Sometimes You Just Have To (inter) Face The Music
[ 2 Comments ]Posted on November 1, 2008 by admin in Music, Technology
Two Tune Tables and No Microphone
Years ago I had a dream in which I was playing an amazing instrument that responded to my hand gestures and thoughts, creating sublime, transcendent music that moved the soul. Then I woke up. The best that I had at my disposal at the time was still my electric guitar, because a velocity sensitive keyboard, although it’s pretty cool, had been around for awhile. The evolution of the musical instrument interface has amazing possibilities these days, as evident in the reactable project created by students at Universitat Pompeu Fabra in Barcelona. As is so often the case though, the same technology seems to be more immediately applicable to practical needs, like selling cocktails. The clip at left is the brick, a “Tangible & Multi Touch Sonification Instrument”. Which is one of the more creative and purposeful interfaces I’ve seen. Many of these concepts are clever, but end up being rather non-musical or like the reacTogon, just a a clever redesign of existing ideas. Coming at things from the other direction, Japanese artist Daito Manabe lets the music play him (YouTube clip). If you watch that video, you’ll get a feel for what it means to “surrender to your art”. That can’t feel good. Daito Manabe’s YouTube page is here; he also seems to do interesting public performance art projects like whitebase + Daito Manabe and disturbing video experiments like Milk. Yucky.
The Weirdest Movie In The World
[ 4 Comments ]Posted on November 1, 2008 by admin in Popular Media
It’s at first strange to think, and then on reflection not all that surprising, that the screenplay for The Saddest Music in the World was written by Kazuo Ishiguro, author of The Remains of the Day. Ishiguro seems to have a gift for capturing a distant or past reality that doesn’t actually exist. If you’re [...]
It’s at first strange to think, and then on reflection not all that surprising, that the screenplay for The Saddest Music in the World
Am I Still Hip If I Oppose Gay Marriage?
[ 7 Comments ]Posted on November 1, 2008 by admin in Lifestyle & Culture
And if Obama loses, is it Anthony Romero’s fault?
 Sorry Anthony, your e-mail had unintended consequences. |
Note to self: if you ever go into politics, remember the law of unintended consequences. I recently received an e-mail from the ACLU in which Executive Director Anthony D. Romero shared the sad story of the results of his outing himself with his parents. He then went on to explain why I should be concerned about California’s Proposition 8, and the rights of gay people to get married in general. I was surprised (as I found myself seriously pondering this topic in-depth for the first time) what my more complicated thoughts on the subject really are. First, I want to say that I ADAMANTLY believe in an individual’s right to have whatever kind of relationship they like with whatever gender or species they desire, so long as both are consenting and in agreement. And although none of my friends do the interspecies thing, easily half of my friends are gay, be they men or women (and half of them will want to kill me when we get around to discussing this). What Romero’s plea highlighted for me is that I don’t think I really care if the government sanctions gay marriage, because, once I really pondered my feelings on the topic, I realized I also don’t think people should get tax breaks for being married in the first place, and I don’t think the government has any place putting their stamp of approval on such agreements. For one, what if your spiritual beliefs preclude Read the rest of this entry »
Attack Ad Generator
[ Comments Off ]Posted on November 1, 2008 by admin in Editorial & Opinion
If the toned-down rhetoric of the McCain campaign in these final days of the election has left you feeling a bit, well, under-outraged, bring back the psychotic, demented rambling of the Palin rollout days with your own attack ad. The creators of the Attack Ad Generator have gone to great lengths to give you all [...]
If the toned-down rhetoric of the McCain campaign in these final days of the election has left you feeling a bit, well, under-outraged, bring back the psychotic, demented rambling of the Palin rollout days with your own attack ad. The creators of the Attack Ad Generator have gone to great lengths to give you all the tools you need: images of all four candidates, a way to add titling, and an impressive selection of drag-and-drop words spoken in a menacing basso voiceover style. I did a quick-and-dirty version here. If you took a little longer than the 5 minutes I devoted to this, you could probably come up with something pretty slick. When you’re finished, there are options for e-mailing and embedding. I didn’t embed it here, those are just screen-grabs at left. Happy slandering!
Elbow Room Only
[ 2 Comments ]Posted on October 31, 2008 by admin in Music
You’ll need some sharp elbows to queue up in my music collection…
If you care about me, stop introducing me to music I like. I’m rapidly running out of time and hard drive space. The other day, a friend sent me a link to some British band’s web site, asking me what I thought. I think my remark at the time was something like “it’s a good thing their web site’s so pretty, ’cause they’re a fugly bunch of fellows”. After giving their music obsessively repeated listens, I now officially retract anything unkind I’ve ever said about Elbow. Their newest release, The Seldom Seen Kid