Music...

I play the violin and am proud of it! I feel however that violins and other stringed instruments, and music in general, are both underestimated and undervalued in our culture starting in the schools. Fremd has a great music program and we have consistently sent people to IMEA (the musical equivalent of IHSA) for the past several years. This year the concertmaster of the regional IMEA orchestra for our district was from Fremd yet ask any non-music student in the building and they won't even know what IMEA is! If a team or person of a sport is sent to state and places high you can be sure that the school will know even if it's only through the pep assemblies thrown in their honor yet for a music department triumph and not a peep. Mainstream students don't know or hear about the long hours of devotion spent to mastering and instrument and don't appreciate the dedication it takes.This thinking of musicians as wimpy, unless they're playing the guitar, bass or drums of course, just keeps continuing in adult life. People don't seem to realize that you can hook an electric violin up to an amp and it will be amazing. Violins can play things other than pure classical music and can the same with all the other string instruments. People don't seem to be able to see the possibilities of different instruments because in school and in other places they feel that their peers don't value it highly. Today I saw a group called String Fusion. it was amazing and the played everything from country to Hendrix. Guess what, their lead musician played on the electric violin! Yet somehow this awesome group that came in to our school to play for free didn't manage to gather a audience the same size as the one during writer's week during the student poetry hour. And even some of the people that did show up decided that their cellphones were more important that the people preforming for them. musicians are underrated in our culture and as a musician I feel our culture and artistic history is slowly slipping away except in the small groups that try to keep it alive.

Discworld (and maybe some Good Omens)

It has recently come to my attention that I love Sir Terry Pratchett! I know that that may sound really weird and perhaps overdone but I honestly didn't know the extent of my mania toward Discworld till I found myself reading quotes form the books at four in the morning. But seriously, if you were reading them, you wouldn't be able to tear yourself away either. I'm not sure if it's his style of writing, the targets of his satire, or just how he combines all these elements into a plot with interesting and likable characters but something about Discworld just draws me in.

And not to keep you all up till four in the morning too... here are some quotes from both the Discworld books as well as Good Omens (written by Sir Pratchett as well as Neil Gaiman):


"Real children don't go hoppity-skip unless they are on drugs."
           -- Susan, the ultimate sensible governess (Terry Pratchett, Hogfather)

"Real stupidity beats artificial intelligence every time."
           -- Bursar 1 - Hex 0 (Terry Pratchett, Hogfather)

A number of religions in Ankh-Morpork still practiced human sacrifice, except that they didn't really need to practice any more because they had got so good at it.
           -- (Terry Pratchett, Guards! Guards!)

The shortest unit of time in the multiverse is the New York Second, defined as the period of time between the traffic lights turning green and the cab behind you honking.
           -- (Terry Pratchett, Lords and Ladies)

The Monks of Cool, whose tiny and exclusive monastery is hidden in a really cool and laid-back valley in the lower Ramtops, have a passing-out test for a novice. He is taken into a room full of all types of clothing and asked: Yo, my son, which of these is the most stylish thing to wear? And the correct answer is: Hey, whatever I select.
           -- (Terry Pratchett, Lords and Ladies)

Tourist, Rincewind decided, meant "idiot".
           -- (Terry Pratchett, The Colour of Magic)

Sister Mary headed through the night-time hospital with the Adversary, Destroyer of Kings, Angel of the Bottomless Pit, Great Beast that is called Dragon, Prince of This World, Father of Lies, Spawn of Satan and Lord of Darkness safely in her arms. She found a bassinet and laid him down in it. He gurgled. She gave him a tickle.
           -- The antichrist is born (Terry Pratchett & Neil Gaiman, Good Omens)



I'm not sure how he specifically relates to goverment and economics but this does... sort-of...
Stock... Futures... Pork? 


"Pork Futures Warehouse was…one of those things, the sort that you get in a city that has lived with magic for too long. The occult reasoning, if such it could be called, was this: pork was an important commodity in the city. Future pork, possibly even pork as yet unborn, was routinely traded by the merchants. Therefore, it had to exist somewhere. And the Pork Futures Warehouse came into existence, icy cold within as the pork drifted backwards in time"
           -- (Terry Pratchett, Thud)



My source and possably yours as well: http://www.lspace.org/books/pqf/index.html