41–50 of 167 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Those words haven't (so far as I know) been sung either: they're from one of his spoken preambles, not from any of the songs. (The preambles are generally at least as funny as the songs, at least in my estimation.)
I wouldn't call what he does singing given the normal meaning of the phrase.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artie_Shaw
Gerry Rafferty (probably more commercially successful than Lehrer, at least) also didn't like the business or performing aspects of music.
Bill Murray said (paraphrasing), "I always say to someone who wants to be rich and famous, 'try being rich first, and see if that doesn't get you 90% of what you want.' Being famous is a 24-hour-a-day job."
I still have some Tom Lehrer songs in my playlist. They sound like they're a product of their time but are still relevant today. I am also amused that I learned "new math" in elementary school, but I think it's actually different from the "new math" in his song of that name. I didn't hate it, honestly. "Now the book wants you to do it in base 8." This is actually relevant to my day to day work. (Though in base 8, I h…
New Math was a response to the Soviet lead in the space race. It was thought that introducing more abstract concepts, like different bases and set theory, would help kids grok math more. It was a fool's game. Just like every other "innovation" in mathematics education since, up to and including Common Core (one of which you probably encountered). At the elementary school level, the only way to increase math proficien…
It was fun for a budding math geek. However I kept failing miserably at the tests of memorization of the multiplication table. I knew how to add, so I didn't see the point of memorizing something that I could simply derive by repeated addition.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
New Math was a response to the Soviet lead in the space race. It was thought that introducing more abstract concepts, like different bases and set theory, would help kids grok math more. It was a fool's game. Just like every other "innovation" in mathematics education since, up to and including Common Core (one of which you probably encountered). At the elementary school level, the only way to increase math proficien…
> Math is hard, and hard things can only be mastered through discipline. There are certainly some things you can only learn effectively by doing them a lot . There are also other things that you've sort of got to learn by rote memorization (e.g. times tables, various formulas). I'm not aware of anything you can only learn effectively by the threat of physical violence . For what it's worth, I was taught logic and set…
I grew up listening to him. He seems to be personally, very happy. That’s something that I find inspirational.
"Tom Lehrer Is Teaching Math and Doesn’t Want to Talk to You", brilliant.
The article is nice and interesting but doesn't answer the question of why did Tom Lehrer stop. It's possible he thought he didn't have anything more to say. But I doubt that's the whole reason he stopped making songs and performing. He lived through a time when the US defeated Nazi Germany, and then... hired prominent Nazis to work for them. This is what the Wernher von Braun song is about. My take is, he thinks hum…
I saw "Tomfoolery," a Lehrer revue, in 1980 or 1981 in SF. The actor singing "The Elements" had a periodic table and a pointer. He identified every element in time and at tempo without missing a one. Impressive.
Daniel Radcliffe sang it on Graham Norton, introducing Tom Lehrer to a crowd who didn't know him. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=rSAaiYKF0cs
I still have some Tom Lehrer songs in my playlist. They sound like they're a product of their time but are still relevant today. I am also amused that I learned "new math" in elementary school, but I think it's actually different from the "new math" in his song of that name. I didn't hate it, honestly. "Now the book wants you to do it in base 8." This is actually relevant to my day to day work. (Though in base 8, I h…
New Math was a response to the Soviet lead in the space race. It was thought that introducing more abstract concepts, like different bases and set theory, would help kids grok math more. It was a fool's game. Just like every other "innovation" in mathematics education since, up to and including Common Core (one of which you probably encountered). At the elementary school level, the only way to increase math proficien…
edit: found a copy: https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DeTFuNkUQAAHIwa?format=jpg
He posts a lot about Tom Lehrer!
https://twitter.com/search?q=from%3A%40ericrweinstein%20lehr...
Here's Tyler Cohen claiming Tom Lehrer would have been a part of the "Intellectual Dark Web" https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2018/12/to...