This Is My Secret: The Blog and Website of Writer Kristin Cashore

I grew up in a house where a lot of classical music was played, and a lot of SesameStreet was watched. I bet I heard the traditional Shaker tune "Simple Gifts" before I could even talk, thanks to Aaron Copland's "Appalachian Spring;" I've kind of idolized violinist Itzhak Perlman ever since I saw him on my black-and-white TV; and, well, I've posted before about what I think of Yo-Yo Ma. So, aside from the actual fact of Barack Obama becoming President (and George Bush going away), can you guess what part of Tuesday's inauguration I liked best? That's right, even more than Aretha Franklin's hat, or Joe Biden's smileyoucouldseefromthemoon, or even Obama saying stuff like, "We will restore science to its rightful place," and, "We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus -- AND NON-BELIEVERS!" (Okay, no, he didn't actually scream that last part, but my non-believing soul screamed out "THANK YOU&…

Do you listen to the NPR show This American Life? It's my favorite radio show ever. I turn down invitations if they cut into my weekend routine of drinking a cup of tea and listening to This American Life. It's hard to describe the show -- the people at the show themselves admit this -- but they do a pretty good job here. And some popular episodes are available for your listening pleasure here.
A few weekends ago, the episode was about numbers being used in places where numbers maybe shouldn't be used. For example, some folks tried to quantify what makes likable songs likable, and what makes unlikable songs unlikable, by taking a survey of what instruments, voices, and genres of songs people like and dislike most. Then, they combined all the most-liked sounds to create a song everyone should like, and all the least-liked sounds to create a song no one should like. The "good" song turned out to be rather bland and unlistenable. The BAD song, on the other ha…

I cannot seem to wipe the smile off my face.
It has been such a stressful few months. It has been a stressful eight years. And the stress is bound to continue, of course, no matter how wonderful our president-elect is. This is the world.
But for today, at least, in honor of a magnificent victory, I give you a post restricted to low-key, no-stress, comforting things.
This post is The Bird Report.

A wonderful thing has just happened here in north Florida: The pelicans who winter on the St. John's River have returned. I saw three pelicans yesterday! Florida is a paradise for bird lovers and pelicans are the birds I love most; no matter what posture Sir Pelican chooses to adopt, he looks like a marvelous genetic mistake -- so wonderfully pointy and lumpy and unbalanced. Welcome back, Sir Pelican!
The winter cormorants and gulls are also back, and the herons are still hanging around; there's one old grizzly HUGE blue heron who hangs out on the pilings at night, croaking stories …

(With apologies up front to my readers who are not American or are too young to vote. I must write this post -- but I promise, I'll only do it once.)
So. I am not, nor have I ever been, politically eloquent. If I relied on my own powers of persuasion to explain to you why I think it's imperative that you vote for Barack Obama this November, my argument would be something along the lines of, "Please, please, PLEASE vote for Obama so that we can work toward expanding civil liberties rather than re