theater, natural history and conservation, the utterly mundane, and Etruscan 8-tracks
Annie Murphy Paul recaps recent research that indicates dyslexics enjoy certain perceptual and cognitive advantages over baseline members of the population.
Given that dyslexia is universally referred to as a “learning disability,” the latter experiment [by Matthew Schneps et al.] is especially remarkable: in some situations, it turns out, those with dyslexia are actually the superior learners.
Patrick Smith and I are of one mind.
I’m traveling off-duty, just a regular old passenger. Approaching the body scanner, I “opt out,” as I always do. I’ll be taken aside for a thorough pat-down.
I don’t opt out because of worries about radiation. I do it because I find it appalling that passengers are effectively asked to pose naked in order to board an airplane.
Though I have some concerns about the radiation, too.
Crisp poetic offering by Todd Boss at Poetry Daily.
I’m experimenting with tagging a few of the posts here, in addition to the categories that I obsessively rework. The tag cloud in the sidebar is a little lumpy for the time being.
I picked read_me to tag a few select pieces, generally longer, that give you a fuller understanding of how my thinker works.
I’ve been intending to do a more thorough job of documenting the various bus stop signs around the area from the numerous jurisdictions and authorities. Perhaps the spark will come from today’s sighting of one of the snappy new signs for Metrobus, complete with its NextBus stop number. The next N6 is expected to arrive in four minutes.
My from time-to-time colleague Linda Ifert, technical director of the CenterStage theater in the Reston Community Center, is the cover story for the current issue of RA’s magazine.
When reality gives way to art: somewhat fanciful behavior is pictured in a splendid poster (ca. 1926) by Oscar Rabe Hanson promoting commuter rail service in Chicago, part of a long article by J. J. Sedelmaier. The ducklings following the adult Wood Duck would more likely be single file, and more closely bunched. More critically, the little ones would be following a hen, not a drake.
Martin Austermuhle pulls a screen capture from Stephen Colbert’s recent “analysis” of Newt Gingrich’s plans to enfranchise 13,000 Moon colonists, prospectively granting them statehood.
Well, I knew that Kent Minichiello’s Conservation Philosophy class would have a lot of reading, but I’m not sure that I planned for quite this much. This is the reading list, including my two book report books, but missing Santos’ prohibitively priced Managing Planet Earth (loaner copies will circulate) and various offprints.
My presentation on the Cooper is in two weeks. Too bad I don’t have a long commute to carve out reading time for me.
Dick Tufeld, voice of the Robot in TV’s Lost in Space (the only character who sounded remotely grounded in reality), has passed away.
(News via Leta.)
“But to-day, for instance, Mr. M’Choakumchild was explaining to us about Natural Prosperity.”
“National, I think it must have been,” observed Louisa.
“Yes, it was.—But isn’t it the same?” [Sissy] timidly asked.
“You had better say, National, as he said so,” returned Louisa, with her dry reserve.
“National Prosperity. And he said, Now, this schoolroom is a Nation. And in this nation, there are fifty millions of money. Isn’t this a prosperous nation? Girl number twenty, isn’t this a prosperous nation, and a’n’t you in a thriving state?”
“What did you say?” asked Louisa.
“Miss Louisa, I said I didn’t know. I thought I couldn’t know whether it was a prosperous nation or not, and whether I was in a thriving state or not, unless I knew who had got the money, and whether any of it was mine. But that had nothing to do with it. It was not in the figures at all,” said Sissy, wiping her eyes.
“That was a great mistake of yours,” observed Louisa.
—Charles Dickens, Hard Times (1854), book 1, ch. IX
Artomatic 2012 will take place in the Transwestern Presidential Tower on Clark Street in Arlington, as announced by the Crystal City BID. The unjuried, free show celebrating local artists of all kinds runs 18 May to 24 June.
NAHUM: Euh—if I were bothered by vomit, I would not work in the theater.
—Slings and Arrows, season 1, ep. 5
The street name sign that I saw in Dupont Circle two summers ago doesn’t appear to match the new signs spotted by Mike DeBonis on Capitol Hill recently. I rather like these newest signs, judging, at least, from the posted shadowy cellphone image. It’s a pity that the street number modules bolted on at the bottom still look so chintzy.
Joshua Dachs offers a provocative look at a fixture of theater in the last half-century: the black box.
This attempt at neutrality is contradictory. It’s hard to imagine anything less neutral than a completely black room. At best you may find it mysterious, elegant and dark. At worst it may feel uncomfortable, enervating, lifeless and depressing. The black mood of a black space establishes a strong first impression, not a neutral one, and sets a specific emotional starting point for a show.