Anybody else remember when Thom Yorke wasn't so good live?

Rather different now. The ever-shimmy went rhythmic, and his voice is impressively precise.

Right then, haven't written since, what, October of 2007? It has been a while. Not that I have nothing to show for it, and maybe I'll even get into some of that. If I can manage to put some things down here, that is, and keep in touch in this little way. We'll see.

The following is not just a weak excuse to say hi, but also one of my favorite tracks on In Rainbows. Check out the accumulation of sounds as the song goes on, a lovely background eats foreground thing.



I did some tiny amount research into climate change public policy last winter, and one point I liked was Radiohead's public stance in their efforts to reduce carbon emissions. What's more impressive is that their primary focus is on their own behavior, and for those paying attention they're not trying to dumb things down. For example, here's information from a commissioned study of the carbon impact of a Radiohead tour, which includes a link to the whole report.

What it takes to make Michael Stipe smile

Muppets, apparently. Following comments on the prior post, I am compelled to share this. And why not, smile that is.



(The muppet stand-in for Kate Pierson cracks me up, along with the fact that she lip-syncs better than Mike Mills.)

Reality Beats Down Dan Brown

This is just neat.

(Thanks to this individual for the link.)

Progress is...

...rather than pulling an all-nighter the night before a big paper's due, pulling an all-nighter the night before the night before.

But what did I have the next morning? I wouldn't call it a lump of coal to be edited into a diamond; it was more like a pile of dung to be wrapped in tin foil.

And so, progress is not... Pulling an another all-nighter the following night and still handing in the damn thing late.

Which I'm fine with. Somehow I still feel better than I than I did about the previous writing assignment. My biggest regrets are missing lunch with a professor and losing any high ground I had to complain about the assignment itself, which I considered a disaster (outside of my performance).

The past week has been punishment with little or no reward, made more frustrating by the fact that there's perfectly gainful punishment that had to be put on hold.


Assorted notes from the past few days:


Weekend listening focused on...
Modest Mouse, We Were Dead Before the Ship Even Sank
Louis Sclavis, L'imparfait des langues
David Torn, Prezens

(All are awesome.)

I'm reasonably certain that community aspects of struggling through this train wreck of a project will ultimately be more valuable than the writing experience.

Okay, the research experience was worthwhile too.

Around 10 pm Sunday I had cause to think, "Brief 1, me 0, silverfish -1." Even if I yelped when the bug came at me.

I have fallen far and quickly down the coffee rabbit hole. A year ago I despised it. Now it's a companion, and I don't need half & half. Next up, no sugar.

Floyd has been my furry little study buddy. He snores.

I miss beer. Oh G-d how I miss beer.

Happy birthday to my brother, who doesn't read this blog.

Organized thoughts on mixtapes 2

My friend has since claimed that "blogs are the new mixtapes."

I think he's very likely right about this.

Need synonyms for "wholly unnecessary"

Or possibly a new word, for when actions pass redundant and incorporate an insulting self-indulgence. Insulting to the rest of us, that is. Or for when those actions waste magnetic tape.

Clearly, the world does not need this remake.


(With a far better title, link found here.)

Organized thoughts on mixtapes

This post by Adam875 (who is a friend in life, not just in internet) got me thinking about mixtapes, the death of the album, etc. Not that I'm experiencing these personally, but I'll take a few minutes to think about music given the opportunity.

Adam875 wrote about interactions with music and whether mixtapes still have a place. My thoughts follow:


A. Mixtapes may be a life-phase activity, where it's not so much the case that technology has outmoded them as we've simply outgrown the thing. This could be based on...

1. How music was regarded and/or used at that age in a this-sequence-of-songs-represents-WHO-I-AM-and-not-you sense, a means of self-identification. (or)

2. How we interacted with friends back in the day. Music as a social activity. Did you make mix tapes for yourself, others, or for yourself with the intent to distribute copies to others? (My recollection is of mix-tapes as a social thing. In High Fidelity the perfect mix-tape was for a girl.) If you were to make a mix-tape now, who would it be for?

3. Ways to look at this: Ask people older than us (maybe 40 or 45 or 50) whether they made or listened to mix-tapes when they were 10, 12, 15, 17, 20, 25, 30, 35 (depending on their age and state of technology). Alternately, see B(1).


B. If there is that impulse at a certain age, is it really defeated by iTunes and mp3 players? At first pass, seems doubtful. What do the kids do today? Alternately, is there a way that this is helped by new technology?

1. Playlists are swappable, shareable, publishable online. How is this used, and by who? Do high school / college students send each other playlists, or allow access to each others' iTunes libraries if they're on the same network? (I've noticed that people at school don't have their iTunes libraries buttoned down. It's creepy. What's the default setting for that?) [I've since figured out iTunes is open by default. Fix it if you're inclined to, people!]

2. Further, is the interaction enhanced or defeated by iTunes? If shared: Do kids not listen to each others' playlists because they already have 53 Gb of their own music in the same place? Do they listen because there's social value in it? Do they half-listen and skip anything that sounds boring after 5 seconds (because it's not a matter of mechanical fast forwarding, it's just a push of a putton that may
already be at hand)?

3. Ways to look at this: Ask the kids. Or ask Apple -- I bet they have amazing data on this.


C. If it's a behavior that's outgrown, what does that say about us? About how we relate to ourselves or others when we're younger, and how that changes over time?


Of course, I'm not a mixtape person, so I'm not sure about any of these.

Times like these...

When I'm especially stressed and it leaks... I dream about not being able to play the clarinet (or bass clarinet, or both). I've had two of these in the past two nights.

They're awful, I wake up. Afterwards I can't fall back to sleep or shake the feeling that something was taken from me or, possibly worse, lost.

I mention this here because putting this into the world (in whatever bloggy, tragic way I am) helps me realize they were just dreams, or stress.

So, any other tellingly recurring stress dreams out there? I can't be the only one. Please don't say naked in high school -- it's been done, and anyway you're probably just a latent exhibitionist.