a serviceable substitute

the posterous of gary lawrence murphy

Algebra!

Algebra - it's everywhere: "The very word can twist the stomachs of otherwise well-adjusted adults, dredging up memories of nonsensical X's and Y's and a lifelong loathing of math."
"I doubt if the politicians promoting this have any idea what they're promoting," said Keith Devlin, Stanford University researcher and mathematics professor, as well as the "Math Guy" on National Public Radio. "Few people know what algebra is.

Devlin would like to see "mathematicians in residence" at middle schools and high schools. They could visit schools and show students the cool side of math - like how an iPod uses algebra to play music.

Lockhart: "if I had to design a mechanism for the express purpose of destroying a child's natural curiosity and love of pattern-making, I couldn't possibly do as good a job as is currently being done. I simply wouldn't have the imagination to come up with the kind of senseless, soul-crushing ideas that constitute contemporary mathematics education."

El Arranque

Meanwhile, up here in the technologically 'advanced' lands, we shuffle jukebox cover tunes of 'hits', 3 minutes a pop, pipe through FM headset mics, Bose stacks and a $12K rack of audio enhancers, and half the tables have wallflowers.

"Ok kids, here's the deal, we'll play, and you dance. Got it?"

actually, some years ago I passed by a basement club in T.O. where an acoustic acid-jazz trio was doing just that, and y'know, the dancers packed shoulder to shoulder through the hall were all having a real good time. Come to think of it, that kinda describes the old-time fiddle-jam barndance we went to some aeons ago too ...

The worldwide web of belief and ritual

Wade Davis on the worldwide web of belief and ritual: "Anthropologist Wade Davis muses on the worldwide web of belief and ritual that makes us human. He shares breathtaking photos and stories of the Elder Brothers, a group of Sierra Nevada indians whose spiritual practice holds the world in balance."
a tour of the human heart, the reality of our nature, the high-technology of myth and ritual, and how you keep the earth from plunging into ugly darkness. when people wonder why we still play our music despite commercial indifference, I recommend this lecture.

The end of music (reprise)

8tracks - the end of music: "'Many people in our society now go around the streets and in the buses and so forth playing radios with earphones on and they don't hear the world around them. They hear only what they have chosen to hear. I can't understand why they cut themselves off from that rich experience which is free. I think this is the beginning of music, and I think that the end of music may very well be in those record collections.' - John Cage conversation with Ev Grimes (1984), in Kostelanetz 1988, 235"
Cage wasn't the first, of course, in fact, John Philip Sousa marched on Congress to protest "Those Infernal Machines" saying they would make us musically mute within a generation, but I can't help but note the irony that this quote is used as a teaser for yet another batch of tune-programs to tuck into those beans in your ears!

‘Exercise’ is a mindset

‘Exercise’ is mindset as well as activity Neuroanthropology writes: "Becoming convinced that they were getting enough exercise or engaged in adequate activity to promote health helped their background activity to affect their physiology. Exercise was not just a physical activity, it was also a state of mind (more accurately, without the ’state of mind’ activity didn’t have the effects of ‘exercise’"
of course they WERE getting sufficient exercise, but the really interesting thing here is how they didn't BENEFIT from that exercise until they were made aware that it WAS sufficient, and then how very quickly the physical results were manifest.

I Met The Walrus

In 1969, a 14-year-old Beatle fanatic named Jerry Levitan, armed with a reel-to-reel tape deck, snuck into John Lennon's hotel room in Toronto and convinced John to do an interview about peace. 38 years later, Jerry has produced a film about it. Using the original interview recording as the soundtrack, director Josh Raskin has woven a visual narrative which tenderly romances Lennon's every word in a cascading flood of multipronged animation. Raskin marries the terrifyingly genius pen work of James Braithwaite with masterful digital illustration by Alex Kurina, resulting in a spell-binding vessel for Lennon's boundless wit, and timeless message.

It's all there. In a flower. In the music. It's all there.