Stacy Horn

I’m home recovering from dental surgery, so UGH. I was going to go to choir practice anyway, because I need it, but my face is swollen and vanity may win out over my need to sing. I’m even embarrassed to go out and pick up the prescription I need!

A pretty sparkly dress in the window in Cynthia Rowley’s. This is not a dress I wish to possess, I don’t think it would look good on me, but it would look gorgeous on someone else. Can’t you see this at a holiday party?

If you get the New York Times home delivered, you can explore virtual reality for free (the Times sent out free headsets this Sunday), but even if you don’t you can get Google Cardboard VR headsets relatively cheaply. Then you can download the Times app for free and explore! There are more VR apps out there of course, but this is a very good place to start.

VR developer Chris Milk calls VR “the last medium.” Who knows what’s coming but for now, yeah. I’m in. That said, I agree with The Verge’s take, you learn much more from the article. But that said, you learn much more of a different sort from the VR documentary.

Milk is not a very good public speaker (sorry!) but I like the points he makes in this Ted Talk. You’ll see how right he is when you watch the VR documentary on the Times website, The Displaced.

So I want both. But I think this will replace books and print to a large extent in the end (although not at all completely), because this is what young people will want. The challenge will be how to provide as much information in VR that a book or article can pack in. I think this is very do-able. Even as I was watching the The Displaced, I thought VR would be a fun way to present and explore charts. It should be relatively easy to build in links and pathways to more information, and in equally fun and entertaining ways. More fun or interesting than a link I mean. It could be made to be part of the story itself.

The cats explore my headset.

I burned my hand on a pot. It was a little worse than the usual burn, so I googled how to treat it. All the sites I went to said if it was a burn on the hand see a doctor, especially if there was a blister, and it looked like one was starting to form. I went to a walk-in clinic and they said no blister, it’s a first degree burn. Great! But I woke up this morning and now it’s definitely blistered.

I’m not sure what to do. It’s small. An inch long and a half an inch wide. It’s dry. Also, it doesn’t hurt. Ugh. Plus, I have a dentist appointment in a couple of hours, for something that is probably going to be no fun at all (possible root canal).

One last Halloween shot, because I like the cat and the skeleton mice.

My first real feel of the absolute bliss of harmony was in the 5th grade, singing a round called Good Night. I’d sung rounds before of course, but this one was different. I got that rush. I’d give anything to sing it with a bunch of people again. It went:

Good night, good night
Time sends a warning call,
Sweet rest it sends to all,
Time, time sends a warning call,
Good night, sweet rest it sends to all.

I tried, unsuccessfully, to find a video of people singing it, but I did find a bunch of people talking about memories of singing it, so clearly others were transported by it and never forgot it.

When I spoke on a panel about singing at Yale earlier in the year I met a singer named Marina Belica who was involved with the October Project, and she told me they were coming out with a collection of original rounds, the Book of Rounds. I asked her to remind me when it became available. Because if I never forgot a round I sang a few times almost fifty years ago I’d say rounds are a powerful introduction to singing and harmony. And haven’t we all been singing the same rounds for, I don’t know, centuries?? I should add, rounds are not just for beginners of course, and the rounds in this collection would be satisfying for choirs and a cappella groups to sing.

You can hear their original rounds here (and also buy them) or follow the first link I posted and buy the actual book of the rounds and/or the CD or MP3s.

Before I get to my short movie, I just read this article about this huge jump in mortality rates among middle aged white Americans with a high school education or less. It’s pretty horrifying and sad, and the comments are very interesting and informative.

About my movie, it’s really just a few snippets. I didn’t get anything great, alas. But I love the bits with the squirrel and the guy juggling that showed up in the footage I got when I turned around and showed the runners entering Central Park. The last part is me trying to go to the finish line, but you had to have a pass for that spot.