“I think it’s so foolish for people to want to be happy. Happy is so momentary — you’re happy for an instant and then you start thinking again. Interest is the most important thing in life; happiness is temporary, but interest is continuous.” ― Georgia O’Keeffe
“One can lead a child to knowledge but one cannot make him think.” Heinlein, Robert A.. Starship Troopers (p. 27). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
GURPS is an elegant system that models most things well, but one place I find it lacking regards the mechanic for fatigue points. Let me explain. If you watch a boxing match, the fighters don’t remain engaged for the entire match. They engage; throw punches; back off; circle around; re-engage; clinch, etc. You get the […]
On April 26th, linguist John McWhorter took issue with the 12-tone approach to music and the damage it wrought on modern art music in The New York Times: He alluded to the political undercurrent of atonal classical music, pointing out the comments of Pierre Boulez and the historical fascist response to 12-tone and atonal music. […]
Someone on the r/ClassicalMusic subreddit asked where someone who lacks a background in music should start if she wants to get into classical music. As someone with a degree in music, I’ve always deemed the music appreciation curricula taught in college electives misguided. The courses I’ve seen teach appreciation as music history lite. However, the […]
For years, I’ve had a thought experiment I like to run in which I imagine I’m talking to aliens who want to know about human beings but lack knowledge of human behavior and cultural institutions. In the thought experiment, being fascinated by human interactions, the aliens ask about issues that arise in daily life. I […]
I’ve posted before on the link between linguistic syntax, music, and the research opportunities music could afford a conversation of syntactic acquisition. This article from Music Education Works discusses research out of Japan on the link between music and language. Researchers in Japan have found a specific link between musical processing and areas of the […]
The arrival of week 4 means I’ve surpassed the midpoint of summer A at school, and the jacaranda seem to have reached the zenith of their bloom. Unfortunately, COVID-19 has reappeared on the radar at work, so masks and periodic testing will remain in my life through the summer, it seems. This week, I finally […]
Developing substantive content in EAP communication classes presents unique challenges. Elementary English classes can fall back on rudimentary features of language, but advanced English-language students and native English speakers need something several orders of magnitude higher if they want to grow and improve as communicators. So, I stay vigilant for new approaches that can work […]
If you want to vet someone’s commitment to empirical evidence, the topic of parenting will rile people like little else. More specifically, the argument that parenting has limited influence over the character of children — a proposition that possesses a unique potential to offend people to the left and right of the political divide (which […]
“If you are lucky enough to have lived in Paris as a young man, then wherever you go for the rest of your life, it stays with you, for Paris is a moveable feast.” Moveable Feast: The Restored Edition by Ernest Hemingway | Goodreads
Ezra Vasquez's Blog