Spoiler Alert So as you may know, I am a fan of Lost, an ABC series that’s been quite popular lately. On Wednesday’s episode, Shannon, an annoying white woman, sleeps with Said, a “strong silent type” Iraqui character. It’s network TV, so you just know because there’s a shot of them lying together in a …
Author Archives: Jonathan Sterne
A Theory of Academic Titles
Yesterday, a friend wrote to run some possible titles for his book by me. It occurred to me that I’d become somewhat opinionated about titles for academic books and articles. Since this is my blog, I’m going to share my opinions with you. All usual disclaimers apply and I realize this doesn’t work for all …
Profound Thought of the Night
Courtesy of Norbert Elias, in The Civilizing Process, in his section “On the Eating of Meat”: Although human phenomena–whether attitudes, wishes or structures–may be looked at on their own, independently of their connections with the social life of people, they are by nature nothing but substantializations of human relations and of human behaviour, embodiments of …
I Like My Job Best
when it’s about all the stuff for which I got into this business: reading, writing, talking about ideas. Highlights of the week included teaching (which is always a highlight), meeting with students about their work. the meeting of an augmented reality working group yesterday (which basically functions like a reading group for the moment), and …
I’m on a Hot Streak
With new music. I mentioned that I picked up a bunch of stuff while in Pgh. I am in love with the new Boards of Canada. I love the faux-vinyl distortion and studied detuning — they glitch it up and mess it up and it’s still beautiful. As for Pelican, I think I like Australasia …
Mouse Song
Okay, so if you read the paper you’ve probably already seen this, but it turns out that male mice can sing. They just do it in a range outside of human hearing. So what you’re hearing on the recording at the URL to which I linked is . . . pitch shifted mice. Digital audio …
The Night After the Blowout Party
Here’s a pretty cool picture, especially for an amateur like me. Some people brought Jack-o-Lanterns to our blowout Halloween party last night, and this evening Carrie decided to put them on the windowsill and light them up. You can see reflection of the other side of the lantern in the window. You can also see …