Though it was a sort of sanctuary for me as a kid, these days, I almost never listen to the radio. This day, however, has been spent listening to lots of WKCR's Dizzy Gillespie 90th Birthday broadcast.
JA walks in and seems to admire George. It's been happening all day. People walk by, hear the music, and are instantly attracted to the shiny white shoebox. JA, however, is even more impressed with the music. He hears a note and I see his eyes light up.
"Ah!" he exclaims.
"That's Dizzy Gillespie," I say.
"I didn't know you knew about this stuff."
… The Royal Society has posted Robert Hooke's notes online. And yes, he apparently was just as cranky as Stephenson portrayed him in The Baroque Cycle.
Scott McCredie explains our incredible sense of balance.
The Space Review caps out its R. A. Heinlein centenary coverage.
On Monday, The Washington Post published a long, enthralling article on Richard Mellon Scaife's messy divorce.
It "includes a dog-snatching, an assault, a night in jail, and that divorce court perennial, allegations of adultery.
"Oh, and there's the money. Three words, people.
"No. Pre. Nup."
There's one presidential candidate who is not afraid to tackle the big issues.
I was happily reading Sasha Frere-Jones' blog about CMJ, when he dropped this linkbomb on me, asking, "If you do not think there is any drumming in this cover of 'Satisfaction,' watch Björk’s hips. Also, a question for physicists, audio engineers, and clerics: how can Björk sing so loudly and not drown out Polly Jean Harvey, even though Harvey never raises her voice particularly high? And a question for music lovers everywhere: why has this song inspired so many good covers?"
And the big one: How could I have been unaware of this clip?
"Pools and pools and pools of chocolate—fifty-thousand-pound, ninety-thousand-pound, Olympic-length pools of chocolate—in the conching rooms in the chocolate factory in Hershey, Pennsylvania. Big, aromatic rooms. Chocolate, far as the eye can see. Viscous, undulating, lukewarm chocolate, viscidized, undulated by the slurping friction of granite rollers rolling through the chocolate over crenellated granite beds at the bottoms of the pools. The chocolate moves. It stands up in brown creamy dunes. Chocolate eddies. Chocolate currents. Gulfs of chocolate. Chocolate deeps. Mares’ tails on the…
