I'm currently resurrecting a number of decade-old spot illustrations based on my kitten logo that I had intended to use as a sort of branding - on letterheads, business cards, invoices, etc. Here are two of them:
I'd even started paintings for all of them, but got sidetracked by other work at the time and never came back to them. I probably won't use them for their original purpose, but I thought they might make for some more good digital practice.
Aniruddh D. Patel’s research focuses on how the brain processes music and language, especially what the similarities and differences between the two reveal about each 
other and about the brain itself. Patel has served on the Executive Committee of the Society for Music Perception and Cognition and is currently the Esther J. Burnham Senior Fellow at The Neurosciences Institute. Patel’s book, Music, Language, and the Brain, challenges the widespread belief that music and language are processed independently. This fabulous book won a Deem-Taylor Award From ASCAP and its ideas are explored in a PBS special The Music Instinct which airs tonight. Below learn about Patel’s experience with Snowball, the dancing Cockatoo.
Sometimes science takes you in strange directions. I study how human brains processes music, but last year I found myself in a living room in suburban Indiana, dancing with a sulphur-crested cockatoo named Snowball.
I had been captivated by his YouTube debut, where he seemed to really be dancing to the beat of human music.Click here to view the embedded video.
The ability to synchronize movements to a musical beat was long thought to be uniquely human, but Snowball’s dancing suggested otherwise. Fortunately I was able to collaborate with his owners and conduct a controlled study, showing that he really did sense a beat and move in time with it, even when no humans were dancing with him. Crucially, when we slowed down or sped up his favorite song (”Everybody”, by the Back Street Boys), he spontaneously adjusted his dance tempo accordingly, just as a human would.
Click here to view the embedded video.
This discovery (recently published in Current Biology) has implications for debates over the evolution of human music, and has opened my mind to the complexity of music perception by nonhuman animals.
Our work with Snowball appears in the PBS documentary “The Music Instinct“, which airs on June 24th.
First the poem by Shel Silverstein, then the story.
I made myself a snowball
As perfect as could be.
I thought I’d keep it as a pet
And let it sleep with me.
I made it some pajamas
And a pillow for its head.
Then last night it ran away,
But first — it wet the bed.
Thanks for coming to Poetry Friday. Round-up available at
Big A, little a. Interested parties may stay for the story; all others may file out quietly.
My husband woke me up at 6:45 a.m. this morning to ask where he might find the camera to bring on his trip. While a phrase went through my mind as to where he
might find the camera, I mumbled a reply and staggered to the kitchen to look for the rechargeable batteries. When he woke me, I was in the middle of a dream where a friend was telling me that I must know that we really weren’t friends and I should get over it. In the dream, I felt like I was punched in the stomach. And then I woke up, and I still felt emotionally jarred from the dream, because it was probably pretty accurate. There’s not a lot of hope for a day in which you’ve been rejected
before you even woke up.In this half-awake, emotionally raw state I said goodbye to my husband, who is going to Seattle for our
film’s inclusion in a Sci-Fi short film festival. Then I convinced the girls to snuggle in bed for a few minutes (like twenty) before really starting our morning. We were all disappointed by the lack of snow, which had been predicted for overnight. My oldest told me a near equivalent of the snowball poem above, which did amuse us. Then the girls “phypnotized” each other to change their behaviors — one to stop picking her nose, the other to start eating corn. Too soon, we dragged ourselves out of the warm bed, dressed, ate breakfast, and I drove them to school.
As we approached the school, I realized that no one was walking to school. As we got to the school, we found the parking lot was nearly empty. Is it possible that the start of school was delayed due to light rain? As it turns out, yes it is possible, because this is the suburbs of D.C., where even the threat of sleet or snow is enough to cancel school.
We confirmed our guess on the Internet, and I went back to bed in an attempt to start the day all over again. but the forced sleep didn’t take, so here I am.
At least the
groundhog didn’t see his shadow, so maybe spring will come early this year. At this moment, it’s all I can hope for. Unless... I look at the groundhog’s prediction as another sign of global warming, in which case the day is back to totally sucking.
I'd even started paintings for all of them, but got sidetracked by other work at the time and never came back to them. I probably won't use them for their original purpose, but I thought they might make for some more good digital practice.
The poem is great! I am shockingly unfamiliar with Shel Silverstein - must correct that soon.
First of all, congrats on the film's entry into the Sci-Fi film festival. Do update us.
Secondly, jump back. I didn't know you lived in the suburbs of D.C. We lived (veeeeerrrrry briefly) in Rockville, MD. I made one friend. Just one. That's how short our stay was. Oh, and I'm a bit of a wallflower sometimes, too.
Lastly, I had a dream the other night that a UFO arrived just above our kitchen. Don't know where the Dear Husband was, but he was absent. The Girls (I have two myself) and I walked with fear towards it, and it sucked up my youngest (a traditional movie-like UFO -- you know, where they suck you up the center in a shaft of light and all that). Oddly enough, I remember in the dream giving her a little push. I think it's 'cause I knew they'd take us, and I wanted her to hurry so that I could be sure to go with her. Aw. It was all too frightening, though, and I woke up, my heart all a'thudding. One of those dreams where I thought it was really happening.
I don't know why I just told you this. Probably 'cause you have two girls yourself. And you were talking about your scary dream and all, too.
We're working on setting your interview up for publication (Monday is our goal), and Eisha just noticed that the Cybils site scooped us and interviewed you first. Sweet bastard! But it's all good. As Eisha said, you'll just have a big week. It's National MotherReader week. Woo hoo!
I'm done now. I promise.
It's a bad day when going back to bed TWICE can't fix it...but looking forward to National MotherReader Week oughta help!
Ha! I remember that about the whole DC area. Even a hint of snow, and school -- everything really -- would be canceled. My favorite, though, was the raiding of the grocery stores for bread and milk. Amused me every time.
MR, I completely understand the feeling when you wake up mid-dream and it feels stomach-grippingly real. A few weeks ago I dreamed that I was at a doctors office, and I told the doctor I thought I might have asthma. "No problem," the doctor said, "I'll just take a few quick measurements of your foot, and that will tell me if you have asthma." Moments later, the doctor was reading the printout from the foot-measure-asthma test, and he said, "Well the tests show conclusively that you do have fatal asthma, and you have about 3 months to live." That's when I woke up, and I was so sad. Fatal asthma. 3 months to live. Oh no. Oh no. Oh. Wait. Dream. Just a dream.
When I was a child, I had recurring nightmares about Steve Lawrence and Eydie Gormet. I started praying every night that I would have NO dreams (I didn't feel it was fair to ask God to only spare me the bad dreams, but seeing I was willing to give up the good dreams too, it seemed a reasonable request.)
Funny thing is, it worked.
If I thought I had a snowball's chance of getting out of work at a reasonable time on Friday, I'd offer to pick you up in Princeton and give you a ride into the city. Alas, my job is NOT COOPERATING AT ALL these days.