art, food, music, citylife and other mental stimuli
apalazzo | December 28, 2006(I wish)
I though I could spend a day or too relaxing ... but it seems like I can't do it. Today was spent cleaning the apartment in preparation for a family visit down from Montreal.
We're actually meeting up with my parents, brother, aunt and cousins in Burlington Vermont for some skiing (thank FSM for the recent snowfall in northern New England!). We'll be leaving in about an hour or so.
But while I was cleaning I was redesigning our humble Boston Book club blog and trying to give it a nice new style (what do you think?).
Yes we have a bookclub in up here. It's a great excuse to get…
apalazzo | December 19, 2006Last week was too stressful - although by Friday afternoon I had put together the pieces of the puzzle and it all makes sense (I'd tell you more about it, potentially I've stumbled upon a really cool little "cellular circuit", but I'd rather publish it first. Mother Nature has so many neat tricks up it's sleeve.) To relieve that stress, we took off on the Chinatown bus (actually we took the "Boston Deluxe" which travels between the Prudential and 86th street on the Upper East Side.
Highlights of this trip:
- Santa Con (i.e. a thousand drunk Santas running around central park). One of the…
apalazzo | December 14, 2006From Kazuo Ishiguro's Never Let Me Go:
"When I watched you dancing that day, I saw something else. I saw a new world coming rapidly. More scientific, efficient, yes. More cures for old sicknesses. Very good. But a harsh, cruel world. And I saw a little girl, her eyes tightly closed, holding to her breast the old kind world, one that she knew in her heart could not remain, and she was holding it and pleading, never to let her go. That is what I saw. It wasn't really you, what you were doing, I know that. But I saw you and it broke my heart. And I've never forgotten."
apalazzo | November 15, 2006I haven't written about any extracurricular activities in a while (I don't have to as Tulula takes care of that, but don't tell her that I sent you to her blog ... and yes every post is both in English and in Espanol.)
Last night we saw Anne-Sophie Mutter at Symphony Hall.
What can I say?
Mutter is such a strong passionate violinist, she imposes herself upon whatever she plays. Just like Claire Waterman-Storer, Anne-Sophie Mutter is a force of nature. At times you get the impression that she wields her bow like a sword, dripping from the blood of the piece she just slayed.
Don't believe me…
apalazzo | November 4, 2006Well, last week we had Frank Zappa comment on the state of the media, now let's hear what Thom Yorke has to say about the political process:
And if you want to sing along:
I will stop, I will stop at nothing.
Say the right things when electioneering
I trust I can rely on your vote.
When I go forwards you go backwards
and somewhere we will meet.
When I go forwards you go backwards
and somewhere we will meet.
Ha ha ha
Riot shields, voodoo economics,
The I.M.F., taking care of business,
I trust I can rely on your vote.
When I go forwards you go backwards
and somewhere we will meet.
When I go…
apalazzo | October 28, 2006OK one last comment from my trip to western Connecticut. One morning I flipped on the TV, and got bombarded by campaign ads that focused on the congressional race there. Real nasty ads like "so-and-so supports sex-offenders and is a friend of terrorists". I can't believe that people fall for such infantile name-calling techniques. It all reminded me of a Frank Zappa song ... so without further ado here is I am the Slime.
apalazzo | October 27, 2006Last night I saw Julia Sweeney's Letting Go of God at the Sander's theatre. It was a great show. I won't go into too many details, but just to let you know, it's a longer version of the monologue that appeared in This American Life last year. Here's a review of the NYC performance in the NY Times.
There are a couple of things that I found interesting:
- Beginning from a person of moderate faith, she started questioned everything she had always assumed in an attempt to reconnect with her faith. Her investigation and critique of faith is likely than the confrontational approach employed by some…
apalazzo | September 23, 2006Why? You can find treasures there. I once owned this book, then lent it to a friend who is now studying place cells in Bristol, UK. (Bruno you can keep the book.)
apalazzo | September 21, 2006OK it's been a while since I've really gone off and wrote about ... art, food, music, city life and other mental stimuli ...
(I've been persuaded to even start a category)
But here we go ...
I've learned that Jean LeLoup, the musical genius that is virtually unknown outside of Quebec and France (mostly because he sings almost exclusively in French), has released a new album, Mexico. Oui ca fait du temp qu'on a vue quelque chose de Jean. Tabarnak.
I've also found out that Jean has killed his old identity and has picked up his birth name of Leclerc.
Here is the title song from his new CD.
And…
apalazzo | April 13, 2006Yesterday I attended Seed/Harvard Bookstore/The Edge's sponsored event: What do you believe to be true even though you cannot prove it. The discussion narrowed down to key topics ... consciousness, free will ... etc.
Here's a link to a Harvard Crimson article about the whole affair: Profs Debate Consciousness.
(I'll write a longer entry on the whole "What do you believe to be true even though you cannot prove" lecture later today.)
One tidbit that came out: apparently Freeman Dyson (noted cosmologist and member of the faithful) had some nasty things to say about Daniel Dennett. When I find…