(via MOOC vs. Book: Each Helps the Other (Part 3 of 3) | Class Central's MOOC Report)

I liked hearing Professor Raghunathan’s story about how having to start his MOOC before his book could be published helped refine the book. When a MOOC works well and enough people are participating in forum discussion, it can be such a valuable experience in terms of what everyone takes away from it.

(And now I’m very interested in both Dr. Oakley and Prof. Raghunathan’s classes!)

here’s my new personal blog, to keep things all nice and organized and focus this one, very literally, on storytelling and sound. 

prompt

Good morning, and thanks for finding so zeitgeisty! :)

This tiny little corner of the web is one of three blogs I’m operating, along with a fourth that is mostly functioning as a home page for a new podcast. 

I’ve always wanted to publish a zine, so for now, this is the next best thing. It’s where I’ll put all of my blogs, prose, interviews, reviews, and other bits of media created in the moment that I can’t fit elsewhere. 

And because this is tumblr, I’ll also curate and share other interesting things from the web that I think fit with the overall mood of this site. 

To the left, to the left, everything I own in a box to the left…

No, but seriously. You can find links to all of my other online properties in that cute little sidebar, if you’re interested in that sort of thing. 

Enjoy!

Personal Photos from CBGB Documenting the East Village Art and Music Scene in the ’70s

(via Millennials in public media want to be heard | Poynter.)

I’m lucky to work at a station where many of the leaders will listen to and value their younger staff members, but in some of the general sessions it was clear to me that not all Program Directors do. In one breakout session, millennials — the very audience they were talking about trying to attract — were called ‘lazy’ and generally discussed as if they were martians.

I wanted to tell him: WE ARE HERE! We are working for you – tirelessly! – and we are so passionate about this work and excited about the future. And, yes, we’re obviously already won over, but we have ideas for how you can reach our friends who aren’t. And insights into how the industry can keep our attention and retain our talent.

- Tayla Burney,  producer at WAMU’s Kojo Nnamdi Show

(via An Audio Effects Module That Processes Sounds With Actual Dirt, Epidemiology | Motherboard)

The Doomed and Beautiful Reach: On Prose and Music 

By  Daniel José Older

There’s a moment in “Paranoid Android,” the second track on Radiohead’s game-changing 1997 album OK Computer, where everything suddenly slows down. It’s a wild ride leading up to the calm – a bassline’s uneven steps over jangly acoustic guitars amidst sudden explosions of electric thrash – and it all intensifies, the scream of guitars rising to feverpitch alongside Thom Yorke’s haunting incoherent wail. And then the whole frantic, delicious mess lands on a long note and a quiet, mournful dirge picks up beneath it, harmonizing choral chants beneath a gentle strum. Yorke is pleading with someone to come away and hold him, an angel? From a great height? Who can tell? Who cares? The music builds entire cities of grief and beauty around the words, obliterating their meaning as the chorus picks up his plea and Yorke’s voice grows raspy, urgent: “God loves his children, God loves his children, yeah…” And then, with just a burst of strumming to warn us, the whole world explodes again, that jangling riff from the beginning escalating into chaos as guitars scream toward the conclusion.

Meanwhile the 4 train trundled along beneath the city toward the Bronx. Meanwhile the characters I was trying to make sense of danced and battled in time to all that glory. I asked myself: could words do that?

Extremely Loud Doorbells

By Jack Handey

Some people blame us for the recent upsurge in cat frightenings. But, as I testified before Congress, cats are frightened by many things, not just doorbells. A person in the household may take up the bagpipes, for instance, or become fascinated by the Old West and call people to dinner with a chuckwagon triangle; or a large, burly man may join a hockey team and play goalie, and then forget his house keys, so that when he comes home he has to go around to the sliding-glass patio door and pound on it with upraised fists, while still wearing his hockey mask, shouting, “Let me in! Let me in!” Any of these things can scare a cat. . .

Last month, NPR champions of podcasting This American Life hosted an audio hackathon. 

Here's what the folks at Popup Archive learned.

This interactive longform article from The Verge traces the process of designing (and redesigning) the sounds that define the software and tech that we use - such as Skype, who recently rolled out updates to their entire soundscape of alerts.

(via Hear Seven Hours of Women Making Electronic Music (1938- 2014)) 

In case you’re in need of something to listen to this weekend, check out these two radio shows featured on Open Culture. Electronic music was pioneered by some amazing women. This great write up from Open Culture, along with audio features some of the best, and is a great break from the same-old boring stuff. 

well said

Happy National Coffee Day!

nodus tollens

n. the realization that the plot of your life doesn’t make sense to you anymore—that although you thought you were following the arc of the story, you keep finding yourself immersed in passages you don’t understand, that don’t even seem to belong in the same genre—which requires you to go back and reread the chapters you had originally skimmed to get to the good parts, only to learn that all along you were supposed to choose your own adventure.

love this spot

“Stacks and stacks of books to sift through. 📚” - @rachelfilipinas at Unnameable Books in NYC for our weekly #ThisIsMyBookstore feature.

Meet the New Bandleader for Stephen Colbert’s “Late Show”

Batiste and Colbert have in common the fortunate combination of a guerilla disregard for the rules and a savvy comprehension of how to win the game. And both are consummate performers.

Read more from Andrea Denhoed on the 28-year-old jazz pianist who’s leading the new “Late Show” band.

Photograph by Mackenzie Canlis

(via Anaïs Nin on Real Love, Illustrated by Debbie Millman | Brain Pickings)

"Hive Mind" Nolan Len (at Pioneer Works)

Greatly anticipating this book. October feels so far away!

National Book Award Winner Patti Smith reveals the cover of her soon to be published new memoir (Source: Entertainment Weekly)