chrisdellavedova.comchrisdellavedova.comAn American expatriate in Oxford rants about music, politics and love of life. Articles
Science Tuesday: Pale Blue Eyes
2008-02-05 00:00:00 "Thought of you as my mountain top, Thought of you as my peak. Thought of you as everything, I've had but couldn't keep. Linger on, your pale blue eyes." -The Velvet Underground - "Pale Blue Eyes " The instant that my blue-eyed son Zach was born - to a green-eyed mother and brown-eyed father - I became ... More About: Science , Tuesday
Best Shot Monday: In Bloom
2008-02-05 00:00:00 Variety being the spice of life and inspired by Arizaphale's foray last week I've decided to forsake Wordless Wednesday for Best Shot Monday . More About: Bloom
Super Sleeper
2008-02-04 00:00:00 Living abroad as an expatriate can be a slightly disorienting experience and one of the ways of keeping one's equilibrium is to surround oneself with the vestiges of home. Some expats take this to the extreme - making little replicas of their homeland wherever they go (this is why there ... More About: Super , Sleeper
MP3 of the Week: Lightspeed Champion: ?Dry Lips?
2008-02-02 00:00:00 The hysteria prone British music press has anointed Lightspeed Champion one of the Next Big Things (TM) for 2008. American expat and former Test Icicle Devonte Hynes released his solo debut - "Falling of the Lavender Bridge" a couple of weeks ago. Lightspeed Champion plays Bright Eyes inspired folk-tinged indie ... More About: Lips , Week
?The Three Sides of Cyanide Valentine? FREE
2008-02-01 00:00:00 Lost In Your Inbox tipped me off that Boston based Cyanide Valentin e has released their latest LP as a free download. I must admit that I wasn't expecting much - what kind of band gives their records away? Apparently a pretty damn good one. More About: Free , Sides
Bullingdon Prison Blues Revisited
2008-02-01 00:00:00 "San Quentin, what good do you think you do? Do you think I'll be different when you're through? You bent my heart and mind and you may my soul, And your stone walls turn my blood a little cold." -Johnny Cash - "San Quentin" I've not been blogging long enough to start running repeats of ... More About: Blues , Prison
Link love and memes, memes, memes
2008-02-01 00:00:00 "Hoodoo voodoo, seven twenty one two Haystacka hostacka, ABC High poker, low joker, ninety-nine-a-zero Sidewalk, streetcar, dance a goofy dance..." -Wilco & Billy Bragg - "Hoodoo Voodoo" I'm all in a mental tizzy this week. It's been a heavy week of teaching and I've got some incredibly bright ones this term that are intellectually knocking ... More About: Love , Memes , Link
Science Tuesday: One Cell?s Junk Is Another Cell?s Treasure
2008-01-30 00:00:00 The human genome, and most others for that matter, is a massive and complex template containing the written instructions for life. Those instructions, our complement of protein coding genes, make up only about 1.5 percent of the genome and are nestled among billions of base pairs of so-called junk DNA. ... More About: Science , Cell , Tuesday , Junk , Treasure
Fox Confessor Brings The Flood
2008-01-30 00:00:00 More About Wordless Wednesday More About: Flood , Fess
Zach?s Music Monday: Belle & Sebastian
2008-01-28 00:00:00 "And the head said that you always were a queer one from the start For careers you say you went to be remembered for your art Your obsessions get you known throughout the school for being strange Making life-size models of the Velvet Underground in clay..." -Belle and Sebastian - "Expectations" There are a number ... More About: Music , Monday
MP3s of the Week - New Counting Crows
2008-01-28 00:00:00 Let the 90's nostalgia begin! With the possibility of another Clinton in the White House - though, thankfully Barack Obama's trouncing of Hillary Clinton in South Carolina may slow that train - new albums by 90's rock bands are the next indicator of a revival of the decade of ... More About: Week , Counting Crows , Counting
Windsor
2008-01-26 00:00:00 "God save the Queen, We mean it man, There is no future in England's dreaming..." For someone born deep in the heart of republican Ireland and raised in sovereign Australia, Sinead has a deep and proud Royalist streak. So, our Saturday excursion to Windsor Castle was more of a pilgrimage for Dr. O'Connell. ...
Color Me Impressed
2008-01-25 00:00:00 "Everybody at your party They all look depressed Everybody dressin' funny Color me impressed..." -The Replacements - "Color Me Impressed" Two Peach State acts have new records on the British shelves this week and they are doing their home state proud here across the pond.
In a West End town, a dead end world
2008-01-25 00:00:00 "Lost in the high street, where the dogs run Roaming suburban boys Mother's got a hairdo to be done She says they're too old for toys Stood by the bus stop with a felt pen In this suburban hell..." -The Pet Shop Boys - "Suburbia" In September of 1985 I was 14 years old and entering the ... More About: World , West , Dead , Town , Dead End
Science Tuesday: Transatlantic STDs
2008-01-23 00:00:00 The discovery of the New World in the 15th century presented a novel opportunity for exchange of culture, society and biology between two geographically isolated worlds. It did not go particularly well. At the human level, it has been generally accepted that the New Worlders got the short end of ... More About: Science , Tuesday , Ansa
A plague on both your houses
2008-01-23 00:00:00 If you're a Republican, I suspect that you're pretty happy about the recent CNN Democratic Presidential debate in South Carolina. To be fair, I haven't seen it, but the press accounts and transcript seems that the the two frontrunners went after each other like schoolboys in a playground fight - ... More About: Houses
Good Morning Son, I Am A Bird
2008-01-21 00:00:00 "Sara spelled without an 'h' was getting bored On a Peavey amp in 1984 While Zak without a 'c' tried out some new guitars Playing Sara-with-no-h's favourite song..." -Ben Folds - "Zak & Sara" Ben Folds is one of the most entertaining live performers I've ever had the good fortune of seeing. He owns his ... More About: Morning , Bird , Good , Good Morning
Science Tuesday on Thursday: It?s a small RNA world
2008-01-20 00:00:00 One of my favorite parts of my job is the teaching that I get to do every year around this time. One of Oxford's many charming idiosyncracies is the tutorial system they use for undergraduate teaching. In addition to lectures and labs, each student gets one-on-one or small group tutorials ... More About: Science , World , Small , Thursday , Tuesday
Red beans and rice
2008-01-20 00:00:00 Something about the Thames bursting its banks for the second time in six months put me in the mood for one of the Big Easy's most famous exports today. Like all of my favorite southern foods, this one required a little bit of fiddling to compensate for ingredients that aren't ... More About: Beans , Rice
MP3 of the Week - The Wombats - ?Let?s Dance to Joy Division?
2008-01-20 00:00:00 "Let's dance to Joy Division , And celebrate the irony, Everything is going wrong, But we're so happy..." The Wombats are a Liverpudlian trio making a bit of noise with their cleverly penned indie pop songs. This week's MP3 isn't a particularly new one (it was released in the summer), but it finally got my ... More About: Dance , Week
Winning the Sleep War
2008-01-20 00:00:00 "There's a full moon over Galway Bay tonight Silver light over green and blue And every place I travel through, I find Some kinda sign that you've been through..." -Steve Earle - "Ft. Worth Blues" I love this picture and am a bit wistful when I say that you won't see many more of these ... More About: Sleep , Winning
Clean Bill of Health
2008-01-17 00:00:00 For those of you who read yesterday's post with some concern - everything is A-OK. I don't know what the doctor thought he saw, but it wasn't there upon further inspection. Kudos to Britain's (socialist) National Health Service for vigilance and thoroughness. I would also like to point out that my ... More About: Clean , Bill
Philosophy
2008-01-17 00:00:00 "Go ahead you can Laugh all you want I got my philosophy Keeps my feet on the ground And I trust it like the ground..." -Ben Folds - "Philosophy " I've always admired the eternal optimists among you - those who look for the silver lining, walk on the sunny side of the street or always look ...
Zach?s Music Monday: Radiohead - ?Pablo Honey?
2008-01-15 00:00:00 "All the things you got, all the things you need I bought you cigarettes, and pried the company to come and see you, honey..." -Radiohead - "Thinking About You" Some time in the winter of 1994 I went to the RCKCNDY club in Seattle to see a new British band that had hit it big in ... More About: Music , Honey , Monday , Pablo
MP3s of the Week: British Sea Power
2008-01-14 00:00:00 "Do you worry about your health? Do you watch it slowly change? And when you listen to yourself, does it feel like somebody else And did you notice when you began to disappear?" -British Sea Power - "Remember Me" In the most recent Word Magazine, British Sea Power gets compared to Portland troubadours The Decemberists. ... More About: Week
Shotover
2008-01-14 00:00:00 Shotover Country Park sits a few miles east of the Oxford city center. The south and west faces of the hill are wooded and engraved with walking, riding and cycling trails. And, on a rare sunny January day in England, it was our destination for a morning walk.
The Return of Political Friday, Hillary Clinton & National ID Cards
2008-01-14 00:00:00 A couple of months ago I declared an end to this weekly feature, but with the 2008 U.S. presidential election in full swing, there has been plenty of political fodder. This week the news has been the news itself trying to what turned out to be a "Dewey Beats Truman" ... More About: National , Political , Hillary Clinton , Friday , Clinton
Traveling London in his socks
2008-01-11 00:00:00 "Heaven knows, she'd have taken anything, But all night She wants the young American Young American, young American, She wants the young American All right, she wants the young American..." -David Bowie - "Young Americans" If David Bowie is right, then Zach will be a very popular young man in a few years as he is now ... More About: London , Traveling , Socks
Battle well and truly joined
2008-01-09 00:00:00 CNN is projecting Hillary Clinton as the winner of the New Hampshire Primary and for some reason has chosen this image to accompany their story. It's a slim, but crucial two-point, win for the New York Senator and it looks like this could be a long and competitive primary season ... More About: Battle
Guest Blogger: Nathan B. Inside the Iowa Caucuses
More articles from this author:2008-01-09 00:00:00 Granite Staters head to the polls for the second major event of the 2008 U.S. Presidential election - the first using the good old secret ballot approach to democracy. However if, like me, your still a little confused about just what goes on in the high school gymnasiums of a ... More About: Blogger , Iowa , Inside , Caucuses , Guest 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 |
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