At one point I started multi-tracking the piano, adding layers of piano on top of other layers of piano. Since I didn’t have a click track to play along with or anything, the rhythms were all really chaotic, but I liked that, thought it gave it a good random quality. This is my favorite of the multi-tracked piano pieces: Mellow Warpath. I like this one a lot, it starts off sweet, locks in around :20 and then kind of goes nuts until the end. I also like the very end, with the last notes coming from an underlying piano track that you kind of didn’t know was there.
One of the only good things to come from my eye scenario is that I finally hooked a tape player up to the computer to digitize all the stuff I recorded to cassette during college. I’d had this box of tapes laying around forever, so it’s great to finally get this stuff recorded and mp3’d. Also, since most of doing the task was just listening, it was the perfect project for my eye. I figured this week I would post some of the recordings — not sure how many, most of them are so cringe-inducingly cheezy that I’m not really sure why I digitized them.
This first one is recorded in a piano practice room when I was going to college. My pal JW lent me his 4-track and I recorded a bunch of piano songs that I had been working on; digitizing this tape made me realize how much time I must have spent that Freshman year in the piano room. Freshman year wasn’t a good time, and I guess I channeled that stuff into the piano. The weird thing is, I would record these tracks and not re-do them if I made mistakes, so you’ll hear little wobbles in there and parts that aren’t quite 100%, but so be it. I think at the time I was mainly influenced by Windham Hill New Age music.
At the end of Freshman year I had to turn in a cassette of a bunch of tracks for some kind of class project, so my friend PH and I named them with the cheeziest names we could think of as a joke.
Unfortunatley I am still experiencing (bio)technical difficulties in my left eye…look up “corneal ulcer” for a hint of the fun I’m having. Regular posting will resume once this is sorted out, hopefully no more than a week or so…
It’s no secret that animal habitats are being encroached upon and causing all sorts of weird "coyotes buying ice cream cones" type of behavioral adjustments. I feel like this was big news in the enviro movements of the 80’s, right? There’s that Miyzaki film about the Racoons (remind me to tell you the story of Cakeface sometime) in Japan, that Disney film about the animals losing their homes to buildings, etc.
But I had no clue there’s an entire GENRE of youtube clips all about foxes bouncing on people’s trampolines! The clips are fun and weird. How do the foxes know that this is what’s supposed to happen on a trampoline? It must feel great. They must like to have a good time.
Fun and weird.
Go to youtube and search for "fox" and "trampoline" and you’ll find tons of these vids.
I know I’m supposed to be writing internet style short short fiction, or stories in the form of text messages or ichat or something, but for some reason I wrote a regular ole short story recently…no clue if it’s any good, but if you’re curious, here’s a link…maybe print it out and read on the bus to work or something…
So they’ve developed autonomous robots to work in warehouses getting the products to be shipped out. There are so many great things about this. Below there’s a sort of corporate-style vid extolling the virtues of the system…I’ve set it to jump in 4:16 ‘cuz the beginning is boring, and there are so many great bits later on:
The fact that the robots are autonomous, so they’re making decisions as to how best work things out.
The way the guy is giving his interview with robots zipping along behind him.
They way he talks about people wanting to "work WITH" the robots, like they’re already getting personified.
The fact that it’s a great benefit that we’ve reduced the walking people had to do (finally!).
The fact that everyone goes on about the "efficiency" of the system without mentioning that people will lose their jobs to robots. It’s a blast.
the google maps street view is a pretty good time…I’ve used it to check parking signs to see what day I need to move my car, look at apartment buildings, scout locations where we’re going to shoot…
but the best thing about the street view is that it also captures moments like this…
For Christmas I got a bunch of 33 & 1/3’s, (also, Gamera does a good job of explaining them here) but without a doubt the most interesting one was on Celine Dion’s "Let’s Talk About Love". Not so much a critique of the actual album (although it is that), it’s more a critical examination of taste, and what it means to like something or dislike something. How our tastes develop (along economic lines, social lines, cultural lines), what is meant by the social currency of cool — all this interesting snooty critical theory stuff with Celine Dion as the springboard. It’s pretty great.
One of the more interesting lines of thought in the book was our fear of liking things that are overly sentimental, or tacky. He posits a theory that part of our dislike of these things is that they make us feel too much, they threaten to pull too much emotion out of us, and that we resist this so that we can still feel we have a hold on our emotions, that we are in control of our feelings. But maybe this isn’t the best thing for us, maybe it would be good for us if we could feel things strongly, really let ourselves go and feel the emotion that certain works of art are trying so desperately to make us feel.
The great thing was that I was reading a lot of this book in LA at our hotel pool — a pool that was too close to the freeway so they blasted middle-of-the-road rock to drown out the traffic noise. I’m reading this stuff about maybe giving in to the emotion and I’m listening to "Livin on a Prayer" and "Blinded by the Light" and so on. I tried to feel what it felt like to give in to these songs and it was interesting as anything. Reminded me of going to church and saying to myself "just for fun I’m going to feel what it would feel like to really BELIEVE. How does it feel? Just give in…" There’s something to it, it’s valuable somehow.
So recently whenever I see or hear something that makes me cringe a little, I try to let go of that feeling and just embrace whatever it is that’s making me cringe. This seems to be particularly effective when dealing with new pop culture stuff that’s right on the border of cool/lame. I love seeing things where I can’t tell if it’s great or if it’s weak. This guy Juiceboxxx is right there. I def appreciate the energy, and I can tell part of it is a goof, and part of it is super serious, but I just can’t make up my mind about it. I know I don’t need to have it on my ipod, but I like watching the video (it’s also a great video). Plus he’s 21, and from Milwaukee, and it seems like so much of his vibe is about being for the kids and I love that. What do you think?
(otherwise known as "pinkeye"!!!) which is surreal and not much fun. I will tell you this though: if you go on an airplane wearing an eye patch, people will hold doors open for you. Eye hurts, can’t look at screen any more. Talk soon.
This month’s banner is from the Christmas card that Maxine gave me…there’s something I love about the surreal look to those characters, like they’re right out of a dream…
I like meteor showers…I’ve had some great viewing experiences with the Perseids and the Pleides…once at my great Aunt and Uncle’s cabin on a mountain up in CT where there is no electricity, we saw tons and tons of shooting stars…
and once with MT, MA and EB we drove out to Sky Meadows and snuck under the barrier to have a midnight picnic and saw lots of shooting stars…I think it was MA’s first shooting star? Highlight was when we suddenly heard the sound of a pack of coyotes howling at the moon, loud, and not that far away…
Until today I’d never heard of the Quadrantids, but spaceweather.com has this to say about it:
"Although the Quadrantids are a major shower, they are seldom observed. One reason is weather. The shower peaks in early January when northern winter is in full swing. Storms and cold tend to keep observers inside."
Well yes. Even though it is awesome to imagine Earth intersecting the remains of an asteroid/comet that blew up 500 years ago, I think the cold will be keeping me inside tonight. That and because it’s NYC, I’m imagining I’d have to go wayyyyyyyy out to get away from the light pollution. There’s apparently a shower-viewing event going on in Pelham Park(?) in the Bronx, but yeah, I’ll be home.
And before you say it, I know, I know, "the old Josh would have gone."
