Distillate & Detritus

Amazing

It’s amazing that I can write a blog entry using my phone. Technology is so cool. What’s also amazing is the fact that it’s been a year since I’ve written poetry and my mind is still a complete blank. I’m considering a serious break from everything so I can write, and I might get it. Wish me luck.

This lawyering business, it tends to keep me too focused. I need a longer break.

Beach, part 3

Beach, part 3

theatlantic: If We Are What We Read, Who Are We, Exactly? We love books for being books. But books are more than just words on pages, lovely or terrible adventures, weird imaginings, plot twists and romances and things that would never happen to us in real life and therefore we should read about. Books have the power to change us—but not just in our minds, apparently. According to research recently published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology by Geoff Kaufman of Tiltfactor Laboratories at Dartmouth College and Lisa Libby of Ohio State, the act of reading of and identifying with a fictional character means also that we tend to subconsciously adopt their behavior. In reading about our favorite characters, we may actually become more like them. Read more at The Atlantic Wire. [Image: Shutterstock]

theatlantic:

If We Are What We Read, Who Are We, Exactly?

We love books for being books. But books are more than just words on pages, lovely or terrible adventures, weird imaginings, plot twists and romances and things that would never happen to us in real life and therefore we should read about. Books have the power to change us—but not just in our minds, apparently. According to research recently published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology by Geoff Kaufman of Tiltfactor Laboratories at Dartmouth College and Lisa Libby of Ohio State, the act of reading of and identifying with a fictional character means also that we tend to subconsciously adopt their behavior. In reading about our favorite characters, we may actually become more like them.

Read more at The Atlantic Wire. [Image: Shutterstock]

I feel I’ve been committing an affront to music because I haven’t been listening to Aretha Franklin. To illustrate, the only song of hers I really listened to was Respect. (I know, I know).

The House That Jack Built is a very sad song that employs the light repetitive form of the nursery rhyme of the same name. The same form used by some poets like Donald Justice (‘This one was put in a jacket/ This one was sent home.’- Counting the Mad). I mention this because I was wondering since earlier today why the song struck a chord in me. This is probably one of the reasons.

mensjournal: Microsoft’s Would-Be iPhone — From 1991 In our May 2012 issue, contributing editor Joe Hagan profiled Microsoft veteran Nathan Myhrvold, who retired in 1999 after serving 14-years as Bill Gates’ personal tech visionary.  Since leaving Microsoft, Myhrvold has lived a nerd fantasy, digging up T. rexes and producing a cookbook only a mad scientist could love. During his years at the computing giant’s Redmond, Washington headquarters, Myhrvold described in precise terms what the future of computing would look like. More often that not, he was pretty damned accurate: In 1991, while serving as the company’s chief visionary, Myhrvold predicted the emergence of an iPhone-like device down to the smallest detail, describing a “digital wallet” that would consolidate personal communication — telephone, schedule manager, notepad, contacts, and a library of music and books — all in one. Rarely seen outside of Myhrvold’s inner circle, this sketch of Microsoft’s would-be iPhone portrayed a gadget that could record and archive everything you asked it to, he surmised. “The cost will not be very high,” wrote Myhrvold. “It is pretty easy to imagine a $400 to $1,000 retail price.” Microsoft, however, was too cost conscious and risk averse to execute his vision. “Hey, it was better than predicting the wrong thing,” Myhrvold says now. For more information about Myhrvold, his tenure at Microsoft, and his newfound passion for molecular gastronomy, read Joe Hagan’s “How a Geek Grills a Burger” here.

mensjournal:

Microsoft’s Would-Be iPhone — From 1991

In our May 2012 issue, contributing editor Joe Hagan profiled Microsoft veteran Nathan Myhrvold, who retired in 1999 after serving 14-years as Bill Gates’ personal tech visionary.  Since leaving Microsoft, Myhrvold has lived a nerd fantasy, digging up T. rexes and producing a cookbook only a mad scientist could love.

During his years at the computing giant’s Redmond, Washington headquarters, Myhrvold described in precise terms what the future of computing would look like. More often that not, he was pretty damned accurate: In 1991, while serving as the company’s chief visionary, Myhrvold predicted the emergence of an iPhone-like device down to the smallest detail, describing a “digital wallet” that would consolidate personal communication — telephone, schedule manager, notepad, contacts, and a library of music and books — all in one.

Rarely seen outside of Myhrvold’s inner circle, this sketch of Microsoft’s would-be iPhone portrayed a gadget that could record and archive everything you asked it to, he surmised. “The cost will not be very high,” wrote Myhrvold. “It is pretty easy to imagine a $400 to $1,000 retail price.” Microsoft, however, was too cost conscious and risk averse to execute his vision. “Hey, it was better than predicting the wrong thing,” Myhrvold says now.

For more information about Myhrvold, his tenure at Microsoft, and his newfound passion for molecular gastronomy, read Joe Hagan’s “How a Geek Grills a Burger” here.

(via theatlantic)

Billie Holiday & Louis Armstrong- You Can’t Lose A Broken Heart

In high school, I asked my parents to “please please please buy the Billie Holiday 3-cd collection” for me. I remember having more jazz CDs than I know what to do with, mainly I think because jazz seems to understand my often erratic and given-to-random-whimsical-flights-of-non-fancy mind. Where most music forced me then to focus, jazz rode with me.

And Lady Day was always front and center. When I got the CD, I hied off to my room, put on CD after CD. This song, if I’m not mistaken, is sixth in the second CD. I recall having no words for this song after I first listened to it, only a low “Woah.”

Came across Chaplin’s Moustache when I was looking for the music video of the incredibly, uh, peppy song by Generationals, When They Fight They Fight.


From the blog description: “The movies featured in Chaplin’s Moustache come with a link to a downloadable, companion playlist, so that you can revisit these films in a new context.  This is sort of like that time in high school when you watched The Wizard of Oz while “The Dark Side of the Moon” was playing.  Heavy, man.

The mixes here are designed to sync up with each movie, so that silent film stars are dancing to 60′s garage rock or acting out their angst with the help of Elliott Smith.  And, they’re intended to change how we think about silent (and other classic) films.  So press play, listen, and enjoy!”

So far, the blog has mixes for the filmsPhantom of the Opera, Metropolis, 8 &1/2,and Pandora’s Box.

The latest blog entry is dated 29 May 2011, which makes me wish this Tumblr is powerful and influential enough to reach the blogger and encourage him/her to make other mixes.

The Lettermen- The Things We Did Last Summer.

:)