Lindsey Webster at Opus 40

Posted on by Mark Aldrich

Lindsay Webster is a young jazz singer who is inspiring music writers to stretch for metaphors (“If Carole King and Sade had a kid, she would be Lindsey Webster“) and earned some major awards: in February, she joined Sade as the only performer to land a vocal-driven song atop Billboard magazine’s Smooth Jazz Songs chart. (Most tracks on that chart are instrumentals.)

The song. Fool Me Once,” is indeed terrific; even more terrific is the fact that the singer, who is from Woodstock, NY, shot portions of her music video for it at Opus 40, one of my favorite places on this planet.

Even better, she is performing at Opus 40 tomorrow, Saturday, July 2, at 5:00 p.m. Here are the ticket details: Lindsey Webster at Opus 40.
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Today in History: July 1

Posted on by Mark Aldrich

Olivia de Havilland is 100 today.

She is the oldest living Oscar winner, the last cast member of the film version of Gone with the Wind still alive, the final star from Hollywood’s Golden Age still with us. And she continues to collect awards: in February, she was named one of several winners of the “Oldie of the Year” by a British satirical magazine, The Oldie. (Photo at top, holding the award and with her two Oscars conveniently behind her.) She did not attend the ceremony, but she did record a sweet and funny acceptance speech (audio after the jump):
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Do You See What I See? Pareidolia

Posted on by Mark Aldrich

We love our pareidolia moments. The human brain is continuously at work interpreting the world around us, judging incoming information and stimuli on a range of choices and a spectrum of notions, ranging from food or not-food? to friend or foe? to Do I know you? Look at those clouds. Do you see what I see?

Artists have taken advantage of this for centuries. Were I to draw a circle, put two dots toward the top side, a short vertical line under these, and a horizontal half-circle under that, most people would say that I had sketched a smiley human face, even though hardly any human being that any of us knows looks like that. Some neuroscientists say that our brains are hard-wired to look for faces and to quickly identify friend or foe, even with only a part of a face visible. Those ancient humans who survived because of this skill survived to pass that skill on, genetically. Those with superior facial recognition skills today have their ancient ancestors to thank.
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