I Just Read About That…

  SOUNDTRACK: DAUGHTER-Tiny Desk Concert #313 (October 21, 2013).

Daughter is a quiet folk band (at least in this Tiny Desk Concert) in which two acoustic guitars (Elena Tonra and Igor Haefeli) and one drum (Remi Aguilella) play behind Tonra’s gorgeous, angsty vocals.

For all three of these songs, she sings delicate whispered vocals that are quite lovely, but also quite dark.

Like this line from “Youth” “Most of us are bitter over someone / setting fire to our insides for fun.”  I love the way Haefeli’s guitar harmonics sound like keyboards and how powerful the martial drumming sounds when it comes in.

“Landfill” opens with thudding drums (Mallets instead of sticks) which are louder and bigger and yet still feel gentle.  And yet, as the blurb says: The song is “achingly pretty and melancholy, the track builds to an absolute gut-punch of a line — “I want you so much, but I hate your guts” — that conjures a pitch-perfect mix of gloom, desire and hostility.”

They put out an EP and in 2013 released an album:

the lovely If You Leave, but Daughter was kind enough to resuscitate “Landfill” for this stripped-down performance at the Tiny Desk. As you’ll see and hear, that aforementioned gut-punch is a recurring specialty for the band: In all three of these sad, searing songs, singer Elena Tonra showcases a remarkable gift for coolly but approachably dishing out weary words that resonate and devastate.

Between these two songs, Bob asks if this is an awkward place to play, and she responds, “No, we’re just awkward people.”

For “Tomorrow” there is a beautiful ascending guitar melody and loud drums.  I really like the way the guitars play off of each other–even though they are both acoustic, they sound very different and complement each other nicely.  Like in the wonderful melody at the end.  Despite how pretty the song was, apparently she was unhappy with it saying “a bit ropey, that one.”  I hadn’t heard that before, but evidently it means “unwell…usually alcohol related” so that’s pretty funny.

[READ: August 30, 2016] Science: Ruining Everything Since 1543

Zach Weinersmith writes the daily webcomic Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal.  I supported the Kickstarter project for his book Religion: Ruining Everything Since 4004 BC and this book was part of my funding level.

I was more interested in the religious comics, but I am tickled by how funny the Science comics are.  Weinersmith knows a lot of science (or at least scientists) and make some really funny jokes about the subject.

The one thing I have to say off the bat is that I don’t love his drawing style.  There’s something about it that I simply can’t get into.  Even after two full books of these drawings, it just never gels for me.  But that’s fine. because I’m here for the jokes.  And they are awesome.

The first section comes from the SMBC archive and many are “too dorky to ever appear in a an SMBC compilation meant for normal human beings.”  The second section contains 17 exclusive comics that he thought they were too dorky even for SMBC.  The final section contains Tales of Science–stories told to him by his favorite scientists.

Right off the bad, the teaching of natural selection class is hilarious.  As is the joke about Superman flying around the earth to reverse its spin…and stop time: “Perhaps he should have paid more attention in physics class.”

Something I imagine all my scientist friends doing:  “Life Tip: You can do petty much anything if you yell the right phrase.”  Cut to a naked man running down the hall shouting “For Science!”

Because Weinersmith is one the side of science, he gets to make great jokes like this: what would a creationist say when confronted with an archaeopteryx? AAAAGH.

The argument for the removal of all men is very funny as is the way different people deal with lycanthropy: a normal person, a doctor and an engineer.  And just imagine the fate of the poor scientist named Professor Hitlerballs.

There’s also a very good argument for why you don’t want scientific parents: [Scientists speaking to their kids] Astronomer: you’re a cosmic speck; Neurologist you’re so predictable ; Engineer: hold this metal rod, I want to try something.  Conversely, he explains why you want to be an engineer; because the engineering conferences is about awesome stuff.

Of course science seems doomed to always be poolroom portrayed.  What Science TV is like : A Viking could swing an axe enough to melt the sun into a star but an actual science TV show would be far less exciting…two people debating that there is a 52% chance of probability.

I love the strip that ends with the punchline “When you marry a neurologist, you don’t cheat on her” the set up is too funny to spoil.

Perhaps the most fun thing in this book is the way he makes fun of philosophy students.  Like the reason why engineers are banned from philosophy conferences or that physicists are no longer allowed in history class.

And the way Carl Sagan convinces his son to clean the cat shit is hilarious.

I also appreciated his joke about the blatant sexism in science.

How about the joke in which the woman who invented time travel went back in time to change “eight” to “sodomized.” Those of you who know a famous children’s rhyme about 7s and 9s will chuckle at that one.

One of my favorite jokes comes at the expense of many science and newspaper articles (science or otherwise).  If your article can be summarized as “No,” don’t write it.

I also really enjoyed the joke about what you see in the clouds…the punchline is great.  As is the punchline for “How to distract 223 nerds for half an hour.”

Or how about that Gravity is actually a gay force: “a force of attraction where like attracts like.”

The bonus stories from scientists are pretty funny–even funnier is that he draws each scientist as being very angry.  I liked Henry Reich’s punchline that there is pop on the moon.  And that Sean Carrol denied Stephen Hawking twice. Phil Plait’s story about showing kids Jupiter on Halloween is really awesome.  Christina Agapkis’ disgusting story of growing cheese from the stuff between your toes is disgustingly fantastic and Paul Barrett’s awesome story about finding dinosaur fossils in the natural history museum in London basement (!) and the press’ reaction to it is great.

The last strip comes from the woman I assume is Zach’s wife who started noticing behavior in parasites and now studies “Zombie Animals.”

Having an appreciation for science certainly makes this book funnier, but if you check out his website above, you can get a sense for whether these jokes are for you.