March 2019 - Page 2 of 2 - ForgottenStars.net

March 14, 2019October 3, 2021

Pi Day!!!

(NOTE: This is a repost of last year’s Pi Day post. I didn’t get a chance to generate any new content–i.e., shoot a new video in which I get a pie in the face in the midst of a lesson about Pi–this year, but hey, last year’s video is still pretty funny, if I do say so myself!)

It’s Pi Day, everyone!

It is also Albert Einstein’s birthday and, sadly, this year’s edition marks the passing of Stephen Hawking, about which I’ll have more to say later. But for now, let’s celebrate Pi!

Calculate Pi yourself!

NASA’s Pi in the Sky Challenge

A few videos:

(That one’s titled “Pi Day” but the video has nothing to do with Pi so far as I can see, but it’s a cool video anyway, so there it is.)

And finally:

Happy Pi Day, everyone!

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March 12, 2019October 3, 2021

Tone Poem Tuesday

Time for something of a musical homecoming. I’ll be featuring the music of Hector Berlioz a lot over the next few months, as we’ve just past the 150th anniversary of his passing after a 65-year life of struggle and hardship that was too rarely punctuated by triumph. Nevertheless Berlioz produced some of the most remarkable music of the 19th century, music that took well into the 20th century to find its greatest appreciation. And that appreciation is only growing as Berlioz grows in esteem.

Here we have one of the earliest works of his to survive. Berlioz was highly self-critical and thought nothing of destroying early works if he later judged them wanting; thus we actually know little of his most youthful work. This concert overture, based on Sir Walter Scott’s novel Waverley, bursts with youthful exuberance and energy, especially in the thrilling allegro section that follows the score’s lyric portion. Scott wrote picturesque novels of adventure and intrigue, and Berlioz tries to capture some of that here. He’s not entirely successful, and the Waverley overture has its awkward moments like many of Berlioz’s works to come. But one can already hear the orchestrally-focused imagination at work, as Berlioz’s was a musical mind unfettered by training on the piano. What wonders would come later, once Berlioz had discovered Shakespeare and Byron and Beethoven!

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March 8, 2019October 3, 2021

Bad Joke Friday

Picking the low-hanging fruit is always advisable.

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March 7, 2019October 3, 2021

“Execute order….”

Roger Green turns 66 today, and a very happy birthday to him! He also gathers a bit of linkage and factual stuff regarding the number 66, most famously used to identify a once-beloved portion of the United States highway system.

I, of course, am a Star Wars fan, while Roger is not…so maybe he’s not even aware of the most sinister use of sixty-six!

I hope Roger’s birthday is a happier occasion than the Sith’s purge of the Jedi!

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March 7, 2019October 3, 2021

Something for Thursday

Returning to the Song Challenge, it’s a song from my pre-teen years! I wasn’t sure how to define this–after all, a song from 1972, when I was pushing one year old, was definitely “pre-teen”, strictly speaking. But I think they’re referring to the “tweener” category, when you’re 11 or 12. As my tweener period coincides very nicely with the arrival on the scene of MTV, here’s one of the very first songs I ever encountered in “music video” form. (Although we didn’t even have MTV at our house until several years later, because it took our town that long to run cable out that far on the road where we lived. For several years my sole exposure to MTV came during visits and sleepovers at a friend’s house.)

Anyway, here’s the sublimely goofy early 80s icon Adam Ant, with “Goody Two Shoes”.

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March 6, 2019October 3, 2021

Walkabout

Most Sundays start with The Dee-oh-gee and I going on a walk in a nature-based location–usually one of the local state or county parks. Unfortunately we haven’t been able to do as much of that of late because this winter’s climate has been unconducive to such adventures. But this past Sunday we made our way at last to Knox Farm State Park, where we walked amongst the trees once more. Even though the trees are still asleep, they make the best companions, don’t they?

Snowy tree #KnoxFarm #eastaurora #wny #winter #snow #nature #hiking #trees

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March 6, 2019October 3, 2021

Tone Poem Tuesday

An old favorite returns. This work is the kind of thing I return to when I need the world to slow down, when I need to recall that there is room in this world we’ve built for quiet moments and serene thoughts.

Here is Ralph Vaughan Williams’s The Lark Ascending. Vaughan Williams called the work a “romance”, and that fits. What always captivates me about this piece is the way it doesn’t so much begin as arise. A sequence of soft chords sounds in the orchestra before the solo violin begins to emerge with a series of figures that seem almost to flutter. The Lark Ascending is a meditative song that returns the world to a better speed.