MuseBlog

Write down when it arrives, please. We haven’t thought of any nefarious uses for the information (yet)–just curious (so far).

David and Megan’s parodies (mentioned on page 3 of the November/December issue) are now available via the Gaboomba gallery page. Because of technical glitches, Moos is in black and white, but a color version will be coming soon.

Let us know when November/December arrives.

November/December 2005 (volume 9, number 9)

COVER: Exploding Trousers

FIRST PAGE: Dark Waters: The Random Thoughts of a Blind Teenage Cavefish

KOKOPELLI & COMPANY: Chad’s latest creation loses its mind.

ARTICLES AND COLUMNS:
Why Do Cavefish Lose Their Eyes? by Luis and Monika Espinasa
Farmer Buckley’s Exploding Trousers, by Stephanie Pain
Gamers All Around You, by Duncan Graham-Rowe
Calder: The Man Who Made Art out of the Ordinary, by Doug Stewart
Peer Pressure, by Sandra Blakeslee

Q & A, by Robert Coontz and Rosanne Spector: Where does grass seed come from? Why are LED bulbs common in flashlights but rare in home light fixtures?
Math Page, by Ivars Peterson: A Good Plot

LAST PAGE: Skaters, OUI! Cars, NON!

A chance to talk about them behind their backs.

A thread for talking about the magazine itself–what a radical concept!

As promised on page 6 in the October 2005 Muse Mail section, here are sound files of the B. family’s unforgettable Dumpster Dive song in AIFF and MP3 formats. Now we know how Musers’ parents afford those pricey subscriptions. All together now:

Oh, Dumpster dive, Dumpster dive,
Don’t mind if it’s been used.
We buffed and shined and mended tight
And wiped off all the poo!

(The Mac-friendly AIFF version is 25.5 megabytes in size–probably too big for dialup modems. The MP3 version is a more manageable 2.8 megabytes.)

We’re curious.

October 2005 (volume 9, number 8 )

In keeping with age-old Muse tradition, the editors have filled this issue with creepy stuff.

COVER: How to Read a Tombstone

FIRST PAGE: Wonder Drug

KOKOPELLI & COMPANY: Trick and/or treat.

ARTICLES AND COLUMNS:
Sweet Elixir of Death, by Paul Collins
The Case of the Four-Armed Corpse, by Stephanie Pain
Sent to the Tower, by Paul Baker
How to Read a Tombstone, by Douglas Keister

Q & A, by Robert Coontz and Rosanne Spector: How do birds chirp?
Math Page, by Ivars Peterson: Sudoku Mania

LAST PAGE: Designed by the Desert? [Egyptian pyramids and Sphinx]

We know you’re busy with school now, but the Fan Page/MuseBlog still needs to test and post Web addresses given on the following pages of the September 2005 issue:

p. 44 (lots)
p. 45 (lots)
p. 46 (lots)
p. 47 (lots, some in the “Muse Contest” box)

Send them in, please, whenever you have a spare minute or two online. One at a time is fine. Thanks!

Just curious about how long it takes to deliver the magazine. Double-pink-bunny bonus points if you estimate how far you live from New England (here defined as the Vermont – New Hampshire border), as the Crraw flies.

Tell us when it arrives/arrived. Maybe we can detect a pattern.

From my morning Web surfing:

(1) I haven’t read it yet, but the University of Florida has started publishing still another arts magazine called Muse, in addition to all the ones listed on the Fan Page.

(2) Meanwhile, you can read articles from the real thing online at Looksmart High School–a good way to share the magazine without giving away your own treasured copies. No cartoons there, though.

–R. C.

Anyone feel like checking and listing some links?

We’ve already got these:

p. 8: Ascension Island (www.ascension-island.gov.ac/)

p. 27: Icing the Kicker (www.sciencenewsforkids.org/pages/puzzlezone/muse/muse0905.asp)

p. 48: Exploring News & Features: Mole Gives Fast Food New Meaning (exploration.vanderbilt.edu/news/news_mole.htm)

Still needed: URLS on pages 5, 43, 44 (lots), 45 (lots), 46 (lots), and 47 (lots, some in the “Muse Contest” box).

Thanks,

R. C.

September 2005 (volume 9, number 7)

COVER: Styling Food

FIRST PAGE: Alien Attack, Assignment: Earth

KOKOPELLI & COMPANY: Feather and Mimi go native.

ARTICLES AND COLUMNS:

• The Ragbag Rainforest, by Fred Pearce
• A Surfeit of Coneys, by Paul Baker
• The New Coke Disaster, by Malcolm Gladwell
• The Food Stylist’s Art, by Doug Stewart
• Code Warriors, by Jennifer Jacobson
• Q & A, by Robert Coontz and Rosanne Spector: Where did the atmosphere come from? What makes a person’s face look older after puberty?
• Math Page, by Ivars Peterson: Icing the Kicker

LAST PAGE: Holey Moley! [star-nosed mole]

Robert Coontz writes:

My Q&A co-columnist Rosanne Spector and I live on opposite coasts, so it’s always a treat to see each other in person. This week she was in town visiting her parents and stopped by my office, and we went to dinner. I tried to commemorate the occasion by taking a snapshot with my new cell phone, but I hit the wrong button and wound up making this short video clip instead. (Here’s another version that has better picture quality but that doesn’t work in as many browsers.)

Don’t we look utterly clueless?

(The glimpse of my computer keyboard happened when we turned the phone around to see what was going on.)

Every so often, Muse‘s editor-in-chief (She Who Must Not Be Named) sends around a packet of recent letters to the magazine for her minions to read. We can’t reprint them here, because some of them might be bound for the Muse Mail page, but we can summarize what they say. Here’s the most recent batch:

Who’s writing: 8 girls, 4 boys, 1 male Elf, and 1 male mixed-breed dog

Ages, where specified: 8, 10, 11, 12 (two writers), 13 (four writers), 15, 17, 18

Where they live: California, Florida, New Jersey, New York, Texas, Washington, D.C., and Scotland

Favorite Muses, where specified: Kokopelli (4); Crraw tied with Kokopelli (1); Urania, Bo (1 each)

Least favorite Muses: Aeiou, Pwt

Favorite things from the magazine: “Baffled Brain” issue, bonobos, LOTR issue, Notscape, “The Incredible Upside-Downs”

Dislikes: Self-esteem issue; reference to evolution in the Bonobo article

Requests: pen-pal service; where Devil is; articles on band instruments, how CDs work, music piracy, invention of the telephone, Star Wars, Lord of the Rings (again?!), rugby, Japan

July/August 2005 (volume 9, number 6)

COVER: Baffling Your Brain

FIRST PAGE: Trompe l’oeil Tomfoolery

KOKOPELLI & COMPANY: The Muses become disillusioned.

ARTICLES AND COLUMNS:

• The Baffled Brain, by Carl Zimmer

p. 11: Optical Illusions and Visual Phenomena, by Michael Bach (www.michaelbach.de/ot/index.html)
p. 16: Rensink/CBR Attention Paradigm (Change-Blindness Demo) (www.usd.edu/psyc301/Rensink.htm)
p. 16: Another demonstration (nivea.psycho.univ-paris5.fr/slow%c20changes%20bis/intro.html)

• The Upside-Downs, by Gustave Verbeek
• A Family Affair: The Cassini Line of Mapmakers, by Val Ross
• Frans [de Waal] and [chimp] Friends
• Q & A, by Robert Coontz and Rosanne Spector: Why do we get shadows under our eyes when we lose sleep? How does a water filter work?

p. 24: HistoryofWaterFilters.com (www.historyofwaterfilters.com)

• Math Page, by Ivars Peterson: Seeing Things

p. 19: Seeing Things (www.sciencenewsforkids.org/pages/puzzlezone/muse/muse0705.asp)

LAST PAGE: A Cutty Sark? [fool-the-eye sculpture]

Muse‘s most colorful contributor doesn’t know how to have a dull summer:

How’s my summer going? Well, I’ve written an explanation of Hot Pink Bunnies in Elizabethan English (I’m beginning to think normal people don’t get these requests. Maybe it’s because I’m British). I’ve just done a big thing on the Tower of London, which drove the Queen of Muses potty because all the facts had to be double-checked and it needed a poster for the Big Diagram.

I sold a symphony. The sort with a handle, not the sort with oboes and cellos and things.

I built a computer. It has glowing Martian eyes, three hard disks, internal neon lights, five cooling fans, round IDE cables, and lots of other boring tech stuff.

I played music for a wedding on a farm.

I spent two days in a sweltering, airless hall in Stafford, recording the Staffordshire Youth Recorder & Renaissance Ensemble. Me, Uncle Terry, about thirty kids, and a huge collection of recorders, viols, rebecs, shawms, bagpipes and hurdy-gurdies. In England, we still let kids loose on these things. Health & Safety would ban it in America.

Yesterday I dashed round the Midlands trying to get some decent video footage of a donkey. Any donkey. I repeat. Normal people don’t get these requests…..