteller Bobby Norfolk, when he stood upon that stage at the Stitching Stars Storytelling Festival in Athens, marveled "This is the kind of theatre that Mark Twain would have told stories in."

Saturday, Donna Washington and Kevin Kling and I will get to see if we can feel the magic that Bobby felt.

I've got two sets, one at 2 pm, for 40 minutes, and one at 7 pm for 45 minutes. And I'll pretty much be fretting over my set list between now at 1:59 pm Saturday.

Blognabbit 2.0

Upgraded to the new Blogger platform today.

Not sure what happened to our profile names in the upper right.
Maybe they'll come back once everyone has logged in
(you have to log in with a GoogleID rather than your Blogger username to post now).

The main change you'll see is the addition of "labels", also known as categories or tags.
I've gone back and begun to tag a few posts, and we can begin to see some trends.

Let me know if you need any help.

Momma's Got a Brand New Blog

Mom has joined the growing ranks of senior bloggers. She set herself up with a Blogger account, and I added a "BlogThis!" bookmark to her browser.

Today I admitted to her (sheepishly) that I'm more likely to read her thoughts, poems, website recommendations, etc., on a blog than in email, since email has become so task-oriented for me (too many of her emails I file quickly into "Read Me Someday", which--good luck with that).

But with my RSS reader I'm sure to read any new post within 24 hours.

I am such a slave to the internet.

Bagpipe and saw for the new year

Folk Music & Beyond played one of those sets yesterday that made me want to just park the car and crank up the radio. Lots of hyper-energetic music for the New Year. Notable: Bagad Brieg, a pipe band from Brittany which blends Brazilian carnaval percussion and Taiko rhythms with traditional bagpipes. Fishtank Ensemble, featuring saw with gypsy music from eastern Europe. An insanely manic klezmer tune called "In Your Garden Twenty Fecund Fruit Trees", by Frank London's Klezmer Brass All-Stars. It all makes me want to rent a huge dance floor and get one of these bands to play some rockin' private dance party. Like, for when my husband turns 40. Just fr'instance.

"Maybe the Next One Will Be Good"

Part of the original addictive quality of MTV in the 1980s was that you had heard about a cool video, or had seen a cool one, and were willing to sit through a dozen or two mediocre ones in case a cool one came on.

1500videos.com features 1500 videos from the '80s.

So there might be fifty good ones in there.

Plenty of train wrecks. Mike and the Mechanics, Musical Youth, Rockwell, Quiet Riot. Quarterflash.
But oh... who even knew that videos existed for some of these '80s classics?
Like "One Night In Bangkok" by Murray Head, Afrika Baambaata's "Planet Rock," and the Weather Girls' "It's Raining Men."

Plus plenty of classics from Men at Work, Madonna, The Go-Gos, The Police.

The Tree of Life and Me

The Tree of Life project is an online database (funded by the National Science Foundation and the University of Arizona) which compiles information about biodiversity and the evolutionary relationships of all organisms. Both professional and amateurs can contribute to it... which makes some entries more accesible than others. It's nonprofit, intended to help scientists and teachers, but surprisingly middle and high school students are finding it a great resource.

I only stumbled across it while vanity Googling (to check on publicity for my Tell It on Tuesday gig this past week)... because their using some of my photos!

Click here, search for "Ereneta"

They are using my pictures of the slender salamanders I found living under our green waste bin on the side of our house last Spring.

The pictures have been on Flickr since March. I posted them under a Creative Commons license, spelling out that anyone could use them for noncommerical purposes as long as they credit me. Oh, and I suppose it helps that the labelled the photos with the Latin name for the genus, instead of just saying "salamander."

Side note: I was hoping to catch Taricha torosa, the California newt, with my camera this rainy season, since they are plentiful in Berkeley and Oakland, if you know where to look. Although Googling around the web I discovered that its skin is coated with an acute neurotoxin (Only harmful if ingested, or introduced via a mucus membrane (like the eye)... one pet site helpfully suggested: "Don't place any newt in your mouth")). Washing your hands is supposed to be enough of a precaution, but an adult California newt has enough tetrodotoxin to kill 2500-7500 mice!

Note to self: don't let the boys pet one.

on being the mother

from dooce :

“What are y’all reading?”

“One of her new Dora books.”

“Which one?”

“The very exciting one in which Dora imagines all the different things she could be when she grows up, like a doctor or a scientist.”

“You mean she’s not hoping to grow up to be a blogger?”

“Not in this version, no. But the best part is Boots, the monkey who follows her everywhere, he wants to be a teacher when he gets older.”

“I imagine that Boots is going to be seriously pissed when he gets older and realizes that monkeys only get to grow up to be monkeys.”

“There is a reason I am the fun one and you’re the one whose name she always yells when taking a breath between screams.”

Clooney Is The New Khan

Here's a movie ticket I'm willing to buy.

organic free-range chicken broth

From Dooce, a parenting blog worth the occasional visit:

I made all these points to my mother who continued to insist that organic free range chicken broth is a noble and valid product, and that is when I told her that I was going to write about this and emphasize the fact that she was taking up for the hippies.

And if you’ve ever wondered how it might be possible to melt the face off an Avon World Sales Leader, you might want to start by telling her that she’s taking sides with a group of people who don’t wear make-up.

The Scared of Santa Holiday Gallery

The 'Scared of Santa' gallery is worth studying as you plan your visuals for next year's holiday card. I shouldn't be so amused by freaked-out kids, but... Also worth a careful examination of the morphing facial expressions of Santa. ("Mommy? How can he be all over the world with these kids all at the same time? And how come he looks drunk?")

Science a la Joe Camel - washingtonpost.com

Op-Ed from Laurie David, one of the producers of An Inconvenient Truth.

She offered 50,000 free copies of the DVD of the movie to the National Science Teachers Association, to distribute to science teachers. NSTA declined, noting that accepting such a gift would put an "unnecessary risk upon the capital campaign, especially targeted supporters."

NSTA corporate supporters include Shell Oil, Exxon Mobil, and the American Petroleum Institute.

NSTA responds here. Seems like their Executive Director is experienced in damage control. Not only does he address Ms. David's accusations of corporate influence, he agrees to help get the DVD out to teachers.

The Wilhelm Scream

A brilliant montage of dozens of movie clips featuring the legendary "Wilhelm scream", a sound effect recorded at Warner Brothers in 1951 that has evolved from sound-design workhorse to industry in-joke.

I'd read about this in the past, but had no audio or visuals to place it in context.

YouTube is the best.

[Via Boing Boing]

The Play

I've been working at Cal long enough that I don't even notice how much University culture I've absorbed. I read daily briefings on Nobel prize winners, MacArthur geniuses, over the top under the table compensation to administrators, et cetera. It was probably 2002 that I was first introduced to the legend of "the play."

I missed most of the nuances of the play, blah blah blah fourth quarter blah blah Cal needs a miracle blah blah Stanford is winning, the game is about to end, and Cal gets the ball with just seconds left on the clock.
the Stanford band enters the end zone and marches onto the field. The receiver runs the ball through the marching band into the end zone for a touchdown (and knocking down a trombone player in the process).

Tonight, I wondered if YouTube might have a clip of a Cal game, any Cal game, to show Liam (whose fondness for all Cal sports continues unabated). And sure enough, we find:

The Play

Even if you don't like football, listen to the announcer (Cal's Joe Starkey) shout his way through this.

For more context, which actually makes the Play even more exciting, when you see what leads up to it: The last five minutes of the Cal-Stanford game, 1982.

I could have sworn I saw this exact play with Spanky McFarland and Alfalfa in a "Little Rascals" short back in the day.
I wonder if I could find that Little Rascals short on the internets.

Yep.

Thank you, internets.

The Dinner Table as a musical instrument

Beck and his band tear it up with forks and spoons in a live performance on SNL.

Complete with cutaways to a band of marionette dopplegangers.

YouTube: Kasper Hauser Comedy

Our old friend Dan Klein's sketch comedy group has videos on YouTube.

Best ones: Jacobus's Video Blog from the 14th Century.

The Dan Zanes Juggernaut

Gotta hand it to the man; he knows what works.

After nearly three fruitless years of attempting to interest the boy in Dan Zanes' music, we finally steered his attention to danzanes.com, where videos of Zanes and his band performing several of their hits finally turned the boy into a music lover.

In particular, the video of "Jump Up", in which Zanes enlists the help of a kindergartener on banjo ukelele, sent the boy to pick up his own ukelele (something he never does), and inspired him to ask daddy to pull down the mandolin and play it (where previously he only ever asked daddy to put the mandolin away).

Almost immediately the boy mastered the hand motions of "All Around the Kitchen", and we've heard him wandering around the house singing bits of "Malti", "Emmanuel Road" and "House Party". We're used to him reciting stories; singing songs is something entirely new.

I was so stunned by the transformation that I immediately went out and bought the DVD on which most of the online videos are featured.

Of course, this weekend's new favorite: "Smile, Smile, Smile", is only available online.

It's a minor inconvenience, however. We're happy with ANYTHING that gets him to forget the nightmare of music that is the Inky Winky Spider CD. He hasn't asked for it in days.

M&Ms: Dark Chocolate

Okay, so you're a popular chocolate candy. What could be better than an interactive game for your fans?

Well, perhaps an interactive game that involves decoding visual riddles to find film titles, done in the style of, say, 15th century Dutch painter Hieronymous Bosch.

Of course.

Remembering Miriam, on All Things Considered

Melissa Block's remembrance of Miriam from this past week, with a link to the online archive of her earlier interview.