b.rox

Today I celebrate a quarter-century of atheism. A quarter century? Why yes. Here is an entry from my journal 25 years ago today: October 28th, 1984 10:58 PM Sunday God. I used to believe in God. But do I now? I don’t think so. I can’t see any reason to. And if I must accept [...]

Oops. I thought we had a couple more weeks before we closed on the houses we are buying and selling. But when exchanging text messages with my Realtor, she mentioned a date much sooner than I’d anticipated, when I will in fact be at a conference and unable to spend the day signing papers. Then [...]

The results of last week’s venous blood test came back Friday, indicating our daughter now has 6.6 micrograms of lead per deciliter of blood. That’s a bit of welcome good news, since it’s a significant reduction from the 13 or 14 indicated by her preliminary screenings three months ago. Had to stretch a bit, but [...]

Here at work we had our Hallowe’en social hour yesterday afternoon. I supplied the music; unfortunately we didn’t have the bandwidth to play this over the internet. Hopefully you do. So here’s a halloweenish mix of thirteen tracks including music by Andy Forray, Bauhaus and Body Odor. Warning: This mix contains three covers of a [...]

Dear Persephone, You are twenty months old today, and growing fast. One day recently I picked you up from daycare and I swear I could tell you’d grown substantially since that morning. You’re growing in other ways as well. You stacked nine blocks into a tower. That may seem like a small feat, but it [...]

I found and scanned an old photo from my files. Here’s Brian Jones and I getting into a serious subterranean study session. I’m not sure who took this photo. Possibly Shelley Richmond aka Michelle Richmond Vallejo. Circa 1988? Anyway it’s at Greene Hall, Collins Living Learning Center, Indiana University, Bloomington. Naturally there is some music [...]

I got a strange e-mail from an old friend today: I’m sorry for this odd request because it might get to you too urgent but it’s because of the situation of things right now, I’m sorry for this odd request because it might get to you too urgent but it’s because of the situation of [...]

I was curious as to how Obama’s visit to New Orleans might be covered in the national media. Would it serve to re-focus attention, however briefly, on our recovery efforts? Perhaps the national economic situation trumps concerns about rebuilding one particular city? As it turns out, though, there just wasn’t much media coverage at all. [...]

Holy frijoles, my dad is 75 years old today. What kind of gift could I possibly give the man who gave me half his genes? It will come as no surprise that I decided to make him a mix. This is a bunch of music that was either recorded in 1934, composed or published in [...]

On the last day of 2007 I posted some of my favorite music. I quickly removed the link because I realized it was not, in the strictest sense, um, legal. I am nothing if not law-abiding. It recently occurred to me that I now have a legal alternative, so here’s the mix. 29 songs and [...]

President Obama is visiting New Orleans today, so here’s a mix (warning: some dirty lyrics). This is a silly thematic mix. The associations are simple and obvious and not necessarily germane to today’s visit. Some of the tracks are about Bush. And just to avoid any confusion (and, hopefully, any visits from the Secret Service) [...]

Here’s a frenzied mix of raucous rockin’ music — but there’s a catch, of course: There’s no actual rock music here. No punk, no metal. Some folk, world, jazz, electronic, hip-hop. Some of the R&B, country, gospel and industrial arguably verges into the rock idiom. And there’s a heavy metal cover in here too. But [...]

Avant-garde music has a bad rap for being screeching and unpleasant. Here’s a mix that proves otherwise. Some of it is still weird, thankfully. And all of it is beautiful, to me. Sometimes it helps to know a bit about what you’re hearing. That track by Katie Peterson? That’s the sound of a glacier melting. [...]

Here is a mix we listen to in our house when someone passes on. We listened to this last night after getting news that Xy’s grandmother Pauline had finally slipped away after a protracted struggle. My notes indicate Pauline appeared only in a single episode of our TV show, namely “A Day in the Life,” [...]

Apropos of nothing at all, here’s a mix of songs my parents taught me. Mostly these are songs I remember hearing my father sing while he did dishes or what have you. I think of my parents as pre-rock’n’roll but that’s not exactly true. You’ll hear some early rock hits here as well as the [...]

I wish I had the good taste and self-restraint to only post mixes of “good” music, or music that I really like. But unfortunately I don’t, and here’s the proof: fifteen tracks of dubious quality on a science fiction theme. I love science fiction, but this mix is pretty awful. (My apologies to the artists.) [...]

So what is it I do anyway? Lots of different things. For example: Today I’m leading a faculty workshop on Firefox 3.5, so here’s a mix of awesome cyber-geeky pop tunes. And here’s sneak peek at the slideshow I’ll be using. (I’m still working on this so it may be a little unfinished in places.) [...]

Today I’m being heaped with honors for working here ten years. Of course I’ve got a thematic mix for this occasion. (Though it should be noted this is a silly assemblage of tracks which have no cohesion other than their titles. I haven’t even heard most of this music. So, all disclaimers can and do [...]

Here’s a li’l art rock mix in honor of the fun we had over the weekend. I took Persephone to City Park Saturday morning, and we had a ball walking around the Big Lake. (Thanks to the Trust for Public Land for the recent improvements.) After that we visited the New Orleans Museum of Art, [...]