Rue

I'm a huge music theory geek, and in my own songs try to get this level of complexity w/o making it too obvious. I love how Paul Simon did it without drawing attention to it (except in the Cavett interview).

I watched this last night. Those chord changes and the sophistication in that song have always gotten me, but I had never thought about how he ended up using all 12 notes of the western system in the song.

This looks like it will be good, and something I'll need to share with my students.

#EMCA
One of my 2nd year students mentioned in her homework about how she tried out a breaching experiment (in this case speaking in honorifics with her sister) and the reaction, and started diving deeper into the ideas.

I'm such a bad influence sometimes, but I love it.

When I finished my postdoc at Rice in 2019 and was on the job market, I must admit that at first the challenges I was facing getting a position in the US stung a bit. Now that I'm outside and have my tenure, I gotta say, I'm glad I'm not dealing w/ what American academics are dealing with right now.

YouTube video by vlogbrothers Dr. Jane Goodall

This is not only a wonderful eulogy of one of the most important pioneers of science and conservation, but also a great explanation of the complexities of knowing and coming to know in science.
@hankgreen.bsky.social - you rock!

youtu.be/d_FzzLeA6pk?...

Sometimes it's not about finding new music. It's about re-exploring some of the stuff you've had forever but didn't dive into deeply yet.
2/2

Been listening to Fugazi's discography the last couple days, 1st time in a decade. Somehow it hits different than before. Amazing how things that either went over my head or didn't connect emotionally in a certain way back then is now. And of course discovering new things throughout.
1/2

all about those fucking clicks, not about trying to help the country do and be better.

there was a lynching on a college campus in Mississippi, but as of yet no major news outlet has picked up on the story because they are so far up a celebrity's ass that they can't recognize America's worst type of political violence that has been happening throughout the nation's history.

YouTube video by Rue Burch Lambchop's Got Lead Poisoning

Another original - "Lambchop's Got Lead Poisoning".
Been working on it for a few weeks, but unfortunately, it keeps being timely.
Probably the heaviest thing I've ever recorded (full on with death metal growls)

youtu.be/uks8EKmnisk

YouTube video by Rue Burch The Fabulous Soup Forks: Silly Cliches About Silly Cliches

A new original song I'm calling "Silly Cliches About Silly Cliches".
It came to me over the last couple of days, not as a reaction to what happened, but as a reaction to the cliches that inevitably get trotted out in the wakes of tragedies.
youtu.be/ffjFTmawDxg

Frame 1 - Character 1: "Hey Bob! How are you doing?" Frame 2 - Character 2: Not so good." Frame 3 - Character 1: ... Frame 4 - Character 1: "Please complete this report by EOD" Character 2: Frustrated expression.

Something #EMCA folks should appreciate ...

YouTube video by Jesse Welles The Ballad of Big Balls

This dude's constantly hittin' 'em outta the park. Modern day protest folk at its finest.

youtu.be/PL0oB1gbZE4

I wasn't aware that Robin Lakoff had passed away. She opened up the field of linguistics to looking at gender, and thus has had a huge impact on everyone who looks at language through a critical lens in any way.

ls.berkeley.edu/news/memoria...

Americans don't technically have a constitutionally enshrined right to vote for president. I knew we actually voted for electors, of course. But it turns out we don't technically even have a "right" to vote for them.

YouTube video by PBS Who Has the Right to Vote in America? | Civics Made Easy

Eye-opening (in a not-so-pleasant "well, shit, what I thought my reasonably well educated self actually 'knew' isn't true" sort of way).

youtu.be/regpMUdl_QA

YouTube video by Rue Burch And Then There Were

Original instrumental song I've been working on for a few weeks. The drums were played with my Yamaha FGDP-50 finger drums, and I like how they help create a better groove than programmed drums.

youtu.be/Q6bUSdN9pZo

- it's a national holiday.
- i'm still recovering and rest would be a good thing.
... so why do i still feel like i have to justify taking a day off to myself? the mental gymnastics that i feel compelled to go through when it's completely ok to take a national holiday off.

What the internet and social media has become:

Using this rainy holiday Monday to catch up on some needed sleep. Just woke up from a dream in which I seemed to be an active participant in a M*A*S*H episode (Trapper and Col. Blake era).

Weird.

80 years.

I can't imagine how terrible that must be for a young child or baby.

One of the weirdest things I've had to teach myself while dealing with whooping cough is to be patient through those 10 - 30 seconds I can't breath, to remember that if I relax, I'll eventually get air back in. Not an easy thing to learn how to believe.

On NPR pages right now. I'm proud that they are saying specifically what the problem is, and are not capitulating.