Progress Report #4: Tri's not-so-lil eles

Hmm, what to do with this 3-legged elefant work-in-progress?

MAKE A BEARD!!

Hahahahaha OK, back to work! Silly time break is over :)

I'd Like to Visit the Moon

I was talking to KB about sesame street and we started listing our favorite muppets. I seem to love the ones who don't speak english (well): Beaker, Swedish Chef, Animal & the aliens who go "yepyepyepyep uh huh uh huh." All time favorite though, ever since I was a lil kiddie, is Ernie. I just love his optimism, his laugh and in my opinion, he had the best songs: "Put Down the Duckie," "Rubber Duckie," "Dance Myself to Sleep" and my all time favorite "I'd Like to Visit the Moon." This song definitely goes on my travel mix.

There are so many strange places I'd like to be

But none of them permanently

So if I should visit the moon

Well, I'll dance on a moonbeam and then

I will make a wish on a star

And I'll wish I was home once again

Whenever the song came on Sesame Street, I stopped whatever I was doing to give it my full attention, and after rewatching the video, I see where I get my sitting on the moon sketches :)

The Henson Stitch

I've been listening to the "how muppets work" podcast from how stuff works... FASCINATING! So many interesting facts about how they make the muppets, Frank Oz & Jim Henson's start, how many people it takes to operate a muppet, tricks about where they place the pupils, etc. It makes me want to make puppets! Apparently there's a stitch called the Henson Stitch so for all you seamsters out there... here's a video tutorial. Don't mind the guy's dorky enthusiasm and camera shot fails. I found it very enlightening, even the bit about putting your thread in wax to avoid knots! GENIUS! I'm also very curious about this antron fleece. Sounds so faaaancy! Ok, geekout fest 2010 over haha :)

Progress Report #3: Tri's not-so-lil eles

FINISHED! Well, still needs eyes...!

On to the next one...

Memories & Forgetting

I've been listening to lots of podcasts recently as I sew and wow, came across one from Radiolab about memories & forgetting. Turns out what they propose in Eternal Sunshine of a Spotless Mind--erasing specific memories--is possible! You take a drug that prevents new proteins from forming between neurons as you are remembering something and poof! You're able to forget it a lil more easily. Painful memories aren't as painful anymore.

It got me thinking about what we would be like without our memories... if we were like goldfish or something. We wouldn't be able to learn & retain new tasks. Remembering names would be even moooore difficult... actually impossible! Would we wander around aimlessly? Would we have no personalities? Eerie! In the show, they corrected: there is no filing cabinet of perfect memories stored away in our brains. Memories are more of re-collections... Every time we recall a memory, we reform the memory. According to sexy genius nerd that is Jonah Lehrer, "the more you remember something, in a sense the less accurate it becomes." It's an act of creation, imagination, time, the present! And that's amazing!

Oh man... so many brain explosions. Listen/dload the clip here.

btw, this is jonah lehrer. told you so.