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Purported Honda commercial advises customers to switch to hybrid cars because it will mean 'less money for terror.'
This is what it looks like outside my window at home.
Well, OK, as of last weekend this is what it looked like, but other than a few more leaves having dropped, it's going to be pretty consistently gorgeous out there all year 'round. There's a reason I requested an apartment on the same side of the complex as before ...
I have very fond memories of John Surman's Private City. It was on my walkman a lot in the early 1990s as dérived through the streets of Edinburgh. I had the notion that this would be the ideal album for exploring the psychogeography of the place. With a title like that, how could it not be? As it happened, I was completely wrong, and it turned out that the urban mythologising of The Fall was far better suited for my purpose, but at least I got lots of exercise and listened to Surman a lot, and that's never a bad thing.
To be honest, on revisiting this album I cringe a little at some of the synth sounds. They're all a bit wibbly wobbly, you know? When Surman was doing his thing with multitracked woodwinds it's all a lot more satisfying. Here's the gentle and quite delightful Roundelay. Surman often used sequencers and delay effects, creating a bass line on one instrument which he could then repeat and play over on another. There's something of that here, but in this case the repeated bass figure gives this an almost baroque feel, despite the pronounced but delicate swing. It might be polite music, but there's a passionate restraint at play here. Excellent.
John Surman - Roundelay
(alternate download)
To be honest, on revisiting this album I cringe a little at some of the synth sounds. They're all a bit wibbly wobbly, you know? When Surman was doing his thing with multitracked woodwinds it's all a lot more satisfying. Here's the gentle and quite delightful Roundelay. Surman often used sequencers and delay effects, creating a bass line on one instrument which he could then repeat and play over on another. There's something of that here, but in this case the repeated bass figure gives this an almost baroque feel, despite the pronounced but delicate swing. It might be polite music, but there's a passionate restraint at play here. Excellent.
John Surman - Roundelay
(alternate download)
I have two Movie Memoir pieces that I want to write this weekend:
But first I have to paint another red wall and two more doors. Then I’m calling it quits on painting until January. So my full KDD Writing will be back soon.
In the meanwhile, I have to mention that while I was at the movies I saw this commercial for Levi's jeans:
Beautiful and touching isn’t it? In case you didn’t recognize the voice, that voiceover is the actual voice of Walt Whitman singing the praises of America. Too bad this sentimental look at America doesn’t mention that Levi's has closed down all their American production and put thousands of people out of work. How dare they produce such an egregiously self-congratulatory and hypocritical advertisement exploiting the dead poet Walt Whitman and all the American workers the company put on the unemployment rolls.
As a native San Franciscan, the original home of Levi's jeans, I grew up wearing nothing but Levis. Levis continued to be my only “jean of choice” throughout my adult life. I was devastated when they went global and closed down American production. And for the record, their jeans got shittier when they closed U.S. production. No longer could you buy a standard pair of 501 jeans (the same ones I’d been wearing for over thirty years). Now they constantly have to have new jeans with new numbers and new styles (all shitty) which produced in places like China. Yet, they want us to believe that they care about Americans. The only thing Levis cares about Americans for is our credit cards, our cash, our participation in the profits, our money which buys their products that are produced by cheap overseas labor.
It’s no surprise that so many companies have gone global in their production. It’s one thing to put people out of work and outsource labor. It’s another to produce such egregious lies in advertising your product. Shame on you Levi's. Fuck you and your big lying exploitive ad.
- A piece in response to A.O. Scott’s article on exposing to children to more “difficult” cinema.
- A piece in response to 2012 (which I saw yesterday and loved for the pure fun of it) and my lifelong love of disaster movies.
But first I have to paint another red wall and two more doors. Then I’m calling it quits on painting until January. So my full KDD Writing will be back soon.
In the meanwhile, I have to mention that while I was at the movies I saw this commercial for Levi's jeans:
Beautiful and touching isn’t it? In case you didn’t recognize the voice, that voiceover is the actual voice of Walt Whitman singing the praises of America. Too bad this sentimental look at America doesn’t mention that Levi's has closed down all their American production and put thousands of people out of work. How dare they produce such an egregiously self-congratulatory and hypocritical advertisement exploiting the dead poet Walt Whitman and all the American workers the company put on the unemployment rolls.
As a native San Franciscan, the original home of Levi's jeans, I grew up wearing nothing but Levis. Levis continued to be my only “jean of choice” throughout my adult life. I was devastated when they went global and closed down American production. And for the record, their jeans got shittier when they closed U.S. production. No longer could you buy a standard pair of 501 jeans (the same ones I’d been wearing for over thirty years). Now they constantly have to have new jeans with new numbers and new styles (all shitty) which produced in places like China. Yet, they want us to believe that they care about Americans. The only thing Levis cares about Americans for is our credit cards, our cash, our participation in the profits, our money which buys their products that are produced by cheap overseas labor.
It’s no surprise that so many companies have gone global in their production. It’s one thing to put people out of work and outsource labor. It’s another to produce such egregious lies in advertising your product. Shame on you Levi's. Fuck you and your big lying exploitive ad.
The Times has a truly inspiring story today about Sara Buechner, a transgender pianist who transitioned to female at age 39, suffered a more-or-less total career eclipse, then worked her way out of the wilderness with the help of an old classmate and her own powerful talent. Check it out.
Here she is in action:
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Here she is in action:
I'm not on the list for free flu jabs (grump: despite fact I teach 1000s of grotty students and get flu every year :( and was thinking of making the effort this year to actually go pay for both seasonal and piggy flu jabs.
Does anyone know where is doing this? My GP surgery was completely unhelpful, as was local Boots.. I have a vague recollection of Asda? But nothing on Google.
EDIT : isn't it a bit fucking stupid that they spend x million on people telling everyone to get swine flu jabs, then do the usual restrictions on who gets it (fair enough, NHS can't waste money etc) and NOT spend any money at all even telling their GPs surgeries where people could go and soend their OWN MONEY on them??? Ah the market economy!
Does anyone know where is doing this? My GP surgery was completely unhelpful, as was local Boots.. I have a vague recollection of Asda? But nothing on Google.
EDIT : isn't it a bit fucking stupid that they spend x million on people telling everyone to get swine flu jabs, then do the usual restrictions on who gets it (fair enough, NHS can't waste money etc) and NOT spend any money at all even telling their GPs surgeries where people could go and soend their OWN MONEY on them??? Ah the market economy!
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That's all you're getting from me today, folks. My brain has officially melted, and I'm going to bed.
LATER: Gah. Nice try, but my brain pretty much just laughed hysterically as I lay there staring at the ceiling for two hours. I am now listening to the CSI soundtrack and trying to mitigate the day's caffeine ingestion with a bottle of Parrot Bay mojito in the hopes that it will make me relaxed enough to drop off.
Hmm. While I'm here, I probably should see if I can increase that word count a little, especially since the Bodacious Brit suggested that we finish the master bath this weekend.
- Mood:
drained
Boubacar Traoré has been called the Malian Robert Johnson. A pioneer of West African blues, he was a hugely popular performer during the '60s. It wasn't until 1990 however that he was able to record an album. That was the haunting and desolate Mariama, a classic of the singer-songwriter with guitar genre.
Fast forward to 2005 and the release of Kongo Magni. It's a decidedly different beast, with Traoré in command of a full band. Here's the extraordinary Kanou, where his guitar takes a back seat to some wickedly sprightly Arabic accordion playing from sideman Regis Gizavo. It's got that classic North African call and response thing going on. Real melting pot stuff, and absolutely terrific with it. You will love this.
Also beaupepys.com is open. Go visit!
Boubacar Traoré - Kanou
(alternate download)
Fast forward to 2005 and the release of Kongo Magni. It's a decidedly different beast, with Traoré in command of a full band. Here's the extraordinary Kanou, where his guitar takes a back seat to some wickedly sprightly Arabic accordion playing from sideman Regis Gizavo. It's got that classic North African call and response thing going on. Real melting pot stuff, and absolutely terrific with it. You will love this.
Also beaupepys.com is open. Go visit!
Boubacar Traoré - Kanou
(alternate download)
From iTunes (in reverse alphabetical order, as that's the order they were in when I noticed them)
In These Shoes?
In The Summer Camp
In The Sanatorium
In The Morning
In Sarah, Mencken, Christ And Beethoven There Were Women And Men
In C
In C
In August
In A Landscape
In These Shoes?
In The Summer Camp
In The Sanatorium
In The Morning
In Sarah, Mencken, Christ And Beethoven There Were Women And Men
In C
In C
In August
In A Landscape
One of the new tracks is now the longest track in iTunes apart from recordings (or whatever the young people call them) off the radio (or whatever the young people call them).
Music for 18 Muscians - Steve Reich - 56 mins 31 secs
Music for 18 Muscians - Steve Reich - 56 mins 31 secs
I vanquish thee, crap software. eMusic working now. I have probably given them some money due to months where I couldn't be bothered to beat it into submission but once again I think I have won on the basis that they charge by track and all the tracks I have downloaded have been immensely long.
Is it only me for whom most installers on Windows silently fail if they aren't run as adminstrator? Is this because most people don't have things set up to give their normal log-on limited privileges, or do things fail more gracefully for other people?
Is it only me for whom most installers on Windows silently fail if they aren't run as adminstrator? Is this because most people don't have things set up to give their normal log-on limited privileges, or do things fail more gracefully for other people?
Done with my pet sitting for the day. Gonna try to figure out how to use QuickBooks as I have a copy now from a sales rep who was eager to let me try out QB for Macs. I do need this sort of thing. I'm a lousy accountant.
Another thing I need to do is keep a mileage log, no matter how tedious it is. It's just one of those things I've been estimating and it could backfire on me. So, I have a nice new notebook in the car. Yay.
I've been posting photos of fandom in the 80's to Facebook. My friends in Britain are suitably wowwed. For myself, I'm just croggled at how slim we all were. With lots and lots of hair! And so young, bebe, it breaks my heart. A lot of the photos are from 1984, before the loss of dear friends like Dave Clements and Terry Carr, before having to move seven times in one year, before my best friends acquired drug habits. 1984 was an incredibly special year, as was 1987. It's so weird to publish the photos now, twenty-five years after I was twenty-five. I don't feel old, I feel like a different person.
If I could pick a year to revisit, I think I would choose 1984 with all the drama, joy, heartache and momentous first meetings it contained. Even if I couldn't change a thing. Especially if I couldn't change a thing.
This week saw the release of an album by Ray Davies and the Crouch End Festival Chorus, in which Mr. Kinks reconfigures his famous songs to employ the massed voices backing him. Although the whole project has a whiff of the unnecessary about it--tampering with classics, etc--Deborah and I found it quite tasty. Not a patch on the originals, of course, but not a travesty.
Here's a live rendition of the "new" "Waterloo Sunset," pop's most perfect 3 minutes. Unfortunately, the sound is not great. The CD version is very much better. But you'll get the idea.
Here's the original for comparison.
Finally, I was unaware of this Def Leppard cover, which I actually rather enjoy.
Posted by Paul DiFi.
Here's a live rendition of the "new" "Waterloo Sunset," pop's most perfect 3 minutes. Unfortunately, the sound is not great. The CD version is very much better. But you'll get the idea.
Here's the original for comparison.
Finally, I was unaware of this Def Leppard cover, which I actually rather enjoy.
Posted by Paul DiFi.
Hudson Beach Glass in Philadelphia has kindly asked me to help them with their new terrarium vessel designs. Naturally, I was delighted and flattered. Above is a sample of their work. Will make announcements this late winter when we hope to conduct some terrarium workshops at their studio--most likely before or during the Philly Flower Show. Stay tuned.
Dear World,
I have been hit by the Ton Of Bricks. I don’t know where they came from, but they seemed to arrive with the dirty wind beating my windows last night, and then there was the issue with the shower and how it wouldn’t turn off so I spent all night listening to DRIP DRIP DRIP DRIP.
I want to sleep. Oh, how I want to crawl under the covers and just spend a day sleeping. Instead I work.
Last night, when I wasn’t listening to the water drip in the shower, I fell into dreams of my grandmother’s house. My childhood was stacked up like a deck of cards and she slapped them down on the table playing a losing game of solitaire and smoking a Bel-Air cigarette. That was my face buried under the Queen of Spades. I wanted to grab it, keep it, share it with my daughter, but the cards kept falling and I couldn’t grab my face from the pile.
I have run myself into the ground, but I’m going to keep running. Until I fall.
I have a million words for a million things I want to tell you circling through my head. Instead I yawn.
Oh world, I would love to make a comeback but right now I can’t even count my fingers.
Oh world, I need to cut out of here and watch the end of you. Let’s face it. I’m only capable of doing two things today – sleeping or watching a movie. I’ll opt for the movie and hope that watching the world explode will keep me awake.
Bye bye exhausting world.
KDD
"We had to destroy the neighborhood in order to benefit it."
In 2005, the Supreme Court decision Kelo v. New London upheld use of eminent domain to take private property and give it to a private interest as part of an economic redevelopment plan. The court's decision said the city's claim of an integrated plan and general benefit met the minimum scrutiny involved.
It reflected an expanding definition of public purpose - from taking land for purely public projects to using it to eliminate "blight" to seizing land for more potentially profitable use.
The local and state government spent more than 80 million to acquire and raze the land for a private developer trying to capitalize on a new research facility by Pfizer. Now the tax breaks have run out and Pfizer has announced it's leaving and taking all the jobs to another
The New York Times collected some interesting views on the topic. Here's some excerpts.
Dana Berliner, senior attorney at the Institute for Justice and one of those who represented the homeowners in the Kelo case:
No one should be surprised by the aftermath of the Kelo case — neither the fact that absolutely nothing has been built on the land nor the fact that Pfizer is now pulling out of New London altogether...evidence at trial showed that nothing would be built on that land. The developer (who has now left the project) did a study showing there was no market for the biotech office buildings the city claimed would replace the homes. But the courts didn’t want to look at that evidence. If they had, Susette Kelo would still be in her home and the rest of us would be safe from eminent domain abuse.Paul Bass, editor of the online New Haven Independent:
( ... )
Forty-seven miles south on I-95, in another Democratic city, that same lesson has been on display since the 1960s at another stretch of vacant land.It should be noted since Kelo many states have revised their takings laws, but the idea remains that a private interest which might add to general prosperity qualifies as "public use". For example the controversial Hudson Yards project in New York overcame some legal hurdles and questions by citing Kelo.
That land just west of downtown New Haven used to be the site of a vibrant, multiethnic working-class neighborhood along Legion Avenue and Oak Street. Liberal Democrats seized it all — and much more in New Haven — through eminent domain, with the idea of bringing in investors to build a better neighborhood. The neighborhood never got built. Four decades later, the 26-acre stretch of land remains largely abandoned or used for surface parking, a testament to the failure of economic development-driven eminent domain.
Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas was living in New Haven when that lesson became apparent. He wrote the most insightful opinion, a dissenting opinion, in the case of Kelo v. New London. He noted that eminent domain-fueled urban renewal became a synonym for “negro removal.” He saw that in New Haven. In New London, that observation could be broadened to include the removal of working-class families of different backgrounds, the kind of urban liberal constituency critical to the New Deal coalition that enabled Democrats convincingly to claim the populist mantle in this country’s political debate for four decades...( Read more... )
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ortho_bob- Florian Bongo-Trapazoid QC
- amBLOnGus - 2004
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