What Do We Want to Know About the Presidents?

When you type in a President's name, Google Instant will pop up with the most common suggestion of what should come next. Here are those results, at least in Boston, MA. I think it says a lot about human nature.

"facts", 17: James Monroe, Martin van Buren, William Henry Harrison, James Polk, Zachary Taylor, Rutherford B Hayes, James Garfield, Chester Arthur, Grover Cleveland, Benjamin Harrison, William McKinley, William Howard Taft, Warren G. Harding, Herbert Hoover, Lyndon B Johnson, Gerald Ford, George HW Bush

"quotes", 7: Thomas Jefferson, Theodore Roosevelt, Calvin Coolidge, Harry Truman, Dwight Eisenhower, Ronald Reagan, George W Bush

"biography", 3: Ulysses S Grant, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Barrack Obama

"university", 3: George Washington, James Madison, Franklin Pierce

"impeachment", 2: Andrew Johnson, Bill Clinton

"house", 2: John Adams, John Quincy Adams

"gay", 2: James Buchanan, Richard Nixon

"suburban": Millard Fillmore

"school": Woodrow Wilson

"library": John F Kennedy

"grandsons": John Tyler

"rabbit": Jimmy Carter

"jihad": Andrew Jackson

"vampire hunter": Abraham Lincoln

Teaser Tuesday Three

After a week's hiatus (I got a new teaching job!) we return.

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly blog hop I got from The Bathroom Monologues by the fabulously talented John Wiswell.

A break from fiction, we have Richard Feynman's "Six Easy Pieces".

"The science which is perhaps most deeply affected by physics is chemistry. Historically, the early days of chemistry dealt almost entirely with what we now call inorganic chemistry, the chemistry of substances which are not associated with living things."

I love the history of science, and classic scientific works. Recently I just finished Asimov's three volume "Understanding Physics". This will be a comparison to that text in some ways. You can also watch Feynman's full hour lectures on YouTube.



Everyone is welcome to Teaser Tuesday. The rules are as simple as:

• Grab your current book
• Open to a random page
• Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page
• Avoid spoilers! Don't give too much away or you'll ruin it for the very people you're suggesting it to.
• Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers

Inside the Actor's Studio Redux

In 2010 I made a list of my dream line-up.

Those on my 2010 list who have subsequently been interviewed:


George Clooney
Bruce Willis

Yup. Those on my 2010 list who still haven’t been interviewed:

Jack Nicholson
Bill Murray
Daniel Day-Lewis
Sean Connery
Sidney Poitier
Woody Allen
Shirley Temple
Mel Brooks
Sophia Loren
Lily Tomlin
Helen Mirren
Monty Python Ensemble
Judi Dench
Angela Lansbury
Patrick Stewart
Gary Oldman
Diane Keaton
Rob Reiner
Sandra Bullock
Alan Rickman
Liam Neeson
Quentin Tarantino
Albert Brooks
Penelope Cruz
Neil Patrick Harris
Scarlett Johansson
Nicole Kidman

Died:

Elizabeth Taylor

My three new additions to replace Taylor, Clooney and Willis are:

Frank Oz
Michael Gambon
Marion Cotillard

Rainbows and Puppies

and Nightmares!

You're welcome.

Teaser Tuesday Two

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly blog hop hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. I got it from The Bathroom Monologues by the fabulously talented John Wiswell.


This week, the second edition, goes to "Catch-22" by Joseph Heller.

"'Can I do anything at all to help you?' the chaplain asked.
Yossarian shook his head, still grinning."

I may be the last person on earth to get around to reading this. Part of my personal 'Read More American Lit/Procrastinate Reading Gibbon's Decline and Fall' Campaign.

Everyone is welcome to Teaser Tuesday. The rules are as simple as:

• Grab your current book
• Open to a random page
• Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page
• Avoid spoilers! Don't give too much away or you'll ruin it for the very people you're suggesting it to.
• Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers

Disney Villains: A Commentary on Growing Older

Stop for a second and think of your favorite Disney movie, and, if it has one, its villain.


Of the 51 feature-length, theatrically-released animated movies that are the ‘canon’ only the following don’t have a typical hero/villain dynamic:

Fantasia
Dumbo
Saludos Amigos
The Three Caballeros
Make Mine Music
Fun and Fancy Free
Melody Time
The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh
Fantasia 2000
Dinosaur
Chicken Little
Bolt
Winnie the Pooh

Of the remaining 38, all of them have something in common: the hero is almost always younger than the villain. Check it out, with the warning that here be spoilers:

Obvious examples:

The Queen in Snow White
Honest John/Stromboli/The Coachman in Pinocchio
Lady Tremaine in Cinderella
The Queen of Hearts in Alice in Wonderland
Captain Hook in Peter Pan
Aunt Sarah in Lady and the Tramp
Maleficent in Cinderella
Cruella de Vil in 101 Dalmatians
Mad Madame Mim in The Sword in the Stone
Shere Khan in The Jungle Book
Edgar in The Aristocats
Prince John/Sheriff of Nottingham in Robin Hood
Madame Medusa in The Rescuers
Slade in The Fox and the Hound
The Horned King in The Black Cauldron
Professor Ratigan in The Great Mouse Detective
Sykes in Oliver and Company
Ursula in The Little Mermaid
McLeach in The Rescuers Down Under
Jafar in Aladdin
Scar in The Lion King
Ratcliffe in Pocahontas
Frollo in The Hunchback of Notre Dame
Hades in Hercules
Shan Yu in Mulan
Clayton in Tarzan
Yzma in The Emperor’s New Groove
Rourke in Atlantis: The Lost Empire
Captain Gantu in Lilo and Stitch
John Silver in Treasure Planet
Alameda Slim in Home on the Range
Bowler Hat Guy in Meet the Robinsons
Doctor Facilier in The Princess and the Frog
Gothel in Tangled

Never is the villain portrayed as younger. The few examples of the hero and villain being the same age are:

Ronno in Bambi
Brom Bones in The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad
Gaston in Beauty and the Beast
Denhai in Brother Bear

Note: All four of the villains who are roughly the same as age as the protagonist are young men (or, you know, a young male deer).

So remember kids: Villains are either people with grey hair (about half of the above) or strong, misguided young men.

As for protagonists, I’d say the oldest is maybe Mr. Toad, who is functionally an eight year-old. None of the others could be past 25. Yes, once your twenties are over you will become evil (if you haven’t already, as a man).

Teaser Tuesday

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly blog hop hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. I got it from The Bathroom Monologues by the fabulously talented John Wiswell.

This week, the inaugural edition, goes to "Death Comes for the Archbishop" by Willa Cather.

"There was also the snake story, reported by the early explorers, both Spanish and American, and believed ever since: that this tribe was peculiarly addicted to snake worship, that they kept rattlesnakes concealed in their houses, and somewhere in the mountain guarded an enormous serpent which they brought to the pueblo for certain feasts. It was said that they sacrificed young babies to the great snake, and thus diminished their numbers."

Not the sentences I was hoping for, but I don't think I could've chosen any better all the same. I'm loving this novel, and want to make it as frequently read in high school as "To Kill a Mockingbird" and "Catcher in the Rye."


Everyone is welcome to Teaser Tuesday. The rules are as simple as:


• Grab your current book
• Open to a random page
• Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page
• Avoid spoilers! Don't give too much away or you'll ruin it for the very people you're suggesting it to.
• Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers