Month: August 2007

Soundtrack

Posted on by Dana

Wendy mentioned this meme, and I love the music ones, so here goes.

What is your ringtone?  Right now, it’s Jeff Buckley’s “Last Goodbye.”

What’s the most incongruous song on your mp3 player?  I don’t have one, but of the mp3 collection on my computer, I guess it would be some of the 1920’s tunes I downloaded for use with a Great Gatsby unit I teach, or maybe recordings of Zora Neale Hurston singing African-American folk songs for a WPA project in the 1930’s.

What is the one genre of music you can’t stand?  Rap, hip-hop, whatever you want to call it.

What’s your desert island disk?  I really don’t think I can pick only one.  That’s not fair.  Maybe Jeff Buckley’s Grace.

What’s your secret musical weakness?  Something with violins.  Stick a violin in it, and I love it.

Do you play a musical instrument?  Not anymore, but I played flute for about 15 years or so, guitar for about five, and French horn for one year in middle school.  Of course, if you play flute, you can play piccolo, too.

Best makeout song:  Eh, I’ll pass on this one.

Best driving song: A toss-up between “Wiser Time” by the Black Crowes or “Take it Easy” by the Eagles.  Actually, the whole albums Amorica and Greatest Hits, Volume 1 (by each band respectively) are awesome driving CD’s.

Song everyone should read the lyrics to:  I just put a colon after a preposition, which is making me twitch a little, but I’ll be fine.  Um, I would say “Suzanne” by Leonard Cohen or “Forever Young” by Bob Dylan or “Lover, You Should Have Come Over” by Jeff Buckley.

Is downloading music for free a sin?  Is it different from taping mix tapes from friends?  I don’t know.  It depends on a few factors, I think.

Do you do karaoke?  I have tried it.  “She’s a superfreak… superfreak!”  Not regularly.

One musician you would happily whore yourself to: Oh come on.  My parents and students read this thing.

First album you ever bought:  I think it was two at the same time, and if I remember right it was Unchain the Night by Dokken and Theatre of Pain by Mötley Crüe.

Most recent album you bought: Gosh, I am not sure I can remember.  Oh, yes I do.  It was a Chopin CD.  One of those cheapie “greatest hits” things.

Favorite Beatles song:  It’s hard to pick one.  I have always liked “Eight Days a Week” and “Norwegian Wood.”  “Yesterday” is awesome.  So is “Across the Universe.”  How can anyone pick one Beatles song?

Song that represents your teenage years:  I am tempted to say “Back in Black,” but it depends on the intention of the question.  If it means the song that represents my personality, I don’t know, but if it’s the one that I listened to incessantly, it’s either the entire Led Zeppelin catalog or “Living on a Prayer” by Bon Jovi.

Song that represents your twenties:  Maybe “Blue” by the Jayhawks.  Or “Sixth Avenue Heartache” by the Wallflowers.

Song that represents where you are right now:  Either “Bad Luck, Blue Eyes” by the Black Crowes or something bluesy you probably never heard of.

Song that represents your blog: Just because of the look, I’m thinking “No Rain” by Blind Melon.  That’s the quintessential sunny day song, isn’t it?

So tag yourself if you feel up to it.

[tags]music, meme[/tags]

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Posted on by Dana

Sometimes I scratch my head and wonder what to do about this blog. My other blogs have a much more narrow purpose, so they tend to be updated more frequently (although that isn’t always the case). The folks who read those blogs do so because they get something out of the content that I’m not sure they would if I hadn’t focused the content. In that regard, my most popular blog (and most frequently updated blog) is my education blog. Most people hit upon my Harry Potter blog looking for something particular, but I have few regular readers and no real regular commenters (which does not bother me, by the way). My genealogy blog has a core readership consisting of other genealogy bloggers. I have a blog for students that I think is mostly limited to their readership.

Sometimes I get really busy, and the blogs fall by the wayside. When that happens, the priority tends to be to focus on the education blog. This blog and the genealogy blog in particular are often victims of my lack of time. I know that it costs me readers, but I had to decide a long time ago whether that bothered me or not, and with this blog in particular, I decided it didn’t. I know a few people who don’t understand why I blog, and if they read only this one, I have to admit that they probably have a point. But this blog is a nice place for me to put stuff I don’t think fits elsewhere. I don’t have any real desire to completely delete this blog, but I hope everyone understands the reasons it isn’t frequently updated. I think if this blog had more “purpose” aside from serving as a place for me to review books, I would probably update it more frequently. I know having a purpose for my other blogs really helps in that regard.

I chose the title of this blog from the first line of a poem by Emily Dickinson that reads:

Much madness is divinest sense
To a discerning eye;
Much sense the starkest madness.
‘Tis the majority
In this, as all, prevails.
Assent, and you are sane;
Demur, — you’re straightway dangerous,
And handled with a chain.

In the sense that this blog is such a hodge podge — or more truthfully, and unfocused mess — I thought it was a good title.  I was essentially saying that it wouldn’t be like other blogs, and it might not make sense, but maybe a few people would get something out of it sometimes.

I like blogging.  I like having connections to people all over the world.  I know some people think it’s weird, but I have to accept that it’s OK if a few people I don’t know all that well think I’m weird.

[tags]blogging, direction, purpose[/tags]

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Scratches

Posted on by Dana

I have been enjoying a PC game this week.  I haven’t played one in a long time, I think.  I played them quite a bit in the ’90s before the Internet became my main distraction on the computer.   The game is called Scratches, and it’s pretty scary.  It was originally released over a year ago, but an updated Director’s Cut includes new material.  Not Halloween or Friday the 13th or Nightmare on Elm Street scary, but more like The Others, The Ring, or The Blair Witch Project scary.  What I mean by that is so far, the thrills are utterly devoid of gore.  I’m not done yet, so that might not be true — the game is rated T for alcohol and tobacco reference (there are cigars and alcohol bottles in the game, but no one indulges that I’ve seen yet), blood, mild language, and mild violence.  I’ve heard the mild language, but as for the blood and mild violence, not yet.

Here is a trailer for the game:

[kml_flashembed movie="http://www.youtube.com/v/64lHWOCLn70" width="425" height="350" wmode="transparent" /]

Like I said, so far it’s pretty creepy and scary, but not graphic or gross.  The storyline is intriguing, and the music is spectacularly creepy.  I think many times it was the music that  scared me more than what I was experiencing in the game.  You can read a review of the game here.

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