musical cross-modal couplings

Most humans and at least one parrot like to dance.  That involves extracting the tempo from a song and projecting that tempo onto a regular pattern of non-sound-generating movement.  That projection occurs at a low cortical level of perception-action cycles.  Projection works in the opposite direction, too.  Sid Caesar and Nanette Fabray’s Argument to Beethoven’s 5’th is not just brilliant acting; it also shows a fundamental source for musical composition.

Note:

For serious, scientific analysis of the dancing of Snowball, a sulphur-crested cockatoo, see Patel, A.D., Iversen, J.R., Bregman, M.R., Schulz, I., & Schulz, C. (2008). Investigating the human-specificity of synchronization to music.In: Proceedings of the 10th International Conference on Music Perception & Cognition (ICMPC10), August 2008, Sapporo, Japan.K. Miyazaki et al. (Eds.), Adelaide: Causal Productions, pp. 100-104, and Patel, A.D., Iversen, J.R. Bregman, M.R. & Schulz, I. (in press). Studying synchronization to a musical beat in nonhuman animals. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences.

economists

Ph.D.’s to be in a course on
the economics of transition –
boards of equations
occasionally quavering voice
of the professor
stopping
apologizing for the lack

of good theory in this area.
If I knew what he
thought that I
assumed that he
was thinking

I would have laughed.
The transition, to a Russian
the stage of primitive accumulation
that leads to capitalism.
Da, he concludes, and crosses himself
just as the wheels of the jet
leave the runway.

modern luxury is free

Stop into Robeks smoothie shop in Arlington, Virginia, and you can pick up a copy of DC Modern Luxury for free.  It’s a large-format, about-200-page, glossy magazine (cover price $5.95 per issue) that helps you figure out what to do and what to buy if you’re extremely wealthy. I picked one up when I went into Robeks for a smoothie.  While I don’t usually consider myself to be extremely wealthy, I am by profession cheap. It was free!

Luxury magazines are becoming a new media battleground.  One observer of the burgeoning entry and competition in luxury magazines has expressed skepticism about the size of the market:

The luxury market and luxury magazines have been built on a myth: that there’s an endless supply of new jet-setters dying for glossy spreads telling them how to spend their millions.

This analysis neglects demand from cheapskates, fantasizers, voyeurs, and economists not otherwise specified.  At DC Modern Luxury’s cover price of $5.95 per issue, demand from these groups is likely to be negligible.  But offering the magazine for free is a sure way to boost its circulation.

I bought a Pomegranate Passion Smoothie for about $6. What a luxury!  More than 1.4 billion persons around the world live on less than the money equivalent of one such smoothie every five days.  I’m grateful that I’m so economically fortunate. But I’m not in a good target demographic for advertisers in a luxury magazine.

Offering an expensive luxury magazine for free in a smoothie shop doesn’t seem to me to be a propitious indicator for the future of its business.

important announcement about decorative rooster

decorative rooster

[from my dad]

An important announcement!!!

We have a new addition to our house.
It is Dionigio (Di-on-ig-io).

Dionigio is a large metal rooster that Doug bought for Mom while they were in Connecticut. Our new Dionigio is in honor of my grandfather Dionigio (on my mother’s side).

Grandfather Dionigio was an intelligent, hard working, self-made, successful person. He came to the US from Trentino-Alto Adige (North east Italy) when my mother was three years old. A coal company paid their fare which he worked off by working in the mines.

They saved money and bought a piece of woodland in Vineland. They cleared the land by hand and used the wood to build a house.

He and other farmers build, by themselves, the church that I attended when I lived in Vineland. A story I remember hearing is that one day there was a dispute about the direction of some wood boards over the alter. Dionigio wanted them at an angle and the other farmers wanted them square. Dionigio had an artistic flair. Since the farmers could not resolve the dispute, they decided to break and go home for lunch. Dionigio returned after the others left and put up the boards at an angle. I remember looking at those boards when in that church and thinking about Dionigio.

When my mother and father married, Dionigio lent them the money to buy the farm on Italia Avenue, where I spend my childhood. The money was repaid without one missed payment. I was told that there was a big party, the day the mortgage was finally paid off.

I can tell more stories about Grandfather Dionigio. Maybe you will ask when you see our new Dionigio in our kitchen.