James Marshall's Arts Page

While my professional background is in science, I also enjoy some arts. The main ones are music, ballroom dancing, calligraphy, comics, with a few other arts related topics as well.

Music

I learned to play piano as a child, and music has always been a part of my life. I used to play trombone in school bands, but don't play it much anymore. I do continue to play the piano at home for fun, and am happy to have a full 88-key digital piano, the now-dsicontinued Yamaha YPG-635, which was a Christmas present from my wife. I subscribed to Sheet Music Magazine for a while until they (sadly) shut down publication. Apparently they couldn't even give the magazine away to keep it alive. :( This was a fantastic way to get new songs and arrangements regularly, and I'm sure many musicians like myself are sad to see it go. They've suggested Music Books Now as a source for music publications. I also tried learning the harmonica, mainly to play blues, but never got very far with it. I love listening to music of a variety of genres. Jazz, blues, big band, and classical have been long-time favorites, but I also like modern/alternative rock, electronic styles like trance (I usually listen to Digitally Imported for this), some popular music of various styles, and some foreign music, mainly Japanese pop (J-pop) and anime music. Since I like a variety of music, I enjoy listening to a variety of artists. There only a few that I regularly buy CDs of though: Harry Connick, Jr. (see also this fan site), Linkin Park, Utada who's also known by her full name Utada Hikaru, and the English albums of BoA (Boa Kwon). I also write music for fun when I'm inspired and have almost 30 songs now, plus some phrases and things that I like but haven't worked into full songs yet. My SoundCloud account has recordings for almost all of my finished songs, so please feel to listen to and comment on them there.

Ballroom Dancing

This is the only style of dancing that I really enjoy doing myself, and I've created my own ballroom dancing page with information about this, so I suggest you go there for more, including lists of dance steps and combinations from classes I took. I will provide a link to my local area college club though -- Ballroom At Maryland. If you're in the College Park area, they have a lot of classes, social dances, competitions, etc. that they organize and/or attend, so I'd definitely suggest them as a good place to help you start ballroom dancing.

Calligraphy

The art of beautiful writing -- I only do this occasionally, usually for fun or to make something look a little more special. I normally only use a Gothic style alphabet, but I can write just about any style if I have a copy of the alphabet in question in front of me. Semi-related is my interest in fountain pens. They're not as common now as they once were, but you do get a different feel writing with real liquid ink which tends to be more expressive and I like it. I own four fountain pens -- a red fine point Waterman Phileas with the old color pattern, an original model blue with silver/rhodium trim medium point Namiki Vanishing Point, a silver/chrome medium point Pelikan Pharo, and a black with gold trim medium(?) point Cartier Diabolo which my parents bought and engraved for me as a PhD graduation gift (which came with a matching ballpoint, also engraved, and two two-pen cases, wood and leather). I don't write enough to keep the ink in all of the pens flowing though, so I generally just use one (instead of rotating, the other main option) -- that's the Cartier Diabolo, mainly because it writes the best of the ones I have. I've made purchases from Levenger and Fountain Pen Hospital, and have looked at Pen Boutique and JetPens.com which both look good, too.

Comics

I always enjoyed reading comics in newspapers when I was younger, but now I mainly read them online. Here are a few of my favorites that I try to check daily, which I listed in the order I found out about them (to the best of my recollection): Calvin and Hobbes, Dilbert, Piled Higher and Deeper, Sinfest (warning! mature/adult themes), El Goonish Shive (semi-adult, mainly sexual preferences), User Friendly, and xkcd (the xkcd what if? posts are also good). For lots of other strips, try Comics.com or UComics.com. Perhaps not exactly (web) comics, there's some fun stuff at HomestarRunner.com, and the Strong Bad e-mails in particular are fun to watch.

Other Arts

These might not all be exactly fits, but this seemed like the best place for them to me. Among these other art-related things I enjoy are: paper planes, and make sure to check out Ken Blackburn's Home Page because he's held the world record for time aloft with a paper plane; origami, the Japanese art of paper folding -- a few fun links for this are Origami.com, paperfolding.com, Origami Club (English), and Origami Resource Center. on a similar note are flexagons, paper models folded from strips of paper that have multiple faces -- a few links for more information (and some printable/foldable models) are Scott Sherman's Flexagon site, and The Flexagon Portal; juggling (try juggling.org for more info) and contact juggling, including pen spinning (see Pentrix, an updated version of Pentix, or PenstudioZ for information on this); Parkour or free running, which is a kind of sport/art of moving in the most efficient and uninterrupted way possible, some moves have a gymnastics-like aspect to them, like vaults over obstacles, and ExtremeBody Workout's Parkour page has some more resources about this activity.

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[Abbreviations] [Astronomy Abbreviations] [Ballroom Books] [Ballroom Combos] [Ballroom Dancing] [Ballroom Steps] [Chivalry] [Desiderata] [Dissertation (@UMD)] [Gamebook Blurbs] [Jelly Belly Recipes] [Nikoli Puzzle Rules] [Pocky] [Professor Quotes] [Smileys] [Spanish Gypsy Dance] [Tai Chi Forms] [VLSBG Catalog] [Wedding]

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This page was last updated on March 6, 2013.
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