Word: stillness
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1990-1999
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...offering lessons in infant cello or pint-size French horn? Dr. Kyle Pruett, who is a professor at the Child Study Center at Yale, a musician and the father of a nine-month-old, told me that even if we are born with perfect pitch, there is still no research showing that we can do anything to retain it. Formal musical training that comes too early can frustrate parents and "won't make much of a difference, musically," to a baby. Perfect pitch is a cool party trick, but it doesn't necessarily correlate with musical talent. Many professional musicians...
...protests in Seattle, I now know that the WTO is some sort of organization that deals with trade barriers but doesn't help women, the environment, indigenous people or anarchists. Personally that sounds like a lot to ask from people already willing to spend entire days discussing tariffs, but still, I am definitely down with the protesters in Seattle. They are expressing rage about being dominated by corporations like Starbucks, McDonald's and Nike. I hate big corporations. Unfortunately, like most Americans I like the products they make. But I like the idea of breaking store windows and bothering police...
...well, a more childlike outlook on life. During the final week of coding, veteran designer Graeme Devine noticed that nerves were fraying. So he went to the local Toys "R" Us and cleaned them out of Nerf guns--$280 worth of the rubber-shot geek toys. What followed is still spoken of in hushed tones: an epic 3-hr. Nerf war. "It was good for the team," says Devine. "By shooting each other, we saved a possible blowup in the company...
...still not convinced of a general improvement in the human condition, pick up a copy of Gina Kolata's Flu: The Story of the Great Influenza Pandemic of 1918 and the Search for the Virus That Caused It (Farrar, Straus & Giroux; 329 pages; $25). Kolata, a science writer for the New York Times, resurrects a year when the worst could and did happen: at least 20 million and possibly more than 40 million people throughout the world took sick and died...
...contagion (Richard Collier's The Plague of the Spanish Lady or Alfred Crosby's America's Forgotten Pandemic) may be surprised to learn that science has yet to discover what made that particular flu virus so deadly. Though no longer a threat, the mass killer is, so to speak, still at large...