Harold and Loïse, popping by for tea. Here seen demonstrating the,
erm, impressive floor-to-ceiling space of my apartment…
Dad & Daughter (January backlog)
Christmas Lights (January backlog)
Jacques took us on a guided tour of Paris’ Christmas lights
(as well as some not so christmassy ones)…
Exceptionally, we pushed it to the farther suburban fiefdom of Nicolas
Sarkozy’s best pal ever: Patrick Balkany, mayor of Levalois-Perret (about
10 minutes East of Paris). Definitely worth the trip, if only to see
the deserted city hall of a posh suburban town, turned into something
straight out of Disneyland Electric Parade (which I’m pretty sure
wasn’t the original intent).
Nympheas at the Orangerie (January backlog)
Rie, standing in the middle of the Nympheas room at the Orangerie
museum, taking it all in…
New Year’s Countdown (December backlog)
On New Year’s Eve, shortly after our dinner party and before heading
out our separate way for the second half of the night, Pierre and I
opted to take a bottle to the roof for countdown (an old tradition).
Thus failing by very little to make New Year’s Day news as the two
drunken idiots who fell down 6 floors to their death a few seconds
into 2008 (another old tradition). The view is still totally worth it,
though.
Public bath in the park (January backlog)
Who ever said the French didn’t bathe? In Paris, even birds hop in
their bathtub (or nearby rain puddle near the central fountain of the
Luco) at least once a day…
Swiss Christmas Tree (December backlog)
Of course, no Parisian christmas would be complete without the traditional lighting of the candles on Jacques’ authentic Swiss
christmas tree…
Schubert Recital (December backlog)
Taking advantage of christmas holiday season, Rie, Sophie and I attended a couple concerts and recitals in nearby Latin Quarter churches.
Gounod, Liszt, Bach and Schubert… Also a selection from the Italian opera repertoire (my guilty pleasure), interpreted by one very Castafiore-esque mezzo-soprano.
Good Byes to Dr. D…
It is not often that you read familiar names in local news reports. Even less so if the locale itself is one you haven’t lived in for over 6 years.
This is why, when I first came upon a mention, in the SF Chronicle, of a slain college teacher living in Oakland, CA, it did not register much: random acts of violence and the senseless killing of innocent, beloved community members is unfortunately too common an occurrence in Oakland these days, to raise one’s attention…
And then today, while parsing Californian news again, I glanced upon the name of that teacher and realized that, against all odds, I knew him.
Not only did I know Dr. Dennis, but I also personally kept a very fond memory of these two semesters I studied with him. In fact, it was he who gave me a taste for Political Science, to the point of making it my college major the following semester, when I had originally just thought of it as a quick requirement to cross off my list before transferring with a science major.
Out of the very few classes I took at CCSF, “Dr. D” was easily the most striking professor: both as an incredibly smart, witty and engaging teacher and at the same time, obviously dedicated toward helping all students and making sure everybody got their fair chance in the end. I remember his fits of calculated zaniness in the middle of the most serious dissections of US Federal Institution and Constitutional Law. I remember that one time where, upon learning of my odd place of birth, he surprised us all by giving a quick but thorough geo-political recap of that tiny Indian Ocean island most wouldn’t even know where to put on a map, all in impeccable French. More so, I remember how astounded I was, when he concluded by throwing in a couple cheerful comments in perfect Seychellois Creole… I even remember that house of his in Oakland, where he traditionally invited his students for a semester-capping potluck dinner…
I still can’t believe now that his name, of all people, would add itself onto that seemingly unending list of tiresome injustices that is Oakland’s violent crimes reports.
He truly was a good man, in deeds and in inspiration for others. I know he will be missed by a lot.
Good bye Dr. D: may you rest in peace, Oh Zany One…
Eat to the Bleep
Things are starting to wind down a bit.
Of course, I still have a paper deadline for Friday and about 120 hours of sleep to catch up, but that’s what we call low season around here.
To celebrate, and because there’s only so many days in a row one can justify spending in bed (no matter how good the reasons or convincing the company), I hereby introduce:
Dr Dave’s Eat to the Bleep mix of 2008!
Don’t look for soothing deep house beats this time around: it’s all moody bleeps, 808 galore and punkish overtones. This is the Sound of Tomorrow, people (which is coincidentally just like the Sound of Yesterday, only with better electronics and more post-modern irony).
Also, this is my first time, ever, mixing entirely in digital format, only using, for lack of better options, my trusty laptop and FastTrack Pro M-Audio box. The result is neither as fun nor as satisfying as a nice pair of decks, but certainly better than nothing (hopefully). Since I still haven’t purchased a new MIDI keyboard either (ohh, grand ambitions of renewed artistic endeavours from last September, where hast thou gone?), there is practically no additional productions to speak of.
PS: if you missed previous installments of the collection (including the less electro-ish ones), they can all be found, neatly labeled and sorted by bleepy type on the mix repository page.
PPS: for those looking for a deepy-house fix, I can’t recommend enough Fleep-san’s near-monthly delivery of such.
Downsides of neuroscience papers, pt. 2
Further reason why reading up reference material for your own neuroscience paper is a total bummer:
[…] After neuronal recording was completed, monkey RO was anesthetized with an overdose of Nembutal (90 mg/kg, i.m.) and transcardially perfused with 10 % formaldehyde in 0.9 % NaCl. The brain was removed and consecutive, 50 µm-thick, frozen sections were cut parallel to the recording electrode penetrations in the frontal plane.
“Ooh, my, that’s interesting… and what fascinating data did we get from those frozen sections of the frontal pl… Hey! Wait a minute… You did what to monkey RO?! I was just getting to know monkey RO! Damn you people. He was just an innocent Japanese monkey (Macaca fuscata, male, 8.9 kg): young and promising, with still so much to give!”
[…]
“Oh well, I guess on the upside, we now know that corticostriatal neurons show distinct action-value-related firing patterns when you let monkeys play Pong… You shall not have died in vain (and your brain frozen and sliced to pieces while your heart was being pumped full of embalming fluid), little monkey RO!”
PS: For those wondering: as is commonly the case in such research papers, “anesthetized” is the mother of all euphemisms for “killed the death out of it”.
PPS: I guess this shall simultaneously address a question on everybody’sthree people’s (family and cat included) mind: “What is Dave up to and why don’t we see much of him here lately”.