I Fell in Love with This Tune 

I Thought It Was New – I Was Mistaken 

I’m accustomed to the digital media sites that I frequent feeding me news that appeals to my social interests and political prejudices. Likewise, with book recommendations from Amazon and movie recommendations from Netflix. Figuring out my preferences based on past consumption doesn’t seem all that difficult to do. But my taste in music is very diverse and esoteric. So I was surprised when YouTube directed me to a song that I’d never heard before, but liked very much.

The song was featured in one of those bits where a guitarist stands somewhere in public and asks passersby if they want to sing. In this particular one, set in a subway station, the passerby looked like he might have been a bookkeeper or high school science teacher.

Watch it here.

The song he sang hooked me. The melody is beautiful in a haunting, rock-opera-ish sort of way. The structure is complex, as if a serious composer were behind it. But the lyrics are juvenile – almost purposefully juvenile.

I couldn’t quite figure it out. I played it once or twice more that day, and then, as happens with algorithms, versions of the song began following me around YouTube. Each version was different than the previous one, but they all held me.

Here, for example, is an opera singer taking a shot at it.

And here is a very soulful version by some guy competing in a televised singing contest.

And here’s a guy – who is probably well-known by now – doing an amazing version on American Idol. (Start at minute 3.0.)

I finally tracked down the original. The song – Creep – was the 1992 debut single by the English rock band Radiohead. (The band’s frontman, Thom Yorke, wrote the lyrics.) Click here to watch them perform it.

Test Your Knowledge of America’s First Ladies 

I did poorly on this online history test (16 out of 25). But I learned a lot. And some of the facts are surprising. Click here to try it.

I’ve mentioned before that Edgar Allan Poe is one of my favorite poets. This is one of my favorite poems of his:

Alone

By Edgar Allan Poe

From childhood’s hour I have not been

As others were – I have not seen

As others saw – I could not bring

My passions from a common spring –

From the same source I have not taken

My sorrow – I could not awaken

My heart to joy at the same tone –

And all I lov’d – I lov’d alone –

Then – in my childhood – in the dawn

Of a most stormy life – was drawn

From ev’ry depth of good and ill

The mystery which binds me still –

From the torrent, or the fountain –

From the red cliff of the mountain –

From the sun that ’round me roll’d

In its autumn tint of gold –

From the lightning in the sky

As it pass’d me flying by –

From the thunder, and the storm –

And the cloud that took the form

(When the rest of Heaven was blue)

Of a demon in my view –

Click here to listen to it read wonderfully by Tom o’ Bedlam.

Enjoy!

A Surprise Discovery!

Paleontologists Paul Sereno and Dan Vidal were walking between dig sites in the Sahara when they stumbled upon something in the sand. After a closer look, they realized it was a fossil: a femur from a dinosaur known as a sauropod.

Read Sereno’s account of how it happened here.

Last month, Argentina reported year-over-year inflation of 92.4%. As the value of its peso has been decreasing, Sergio Guillermo Diaz, an artist in the city of Salta, has been painting on the banknotes, weaving the themes of inflation and the peso’s depreciation into his works. “Once I paint on it, I can sell it for much more than what the bill is worth,” he told Reuters.

Vespers for a New Dark Age 

K had this on Sonos this morning when I came into the kitchen. I didn’t notice it at first, but then I did. I think it is hauntingly beautiful.

It was composed by Missy Mazzoli for the 2014 Carnegie Hall Ecstatic Music Festival. You can listen to it here. 

Seven Links to Make Your Life a Little Richer

Throughout the year, I collect a treasure trove of little stories I want to share with you. For various reasons, it doesn’t always happen. But the trove continues to grow. So, before I forget about them, here are a half-dozen from 2022…

1. From The Hustle: a fascinating article on the commercial history of the Ouija board. Read it here.
2. 2. From Mental Floss: Can faking a smile make you happier? Find out what scientists have discovered here.
3. From Forbes: 2022’s highest-paid dead celebrities. Get the details here.
4. From World History Food: a video about American foods that are banned in other countries. Watch it here.
5. From The Guardian: A “coup for poo” – Australia approves the world’s first fecal transplant. Why does it matter? Click here.
6. From The Magazine Project: “What’s in a Face?” – an experiment in tracking cultural changes through images of faces in Time magazine from 1923-2014. Why they did it… how they did it… and what they found out here.
7. From Tableau Public: 30 years of UFO sightings. See the data here.

Listen to understand, not to respond…

Click here to learn about this very good technique for communicating well and deescalating conflict. I’ve heard versions of it many times over the years, and I always have the same reaction: I should do that!

But I don’t.