John Van Deusen
Erin has recently introduced me to John Van Deusen a sophomore at Anacortes high school. Yes, thats right, I said sophomore. In high school. That makes him, what? 16? 17? (Wow I feel old) Anyway, I digress. He put out an album called Yossarian (possibly referring to Joseph Heller’s Catch-22? Deusen paranoid?) This short CD blew me away. He vocal stylings (although what do I really know about this?) and lyrics are quite mature, especially for a youngin’ like Deusen. How many 17 year olds do you know who write songs about the bombing on Hiroshima or the fire bombed city of Dresden? His voice reminds me a bit of Ben Folds with a mild touch of the Yarbrough warble in some places and his skill on the guitar and piano are a great combination. I think Deusen has quite a bit of potential and I will look forward to what he has to offer as he matures in his writing (oh yeah, he writes his own stuff) and playing.
I wasn’t able to find any of his lyrics on the net and I am horrible at trying to write them down while listening so you will just have to listen yourself. Here are three songs off his CD, I was pretty equally impressed with the other four on the list.
Yossarian (5.69 MB)
Dresden (4.40 MB)
8-6-45 (6.25 MB)
Check out this new, young artist and enjoy!
Shalom
Other John Van Deusen Posts:
John Van Deusen and the Lonely Forest
Perfectly Pleasant Procrastination - JVD at Bay Street Coffee
John Van Deusen at the EMP
John Van Deusen and EMP’s SoundOff!
Round 10
The Lonely Forest
Re: Your reply to my quantum post; also posted there.
Heh, I’m a physics prof. But the last time I had any biology was 9th grade.
You have a very well-designed page. I forget whether that’s an HST image of Andromeda (M31) that you’re using as a divider, or some other source.
Heh, ask a silly question… Being a prof, you still think that most people should understand quantum? It seems like that would make you think the opposite! And I really don’t think too many people understand evolution either! (by the way, my degree is in physics and astronomy)
Thanks for coming by! I do believe the Andromeda is an HST pic, but I honestly can’t remember!
I’ll admit I never particularly liked quantum, but I got through it. My point was that the concepts behind both quantum and evolution are relatively simple, though I’m sure the details to evolutionary biology are every bit as intricate in their fashion as the Schroedinger equation in the coordinates of your choice.
BA Physics, MS Astro. I actually teach intro physics and general science, and the latter fuels many of my rants about evolution and people not believing it.
Quantum kicked me in the butt - differential equations did not sit well with me I think. I suppose in general the concepts are similar, but as soon as you start speaking any sort of “science talk”, no matter how simple, people tend not to follow.
I think one reason I like physics over something like biology is that they are equations! I like theories that have equations because you can test things out. It seems with much of bio, especially evolution, there aren’t many concrete equations that predict anything of any use. Now I know that is a huge generaliztion, but I think it often holds.
To be perfectly honest with you, I haven’t decided one way or the other on evolution. I just don’t see the evidence as being that strong to suggest that macro evolution actually takes place. Micro evoltion seems to have pretty strong support as far as adaptation and the like goes, but (as far as I know) we still haven’t seen a species jump from one to another (as macro would suggest). It has been a while since I have studied this in any detail though. But really, this is why I like physics, it seems much easier to prove and disprove theories.
Cross posted at BBC says Quantum is “beyond most human understanding.” at zandperl’s blog.
I definitely agree on the equations!
In high school I always did ok in science but never particularly cared for it until I took physics. Everything else was too hand-wavy and wishy-washy.
When it comes to evolution we definitely do see it on the small scale, and maybe medium scale as well-though I am sure I am not using technical terms here. I consider small scale to be adaptations within a species, such as antibiotic resistant bacteria. Medium scale could be the selective breeding we’ve done with things like dogs (chihuahua vs. Great Danes) or corn (prior to genetic modification, not sure where that fits in).
I think the reason we don’t have more evidence for the large scale (one species changing into another) is (1) our own species hasn’t been around long enough to have direct evidence, and (2) the indirect evidence of fossils is too spotty to have a totally concrete trail to trace between two species.
It’s kinda like stellar evolution in my opinion. We can’t WATCH a molecular cloud collapse, hydrogen fusion begin and turn over into helium fusion, red giant branch, and the neutron star or white dwarf eventual death. It takes waaaay to long for us to observe the whole process. Instead we have to make do with snapshots along the way, and computer modelling.
Too bad we can’t yet model entire organisms on the computer!
Well, I’m posting on my way out for a 4-week vacation, so I might not get back to any further disucssion for quite a while, but I do hope to do so eventually.
Thanks. Will look into this.