Mmm

On hot sunny days the city of Berkeley smells like warm toast.

Women's history

...has an odd way of disappearing, as Echidne observes.

Recently I was surprised to learn that Sonia Sotomayor entered Princeton a mere three years after the school even started admitting female undergraduates. (She was a freshman in '72). And I learned that when Princeton started admitting women, they imposed quotas on the numbers of both men and women -- keeping the number of men in the undergraduate class the same (couldn't have any men "losing their place" to a woman), and capping the number of women admitted at 16% of the incoming class. When Princeton switched to equal access admissions for men and women five years later in 1974, the percentage of women in the undergraduate class more than doubled.

One could interpret this history in various ways. But how many people even know about it? All this media talk about affirmative action and quotas in relation to Sonia Sotomayor... and yet when was the last time someone mentioned this?

Speaking of music

This is an interesting idea.

"Buy music. Make money" goes the tagline (snappy!).

On the one hand, the idea is kind of awesome, explicitly putting the distribution model in the hands of listeners. On the other hand, I dunno, the whole social dynamic changes with this model, in ways that probably aren't completely predictable.

Also interesting to me is that the site was created by some students at Berkeley's School of Information, where I'll be in the fall... How did my interest in linguistics lead me to the i-school again? So weird.

Ease on down the road

In addition to his other talents, Michael Jackson was a brilliant dancer. He had mastered a prodigious array of dance styles and moods, some of which may not be immediately familiar to those of us who came up in the eighties -- but poke around on youtube a bit, and this becomes clearer. When I watch him dance, I see the funkified elan of James Brown, the lithe staccato of Gelsey Kirkland, the sense of wonder and the visual showmanship of Marcel Marceau, and... oh, a million other things. Most of all, he reminds me of Fred Astaire. Something about the way they move -- I don't know how to describe it.

While riffing on the history of American dance, Michael Jackson created a style that is uniquely, quintessentially, his own.

There are a million great videos of him floating around online. One of my favorites of the moment is this one of Smooth Criminal:



I love the way dance is integrated with the story. It's like a mini-ballet. And below is a clever remix with Fred Astaire:




What is it about the way they move? The usual word for Astaire is "elegant," and they do both move elegantly, but there is more to it than that, somehow.

(Also see the original Beat It video, and this West Side Story remix.)

I am also loving this clip from The Wiz, which gives a little taste of the movement style that Jackson created for the scarecrow character:

So much joy :-)

Ease on down the road, Michael.

*Videos updated

Translate for Iran

Wish I spoke Persian/Farsi.

Talk to Amy Iris

No one would ever mistake her for a human being, but she is entertaining. Ask her what her favorite song is :-)

Memorial Day

Have had this poem in my head all day...

Notice What This Poem Is Not Doing

The light along the hills in the morning
comes down slowly, naming the trees
white, then coasting the ground for stones to nominate.

Notice what this poem is not doing.

A house, a house, a barn, the old
quarry, where the river shrugs--
how much of this place is yours?

Notice what this poem is not doing.

Every person gone has taken a stone
to hold, and catch the sun. The carving
says, "Not here, but called away."

Notice what this poem is not doing.

The sun, the earth, the sky, all wait.
The crowns and redbirds talk. The light
along the hills has come, has found you.

Notice what this poem has not done.

- William Stafford