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Halloween is a scary time and what could be scarier than Halloween in the library? Music Librarian Antoinette Powell, Archivist Julia Stringfellow, and ILL wizard Angela Vanden Elzen demonstrate just how frightening it can be...
It's National Knock Knock Joke Day! As a rule, we don't think knock knock jokes are very funny, but here's the best one:
Walk up to someone and say, "Say 'knock knock.'"
Person: "Knock knock."
You: "Who's there?"
Person: .....
Hilarious.
A Prairie Home Companion does a joke show every year and here are some knock knock jokes heard on the show.
Have you heard about RSS but haven't a clue as to what it's all about? Come to the ITC (Library 214) on Thursday, November 1 at 11:00 am to hear Julie Fricke and David Berk talk about this technology and why it is important. For example, did you know that the Library and ITS newsletters are now being distributed via a blog and you can keep up with this news via RSS? It's true! Newspapers and other sources distribute news and information via RSS as well.
David and Julie will demonstrate a couple of applications that you can use to keep up with your your favorite sources of information. Please plan to attend!
If you're able to attend, please RSVP to Cassie Cobb at cobbc@lawrence.edu or x7029
Oh, boy, we've been waiting for this. Today the New York Times reported that the Center for Biotechnology at the State University of New York at Stony Brook did experiments where they had mice stand on platforms that buzz at a low frequency for 15 minutes a day, five days a week. After this treatment, the mice not only had 27 percent less fat than the control mice, but they also had more bone mass. Also, scientists have discovered that a stem cell in bone marrow can morph into either fat or bone, depending which signal it receives. During the next round of office furniture purchasing at the Mudd, it's buzzing chairs for everyone!
The most interesting Archives question of the week is, "Is it true that Lawrence University was featured in Playboy magazine as one of the nation's ugliest college campuses (in terms of female looks)? The answer is no. A search through the magazine's index and a call to Playboy Enterprises resulted in finding nothing on Lawrence in the magazine.
Good information to have if you're ever asked about it, especially at a trivia contest!
A 16 billion pixel image of Leonardo da Vinci's Last Supper has been posted on the internet, giving art lovers a detailed view of the 15th Century work. If you haven't seen Leonardo da Vinci's Last Supper in person, this is your chance to truly explore the details of this amazing work of art. You can see it at: http://www.haltadefinizione.com/en/
To read more about this project go to: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/7065903.stm
In 1975 New York City was in dire financial straights. Mayor Abraham Beame and Gov. Hugh Carey asked the federal government for a measly $1 billion line of credit. President Ford refused.
New York Daily News managing editor William J. Brink is credited with coming up with one of the most famous headlines in American journalism after rejecting FORD REFUSES AID TO CITY and FORD SAYS NO TO CITY AID. That same day, October 30, 1975, the erudite New York Times reported the story in its own way. To their credit, the Times editors did not go for the obvious when they printed Mr. Brink's obituary on July 2, 2005.
It was 38 years ago today that the first internet message was sent. On October 29, 1969, the word "Lo" was sent from UCLA to Stanford via the network then called the ARPANET. They were trying to send the message "log in," but the system crashed before they could send the "g." UCLA did a big thing for the 35th anniversary in 2004. Naturally the Mudd has a book mentioning the ARPANET.
That same day across the continent, a work by Jon Hassell for four players with hand-held magnetic tape heads, Superball, was premiered in Ithaca, N.Y. They were so last century.
Eli Whitney applied for a patent on the cotton gin on this day in 1793, a patent he was granted March 14, 1794. The U.S. Patent Office web site states: "Eli Whitney watched a cat pull feathers through a cage -- it was how he thought of the invention now known as the cotton gin." One must wonder: as Eli watched this disturbing scene, did he do nothing to rescue the unfortunate player in this "light bulb" moment? For surely these feathers were attached to some hapless bird who was trapped in that cage.
Let's hoist a glass to Eli Whitney and the cotton gin, a name and an invention inextricably linked in grade school and barely thought about since then. And read about all kinds of American inventors.
On October 26, 1825 first passage through the Erie Canal was opened from Lake Erie to New York City. We always wondered how the mules were able to hold their breath long enough to make it all that way.
Here at the Mudd we're nothing if not eclectic. This latest CD pile has Bach cello transcriptions for piano and a new St. Matthew passion, "Professor Bad Trip," and Donaueschinger Musiktage 2002. Who could ask for anything more?
Pablo Picasso was born on this day in 1881. On Oct. 25, 1955 Tappan sold its first microwave oven. It cost $1,200. That same year Picasso painted this pitcher. It's worth $8,000-12,000. If only he'd had access to a microwave, maybe he could have melted the actual pitcher and painted it the way it REALLY looked instead of having to use his imagination.
Here's a super cool Picasso site from Texas A & M University.
You've found the perfect article for your class in JSTOR and now you want to add the link to your Moodle course page, but where do you find the URL? JSTOR and many (but not all) of the library databases have what they call persistent or stable URLs that you can quickly copy & paste into Moodle. Be sure to have the article links open in a new window so that students lose track of their Moodle page. Check the guide for more information.
National Mole Day is today. Please choose from the following the type of mole that is being recognized:
1) the kind that lives in the ground
2) the kind that lives on your skin
3) the kind who infiltrates an organization
4) a spicy sauce made with chilies and usually chocolate
5) a mass (in grams) whose number is equal to the atomic mass of the molecule
If you said #5 you would probably fall down laughing at this joke that passes for humor in chemistry circles:
Q: What did Avogadro teach his students in math class?
A: Moletiplication
Curl up by the fire with a book on molecular theory.
They're coming in faster than we can post them: more CDs. This time it's 20th century chamber music, an opera like you've never heard before, a CD featuring one of LU's Artist Series performers, plus Lang Lang at Carnegie Hall.
It's about time, you may well say, and we agree. If you're a fan of close vocal harmonies, cello concertos and porcine super heroes, check out today's new CD pile.
Ever wonder if there are any haunted places on campus? Given that Lawrence has been around for 160 years, there certainly is! Come and learn more about the haunted and creepy places on campus on Sunday, October 28 at 7 pm. We'll meet at the Information Deck in the Union and tour the campus, including Cloak Theater, Memorial Chapel, and Main Hall. The tour will end in Riverview Lounge in the Union where a Midterm Stress Relief Social will take place. This even is sponsored by the Dean of Students Office, the Wellness Committee, and the University Archives.
Have a question about Lawrence ghosts and just can't wait until Sunday to ask? Stop by the Archives, call or e-mail. And in case you're wondering, sorry, no ghosts in the Archives have been spotted!
The Eau Claire, WI city fathers have spoken: archery is no longer permitted in Archery park. The park on the Eau Claire river is decked out with an archery tower and is set among wooded hillsides to keep those pointy little suckers contained within the park grounds. However, several have escaped into the neighboring yards over the years, hence the kibosh. We see an opportunity for a major fast food emporium to move in and take over the grounds.
That well-respected bastion of urban legend de-bunk-ation, snopes.com, has a surprising number of reports of the magic power of pennies. Can rubbing a penny on a bee sting ease the pain? (No.) Can a penny remove a wart? (No.) Will sucking on a penny defeat a breathalyzer test? (No and this is just crazy.) However, one folk cure was proven here a couple of years ago in a now-famous un-blind experiment. One of our own librarians was relieved of her warts by the constant and rigorous application of duct tape to the afflicted areas. We were convinced, and should any others at the Mudd ever develop warts, we'll jump onto the duct tape bandwagon, which would be an excellent name for a rock group. Our new motto: The Mudd - Now Wart Free.
It's National Boss Day! Unfortunately, the boss here at the Mudd is not at work today. But if he's reading this, we're starting out the day with calisthenics, then a quick shelf reading of the entire collection, followed by a rousing version of LU's alma mater. Then lunch. This afternoon we're re-arranging the reference books according to height and popularity, fixing the leak up on the 3rd floor and adding a coffee shop. If you don't notice these changes when you get back, it's because you were, uh, dropped into a parallel universe. Yeah, that's it.
He's whimpering. He's anxious. He can't stay still. You hurry to the door and let him out. What dogs really do when they go outside.
Today marks the 163th anniversary of the birth of Friedrich Nietzsche, philosopher extraordinaire and (who knew?) opera buff. He had definite opinions: Bizet, good; Wagner, bad. Of course, being a philosopher, he was a little more wordy than that. As quoted in his entry in Grove, the music in Carmen "is wicked, cunning, fatalistic: it remains at the same time popular ... It is rich. It is precise. It constructs, organizes, finishes." On the other hand, "Wagner's art is sick." Yikes.
If you've a hankering for the wicked and cunning, here's Callas as Carmen. Sick art more your thing? How about a little Walküre with Kirsten Flagstad? Or read something by the man himself.
Everyone loves craigslist. You can procure just about anything: animal, vegetable, mineral, legal, illegal. We were intrigued by this posting. It's a whole different world down there in the Southern Hemisphere. Or in Minnesota.
While not all of the Mudd staff believe that all "good" rock and roll ceased at the end of the '60s, we would be remiss if we did not point out that today is the birth anniversary of John Lennon (you know, that Beatle guy...) John would have been 67 today.
Sharing today's birthday is son Sean Ono Lennon, born on John's 35th birthday, and turning 32 today.
This "Quick Tutorial on Reading Scientific Papers" from the Purdue University Libraries is a great introduction to the how and why of scientific papers. Its avowed goal: "To make reading scientific papers as painless as possible." What's not to like about that?
" The 17th First Annual Ig Nobel Prize Ceremony announced and introduced the ten new Ig Nobel Prize winners. The winners are traveling to the ceremony, at their own expense, from several continents. The Prizes will be handed to them by a group of genuine, genuinely bemused Nobel Laureates, all before a standing-room only audience of 1200 people." This years prizes include:
Linguistics
A University of Barcelona team for showing that rats are unable to tell the difference between a person speaking Japanese backwards and somebody speaking Dutch backwards.
Economics
Kuo Cheng Hsieh of Taiwan for patenting a device that can catch bank robbers by dropping a net over them.
Next week an important conference is taking place for people who stick cameras on wild animals. We think it's called SCOWA. Scientists currently have a mania for seeing what wild animals REALLY do when we're not looking: crows using tools, coyotes playing poker, that sort of thing. National Geographic has gotten into it with its Crittercam. NPR has a feature on the crows who, honest to gosh, use tools. As cameras get smaller, look for The Secret Life of Bacteria.
On October 4, 1970, Janis Joplin committed her final act of self-destruction. At a time when women in popular music were folk singers (Mary Travers, Joan Baez,) flower children (Cass Elliot and Michelle Phillips,) tightly coiffed and choreographed girl groups (The Supremes, Martha & the Vandellas) or singer-song writers (Carole King and Carly Simon,) a white, female blues singer was a stand-out. A year earlier on the "The Tonight Show" Johnny Carson asked her if she was going to her high school reunion. She smiled and said "Yeah. I'm goin'." We hope she made it.
Watch her in action at Woodstock.
Return with us again to the 1950's and a most momentous day: on this day in 1955 both Captain Kangaroo AND The Mickey Mouse Club premiered on TV, the first on CBS, the second on ABC. This must have presented quite a problem for children with no DVR or TiVo®.
Those of you of a certain age will certainly remember:
Monday - Fun With Music Day
Tuesday - Guest Star Day
Wednesday - Anything Can Happen Day
Thursday - Circus Day
Friday - Talent Round-Up Day
And we must revisit SCTV for "Captain Combat"
Also premiering on Oct. 3:
"Father Knows Best" (1954, CBS)
"The Andy Griffith Show" (1960, CBS)
"The Dick Van Dyke Show" (1961, CBS)
Last week we were too consumed by meat products to mark this momentous anniversary. On Sept. 26, 1957, West Side Story opened at the Winter Garden in New York, with music by Leonard Bernstein and lyrics by a very young Stephen Sondheim. An item in the New York Times that day revealed that it dealt with "the timely subject of juvenile delinquency." They might as well have said "Oklahoma! it ain't." The next day Times reviewer Brooks Atkinson showed that he got it: a score that captures "the shrill beat of life in the streets;" "Everything contributes to the total impression of wildness, ecstasy and anguish;" "This is one of those occasions when theatre people...are all in top form."
The Mudd has the original cast recording, the full score, the 1961 film (on DVD) starring Natalie Wood and Richard Beymer, and the crazy, what-were-they-thinking 1985 studio recording with José Carreras as the Polish youth and Tatiana Troyanos as the Puerto Rican teenage girl. Give it a listen just to hear UW-Milwaukee's own Kurt Ollmann.
After winding up the month of September celebrating the yummy goodness of protein on the claw and hoof, we must give equal time to those who eschew such comestibles and chew other digestibles. It's World Vegetarian Day.
This page contains all entries posted to News from the Mudd in October 2007. They are listed from oldest to newest.
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