Be A Voice Not An Echo

Published July 22, 2014 by scottbl

Kettle Moraine is a large moraine in the state of Wisconsin, United States. It stretches from Walworth County in the south to Kewaunee County in the north. It has also been referred to as the Kettle Range and, in geological texts, as the Kettle Interlobate Moraine.

The moraine was created when the Green Bay Lobe of the Laurentide Ice Sheet, on the west, collided with the Lake Michigan Lobe of the glacier, on the east, depositing sediment. The western glacier formed Green Bay, Lake Winnebago and the Horicon Marsh. The major part of the Kettle Moraine area is considered interlobate moraine, though other types of moraine features, and other glacial features are common.

The moraine is dotted with kettles caused by buried glacial ice that calved off the terminus of a receding glacier and got entirely or partly buried in glacial sediment and subsequently melted. This process left depressions ranging from small ponds to large lakes and enclosed valleys. Water-filled kettles range in depth from 3 to 200 ft (0.9 to 60 m). The topography of this area is widely varied between the lakes and kettles and the hills of glacial deposits, which can rise up to 300 ft (90 m) from the lakes. The largest include Holy Hill, Pulford Peak and Lapham Peak. Elkhart Lake, Geneva Lake, and Little Cedar Lake are among the larger kettles now filled by lakes. Kames are also found in the kettle moraine area, and are mounds of compressed glacial till.

Parts of the area have been protected in the Kettle Moraine State Forest.

All You Need Is Love

Published July 21, 2014 by scottbl

The Beatles were an English rock band that formed in Liverpool, in 1960. With John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr, they became widely regarded as the greatest and most influential act of the rock era.[1] Rooted in skiffle, beat and 1950s rock and roll, the Beatles later experimented with several genres, ranging from pop ballads to psychedelic and hard rock, often incorporating classical elements in innovative ways. In the early 1960s, their enormous popularity first emerged as “Beatlemania”, but as their songwriting grew in sophistication they came to be perceived as an embodiment of the ideals shared by the era’s sociocultural revolutions.

From 1960, the Beatles built their reputation playing clubs in Liverpool and Hamburg over a three-year period. Manager Brian Epstein moulded them into a professional act and producer George Martin enhanced their musical potential. They gained popularity in the United Kingdom after their first hit, “Love Me Do”, in late 1962. They acquired the nickname “the Fab Four” as Beatlemania grew in Britain over the following year, and by early 1964 they had become international stars, leading the “British Invasion” of the United States pop market.

From 1965 onwards, the Beatles produced what many critics consider their finest material, including the innovative and widely influential albums Rubber Soul (1965), Revolver (1966), Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band (1967), The Beatles (commonly known as the White Album, 1968) and Abbey Road (1969). After their break-up in 1970, they each enjoyed successful musical careers. Lennon was shot and killed in December 1980, and Harrison died of lung cancer in November 2001. McCartney and Starr, the surviving members, remain musically active.

Dance Like There’s Nobody There

Published July 19, 2014 by scottbl

Dance is a type of art that generally involves movement of the body, often rhythmic and to music. It is performed in many cultures as a form of emotional expression, social interaction, or exercise, in a spiritual or performance setting, and is sometimes used to express ideas or tell a story. Dance may also be regarded as a form of nonverbal communication between humans or other animals, as in bee dances and behaviour patterns such as a mating dances.

Definitions of what constitutes dance can depend on social and cultural norms and aesthetic, artistic and moral sensibilities. Definitions may range from functional movement (such as folk dance) to virtuoso techniques such as ballet. Martial arts kata are often compared to dances, and sports such as gymnastics, figure skating and synchronized swimming are generally thought to incorporate dance.

There are many styles and genres of dance. African dance is interpretative. Ballet, ballroom and tango are classical dance styles. Square dance and electric slide are forms of step dance, and breakdancing is a type of street dance. Dance can be participatory, social, or performed for an audience. It can also be ceremonial, competitive or erotic. Dance movements may be without significance in themselves, as in ballet or European folk dance, or have a gestural vocabulary or symbolic meaning as in some Asian dances.

Choreography is the art of creating dances. The person who creates (i.e., choreographs) a dance is known as the choreographer.