If you’re actually in a video store, the stakes are different. You’re engaged. You’re on a mission to find a movie — the right movie. You had to get out of bed, get dressed, and go to a store. You had to think about what you want, why this movie looks good and not that…
To us today, the word “black” carries with it a specific cluster of associations informed by history, culture, stereotypes, and literature. Othello may have started in conversation with Shakespeare’s definition of blackness, but today, he speaks with ours. A much more interesting question, really, is: Why is Othello black? Why did Shakespeare write a domestic…
Similar:Living Room PhysicsI’ve blogged before about my eight-year-…EducationDowntime with the boy.PersonalI think this #denoising filter makes my #CGI scene look a bit like a hand-illustrated chil…I think this #denoising filter makes my …AestheticsMe (glares in iambic pentameter)Me: I need to post the opening lecture f…AcademiaSecurity is Sleeping in the Back Seat of the CarFor decades,…
Similar:Among today’s major professional accomplishments: installing this hook. #springbreakMy office door feels more complete now. …AcademiaThis class has been everything that I expect it would be and I cannot believe that we are …Some days are slogs. Some weeks are slo…AcademiaProgress.PersonalAbove the Forward Ops conference platform we see the chief engineer's station and a…
Similar:The Forsaken (#StarTrek #DS9 Rewatch, Season 1, Episode 17) Lwaxana Troi and the station c…Rewatching ST:DS9 Bashir is hosting t…CultureAnd again I ush.PersonalThis is about half of the #steampunk control panel details I've created in the past m…AestheticsThe boy is visiting the Prohibition exhibit @HistoryCenter while I continue at NeMLA.PersonalOn this date in 1999 I…
As new age synthesizer music, a rich baritone narrates: “Audisee presents: The War of the Worlds. The year is 2015 A.D. From the first launching into space, in 1961, to the establishment of a base on Jupiter this year, man has not encountered extraterrestrial life forms.” When I was about 10 or 11, I loved…
Similar:The Mom From The Cat in the Hat Finally SpeaksAs a toddler, my son once methodically s…AmusingWest Side Story (Aug 9-12) #somethingscomingCultureThe film Carolyn was in is a finalist. The screening will start soon. #48hrfilmproject Sup…PersonalBeing a deaf lipreader during a pandemic means increased social anxietyEven social events are a minefield. The …AcademiaOverheard: "This…
Canon Australia wants to sell cameras. This soft-sell video flatters the creative ambitions of customers in order to make them want to invest money in a fancy camera. We should be critical of the premise, because the video is not an art project or a psychological study. Still, this is good storytelling, and helps make a…
What if universities stopped buying academic journals, and put the money towards hiring editors who helped their faculty publish their scholarship in their own free, open-source journals? I don’t know how much labour goes into running a prestigious journal, but let’s say all the universities that really need those specialised mathematics journals sat down and…
No Christians in my social media feed care about the design of that cup. Lots of people in my social media feed have reposted stories critical of the silly Christians who get all worked up about the design of the cup. Full disclosure: I don’t drink coffee. [C]ontrary to a few breathless media reports, most Christians…
Similar:Who Watches the Watchers (ST:TNG Season Three Episode 4) Rationalist, talky mythbustingRewatching ST:TNG after a 20-year break….EthicsIf Wishes Were Horses (#StarTrek #DS9 Rewatch, Season 1, Episode 16) Hallucinations become…Rewatching ST:DS9 Quark tries to inte…CultureMicrosoft has no shame: Bing spit on my ‘Chrome’ search with a fake AI answer It was time to download Google Chrom…BusinessCarolyn…
This is probably the first time in history that young readers themselves are demanding protection from the disturbing content of their course texts, yet reading has been seen as a threat to mental health for thousands of years. In accordance with the paternalistic ethos of ancient Greece, Socrates said that most people couldn’t handle written…
A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Similar:Start writing your novel. Journey with Seton Hill University t…AcademiaPrime Stage Theatre to end 2018-2019 season with Shakespeare comedy Twelfth Night, May 3–1…2019 Pittsburgh Public Theater Shakespea…CultureIs this why oldsters love nostalgia? I’m 50. I’m in my office casually sharp…CultureWhen T.S. Eliot Invented the Hipster Prufrock cannot bring himself to…CultureYes, this…
The story of Play-Doh began when Kutol, a Cincinnati based soap company, was about to go under in the late 1920s. Cleo McVicker, just 21 years old, was tasked with selling off the company’s remaining assets, which at the time comprised mainly of powdered hand soap. Once that was done, the company would be too. …
Carolyn started rehearsals for PICT Classic Theatre’s Oliver Twist this week. She’s playing a member of Fagin’s gang. Last year in Great Expectations, she split a role; this year there is no double-casting, so she’s in every performance. I’ll be doing a lot of driving. This is not the musical Oliver; it’s the director’s original…
The conventional wisdom is that humanities majors are wasting all that tuition money and dooming themselves to lives of underemployment. The conventional wisdom is wrong. Humanities degrees are actually worth well more than the cost of college. […] The present value of the extra earnings that graduates in humanities majors can expect over their lifetime…
“We at The Recorder strive to ensure that every piece of writing we publish contains timely and thoroughly reported information, and because each sentence of this article contains at least one factual error, we made the call to kill it,” said editor-in-chief Hannah Lowry, noting numerous “red flags” in the article that included an incorrect…
Tonight, when I got home after all the evening’s ballet and piano lessons were over, I was plugging in my laptop at my desk and knocked down a little framed picture — it’s a photo my wife took of me on our first date. (On that same occasion, I also took a picture of her,…
Students in my Shakespeare class will be attending this play. Student actors at Seton Hill University are off on a journey through one of William Shakespeare’s most popular romantic comedies, “A Midsummer Night’s Dream.” Not even the writing style of the Bard — sometimes difficult to master for those new to the playwright’s poetic verse…
When I publish as a scholar, my goal is not to make money, but to share my intellectual creation. That’s part of my job description, so my university writes my paycheck with the expectation that I will publish. My publications will have more impact if more people read them. Hiding them behind subscription paywalls will…