Brian Eno, singing, and Japanese education

Brian Eno had a piece on NPR where he talks about the benefits of communal singing; group cohesion, using more lung space, etc. At the end he says that if were to reform the British educational system, he would include group singing.

My younger son went to elementary school in Japan for a week, and they had... group sing a longs! And, he reports, the songs were "really good!"

Reading Huckleberry Finn again

I have trouble reading classic novels; most of them move pretty slowly or require a lot of intellectual energy that I don't have at bedtime we I can read. But HF moves quickly; it would make a good "beach" book.

Why?

Terry Eagleton's book "The Meaning of Life".

Library books...

"Century Rain" by Alastair Reynolds. A mashup of alternative history, space opera, and noir detective genres. It works fine, but when are scifi writers actually going to come up with new science gimmicks? Portals and wormholes to get their protagonists around, genetic engineering... how about some new ideas people?

Hegel

I'm reading Walter Kauffman's book on Hegel. His writing always pulls me in.

Writing

Think of the great variety of things in the world, and not just the things around me. A few thoughts about the moss and pinecones should drive out all the noise of work and home.

The New Yorker

The New Yorker has gone back to normal, attractive covers! Yeah!