NPR: World Cafe’s David Dye interviews Chris Walla about his newest album, Field Manual.  Have any of you heard it?  NPR: World Cafe Story

This is really amazing.  Dan Phillips creates homes using 85% recycled or reused materials, which is incredible in itself, but Phillips works with the working poor to…  Just watch. 

via Treehugger Article check out Phillips’s website.

Anyone looking to major in geology?  Something to think about: NPR Story.

Domingo Martin plays a song using his Moleskine journal as his only instrument.  Video at Moleskinerie.com Article.

Interesting commentary on the current election slogans.  In These Times Article

Library WII.  Gothamist Article

John Marks writes about Stoker’s Dracula and how it reminds him of . . . Easter.  Just check it out: NPR Story.

with some sad news.

Arthur C. Clarke, author of 2001: A Space Odyssey, has died.  I’m not sure how many of you are familiar with his works, but there are many eulogies and tributes available online (Christian Science Monitor, The New York Times, NPR, Google Search) for you to check out.  Much has been made of his most famous work, 2001: A Space Odyssey (first a book then a movie with Kubrick), but I am most familiar with him though his World of Strange Powers miniseries.

We have lost four brilliant minds in less than a year (Clarke, Ingmar Bergman, Madeline L’Engle, and of course, Kurt Vonnegut).  I’m not sure why this has caught me so off guard, but I can’t help but imagine what my world would be like if I hadn’t read A Wrinkle in Time when I was in elementary school, if Clarke’s World of Strange Powers hadn’t scared the pants off me when I was younger, or if I hadn’t watched The Seventh Seal in college.  I won’t attempt to explain the impact Vonnegut’s oeuvre has had on my love of reading, because I’m not sufficiently talented to explain that in a blog entry.  It seems to me, though, that when an author goes beyond simply keeping the reader’s attention, beyond entertainment, and is able to impact the reader’s perception of the world, the author has tapped into the true power of the written word.  That is, I believe, the point of most (if not all) writing.  Just something to think about.

For your journal (perhaps), here are Clarke’s Three Laws of Prediction:

1. When a distinguished but elderly scientist states that something is possible, he is almost certainly right. When he states that something is impossible, he is very probably wrong.
2. The only way of discovering the limits of the possible is to venture a little way past them into the impossible.
3. Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.

What authors, artists, musicians, inventors, magicians, scientists, politicians, philosophers, or saints have had an impact on your life?

Per aspera ad Astra.

The books are in!  You can pick up your copy at the front desk of the B&N at 41st.  They will be under TSAS or Jesse Stallings.  Or I suppose you could just ask for the title…  We will begin discussing the novel on Monday, so try to get through the first chapter at least.  Do not skip the Introduction.  Eggers has some very interesting stuff to say, even before the story actually begins.

Your journal assignment over the weekend is to reflect on the novel.

Let me know what you think.

Also, if you read this and have a way to contact other members of the class, please spread the word.  Ask them to do the same.

I just spoke with B&N at 41st.  They tell me that Eggers’s Heartbreaking Work should be at the store by the 10th, which is Monday.   We will have a separate reading over the weekend and a discussion on Monday, so this shouldn’t be a problem.  I’ll let you know if they arrive before then.

Tomorrow we’ll be discussing and analyzing our favorite songs.  Bring a copy to class (on a CD or in a music player) so the class can enjoy.  Because, after all, "what [is] a personality if [not] a drop-down menu, a collection of likes and dislikes?"

[Insert obligatory "please keep it clean" disclaimer here.]