Cell Phone ettiquette

The other day in class, a little tune started to play. My flustered student rummaged in her bag, but it wasn't her cell phone going off. It was her computer! Even though it was closed, somehow it had turned itself on and was playing a tune. We all ended up trying to help her figure out how to turn it off, because none of us knew why it was happening: was it an alarm she'd set accidentally? a ghost? we finally shut it down and had a good laugh, but it reminded me of a post I'd recently seen about Cell phone etiquette. We all have our pet peeves!
Ever wanted to tell someone to get off the phone during a concert? Here are two versions of how to do it.

Hello, Hello, ( yep yep yep yep yep)

Folks (if there are any out there besides my faithful two!) I keep writing more serious posts about more serious topics, and then not posting them. I'm not sure where the inhibitions are coming from. Maybe it's because so much of what I want to write about is really too personal for what this space was originally intended to be; maybe it's because I feel guilty putting quality time into the blog that should go into other kinds of writing. Actually, I haven't been writing much because I've been grading midterms and now I have to read graduate student proposals and scholarship applications.

From my couch I can see a squirrel in the tree outside the window (no leaves yet to hide the critters).

P.S.
Sesame Street-Gaga mash-up: the song Telephone with the space guys:


My brain has been colonized by Lady Gaga songs. I also like this "Key of Awesome" parody, and this Pamplamoose cover.

Theme Thursday: Signs

via Fresca , a notice of Theme Thursdays. Today's theme is Signs. I took this photo somewhere in San Francisco in 2007.

Edited to add: Theme Thursday participants are a lovely social bunch! thanks for dropping by and for the comments. Nanny from The Good House posted an old song called "Signs" by the Five Men Electric Band (1970). I hadn't thought of it in years!
Here's a great cover by a local(ish) band Tesla.

The awesomeness of grizzly bears

The Minnesota Zoo has a YouTube Channel, and they posted a great video of 3 grizzly bears destroying a 500 lb pumpkin. They are an amazing sight as they emerge from their cave, so big, so plushy, such long claws and strength!


But the silence of the zoo-cam video is a little disappointing. I love this video of the same event shot by a zoo visitor, and what a great soundtrack! And the extra footage of the bear playing with a piece of the pumpkin in the water is wonderful.
The zoo also uses the bears for education: "Bear Awareness Week" shows what it looks like if you don't bear-proof your campsite!

Eight images that amaze you

Three years ago, a blogger tagged me with a meme, asking for eight images that amazed me, or was it eight amazing images? I made a post that included this image of a reader, one I used to have on a postcard, and which now serves as my avatar for Disqus comments.

I should do that exercise again, but with eight different images. Any one else up for it?

Why the Health Care Reform bill must pass today

Is it perfect? no, far from it. Must it pass? Absolutely, yes. Today is the vote, and I can barely stand to watch the coverage. So I'm going to listen to this speech.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Full transcript of President Obama's speech at HuffPo.

Muse's "Knights of Cydonia" live at SXSW

I love the band Muse. Not being a hipster, I have no hipster cred to lose by saying so! I have never been able to see them live, and probably never will because their stadium shows sell out in a few minutes, and frankly, I'm too old to enjoy stadium shows anymore--the last one I saw was at the Target Center with Tina Turner, in the nosebleed seats, and the whole experience of trying to get from the car to our seats was an ordeal I don't want to repeat! Remembering all those "Days on the Green" and outdoor all-day concerts at Berkeley's Greek Theater I attended when I was younger, I'm amazed. Old, I tell you, old!
Some lucky fans got to see them at the 2010 South by Southwest (aka #sxsw for those of us who have been inundated by Twitter reports from happy attendees) festival in Austin in a smaller venue, and the band has posted two of the songs from that performance on their MySpace page. The second song here is "Knights of Cydonia" (at about 8:11 into the video) and it seriously kicks ass.

Muse - Live from South By Southwest 2010

MUSE | MySpace Music Videos

"Dramatic rage"

Here is the great Marilyn Horne in a San Francisco Opera production of Vivaldi's Orlando Furioso from 1989. I was fortunate enough to see her perform this role, shortly before this recording was made. I remember how she planted her feet as she sang. She is 57 in this video. What an amazing talent! For comparison, you can hear her sing the same aria in 1978 at a faster tempo in this Venetian production. Marilyn Horne was successfully treated for pancreatic cancer in 2003, and continues to teach and promote the art-song repertoire and the art of the recital among young singers.



Sorge l'irato nembo

e la fatal tempesta
col sussurrar dell'onde
e s'agita, e confonde
e cielo, e mar.

Ma fugge in un baleno

l'orrida nube infesta,
e placido, e sereno
il cielo appar.

For her encore, the divine Ms. Horne will sing "C is for Cookie"

Dance in the movies

What a goldmine for dance lovers! Flavorwire has posted the videos of 35 favorite dance sequences from the movies. They got such a great response in the comments that they posted 25 more dance sequences in film. Yummy!

Mexican movies in the fifties had some amazing musica and dance numbers. The mambo craze was big, with Pérez Prado's band (and Beny Moré the singer), so films with mambo dance routines were popular. Here's a number called "El ruletero". Sorry about the sound, but it's a classic. The film is "La reina del mambo" (The Mambo Queen) with María Antonieta Pons dancing, one of the many Cubans who came to Mexico to work in the music business, and who became a huge star.


Here's the great Beny Moré singing while the dancer Tongolele combines classical dance moves with AfroCuban rhythms in the film El Rey del Barrio (1949). The music is pure AfroCuban country rumba; Beny invokes the orisha Changó in the first part of the song.


Here's another Cuban band La Sonora Matancera with the Colombian singer Nelson Pinedo.


The Havana sequence in Guys and Dolls with Marlon Brando and Jean Simmons shows a U.S. stereotype of the mambo.



Do you have a favorite dance movie? or a favorite scene of dancing in a movie?

Leo the hairy

Bad hair? moi?

Beny Moré

I saw a movie about the great Cuban singer Beny Moré (called El Benny), and I'm trying to find some clips that convey some of his magic. Only a shadow, but enough.

Taking the "bad hair" challenge

Fresca issued "The Truth and Reconciliation Hairstyle Challenge" challenge, backed by her own documentation of her life in images, and courageously met by Manfred Allseasons, to find and post an image of our "bad hair styles" of the past. Unfortunately, I have very few photos of myself from before digital days, a result of being an army brat and moving a lot, of a father who made slide shows instead of prints, and of the fact that I didn't myself own a camera until 15 years ago. But a dear friend from high school who took pictures for the yearbook sent me this photo after we reconnected on Facebook (before I got mad at Facebook and deleted my account!). I am grateful to have this picture of me and my bad hair; we all wore our hair parted in the middle in those days, but what was up with those awful layers? I was either 15 or 16 in that shot. Thanks, Jim B!

Waiting for Glee....

Fellow Gleeks, can you believe we have to wait until April for the show to start again? Jimmy Fallon decided to put on his own version of Glee.

The LXD at TED 2010

Standing ovation!

Why I will be watching the Oscars this Sunday

For the dancing! Adam Shankmann has brought in the dancers from The LXD and many SYTYCD alums. Here's a preview:

Felled by fibro flare-up

I had to cancel class today because my fibromyalgia symptoms have flared up.

Remedy to the blues: a little robot named Keepon dancing to a song by the band Spoon "I turn my camera on."