About two weeks ago, April 27, 2012, I caught a Bill Moyers show, "Big Money, Big Media, Big Trouble." There was an interview with Marty Kaplan, Norman Lear Professor of Entertainment, Media and Society at the University of Southern California. It resonated strongly in my brain, as a lot of Moyers' work does, making a great deal of sense to me. I've embedded the video below. The last part of the show is a Moyers' essay on McCarthyism and Representative Allen West (R-FL). It's a 50+ minute video and may play best if you allow it to load before playing or view it at BillMoyers.com.

Then today, I rec'd an email from NextDraft with an NPR article titled, Partisan Psychology: Why Do People Choose Political Loyalties Over Facts. An interesting phenomena that's probably been going on throughout human history but it's good to hear or see such topics as this being presented and discussed. The online version of the article can be found here and the audio version from NPR is embedded below.

I often doubt myself. Harbor thoughts of low self-esteem. Constantly struggle with my "inner critic."

Then I hear, read, or see something that makes me want to try harder...believe in myself more.

Arthur Boorman's story is one of those "somethings"...

The Element

Brain Pickings continues to come up with great posts once a week.

The one that struck me today is by Sir Ken Robinson, author of The Element: How Finding Your Passions Changes Everything, "one of seven essential books on education," as stated by Maria Popova in her post. This Brain Pickings' blog post is an hour long presentation by Sir Ken Robinson to the audience in attendance at The School of Life. It's an engaging presentation that is punctuated time and again by Sir Ken's wit, humor, anecdotes, and wisdom. A lot of it many of us may have heard before but is well worth hearing again. Sir Ken speaks of climate change in a different light.

Latest Craving!

There's been a desire for me to pursue Scottish fiddling for some time now but I've just not found the right stimulus. I'm intrigued by Neil Gow. Read a bit of his history, which I found quite interesting. He lived in Scotland during the mid late 1700s into the 1800s. Strathspey's are always intriguing and daunting to look at on the printed page.

A few weeks back I came across a Scottish fiddler, Bruce MacGregor, who is part of Blazin' Fiddles. Bruce has four, brief, but, very complete, YouTube tutorial videos on such aspects of Scottish fiddling as grace notes, triplets, bow control, and, the one below, ringing strings.

As for strathspeys, I found out the Irish, especially Tommy Peoples, enjoy playing strathspeys as much as the Scottish. A strathspey is a uniquely Scottish fiddle tune and dance. Strathspeys are named for the highland areas of Scotland from where they originated. They are set in 4/4 time, a bit slower than a hornpipe but more stately with exaggerated Scotch Snaps (a short note before a dotted note) within the structure of the tune. The few previous sentences and some more info about strathspeys can be found on Wikipedia at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strathspey_%28dance%29.

James Scott Skinner, a 19th century musician, fiddler and composer with over 600 compositions published. Below are several examples found on YouTube of "The Laird of Drumblair,"an easy tune and one I hope to learn. The first is a slow version performed by Sarah-Jane Summers who teaches fiddle at the Scots Music Group in Edinburgh.

This version is by Katie Henderson of the U.S. who learns a new tune a day and posts them to YouTube and her New Tune A Day (NTAD) blog. She's quite good!

Then there's Tommy Peoples playing the same tune and who Katie credits as her source for learning this tune. This is a Irish (RTE) tv video from 1981.

A killer version of the tune, played in a traditional style where the strathspey is followed by the same tune played as a reel and the reel The Musical Priest," is performed by Johnny and Phil Cunningham, some of Scotland's finest traditional musicians of the 20th century. It can be viewed on YouTube at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AbO_OJv6B4s&feature=related.

And, for my concertina playing daughter, Heather, here's a version of tune played on a C/G concertina!

Stephane Grappelli and You Are The Sunshine of My Life

Today an email from Jazz On The Tube came to my inbox. It contained a favorite song of mine played by one of my most favorite musicians. The song is You Are The Sunshine of My Life, composed and written by Stevie Wonder. The principal musician is jazz violinist/fiddler, Stephane Grappelli.

Grappelli was considered the "grandfather of jazz violin" who played concerts into his 80s. He died in 1997. He was one of the founders, along with Django Reinhardt of the gypsy jazz band The Hot Club Quintet of France, one of the first all stringed instrument jazz bands.

Play the video below and let the music speak for itself and see if you don't become a fan of Stephane Grappelli. Or, understand why I'm a fan.

Brain Pickings and Flash Rosenberg

Brain Pickings is this amazing blog by Maria Popova, a gal that always has these blow-my-mind topics. She's a very diverse person. The post for March 26, 2012, The Importance of Frustration in the Creative Process, Illustrated about a recently published book Imagine: How Creativity Works by Jonah Lehrer. What's really cool is Flash Rosenberg's Vimeo video promoting the book. Flash is a "Guggenheim Fellow, New York Public Library (NYPL) artist-in-residence, live-illustrator extraordinaire." Flash's an illustrative video teaser for the book is embedded below. Enjoy!!!

IMAGINE: How Creativity Works from Flash Rosenberg on Vimeo.

Another of Flash's illustrative video works is of John Lithgow reading Who Is Mark Twain at the NYPL and embedded below. I found this on Maria Popova's post of June 13 2011, John Lithgow Reads Mark Twain, Live-Illustrated.

Diets and Exercise

In order to keep my and Kathy's health optimal we joined one of the $10-a-month gyms that recently opened up nearby. So far it's been a good thing. One of the hard things is not to be too hard on ourselves if life events or life's busyness gets in the way of making it there to work out! It seems it's always easier to be hard on oneself than it is to positively reinforce oneself. Just have to shrug the shoulders, let it run off like water off a duck's back, and jump back in to the program as soon as possible.

About a decade or more ago I became interested and participated in an exercise and eating program by an exercise "guru," Bill Phillips,

who published a book and program called Body for Life. It's still around and is as good a program then as it is now but Bill Phillips, always a student of the current science on and about nutrition and exercise, has begun a new program entitled Transformation.

A recent blog of Bill's on his Transformation site had a post titled Harvard Asks and Answers, "What's the Best Diet?" What the study showed was that in the two year test of 800 overweight men and women between the ages of 30 and 70 divided into four diet groups - one low fat high protein, one low fat average protein, one the high fat high protein Dr. Atkins diet, and one high fat average protein diet - all the plans worked about the same as long as the participants lowered their calorie intake. These findings were published in the February 26, 2009 issue of The New England Journal of Medicine.

The interesting thing that Phillips found in the study was that participants who attended support group meetings averaged 20 pounds loss of weight in the two year study period while those participants who did not attend support groups lost an average of 9 pounds. Interesting. I wonder if any similar studies have been done in other areas with and without support groups? I wonder if it would make a worthwhile doctoral thesis?

The gym Kathy and I joined considered joining their slim and slender program but the cost is not warranted with my current financial condition. Hopefully, inflation and cost of living doesn't continue to rise to where we can't afford the ten dollars a month individual membership fee as we both enjoy getting out of the house and sweatin' it out!