The missus and I spent Memorial Day exploring Northrup Canyon, home to all manner of birds, wildflowers, and—oh yeah!—rattlesnakes. If I had known that we were to encounter no fewer than three of ’em, the largest of which let it be known that he’d have no problem whatsoever eating my face*, I might have suggested we stay home and barbecue.

Anyway, on the way back to Spokane we noticed this little piece of abandoned Americana:

It sits on a dusty pie-shaped piece of land where state Route 155 and U.S. Highway 2 meet outside of Coulee City, about a mile or so from Banks Lake.

*He was totally fine with Mrs. B nearly stepping on his back. Lean in to take his picture, though, and he’s all, “Back the @#$% up!”—or, as ophiologists benignly call it, “assuming the defensive posture.”

posted by: Aaron Bragg  |  category: random thoughts  |  make a comment

An alert reader sent us this story about the Lyndon B. Johnson School of…well, perhaps you’d better read it yourself.

Some sage words toward the end, though:

“…it’s interesting how much fuss the omission of one letter can lead to. No one was killed, no one lost their job and any concerned parties can rest assured that they will have a corrected commencement program to reflect upon in the future. But it’s not going to stop the critics of the world from expressing their outrage at the fallibility of others.”

posted by: Aaron Bragg  |  category: the writing life  |  make a comment

Forget the tendentious claim that the Beatles belong in the Western music canon alongside Beethoven and Brahms, Paul Krugman seems blissfully unaware that classical music is being made right now.

In fact, just a cursory glance at the music on my iPhone—and I’m hardly an authority in this area—reveals at least a couple dozen living, working composers: Arvo Pärt, Benjamin Pesetsky, Einojuhani Rautavaara, Elliot Carter*, both John Adams and John Luther Adams, Karel Husa, Krzysztof Penderecki, Magnus Lindberg, Osvaldo Golijov, Meredith Monk, Gerald Levinson, Elizabeth Maconchy, Tarik O’Regan, Per Nørgård, Valentin Silvestrov, Steve Reich, Terry Riley, Tigran Mansurian, Gavin Bryars, Frederic Rzewski, et al.

And it’s not just freakishly dissonant stuff, either. Case in point: Meredith Monk’s “maybe 1,” a charming little bagatelle for eight pianos from her 2007 album impermanence.

Mr. Krugman will probably argue that it’s no “I Want to Hold Your Hand,” but still.

*Alive as of the time of this writing. He’s 103, though, so…

posted by: Aaron Bragg  |  category: random thoughts  |  make a comment

The inestimable Derek Helt was kind enough to share with me the Lutheran Insulter, which wasted no time whatsoever in pointing out that I “…can say nothing but that it boomerangs on your own head and hits you so that you not only are blackened but are made to stagger as a drunkard.”

That’s from Martin Luther’s Against the Heavenly Prophets (1525), in case you were wondering.

posted by: Aaron Bragg  |  category: random thoughts  |  make a comment

It’s true—both CK and I spent some time in northern Colorado this week: primarily Greeley, but also Denver and Fort Collins. And while we could show you pictures of the best of what the Centennial State has to offer (mountains, beer, and hippies, in that order), we prefer to share what appears to be Steve Wozniak riding a green iguana. Happy Friday.

posted by: Aaron Bragg  |  category: random thoughts  |  make a comment

Ian Leslie says we really can be too clever for our own good:

“If a rat is faced with a puzzle in which food is placed on its left 60% of the time and on the right 40% of the time, it will quickly deduce that the left side is more rewarding, and head there every time, thus achieving a 60% success rate. Young children adopt the same strategy. When Yale undergraduates play the game, they try to figure out some underlying pattern, and end up doing worse than the rat or the child.”

The higher the stakes, the more over-thinking becomes a problem. So—good news!—all we have to do is get better at ignoring information.

Finally, something I can excel at.

posted by: Aaron Bragg  |  category: random thoughts  |  make a comment

Are we really on the verge of of one of the biggest imaging revolutions since 1826? Lytro’s new light-field camera takes photographs that can be focused long after they’re captured. How? Beats me. I lost interest when I saw the phrase “computationally intensive Fourier-transform” followed by talk of ray-tracing algorithms and plenoptic functions. But it sure sounds cool.

posted by: Aaron Bragg  |  category: random thoughts  |  make a comment

I’ve been hearing “which begs the question” an awful lot these days. And it usually sounds something like this:

“Whoa—she’s a Betty. Which begs the question, ‘Why doesn’t she have a boyfriend?'”

Just so we’re clear, that’s not begging the question. It’s raising the question. Two very, very different things.

posted by: Aaron Bragg  |  category: random thoughts  |  make a comment