Feisty Guillotine

So the new Apple mini iPod commercial has been haunting me for about a week now. My head snaps to the TV screen whenever it comes on. Something about that songs grabs my attention and fast.

I've been trying to guess who the hell it is because I can't see the person on that tiny-ass iPod screen on my tiny-ass TV screen. First I thought it was Bjork.

So, I says to Mable, I says..... (sorry, Simpson's reference). The boob tube was on last night as I'm grading papers and the commercial comes on and my head snaps and I, again, wonder, who the hell is that. I catch one lyric and through the magic of 'Googling' (if you haven't heard of it you should really try it. You can find all sorts of things through the 'Google' oracle) I discover the artist in question and I do believe I have been once again smitten by a foreign chanteuse.

The artist is named Feist (Leslie Feist to be exact) who just came out with a solo album. She is also a member of the Canadian band Broken Social Scene (never heard of them before but they have a nice, retro New Wave type a sound. I grew up on much New Wave, so the sound, if done well, appeals to me).

I dig it. I really, really dig it.

This year we've had DeClinehouse, then Sia, now Feist. Something about these females from another country sangin' all pretty that just eats me up.

Check her out, here's her MySpace.

MySpace.com - Feist - Toronto, CA - Indie / Folk / Alternative

Here's the video for her Apple song, 1,2,3,4.



Many more tunes from Feist and Broken Social Scene on YouTube.

_______

I had to start off with some tunes today because the next Tube is about the most depressing thing I've seen in a while. There's hope at the end, though.

Must see:

_______

Nail on head.

Study finds left-wing brain, right-wing brain - Los Angeles Times

Exploring the neurobiology of politics, scientists have found that liberals tolerate ambiguity and conflict better than conservatives because of how their brains work.

Previous psychological studies have found that conservatives tend to be more structured and persistent in their judgments whereas liberals are more open to new experiences. The latest study found those traits are not confined to political situations but also influence everyday decisions.
.......

Participants were college students whose politics ranged from "very liberal" to "very conservative." They were instructed to tap a keyboard when an M appeared on a computer monitor and to refrain from tapping when they saw a W.

M appeared four times more frequently than W, conditioning participants to press a key in knee-jerk fashion whenever they saw a letter.

Each participant was wired to an electroencephalograph that recorded activity in the anterior cingulate cortex, the part of the brain that detects conflicts between a habitual tendency (pressing a key) and a more appropriate response (not pressing the key). Liberals had more brain activity and made fewer mistakes than conservatives when they saw a W, researchers said. Liberals and conservatives were equally accurate in recognizing M.

Researchers got the same results when they repeated the experiment in reverse, asking another set of participants to tap when a W appeared.

Analyzing the data, Sulloway said liberals were 4.9 times as likely as conservatives to show activity in the brain circuits that deal with conflicts, and 2.2 times as likely to score in the top half of the distribution for accuracy.

Based on the results, he said, liberals could be expected to more readily accept new social, scientific or religious ideas.

_______

Commitment to a cause.

They also found a betamax wrapped in his arms.

Man Builds Guillotine to Kill Himself:

"The body of a 41-year-old man was found in a wooded area next to a guillotine he built and used to kill himself, police said. The man, from the Detroit suburb of Melvindale, was discovered Monday by workers from a shopping center near his home."

_______
_____
___