Music makes you smarter (and other lies)

I've been on a rage bender lately in regards to irresponsible journalism so I want to apologize in advance if this seems somewhat far afield from my usual posts. That said, in a lot of ways, I think we should all be on rage benders about irresponsible journalism.  And I don't just mean Fox News and anti-vaxxers although they certainly represent the worst of the lot.

I'll start with a subject that's close to my heart.  The Washington Post published an article in January with the title "Music lessons spur emotional and behavioral growth in children, new study says."  Like a lot of musicians I would love for this claim to be true.  Those of us who have made a significant investment of time in the arts will jump at the chance to wax poetic about the benefits the arts have brought to our lives.  Good hard science to indicate that those benefits are not just for our souls but for our brains as well would go a long way toward ensuring that future generations have access to the same quality music education I did.  That said, this proof doesn't yet exist so far as I'm aware.

When I was a Freshman in college I mentioned to one of my professors that music makes you smarter as a matter of course.  I was then taken aback by what could be only described as an intellectual eye roll from her.  There isn't actually any proof that music makes you smarter (AKA the Mozart Effect).  The original study only consisted of 36 students and the results of that study were never replicated by other researchers in spite of multiple efforts to do so. 

Similarly, I question whether "Music lessons spur emotional and behavioral growth in children."  The study looked at brain scans of 232 children who played an instrument and determined that "Playing a musical instrument was associated with more rapid cortical thickness maturation within areas implicated in motor planning and coordination, visuospatial ability, and emotion and impulse regulation. However, given the quasi-experimental nature of this study, we cannot rule out the influence of confounding variables."

Why is the study quasi-experimental?
There are only 232 participants.
There was no control group.
They didn't account for 'confounding variables' such as the likelihood that those children who study musical instruments are also from relatively more wealthy families which could also effect brain development in a variety of ways.

Further study is needed.

At the end of the day I'm not too terribly torn up about a positive misrepresentation about music education in the news but I do think that consistent misreporting in regards to research of all kinds lends credence to those who distrust science entirely.  Why trust science when the media says it tells you one thing today and another tomorrow?  And this phenomenon is hardly rare.  In fact, it seems to me that its much more rare to read about a study in the news that IS based on good science.  This makes sense in a way.  Good science takes a long time and a lot of money.  Notable results are bound to be few and far between while preliminary results proliferate.  The professional standard for truth in journalism is in decline.  It's a perfect storm.

I don't really have a solution for all this except to say implore readers to dig just a little deeper before really believing and/or sharing this kind of news.  It should be easy to find basic information about the source or study online.  If it's not then whatever you just read is probably bullshit and better to be ignored.  I also think that this blog post makes some excellent points about 'What is a good study?'

Rage Bender Out

Anniversary

5 years ago I moved to Seattle with $3,000 in the bank and no plan.  2009 had been... hectic.  Wonderful.  Exhausting.  Heartbreaking.  But that's another blog post.  I came to Seattle largely because I needed to get out of Spokane and thought Seattle could become a permanent home.  It helped that everything I owned fit into my car.  It also helped that I had been living on about a thousand dollars a month in Spokane so $3k looked like three months worth of expenses.   I was sure I'd figure something out before I ran out of cash.

In January of 2010 joblessness in my age group hovered at about 40%.   The recession hit millenials hard and a lot of people I knew were going back to school to get a masters degree because there were no jobs; much less jobs that seemed appropriate for someone who was educated.  At that time I was 25 and while I'd had a lot of jobs I'd never worked full time and a degree in French horn performance has somewhat limited applications.  At the end of December I had sent my resume or applied to about 50 positions and had I heard back from one - a generic sounding "Business Careers" that promised placement in full time jobs with benefits.

I was pretty sure that Business Careers was some sort of job scam but I didn't have much else to do so I went to check it out anyway. They wound up being totally legit.  During my first interview they asked me whether I wanted to continue working in finance.  I didn't, but in the absence of any real plan on my part they convinced me that applying for jobs in an area where I had experience was my best chance for getting any job.  Four days later I landed a position as a receptionist at a mid-sized broker/dealer downtown Seattle.

After six months I decided to try to see if I could make finance fun enough to want to stay.

In a year I had three licenses and two promotions.

In two years I managed to move to my department of choice.

In three years I had forgotten that the entire career had started as an experiment.

In four years I got bored.

This summer it was no longer possible to ignore just how unhappy I was with the work. 
(I want to be clear here:  this isn't an ethics thing.  I don't have a moral problem with the industry per se.  I do think that there are massive problems related to the financial services industry that need to be addressed in a much more nuanced fashion than the current national dialog allows.)

It's hard not to feel a little like I've wound up right back where I started.  They say that if you're not sure what you want to do for a living you should imagine what you would do if money were no object.  That's never really helped me much.  I think that if I were very wealthy I'd probably just dick around a lot.  I'd work out a lot, read a lot, make music, write when I felt like it, take a bunch of classes, teach a little, travel a little, hang out with cool people, become a nap connoisseur.

I guess I could just do what I'm good at but in all honesty that's a long list.  I'm good at all kinds of things I don't especially enjoy or care about.  I'm good at my job now.  It turns out that mantra 'you can do anything you want to do' has not become a freeing motto but rather a paralyzing array of options.

Clearly this is a problem for a professional.  I went to a career counselor in the fall and while nothing she said was earth shattering our sessions served as a reminder of how much I enjoy technical things.  Math.  Logic.  One of the reasons I applied for my first job in finance at Merrill Lynch was because I thought it would be math-y (it was not).  I always sort of wanted to learn to code but other than a short stint in website creation I'd never had a reason to pursue it.

Until now.

I start coding classes in a couple of weeks.  I still don't know if it's the 'right' thing but it does seem fun which is already a step up from a 5 year career in something I began for the sake of convenience.  I'm nervous.  As much as I know I need to leave my job it's hard to walk away from something so familiar - particularly since it's not a bad job or a bad place to work.  It's just not right for me for now.  There's still a part of me that thinks I could make a go of it if I just hunkered down and stuck it out but that part is getting a little smaller every day.  I'm making the same leap of faith I made 5 years ago - but at least this time I have a plan.

Oh Fortune! Variable as the Moon!

Sometimes in popular culture or on the news you'll hear a particular piece of music is played to indicate fear, terror or intimidation.  It's this one:




This was one of my favorite pieces of music when I was a kid.  My mom says that when I was about three I used to run around the house singing it.  I have no memory of this, but I do remember that there was this delicious period of time in elementary school where I was old enough to be home alone in the afternoon after school.  My older brother took longer coming home from the middle school than I did from elementary school and my parents got home an hour or so after that.  This was my first taste of autonomy.  The opportunity to be really weird without judgement.  I think I probably spent a fair number of those days illicitly watching Saved by the Bell - which we were not allowed to do - but not all of them.  Sometimes I'd get a piece of music stuck in my head at school and then run home, pull the curtains on the picture window, put on the tune at full blast and dance like no one was watching (because no one was).  Prime candidates for this activity were Dvorak's New World Symphony, Gustav Holst's Planets, Cats the Musical, and Carmina Burana.  During the soft bits I'd lie on my stomach with my faced pressed into the carpet and just breathe it in.   

In any case, the first movement - the one you usually hear - isn't meant to convey terror at all.  It's about the human condition and dispair.  The lyrics are as follows (courtesy of Carnegie Hall):

1. O Fortuna (Chorus)	O Fortune
O Fortuna, velut Luna statu variabilis, semper crescis aut decrescis; vita detestabilis nunc obdurat et tunc curat ludo mentis aciem, egestatem, potestatem dissolvit ut glaciem.	O Fortune! Like the moon ever-changing, rising first then declining; hateful life treats us badly then with kindness making sport with our desires, causing power and poverty alike to melt like ice.
Sors immanis et inanis, rota tu volubilis, status malus, vana salus semper dissolubilis, obumbrata et velata michi quoque niteris; nunc per ludum dorsum nudum fero tui sceleris.	Dread destiny and empty fate, an ever-turning wheel, who make adversity and fickle health alike turn to nothing, in the dark and secretly you work against me; how through your trickery my naked back is turned to you unarmed.
Sors salutis et virtutis michi nunc contraria. est affectus et defectus semper in angaria. Hac in hora sine mora corde pulsum tangite; quod per sortem sternit fortem, mecum omnes plangite!	Good fortune and strength now are turned from me. Affection and defeat are always on duty. Come now, pluck the strings without delay; and since by fate the strong are overthrown weep ye all with me.

This is just one movement of 25.  The poems come from medieval literature and I didn't really take the time to read them until I was much older.  They're wonderful and put the tone and style of Orff's adaptation into the appropriate context.  He uses a lot of musical references to invoke chanting and the church but the poems are much more pagan than Christian and as a result have a wonderful earthy feel to them.  It's all about love, lust, luck, misfortune and of course drinking.  Lots of drinking. 

But I come back to this concept of fortune or fate - however you want to think about it.  "Like the moon ever changing, rising first then declining."  In modern Christianity the equal sentiment is "God has a plan for you even if it's not your plan," which sounds MUCH more comforting than "much of what happens around you occurs at random and you will either prosper or suffer as a result."  I do sit in that second camp but in either case it's clear that as circumstances change you must also change.

Which is a really long winded way of saying my life has changed in these past months and so I'm needing to set roller derby aside for a while.  I've been very depressed and while I've gotten good help for that it's become clear that I need to ease up on the stress of my lifestyle for a bit to get back on track.  I've also decided that while finance has been a good safe harbor for me for the past six years it's not really something I want to do forever.  Any other career I'd like to pursue will take a fair amount of effort and training and there's no time like the present.  My roller derby fortunes have waned considerably in the past year and I'd like some time now to do other things that I can participate in fully and enjoy.  It was a difficult decision to make but the sense of relief I'm feeling now lets me know it's the right one.  For now. 

Recoveries (warning: graphic content)

Never, ever, ever, ever, give up.

I haven't actually written much here or otherwise about what my recovery has really been like.  I keep meaning to but mostly it's been kind of shitty and I try not to dwell too much on that.



When big life stuff happens my tendency is often to try to rush the process.  I know that there are going to be all the feelings and I want to try to have them in as quick a succession as possible so that I can have gone through the process straight to acceptance.  It would be a very convenient thing to do if it were possible.  But instead there have been all these wild ups and downs particularly as I've been able to get back on skates and play a bit.


The first most difficult thing has really been to quit comparing my recovery to anyone elses.  Kim Janna from Terminal broke her leg at The Big O this year (about three months after me) and before I had skated my first full practice word on the street was that she was already back to full contact.

"wow!"
"what an athlete!"
"you knew she could come back from that fast!"
"she must have rocked that PT!"

Or last year when Scald Eagle broke her leg and got back into the game in just six weeks.  Same thing.  The assumption is that the recovery is primarily influenced by the work effort of the athlete.  I am by no means implying that these skaters are not great athletes.  If I had abs like Kim Janna I would never wear a shirt either.  But not all broken legs are created equal.

 

In one of my self pitying moments this summer I Googled "broken leg roller derby" and ran across this horrifying article and the accompanying photos.  The skater pictured is Kaitlin "Muffin" Krause of the Mile High Club.  She's a great skater, great athlete and she also couldn't walk for 7 months after this photo was taken.  7 months.  Anyone can see why.  Her whole damn foot was on backwards.

However my foot was not on backwards.  It also wasn't a clean non-displaced fracture.  It was somewhere in between and so while some comparisons seems reasonable really none of them are.  And PT is great but it's not a panacea.  There are 1000 different ways you can break a leg and 1000 different ways any particular person's body might respond to that.  After 9 months there's a lot I can do.  I can run a mile (not too fast), jump up stairs (not too many), skate a full practice (sometimes).  There's also a lot I can't do.  I can't skate more than 3 days a week (or sometimes even 3 days a week), I can't sprint, I can't hop on my left foot, I can't tell you how it's going to feel tomorrow or next week, and I can't walk down stairs without pain. The truth is that while I can try to make goals or plans I really don't know how long a full recovery is going to take and I have to stop trying to guess.  And I wish people would stop asking me to guess.


Next week I go back in for more surgery.  Of everything mentioned above the one really unacceptable thing is being more or less unable to walk down stairs.  Derby or no derby stairs are a thing you have to be able to do in life.  My joint is too tight and so not only is there not enough flexion my foot is essentially permanently collapsed because otherwise I'm not able to move normally.  The flexibility has to come out somewhere and right now that's my arch.  My surgeon believes that removing my hardware will solve nearly all of this problem and if it doesn't there are a couple of other things she can try (in this surgery.  There won't be two.) 

So I'm headed back into a full on recovery.  The surgery should help and will be easier than the last one but it's still more pain at a time when I'm really tired of having to deal with pain at all.  This whole broken leg thing is no joke.  I had to really think hard this week about what it felt like to be able to skate often enough to really be good at it again.  I keep taking out my favorite memories of my last weeks on skates and they've become pretty tattered over the months.  I long for fresh victories.

Vagine Regime vs. Caulksuckers RollerCon 2014

If you were really waiting in anticipation for the resolution of the questionable pork roast I want you to know that it turned out fine.  A little odd but tasty.  I made a couple other soups that weekend but was too tired to blog about it.

And onto the main event:

I don't want to steal You Should Be Watching More Roller Derby's thunder but she hasn't been posting lately and there are a couple of games from RollerCon that are totally GIF worthy.  So while this type of posting is more suited to Tumblr than Blogger I have no interest in creating a Tumblr and we're doing it here.

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This is a great example of using backwards crossovers to gain enough momentum to make a backwards hit worthwhile.  We see that Stephanie Mainey is able to get to and make contact with the Jammer but it's Fifi-nomenon who actually has enough force to land a solid hit.  Lesson learned:  Don't just turn around and hope.  You should still be actively skating while backwards.

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Here's an example of a jammer using a lateral toe stop move to get by on the line.  Watch Satan's Little Helper (flesh tone #666) sneak by on the outside.  In this case she doesn't need to use more than one or two steps to get out of a sticky situation.

...and again

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...and again.

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Proof that the same move really can work over and over and over again even when your opponents can probably guess that you're about to do it.




I don't need to explain what's going on here but I will say that we should all take this moment to appreciate that everyone gives up the inside line sometimes - even high level skaters like these.  Don't be too hard on yourself when it happens to you.  On the flip side, if you're jamming and your blocker gives you a massive opportunity like this  it's your job as a jammer to RUN LIKE HELL.  You're not safe until you're out of the engagement zone and don't ever forget it.



I feel like this version of the spin move is underrated.  Smarty is not spinning here to get around her opponent.  She's spinning to get out of the hit and reset behind her opponent.  It works too.  Freight Train thinks that she has the opportunity to pull a cut when she doesn't and Smarty pretty easily makes her way through the pack.  Lesson:  You as the jammer can control when a hit ends.  Don't get pushed out of bounds if you don't have to.  Notice that this is a clockwise spin, not the usual counter clockwise spin we would use on the outside line.




Here's the same move on the inside line.



This is what a seamless D to O transition looks like. Fifi Nomenon (the grey pivot) loses the jammer at the very start of this gif. Rather than trying to waste time, opportunity and energy chasing down the many times over world champion speed skater who is her opponent she takes out an opposing blocker and clears a very wide path for her own jammer. She is probably perfectly aware that her own jammer is in the pack and therefore taking out any opposing blocker is helpful. This is the perfect answer to a total pet peeve of mine. Skaters often chase jammers out of the pack that they have no or little hope of ever catching. If you chase her out by a half a lap and then have to come back a half a lap to the pack you have no time to help your own jammer. So if your jammer is lead you lose points. If your jammer is not lead then you could find yourself in a vortex where she's struggling and struggling and never has enough help to get through because you're spending your time as a blocker continuously running the length of the engagement zone.

I'm not saying second efforts don't work. I am saying that in the heat of actual game play you should be smart about what you can and cannot execute.

Alright kids. That's it for tonight.

FEAST MODE: Pasta e Fagioli

I'm making several soups this weekend.  This is partially because the magazine in question has a lot of soups in it and partially because soups freeze well and make good lunches.  The first soup is called "Pasta e Fagioli" and is described as 'chock full of pasta, beans and vegetables, making it a hearty one-dish meal."  If that's not Minestrone then I don't know what is but evidently "Fine Cooking" doesn't stoop to Minestrone like the rest of us.

In any case, the soup starts off with bacon but I'm going to digress a bit from the get go and talk about stock pots instead.

When it comes to life's possessions I try to be a bit of a minimalist and that's no different in the kitchen.  I have two knives - a small one (paring) and a big one (chef).  I have two pans.  A small one (egg) and a big one (affectionately known as my 'big ass frying pan.')  Until recently I've only ever had two pots as well (you can probably guess at their classifications) but my parents bought me a stock pot for Christmas and I have to admit it's been a bit of a guilty pleasure.  You can certainly get by in the kitchen without a stock pot but it is nice to have one.  Not only is it useful for making stock (which I should probably do given that I've purchased 9 boxes of chicken broth for my adventures this weekend) but the very large pot is also good for making large amounts of soup or stew which I sometimes do.

Back to the Minestrone.  Before I start any soup I always try to chop all the ingredients.  This saves on unnecessary stress later when you discover that you really need to add the garlic but it's not ready to go yet.

The wine is not actually for the soup

We start with slicing 8 slices of bacon into small pieces and frying them in the bottom of the stock pot.  This really illustrates the necessity of having a good thick bottom stock pot because the bacon will burn in a thin bottomed cheap one (I know from experience).  You should cook the bacon as to be to the texture you want in your soup because you won't be boiling it more later.  Once that's done, remove the bacon and set it aside on some paper towels.




The bottom of your stock pot will likely be covered in some delicious half burned bacon fat.  You can and should let the bottom of the pan coat with this substance but let it get too dark and you run the risk of making your entire soup taste like burned meat.  Try to avoid that.

Once you've removed the bacon add three diced red onions.  Now - if you have a the aforementioned large food processor you can always chop it in there.  If not, I recommend the following technique:  Peel the onion, chop off the end that's not the root and then score the onion into little squares:

Then, all you have to do is slice it the long way.  Add the diced onion and saute it in that bacon fat until it's a nice soft consistency.  Then add 3 cloves of diced garlic and 1/2 teaspoon of dried rosemary to the mix and cook it for about a minute. Speaking of diced garlic, I have this totally amazing tool specifically for the task.  You just throw the garlic in there, put on the lid and twist it.  IT'S MAGICAL.  And besides, everyone hates dicing garlic anyway.

After the minute, you add pretty much everything else.  That includes 2 quarts of low sodium chicken broth, 2 cans of rinsed chickpeas, 1 can of petite diced tomatoes (plus juice), 4 chopped carrots, 3 sticks of celery, 1 cinnamon stick, 3/4 tsp. salt, 1/2 tsp. pepper, and one cup of water.  Bring it to a boil, then reduce to simmer for a half hour.

That half hour is a nice time to catch up with our roast.  I've been basting it from time to time (turkey basters do not make my list of necessities for the kitchen but I do happen to have one.  If you don't, you can use a big spoon.  It works just as well.)  This is also the time to cook the pasta.  This magazine recommends tubettini' which I imagine is Italian for 'very tiny little tubes of pasta.'  They didn't have that at my store so I just bought a random bag of fancy pasta instead.

After the half hour is over you remove the cinnamon stick and add the bacon plus 1.5 tsp of red vinegar.  (side note:  I don't know how this happened in all my non-cooking for the past four years but I have a really massive collection of vinegars.)  Then you season to taste with salt, pepper and more red wine vinegar.  This assumes that you have not been steadily drinking from your Red Table Wine.  I have left the final salt count for my future self.

Roast update:  We are now at 150 degrees with 10 more to go.  It smells fucking delicious and the braising broth tastes pretty damn good too.  I'm feeling optimistic about our pork/beef bastard of a roast.

Thank you and good night.  We shall continue tomorrow.

FEAST MODE: Pastalicious

I've been saying to myself for awhile that I wish I could get back to a place where I cooked 80%-90% of my meals like I used to.  Then I realized that 'awhile' has actually been the past four years.  Home cooked meals are almost always cheaper than the alternative and making a decent salary removes the necessity to actually cook.

That said, back when I did actually cook my folks used to sometimes give me gourmet magazines to draw inspiration from.  Our recipes for the rest of the weekend come from "Fine Cooking - January 2009."  This simple pasta dish is from the back cover.

It's generally a good idea to read through recipes before you get started on them.  That way you don't get caught off guard by instructions like 'marinade overnight' or 'chill until hardened.'  In this case, the recipe asks that you reserve a cup of the water that you boiled the pasta in so you can use that water to finish the dish.  Hard to recreate that ingredient after the fact and while pasta water won't make or break your dish it does add something a little special.  Bill Buford, the author of "Heat" assigns the pasta water an almost mythical quality and who wants to miss out on mysticism?  Not me.  Also, the recipe doesn't mention boiling the pasta until last but if you want to finish the recipe in a timely fashion then it's better to do the pasta first while you prepare the other ingredients.  Do so in salted water.

The recipe calls for Orecchiette (pasta).  I don't know what that is.  But the picture looks like shells and I found something like it on the shelves.  As I said before, I like to make sure the primary ingredient in my recipes is quality, so I bought a good quality dried pasta.  I think they make a pretty big difference in the final outcome.

Next, roast half a head of cauliflower and a pint of grape tomatoes in olive oil, salt and pepper.  Pro tip:  'roast' nearly always means a temperature between 400 and 450 degrees.  In this case, 425 for 15 minutes.

Before roasting

While that's in the oven you're supposed to pulse four cloves of garlic and 9 leaves of fresh sage in a food processor.  I have three thoughts about that.

1.)

When you buy fresh herbs, you pretty much always wind up with more than you need.  Fortunately, most fresh herbs actually freeze pretty well so at least you can do something with them rather than throw them out or try like hell to use all that fresh sage.

2.)

When you buy garlic, try to buy a head that has paper that's tight to the garlic.  That means it's fresh.  Also, fresh garlic is purple in color so if you can find some in the store that has a little purple in it, that's a good bet.

3.)  Food processors are big and take a lot of space in your kitchen.  If you're going to buy one, get in the habit of using it a lot and right away, otherwise you're wasting your money.  I have the little one that's pictured and it triples with other attachments as a submersion blender and a motorized whisk.  I love it and use it all the time when I'm cooking.

When the garlic and sage has been diced in the processor, add about 3oz of prosciutto.  I feel about prosciutto the same way I do about bacon.  It's great as a flavoring agent but not really meant to be the main attraction of the meal.  

Add that to the cauliflower and tomatoes once their done and roast for another 5 minutes.

Roasted

By the time the roasting is done your pasta should also be done.  You'll want to mix everything together along with a little of that pasta water to add mysticism plus about 3/4 cup of parmigiano-reggiano cheese and 5 ounces of arugula.  I don't know how much 5oz of arugula is so I just added a couple of handfuls and called it good.

By the way - this is really fucking good.  I mean like - wow!  Add a little of that Red Table Wine and you have one fantastic dinner!

(Also, the roast is setting pretty at 87.2 internal degrees)