The hectic pace of this time of year (grading finals! grading papers! etc!) always makes me think of the music of Raymond Scott (1908-1994), but especially his “Powerhouse” (1937). Â If you’ve ever watched any Warner Bros. cartoons, you’ll recognize this as the machinery-out-of-control theme. Â Carl Stalling (1891-1972), who created the scores for those cartoons, made…
They might indeed be geniuses. Â What other band has, in the last quarter century, produced such consistently great music? Â Music for films, TV, adults, children, and mammals of any description? Â I ask you: Who? Commemorating new music by They Might Be Giants (who, dear reader, are this blogger’s favorite band), here are nine TMBG songs…
No, Pi cannot be copyrighted, despite what one composer claims.  I had wondered why Michael John Blake’s beautiful YouTube video of “What Pi Sounds Like” had been taken down.  I’d linked to it in my “Happy Ï€ Day from Crockett Johnson” post, and then it… disappeared.  Blake explains why below: Vi Hart has a truly…
In naïve, or pure, Camp, the essential element is seriousness, a seriousness that fails. Of course, not all seriousness that fails can be redeemed as Camp. Only that which has the proper mixture of the exaggerated, the fantastic, the passionate, and the naïve. – Susan Sontag, “Notes on Camp” (1964) – Rebecca Black, “Friday” (2011)…
Celebrity children’s books usually suck. The good news about Al Yankovic’s When I Grow Up (2011, illustrated by Wes Hargis) is that it does not suck. Unlike many celebrity books, it does not star a child version of the author, it does not simply add illustrations to one of his songs, and nor does it…
Since Lady Gaga’s new single “Born This Way” made its debut last month, critics have alleged that the song is “derivative” or even a “rip off” of Madonna songs like “Express Yourself.” And, of course it is. But that also doesn’t matter in the least. All pop music is derivative. “Express Yourself” (1989) borrows from…
Born 107 years ago today in Springfield Mass., Theodor Seuss Geisel had an extraordinarily prolific career. Â Most people know him for the 44 books he wrote and illustrated under the name “Dr. Seuss.” Â But that’s only part of his career. Â He wrote another 13 books under the name “Theo. LeSieg,” one book as “Rosetta Stone,”…
As we celebrate the birthdays of Mozart (255th) and Lewis Carroll (179th) amidst threatened cuts to arts funding, we might re-read Yuko Takao’s A Winter Concert (1995; English translation, 1997).  Rendered in thin dark lines on a white background, mice walk to a concert. As the pianist begins to play, colored pointillist shapes rise from…
If you’ve played the Rovio game Angry Birds for any length of time, you’ll know Ari Pulkkinen‘s catchy theme. Indeed, the music is almost as addictive as the game –Â as some of these cover versions indicate. The Genevieve Trio‘s performance brings out a certain olde-worlde-folk-music quality that I really like. Accordion, upright bass (not pictured),…
With a hectic new semester about to begin (or, for many of us, already begun) and our new governor’s proposed assault on some of Kansas’ most vulnerable citizens, let us seek solace – and inspiration – in the verse of our greatest living YouTube poet, Parry Gripp. Â As he counsels, when The world has gone…
