Pesto

02004-11-09 | Uncategorized

Just venting: I bought some Whole Foods brand Basil Pesto last week. It contains parsley for crying out loud. Who would ever think that it’s a good idea, to mix the sublime Basil with the coarse Parsley. What a horrific combination! Disgusting. And they added lemon juice and walnuts and canola oil. Whole Foods does a lot of things right, but not Pesto. The only good pesto recipe is Marcella Hazan’s, and her cookbooks are great! We make big batches of pesto in the Summer (with Basil from the Farmer’s Market) following Hazan’s recipe and damn is it good!

Hough Waves

02004-11-08 | Uncategorized


Andreas Schjønhaug and Kristoffer Stenersen are Master of Science students at NTNU in Trondhelm, Norway who apply science to the making of art. Based on an algorithm created by Paul Hough in 1962, their Hough Waves are photographic prints that elegantly express symmetry and structure.
(Via Josh Rubin: Cool Hunting.)

Scientific American: Music and the Brain

02004-11-07 | Uncategorized

Overall, findings to date indicate that music has a biological basis and that the brain has a functional organization for music. It seems fairly clear, even at this early stage of inquiry, that many brain regions participate in specific aspects of music processing, whether supporting perception (such as apprehending a melody) or evoking emotional reactions. Musicians appear to have additional specializations, particularly hyperdevelopment of some brain structures. These effects demonstrate that learning retunes the brain, increasing both the responses of individual cells and the number of cells that react strongly to sounds that become important to an individual.
Thanks Ole

I have long had the sense that music and human development have always gone hand in hand, that music in fact tunes the brain. I recommend reading the whole article as it is fascinating.