We’ve got not one, but TWO new CD piles today: The first one is string-crazy. The second is a mish mash of vocals, instrumental, orchestral, jazz and your favorites from the Great Depression.
Category: Resources
Yo. “Lo.”
It was 38 years ago today that the first internet message was sent. On October 29, 1969, the word “Lo” was sent from UCLA to Stanford via the network then called the ARPANET. They were trying to send the message “log in,” but the system crashed before they could send the “g.” UCLA did a big thing for the 35th anniversary in 2004. Naturally the Mudd has a book mentioning the ARPANET.
That same day across the continent, a work by Jon Hassell for four players with hand-held magnetic tape heads, Superball, was premiered in Ithaca, N.Y. They were so last century.
Cocktails, Anyone?
Eli Whitney applied for a patent on the cotton gin on this day in 1793, a patent he was granted March 14, 1794. The U.S. Patent Office web site states: “Eli Whitney watched a cat pull feathers through a cage — it was how he thought of the invention now known as the cotton gin.” One must wonder: as Eli watched this disturbing scene, did he do nothing to rescue the unfortunate player in this “light bulb” moment? For surely these feathers were attached to some hapless bird who was trapped in that cage.
Let’s hoist a glass to Eli Whitney and the cotton gin, a name and an invention inextricably linked in grade school and barely thought about since then. And read about all kinds of American inventors.
More and More CDs
Here at the Mudd we’re nothing if not eclectic. This latest CD pile has Bach cello transcriptions for piano and a new St. Matthew passion, “Professor Bad Trip,” and Donaueschinger Musiktage 2002. Who could ask for anything more?
Does This Look Funny To You?
Pablo Picasso was born on this day in 1881. On Oct. 25, 1955 Tappan sold its first microwave oven. It cost $1,200. That same year Picasso painted this pitcher. It’s worth $8,000-12,000. If only he’d had access to a microwave, maybe he could have melted the actual pitcher and painted it the way it REALLY looked instead of having to use his imagination.
Here’s a super cool Picasso site from Texas A & M University.
O Mole Mio
National Mole Day is today. Please choose from the following the type of mole that is being recognized:
1) the kind that lives in the ground
2) the kind that lives on your skin
3) the kind who infiltrates an organization
4) a spicy sauce made with chilies and usually chocolate
5) a mass (in grams) whose number is equal to the atomic mass of the molecule
If you said #5 you would probably fall down laughing at this joke that passes for humor in chemistry circles:
Q: What did Avogadro teach his students in math class?
A: Moletiplication
Curl up by the fire with a book on molecular theory.
And More CDs!
They’re coming in faster than we can post them: more CDs. This time it’s 20th century chamber music, an opera like you’ve never heard before, a CD featuring one of LU’s Artist Series performers, plus Lang Lang at Carnegie Hall.
New CDs!!
It’s about time, you may well say, and we agree. If you’re a fan of close vocal harmonies, cello concertos and porcine super heroes, check out today’s new CD pile.
Nietzsche is Pietzsche
Today marks the 163th anniversary of the birth of Friedrich Nietzsche, philosopher extraordinaire and (who knew?) opera buff. He had definite opinions: Bizet, good; Wagner, bad. Of course, being a philosopher, he was a little more wordy than that. As quoted in his entry in Grove, the music in Carmen “is wicked, cunning, fatalistic: it remains at the same time popular … It is rich. It is precise. It constructs, organizes, finishes.” On the other hand, “Wagner’s art is sick.” Yikes.
If you’ve a hankering for the wicked and cunning, here’s Callas as Carmen. Sick art more your thing? How about a little Walküre with Kirsten Flagstad? Or read something by the man himself.
Reading Scientific Papers
This “Quick Tutorial on Reading Scientific Papers” from the Purdue University Libraries is a great introduction to the how and why of scientific papers. Its avowed goal: “To make reading scientific papers as painless as possible.” What’s not to like about that?