Source: w2p740.jpg (JPEG Image, 800 × 1019 pixels) American Forces Information Service Collection at the University of Iowa Digital Library
In our house
do you hear the birds talking?
I do because I am listening to Noisli.
Long ago, I used to listen to language learning lessons while doing my daily work. Then, the daily work started demanding a little more of my cognitive abilities and I switched to listening to music. Now, I can only manage chamber music in the background because excess input, along with all the other stuff I’m staring at-reading-writing-adding, breaks my head.
My initial method for bringing a little serenity to my desk environment was to make sure my desktop backgrounds were all simple and expansive nature, like a field of flowers or the interlacing branches of a tree. I can’t remember where I read about it first, but this article: “How Nature Resets Our Minds and Bodies” explains how looking on nature alleviates stress and focuses attention. I also don’t know if the photographic projections of nature on my computer screen are any real type of stand in; time will tell.
In addition to the visuals, I have added some ambient nature noises to my day. Noisli is my number one right now, but I have also scoped out the nature sounds at ambient-mixer and the simplicity of iSerenity.
Trojan Videos: Ecstacy! The Musical Starring Alan Cumming & Ricki Lake – YouTube
Trojan Videos: Ecstacy! The Musical Starring Alan Cumming & Ricki Lake – YouTube published on Read more posts by the author of Trojan Videos: Ecstacy! The Musical Starring Alan Cumming & Ricki Lake – YouTube, leemsNo Comments on Trojan Videos: Ecstacy! The Musical Starring Alan Cumming & Ricki Lake – YouTube
I saw Alan Cumming at our local playhouse and had a fabulous time. Don’t forget the condoms Valentine’s revelers!
Happy new year
GYROJETS – Live at The Amsterdam 1/28/16 – YouTube
I was there and yes, it was awesome. I am also super excited that one of my favorite songs got recorded on this video. yay!
2015 art review
Florida love
When we first bought our house, I started studying the building methods of the period it was built, tracking the previous owners through publicly available city and county records, and learning about the history of the area we were planning on living in for a while to come.
I found brochures and magazines, 
information dedicated to the Florida tourist or investor. A wealth of time specific salesmanship! And, I started collecting. I buy in little bits at a time, looking for pamphlets and brochures from the time period when my house was built, or with information on population and industry.
Two recent acquisitions of mine have a couple of choice passages that I felt compelled to share with you. The first: “Tampa Hillsborough County Florida” alternately “Florida’s Newly Discovered Vacationland” on one side and “Florida’s Industrial and Commercial Center” on the other, was published jointly by the Board of Representatives, City of Tampa Board of Commissioners, and Hillsborough County Chamber of Commerce in the 1940s (pictured top left) includes a rather foreboding message to visitors: “…please advise anyone seeking employment not to come to Tampa.”
The second: “Know Florida” a 1939 facts booklet issued by the Florida State Department of Agriculture through The Tribune Press in Tallahassee is an understandably dry, but well written fact booklet with loads of information on industry and agriculture throughout all of Florida, except two paragraphs where the author takes a trip into the most florid poetics I’ve ever seen aimed at my home state:
The shocking change in tone from the paragraphs around it is quite jarring. I suspect that someone else slipped those paragraphs in there. Maybe the brochure was laying out just a little short, or the editor looked over it and thought it was a bit dry, so she pulled out her bong and basked in the Florida love for a while. At least two paragraphs worth.
more Penelope Sea
learning something new
I got an animation program for Christmas. I’m learning how to use it my way:
Credit Is Due (The Attribution Song) – YouTube
Sharing because it’s lovely. Follow the video for more genius by Question Copyright.
black and white
reading
Schmidt
It’s normal to instantly start paying more attention when you hear a family name, even for those people whose family names are some of the most common in the world. That’s what happened in my house while we were watching ant man and they kept mentioning the Schmidt Pain Index. What was this thing named after Schmidt, we wondered?
The answer is, that Justin O. Schmidt, an American entomologist born 1947, developed the scale to measure the relative pain and discomfort of hymenopteran stings, himself having experienced many in the course of his research and trapping of the insects. After his original paper in 1983 comparing venom properties, Schmidt refined his scale.
1.0 Sweat bee: Light, ephemeral, almost fruity. A tiny spark has singed a single hair on your arm.
1.2 Fire ant: Sharp, sudden, mildly alarming. Like walking across a shag carpet & reaching for the light switch.
1.8 Bullhorn acacia ant: A rare, piercing, elevated sort of pain. Someone has fired a staple into your cheek.
2.0 Bald-faced hornet: Rich, hearty, slightly crunchy. Similar to getting your hand mashed in a revolving door.
2.0 Yellowjacket: Hot and smoky, almost irreverent. Imagine WC Fields extinguishing a cigar on your tongue.
2.x Honey bee and European hornet.
3.0 Red harvester ant: Bold and unrelenting. Somebody is using a drill to excavate your ingrown toenail.
3.0 Paper wasp: Caustic & burning. Distinctly bitter aftertaste. Like spilling a beaker of Hydrochloric acid on a paper cut.
4.0 Pepsis wasp: Blinding, fierce, shockingly electric. A running hair drier has been dropped into your bubble bath (if you get stung by one you might as well lie down and scream).
4.0+ Bullet ant: Pure, intense, brilliant pain. Like walking over flaming charcoal with a 3-inch nail in your heel.
from Batts, Shelley (2007) “Schmidt Pain Index (Which Sting Hurts the Worst?)” Retrospectacle: a Neuroscience Blog. http://scienceblogs.com/retrospectacle/2007/05/16/schmidt-pain-index-which-sting/