Month: February 2004

cdmom disc appears

Background: I announced the death of the CD Mix of the Month Club almost one year ago and shipped out the club’s last CDs last March.
One of my regular traders was Alan, a web man for the Internet arm of my corporate employer. Since he works in the building next door to mine, I would always send him his discs via interoffice mail.
Yesterday, Alan emailed me a note of thanks for the new CDMOM disc I’d sent him. As I said, I haven’t sent anyone a CDMOM disc in many moons. It appears that a CD I sent him via interoffice mail a year ago just arrived in his mailbox.
I hope some mailroom employee enjoyed his Year of Indie Rock.

alex polier

Purely as an experiment into the power of Google, I am typing the following paragraph. Feel free to ignore. Should you ever read this, Alex: No offense intended, honestly. It’s just cryptic research into search engine methodologies.
Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent Alex Polier, conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal. Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation or Alex Polier can long endure. We are met on a great battlefield of John Kerry. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field as a final resting-place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that Alex Polier should do this. But in a larger sense, we cannot dedicate, we cannot consecrate, we cannot hallow this Alexandra Polier. The brave men, living and dead who struggled here have consecrated it far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note nor long remember what Alex Polier says here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for John Kerry rather to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for John Kerry to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us — that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of Alexandra Polier — that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain, that this nation under God shall have a new birth of freedom, and that Alex Polier shall not perish from the earth.

maze-bright rats

Back in the day, I took a psych course called “The Psychology of Persuasion.” (I’m paraphrasing.) In part, I remember it because it was the first class I went to in my first semester of freshman year — a fairly memorable circumstance.
But I really remember it because I found the subject fascinating. It was all about how propaganda works, how social education campaigns work (or don’t), how crowds turn into mobs, and so on. All that classic Zimbardo/Stanford prison experiment stuff.
Anyway, my column in Monday’s paper is about a sector of social psych, so I’ve been doing some reading on the Pygmalion effect:
In 1971 Robert Rosenthal, a professor of social psychology at Harvard, described an experiment in which he told a group of students that he had developed a strain of super-intelligent rats that could run mazes quickly. He then passed out perfectly normal rats at random, telling half of the students that they had the new “maze-bright” rats and the other half that they got “maze-dull” rats.
The rats believed to be bright improved daily in running the maze — they ran faster and more accurately. The “dull” rats refused to budge from the starting point 29% of the time, while the “bright” rats refused only 11% of the time.
Rosenthal concluded that some students unknowingly communicated high expectations to the supposedly bright rats. The other students communicated low expectations to the supposedly dull ones. But this study went a step further.
According to Rosenthal, “Those who believed they were working with intelligent animals liked them better and found them more pleasant. Such students said they felt more relaxed with the animals, they treated them more gently and were more enthusiastic about the experiment than the students who thought they had dull rats to work with.”
Rats not good enough for you?
In another classic experiment, Rosenthal and Lenore Jacobson worked with elementary school children from 18 classrooms. They randomly chose 20% of the children from each room and told the teachers they were “intellectual bloomers.”
They explained that these children could be expected to show remarkable gains during the year. The experimental children showed average IQ gains of two points in verbal ability, seven points in reasoning and four points in over all IQ. The “intellectual bloomers” really did bloom!
How can this possibly work?
In ‘Pygmalion in the Classroom’ (Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1968), Rosenthal replies: “To summarize our speculations, we may say that by what she said, by how and when she said it, by her actual facial expressions, postures and perhaps by her touch, the teacher may have communicated to the children of the experimental group that she expected improved intellectual performance.
“Such communication together with possible changes in teaching techniques may have helped the child learn by changing his self concept, his expectations of his own behavior, and his motivation, as well as his cognitive style and skills.”
There was no difference in the amount of time the teachers spent with the students. Evidently there was a difference in the quality of the interactions. The teachers also found the “bloomers” to be more appealing, more affectionate and better adjusted. Some students gained in IQ even though they had not been designated as “bloomers,” but they were not regarded to be as appealing, affectionate or well-adjusted.
Apparently, the bloomers had done what was expected of them and the teachers were comfortable with them. The other students who did well surprised the teachers; they did the unexpected and the teachers were not as comfortable with them. It may be that they were thought of as overstepping their bounds or labeled as troublemakers.

noise pop rocks

While I’m busy mooning over the lineups of California music festivals, I might as well talk up Noise Pop at the end of this month. (I happened to be in S.F. during the festival back in ’98 and got to see the world premiere of Kurt & Courtney. As recently as a couple weeks ago, I was half considering heading out there again at month’s end.)
Among the bands performing: British Sea Power, Call & Response, Neko Case, the Decemberists, Earlimart, Gold Chains, Kelly Hogan, Low, the Minders, Pedro the Lion, Preston School Of Industry, Rilo Kiley, The Stills, the Stratford 4, Super Furry Animals, Trachtenburg Family Slideshow Players, The Unicorns, John Vanderslice, the Velvet Teen, Visqueen, and the Wrens. And of course the return of the mighty American Music Club.

coachella rocks

Seriously, the lineup for Coachella is getting downright insane. I mean: Belle & Sebastian, Mogwai, Ash, the Rapture, Death Cab For Cutie, Stereolab, The Black Keys, DJ Danger Mouse, Pixies, Radiohead, Kraftwerk, Wilco, Flaming Lips, Broken Social Scene, Kinky, the Cure, Air, Dizzee Rascal, !!!, and Prefuse 73. That’s just nuts. It’s like the CD Mix of the Month Club come back to life.
Almost makes the thought of flying out to California sound like a worthwhile investment. Or perhaps it’s time for that long-rumored crabwalk.com American Southwest Listening Tour, in which my trusty 1996 Mitsu braves the elements for a little 2,600-mile round-trip road trip.

v-day at rubber gloves

I absolutely love the idea behind these upcoming shows at Rubber Gloves in Denton:
Friday, February 13-
GOTH VALENTINE’S DAY (SAD VERSION) on FRIDAY THE THIRTEENTH with
Jetscreamer
Faux Fox
Record Hop
Nightgame
$6
smiling is optional, wearing black is not.
Saturday, February 14-
VALENTINE’S DAY MAKEOUT PARTY (HAPPY VERSION) w/
Matt Cheney
Prince William
Jackson 8
Blueprint Sea
$5
The best part: The sad people have to pay an extra buck.