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Darwin in Love

“In September of 1837, Darwin suffered palpitations of the heart, which would plague him throughout his life. Recuperating in his home town of Shrewsbury, he was introduced to his cousin, Emma Wedgewood, who mended his heart, and then won it. Charles Darwin and Emma Wedgewood fell in love, but ever a man of method, he drew up two lists. One called ‘Marry,’ one called ‘Not Marry,’ and he worked through the pros and cons. He concluded that ‘A constant companion and a friend in old age’ outweighed ‘Less money for books’ and ‘The terrible loss of time.'”

–Melvyn Bragg, from “In Our Time: Darwin, Part 2” on BBC Radio 4

The Darwins had ten children.

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Malcolm Gladwell’s Good Teacher/Bad Teacher Delusion

Regarding Malcolm Gladwell’s New Yorker article “Most Likely to Succeed”…

Sure Malcolm: Don’t blame students; don’t blame parents; don’t blame underfunded schools; don’t blame distending class sizes, don’t blame school funding being tied to local property taxes; don’t blame artificial testing requirements devouring classroom time; don’t blame required special education skewing dollar-per-student vs. results numbers wildly below magnet and parochial schools; don’t blame the flight of your upper-middle class into homogenous neighborhoods.

Blame teachers. Those lazy, overfed teachers who work 80 hours a week 10 months a year so that they can also pull summer jobs for at least the first decade of their careers just to make ends meet, in order to instruct your mediocre “gifted” student with no help from you and your too busy, Blackberry-driven lifestyle.

Here’s a tip: There are bad teachers. They don’t last very long, and they’re not the problem with American education. Teaching is a hard life, and it takes a special caliber of person to do it.

Don’t feel bad. Build a light froth of cherry-picked data. You’re good at that. Use it to absolve yourself of guilt.

Attaboy, Malcolm.

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Retired Addiction

The “Silent Hill: 0rigins” Soundtrack

No really, I’ve gone straight from being addicted to one Silent Hill soundtrack to another.

“0rigins” (with a little zed) was apparently a kind of a dashed off prequel for PSP, but the music is a full Akira Yamaoka score with vocals by Mary Elizabeth McGlynn (Melissa Williamson). As a handheld title by a different studio, the mix and arrangements are a bit smaller than 3 or 4, but it has some solid tracks. “O.R.T.” seems to be the fan favorite, but I prefer “Shot Down in Flames.”

My question is, how can a Japanese sound effects artist writing music for a horror videogame have a better sense of putting a rock song together than anyone on U.S. Top 40 radio?

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More Fun With Mr. Noonday

Of all the challenges I thought I might face as an adult, having an invisible demon on my back weighing me down wasn’t one of them.

“Take this chalk,” he said. “Draw a line with it on the floor. Cross it. Look back.”

It was gone.

“Now do you understand?”

(Fifty word flash fiction. Previous outing: “Mr. Noonday.”)

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Barnaby Ward

Ralph Steadman is an underrated artist. Most only know his Hunter Thompson-era illustrations, but whereas Thompson stagnated around The Great Shark Hunt, Steadman continued to improve. Pick up a copy of Psychogeography to believe me.

There’s a similar gift for line in Barnaby Ward’s illustrations. Ward also loves the grotesque, especially when it can be suggested with lines but never really sculpted — it’s scarier that way. Unlike Steadman, Ward equally loves “cute.”

Ward’s style is everything I usually hate, but instead I’m mancrushing. His are fashion-conscious, Vogue’d-out, eyelinered, idealized, thin and bony women suffused with ennui — and an abundance of personality. I love his lines. As much as Ward digs busyness, his focal players cram a ridiculous amount of character into very few strokes. It’s something I’ve always admired about Heidi Sullivan’s linework, though Ward is much darker. Ward frequently lets the mis en scene speak for his characters, which further boosts his credentials as a closet minimalist.

Check out Ward’s website: http://somefield.com