Monthly Archives: December 2014

Christmas shopping in “The Village”

Posted on December 29, 2014 by Katherine Wikoff

I don’t like shopping malls at Christmas.  Too crowded.  Too many harried people with too many gifts to buy and too little time. My husband and my younger daughter don’t mind all that.  In fact, for years now they’ve had an annual … Continue reading →

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Communication lessons learned from the Indian Ocean tsunami and other natural disasters

Posted on December 26, 2014 by Katherine Wikoff

It has been ten years since the December 26, 2004, Indian Ocean tsunami.  Many “anniversary” articles today will look back at this event, so this post doesn’t cover the same ground.  Because my academic specialty is communication, I wanted to … Continue reading →

Posted in History, Learning, Life, Nature, News, Science, WPLongform (posts of 1000 words or longer) | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Urban gray fox

Posted on December 23, 2014 by Katherine Wikoff

This fox was hanging around the parking lot at my doctor’s office yesterday.  There’s something spooky about a wild animal that doesn’t have an appropriate level of wariness around humans.  The fox stared at us for a long time (somewhat balefully, I … Continue reading →

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How to disable “related” videos at the end of embedded YouTube clips

Posted on December 18, 2014 by Katherine Wikoff

Yesterday I posted on my newfound knowledge about how to specify the starting and ending points in an embedded YouTube video.  I was pretty excited to be able to play just a 40-second segment of video from the middle of … Continue reading →

Posted in Learning, Movies and film, Teaching, Technology, Writing, blogging | Tagged , , , , | 9 Comments

How to specify “start” and “stop” times in embedded YouTube videos in WordPress

Posted on December 17, 2014 by Katherine Wikoff

I planned to write a post on allusion and homage in literature and film today, but now I’m going to postpone that till another day—because I’m so absolutely thrilled with myself that I figured out how to embed a YouTube … Continue reading →

Posted in Learning, Movies and film, Technology, Writing, blogging | Tagged , , , , | 10 Comments

London: We Need to talk about Paris

Posted on December 16, 2014 by Katherine Wikoff

Originally posted on The Matilda Project:
Readers, have you been to Paris? And? Isn’t it amazing? Yes, I know. Everyone loves Paris. Everyone agrees that it’s one of the most beautiful cities on Earth. Everyone who didn’t run away to…

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One Grecian Urn

Posted on December 14, 2014 by Katherine Wikoff

I’m searching for a term that would help me find some sort of documentary evidence, preferably video, of a style of dance that was popular around the start of the twentieth century. Backstory: I encountered a reference to John Keats’s … Continue reading →

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Random thoughts on time, nostalgia and the human experience

Posted on December 11, 2014 by Katherine Wikoff

This photo taken on my way to work doesn’t do it justice. but the sun looked really eerie here, like a science fiction movie.  As you can see, the light was directed upward, while the ground below was in shadows.  And … Continue reading →

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No (Introductory) Christmas Lyric Left Behind

Posted on December 10, 2014 by Katherine Wikoff

“The sun is shining / The grass is green . . .”  Thus begins one of my favorite Christmas songs.  It continues: The orange and palm trees sway There’s never been such a day In Beverly Hills, L.A. If you don’t recognize … Continue reading →

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In Praise of the One-Hit Wonder

Posted on December 9, 2014 by Katherine Wikoff

Driving home today, I was listening to (and, of course, singing along with 🙂 ) Billy Joel’s “Piano Man” on the radio.  My first idle thought was to realize that it is in 3/4 time, like a waltz. Most of his … Continue reading →

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