28 March 2010

This is totally related to linguistics. And awesomeness.

by Cecily
I am super obsessed with this video lately:



It is an Italian music video from the olden days of the 1970s, in which the Italian pop star singer makes up words that he thinks sound like American English. And does extremely, insanely great dance moves to them.

Here's why it's related to linguistics: Those words are gibberish! But, people have brains that like to see faces in clouds and hear words in noises. So there are a bunch of versions of the video with "English" "subtitles". And, depending on how much you can hear, when you listen to the [same] song and you see [different] words on the screen, your brain totally thinks you can hear whichever words are up there. It's like magic!







One day soon I am gonna spend an entire weekend practicing all these dance moves. Watch out.

16 March 2010

the whole wide world is a tiny town full of tiny ideas

by Cecily
Last week, I graded exams and wrote feedback for projects and defended my proposal and calculated midterms and DIDN'T EVEN HAVE TIME TO READ THE INTERNET.

This week, I am working on this project:

Tiny Town House

It has two stories! the second story is made of wood so that it can support small people sitting on it. My plan for it involves pink duct tape, turquoise duct tape, a few minor structural additions, and nailing the rear wall to the railing on the back porch.

Next up: sewing dress shirts. OR making a toy turtle out of felt and fabric. OR entering all my sources in BibDesk so I don't have to do it later. OR something else. The future is full of possibilities!

15 March 2010

Fletcher explains a limited number of things

by Cecily
mostly having to do with letters of the alphabet: