Feedback to A.Word.A.Day with Anu Garg
From: Ellen
Blackstone Subject:
Silence Soon silence will have
passed into legend. Man has turned his
back on silence. Day after day he
invents machines and devices that increase noise and distract humanity from the
essence of life, contemplation, meditation. Tooting, howling, screeching,
booming, crashing, whistling, grinding, and trilling bolster his ego.--Jean
Arp, artist and poet (16 Sep 1887-1948) This
quotation reminded me of recordist Gordon Hempton’s search for “one square inch
of silence”--not actual silence of course, but the absence of manmade sounds--in
the Hoh Rain Forest in western Washington State. Here’s Gordon’s recording, as found on BirdNote.
From: David
Fischer Subject:
capriole “Capriole” has several special meanings in
the world of early music, all more or less related to leaping. Thoinot Arbeau’s “Orchesographie” is the most
significant discussion of dance steps and music before 1600. In this work, Capriol is the student who
wishes to improve his social skills by learning dancing. A capriole was also the leap occurring at the
end of every six-step pattern in the galliard.
The Capriol Suite
is a beautiful modern setting of several renaissance dances by Peter Warlock.
From: Jeff
Balch
Subject: Cervantes/Shakespeare
anachronicity In the previous issue of
AWADmail, Jack Miles wrote, “It may be of interest to note that both Miguel de
Cervantes and William Shakespeare died on the same day, April 23, 1616.” Cervantes and Shakespeare did not die on the
same day. Shakespeare died a week and
half later. While Spain had adopted the
Gregorian calendar in 1582, England remained behind the times, sticking with
the Julian calendar until 1752. When
Shakespeare died on April 23, 1616 in England, it was May 3rd in Spain, and
Cervantes was long gone.
Graphic artist Kenneth Larsen kicked off 2014 with a fun new original “Dallas”
illustration. In a comic-style piece,
Larsen revisits Pam Ewing’s magic shower stall, and keeps the dream alive with
a tongue-in-cheek spin on the infamous Dream Season cliffhanger. Larsen’s sharp-witted twist on “Dallas’s”
most controversial season-ender continues a tradition of parodies of Leonard
Katzman & Co.’s crazy plan to bring a dead-and-buried Bobby Ewing back to
freshly lathered life in the “Dallas” season 9 finale. The outrageous writing
stunt has been fodder for numerous television and pop culture parodies over the
last 25 years. Most famously, in 1990, when Bob Newhart’s second hit sitcom “Newhart” was signing off CBS, Bob Newhart brilliantly made
its final punchline a mashup homage to both his earlier hit sitcom, “The Bob
Newhart Show” and “Dallas.” Bob Newhart
recounts that his real life wife Ginnie proposed the idea to Newhart at a holiday party several years before the
show’s end. Suzanne Pleshette jumped at
the chance to be in on the joke when the time came. Read about Family Guy with live-action cameos
by Victoria Principal and Patrick Duffy reprising their roles at Bobby and Pam
Ewing (1999); TNT "Shower" Campaign a parody ad campaign for its revival
of the 80’s soap. TNT and Grey New York
developed an ad campaign based around the original series’ controversial shower
scene to reveal the cast of the new series (2012); and Breaking Bad
alternate ending (2013). See graphics and link to a couple
of videos at http://dallasdivasderby.com/blog/2014/01/kenneth-larsen-keeps-the-dream-alive/
The term jack- o’-lantern was first applied not to pumpkins, but people. As far back as 1663, the term meant a man
with a lantern, or a night watchman.
Just a decade or so later, it began to be used to refer to the mysterious
lights sometimes seen at night over bogs, swamps, and marshes. These ghost lights—variously called
jack-o’-lanterns, hinkypunks, hobby lanterns, corpse candles, fairy lights,
will-o'-the-wisps, and fool's fire—are created when gases from decomposing plant
matter ignite when they come in contact with electricity or heat or as they
oxidize. For centuries before there was
this scientific explanation, people told stories to explain the mysterious
lights. In Ireland, dating as far back
as the 1500s, those stories often revolved around a guy named Jack. As the story goes, Stingy Jack, often
described as a blacksmith, invited the Devil to join him for a drink. Stingy Jack didn't want to pay for the drinks
from his own pocket, and convinced the Devil to turn himself into a coin that
could be used to settle the tab. The
Devil did so, but Jack skipped out on the bill and kept the Devil-coin in his
pocket with a silver cross so the Devil couldn’t shift back to his original
form. Jack eventually let the Devil loose,
but made him promise that he wouldn’t seek revenge on Jack, and wouldn’t claim
his soul when he died. The legend
immigrated with Irish laborers to the New World and collided with another Old
World tradition and a New World crop. Making vegetable lanterns was a
tradition of the British Isles, and carved-out turnips, beets, and potatoes
were stuffed with coal, wood embers, or candles as impromptu lanterns to
celebrate the fall harvest. As a prank,
kids would sometimes wander off the road with a glowing veggie and trick their
friends and travelers into thinking they were Stingy Jack or another lost
soul. In America, pumpkins were easy
enough to come by and good for carving, and got absorbed both into the carved
lantern tradition and the associated prank. Over time, kids refined the
prank and began carving crude faces into the pumpkins to kick up the fright
factor and make the lanterns look like a disembodied heads. By the mid-1800s, Stingy Jack’s nickname was
applied to the prank pumpkin lanterns that echoed his own lamp, and the pumpkin
jack-o’-lantern got its name.
Berkman Center Launches New Internet Data Dashboard Dashboard
debuts at World Economic Forum meeting in Geneva September 28, 2015 Cambridge, MA—The Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard
University is pleased to announce the launch of the Internet Monitor dashboard, a
freely accessible tool that aims to improve information for policymakers,
researchers, advocates, and user communities working to shape the future of the
Internet by helping them understand trends in Internet health and activity
through data analysis and visualization.
“Over three billion people around the globe use the Internet—for
communication, for education, for livelihood,” said Urs Gasser, Executive
Director of the Berkman Center. “As the
Internet becomes a vital part of more and more people’s lives and as we shape
its future, we need both data and analysis to help understand how it’s
working. The Internet Monitor dashboard
brings this data and analysis together in an easily shareable way.” The dashboard lets users customize a
collection of data visualization widgets—some offering real-time data—about
Internet access and infrastructure, online content controls, and digital
activity. Users can create multiple
collections that enable easy comparisons across countries and data sources, and
are quick to configure, edit, and share.
In addition to creating their own collections, visitors to the dashboard
will be able to view a selection of featured collections based on topics such
as online media and network traffic around the world. Read more and see graphics at https://cyber.law.harvard.edu/node/99141
Everyone
you know will be able to rate you on the terrifying ‘Yelp for people’—whether
you want them to or not by Cailin
Dewey The most
surprising thing about Peeple—basically Yelp, but for humans—may be the fact
that no one has yet had the gall to launch something like it. When the app does launch, probably in late
November, you will be able to assign reviews and one- to five-star ratings to
everyone you know: your exes, your
co-workers, the old guy who lives next door. You can’t opt out—once someone puts your name
in the Peeple system, it’s there unless you violate the site’s terms of
service. Users can “report anything they deem
inaccurate” to the site.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-intersect/wp/2015/09/30/everyone-you-know-will-be-able-to-rate-you-on-the-terrifying-yelp-for-people-whether-you-want-them-to-or-not/
Jennifer Ries
and her husband were traveling to the airport for an international trip when
she decided she should charge her e-cigarette battery. After plugging the device into the car's
charger, liquid started dripping from the battery, she said. The car filled with a smell like nail polish
remover. Then, with a loud bang, the
battery exploded. Flames shot out,
catching Ries' dress and seat on fire. On
September 30, 2015, a Riverside County Superior Court jury awarded her nearly
$1.9 million in a lawsuit she brought against the electronic cigarette's
distributor, VapCigs; its wholesaler, Cartons 2 Go; and the Corona store where
she bought it, Tobacco Expo. Her product
liability lawsuit alleged that the businesses in the supply chain were
"involved in the distribution of a product that failed to conform to any
kind of reasonable safety expectation—battery chargers should not explode—and
failed to warn about known dangers."
Ries' attorney, Gregory L. Bentley, said he believed the case was the
first e-cigarette explosion lawsuit to be tried in the United States. Bentley said that despite huge sales, the
fledgling e-cigarette industry is largely unregulated, with few safeguards for
consumer protection. Electronic
cigarettes have been available for sale in the United States since 2007, and
constitute a multibillion-dollar industry, with more than 2.5 million users,
according to a 2014 report on e-cigarette fires and explosions
by the U.S. Fire Administration. The
report included an analysis of 25 e-cigarette fires since 2009, based on media
reports. Of those, 20 of the fires were
caused when the device's battery was being charged, the report said. Ries' case
was included in the report. The Fire
Administration said e-cigarettes often use lithium-ion batteries that include
flammable liquid electrolytes that can explode when they overheat, such as when
they receive too much voltage while charging.
Many e-cigarettes have USB ports for connecting the device to power
adapters provided by the manufacturer. But the "ordinary USB port charging
connections" allow users to plug them in to other adapters or USB ports—which
can provide varied voltages and electric current. If the battery receives too much current, it
can explode, the report said. Hailey
Branson-Potts http://www.latimes.com/local/crime/la-me-ecigarette-burns-verdict-20151001-story.html
http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com Issue 1355
October 1, 2015 On this date in
1880, John Philip Sousa became leader of the United States
Marine Band. On this date in
1908, Ford put the Model T car
on the market at a price of US$825.
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