links for 2007-04-30

• Rogue Amoeba – Freebies
  (tags: osx download music)
• Sir Ken Robinson @ TED
  Assertion that the current education system not only does not promote creativity, but rather stifles it, and as such, a change is necessary.
  (tags: creativity video talk ted education)

links for 2007-02-21

• www.myspace.com/reverberi
  (tags: sample western music mp3)

Resonance

On a thread about digital vs. analog music listening, “digital promises far more than the ears can endure.”

Lies / Father Death Blues

A David Lynchian perspective on transmogrification into an alternate identity, as seen through the eyes of David Foster Wallace. (See “David Lynch Keeps His Head”, David Foster Wallace, Premiere, ’96.)

Source: Previously unreleased Johnny Cash track.

⊗

The

The not giving a fuck if anybody likes you. But the being good about it. The doing and thinking of good things irrespective of public perception.

Stream

… A very cool visual way to multiply numbers large and small.

… The history of pop music in four chords. Guy combines lines from famous pop songs into one long blob, with only the same four-chord progression on the piano while other guy sits on beanbag playing videogames.

… How to play that song Mad How to play that song Mad World from Donnie Darko on piano.

… This really annoyed me: MSN is streaming Arrested Development, but you need Internet Explorer and Windows Media Player to watch. Wtf. WTF!?

… James Blunt returns to Kosovo. He was apparently serving in Kosovo with the British Armed Forces when war broke out, and in 2k6 he returned to play a concert for the soldiers still stationed there. To use an expression that is so often used in a wrong way, Random!

… YouTube users love French anchorwoman Melissa Theuriau.

… Cucumis is an online community of translation dealers. You translate to accumulate credits, then get a translation in return. Even Albanian! Communal quid pro quo. Luv it.

… Variety mag: “VHS, 30, dies of loneliness.”

… “I wanted to take portraits of people that would reveal a hidden part of their character.. so I had them play videogames.”

… “MIT World™ is a free and open site that provides on-demand video of significant public events at MIT.” People like Steve Wozniak, Noam Chomsky, Thomas Friedman.

… Noam Chomsky on the Iraq war.

Tolerance

… Best free programs for a Mac? Ask MetaFilter.

… Google Video search for “techtalks”.

… The top 50 Lost loose ends. #46: The four-toed statue foot.

… The science of binaural beat brainwave entrainment technology – for meditation, relaxation, stress management.

… pzizz™ Touts itself as being a personal life coaching system, sleep-, relaxation-, and meditation-inducer. The science is based on binaural beats, already mentioned. The idea is based on Brian Eno’s autogenerative ambient music movement.

… On signing with a major record label. “Whenever I talk to a band who are about to sign with a major label, I always end up thinking of them in a particular context. I imagine a trench, about four feet wide and five feet deep, maybe sixty yards long, filled with runny, decaying shit.”

… Seed Magazine’s ScienceBlogs is not unworthy of a visit.

… Act for Love. “ActForLove.org was founded by progressive activists, for progressive activists. ActForLove.org is the place to meet liberals, Democrats, activists — folks who actually care about the world. Find a date, find a friend, or find a partner for activism.”

… Tolerance. In which John Safran goes around asking Mormons if they’ve considered switching to atheism. “For example, did you know that your relatives were monkeys?”

… Some European cities are beginning to get rid of their traffic signs. “The many rules strip us of the most important thing: the ability to be considerate. We’re losing our capacity for socially responsible behavior. The greater the number of prescriptions, the more people’s sense of personal responsibility dwindles.”

… Conservative groups start taking action in Canada, lobbying for the overturning of gay marriage legislation.

… Sylvester stallone is bringing back Rocky and Rambo. Rocky is still relevant. It is. Look. “It’s a high-technology, Google-blogging, iMac-type of premise going on there mixed with the classic underdog versus the establishment.” See?

Simulacrum

PoMoist Jean Baudrillard in a NYT Mag. interview from exactly a year ago, which I discovered I’d saved completely by chance:

JB: France is just a country. America is a concept.
NYT: Are you saying that America represents the ideal of democracy?
JB: No, the simulation of power.

And, via Wikipedia, what a simulacrum is to Baudrillard:

a copy of a copy which has been so dissipated in its relation to the original that it can no longer be said to be a copy. The simulacrum, therefore, stands on its own as a copy without a model.

And also, from Slate, Fernando Botero’s Abu Ghraib.

Cum

Before playing it, Windows 78‘s lead singer said of Spirit, the song quoted below, “This next one is part of a trilogy about the rovers on Mars, and it’s called Pathfinder. Everybody knows about Opportunity and Spirit, but nobody knows about Pathfinder, which was there ten years ago,” and then he went to get a sip of his beer, and the guitarist said, “Actually, this one’s called Spirit. Pathfinder’s coming next, we’ve got two more songs to go.” Eager to go? Probably. The crowd was absently swaying as it hit on itself, caught up with itself, spoke on cells, and, in one particular instance, smoked a whole j. to itself at the corner by the stairs.

you cried at the launch pad just next to your wife.
you gave me this mission replacing human eyes.
so you gave me new deadlines searching for life.
in the gusev crater there is nothing alive.
you gave me this mission replacing human life.
in the gusev crater there is nothing alive.

And this, from Accidental Babies, off of Damien Rice’s new goosebumper, 9.

Do you cum?
Together ever with him?
And is he dark enough?
Enough to see your light?
And do you brush your teeth before you kiss?
Do you miss my smell?
And is he bold enough to take you on?
Do you feel like you belong?
And does he drive you wild?
Or just mildly free?

Here is a video of Rice performing at KCRW Morning Becomes Eclectic.

Gush

… The Best American Nonrequired Reading 2006. Edited by Dave Eggers and his 826 Valencia students. In fact, the whole Best American series sounds interesting, edited by people like Harvey Pekar, Ann Patchett, Lauren Slater, and Brian Greene.

… A Google search for “david foster wallace dave eggers david sedaris” yielded this quite good booklist.

… Eggers’ foreword to Infinite Jest’s re-release. Which first release I still have to commit to reading more than a hundred pages from. “Is it our duty to read Infinite Jest? [...] The answer is: maybe. Sort of. Probably, in some way.”

… Welcome to Help Exchange, an online listing of host organic farms, non-organic farms, farmstays, homestays, ranches, lodges, B&B, inns, backpackers hostels and even sailing boats who invite volunteer helpers to stay with them short-term in exchange for food and accommodation.

… Volunteer abroad for free?

… What should I read while travelling?

… Hunting the wild backpack! AskMeFi weighs in with a litany of suggestions for long-term travel packs.