Archive for November, 2005

Joe and I were talking last week about the new musical fad of creating original works of music using the 8-bit synth built in to the original Nintendo (aka chiptunes). He had some chiptunes on his iPod, some unlistenable and some oddly compelling. Today I ran across an entire album of covers of pop tunes done by chiptunes artists. Some of these are just sort of novel, but the cover of ‘Karma Police‘ is mesmerizing. (I’m sure by now Last.fm has totally ratted me out for listening to it 25 times.) I know that the first link for the record is totally glutted by now so I’m going to go out on a limb and make it available here. It’ll be on BT soon enough as well, I’m sure.

NESCover (67.8MB RAR Archive)

01 REM - Losing My Religion
02 Europe - Final Countdown
03 Radiohead - Karma Police
04 Queen - Bohemian Rhapsody
05 Survivor - Eye of the Tiger
06 Led Zeppelin - Stairway to Heaven
07 Lynyrd Skynyrd - Sweet Home Alabama
08 Led Zeppelin - Kashmir
09 Slayer - Angel of Death
10 David Pomeranz - Nothing’s Gonna Stop Me Now
11 Coldplay - Yellow
12 Rick James - Superfreak
13 Semisonic - Closing Time
14 (Silence)
15 Hidden NESmix Intro
16 Zero Wing (Opening Theme) (4×4 Remix)
17 Tetris (Music A) (Piano Practice)

Have fun. (Via BoingBoing, SomethingAwful, et al.)

Bjork on Barney. Story about Bjork’s collaboration with her husband Matthew Barney, the start of yet another film cycle entitled Drawing Restraint 9. I’ve always had a fascination with Barney’s work, and Bjork is Bjork. (Via robotwisdom - Thanks, Joe!)

You may have noticed that I usually link to Amazon when suggesting music or books. Even though I’m a big proponent of iTMS it’s just so much easier to link to Amazon for everything. And Amazon will also pay me a few cents when you, the kindly reader, uses one of my links to buy something. Why should we do this for you, little man with your fancy blog? Well for one it encourages me to continue writing this blog and telling you all about great music and books ^[1]; but for another thing it helps offset the cost of running the show.
Ironically, I don’t use other people’s affiliate links all that often and I scarcely think I’ll make a pile of cash doing this. But why throw all that Google juice at Amazon free of charge?

[1] I would tell you about this stuff anyway.

I had quite a swell time in Durham over the weekend spending time with friends, indulging in late night Pearl Jam singalongs and visiting with my family on Saturday. I received a copy of The Areas Of My Expertise by John Hodgman, which seems promising if a bit uneven so far. I’ve also had the pleasure of reconnecting with someone during the last several days, someone whose company and conversation I greatly enjoy–another unexpected birthday treat that has so far gone far more evenly than the Hodgman book.

I turn 27 today which means, as my sister observed last night on the phone, that I’ve outlived the vast majority of my childhood idols: Cobain, Morrison, D. Boon, Vicious, Hendrix. I for one think that’s really cool. I’m now looking forward to outliving Joe Strummer, and maybe doing something half as awesome with the balance of my life.
It looks as though 2006 could be even better–or at least more well traveled–than its predecessor. It may get an early start with a trip out west. But I am in the office for bit today which brings me to a question:
Do you get your birthday off from work?
Just respond in the comments with your best birthday/world of work mashups. My job at the agency always gave me my birthday off, but then again I shared a birthday with the owner. The perks of temporal synchronicity I suppose. I also apparently share a birthday with Owen Wilson, which is only good if you tell people that you share a birthday with the guy from The Royal Tenenbaums and not the guy from Shanghai Noon. Ahem.

While in Chicago Joe made me a copy of ‘Come On Feel The Illinoise‘, Sufjan Stevens latest in his bid to write an album about all 50 states. As I think about looking out on the Chicago skyline I keep imagining these songs playing in the background. This has to be one of the most beautiful albums ever made. You owe it to yourself to buy it, or have a nice friend like Joe who is willing to burn a copy for you.
There are times when the music sounds like something from an educational film strip you watched in the 6th grade, then it veers wildly into Polyphonic Spree territory. And then he’ll throw a song like ‘Kasimir Pulaski Day’ in there to eloquently and simply remind you of your own mortality and that of the people you love. Time is valuable people.
All in all an A+ record that manages to defy any genre mongering and beg for a spot in any collection.

Random bits and pieces from Chicago.

From the highway in Kentucky you can see antebellum barns and one lane roads winding parallel to quiet streams; horses bound along just out of view and blue hills roam along. But the highway itself blasts through the countryside, little deterred from its mission to carry weary people quickly from one town to the next.
And honestly, when you’re driving 13 hours from central North Carolina straight through to Chicago all you really want to do is get there. Were this trip simply about the travel it would be my single-minded desire to seek out the unturned stones of the shores of the midwestern prairie ocean. But I really want to be where I’m going. All of us do, but at the same time we’re all seeking distraction from the boredom these roads breed. Families pass eating burgers and talking between the rows of minivan seating. Couples go by, one asleep the other softly drumming on the steering wheel in time with unheard music. The vehicles are like disconnected train cars, all sharing a track and destination but hurtling there at wildly different paces.

On my first car trip to Washington, DC, I remember the feeling of being in farmland one minute and quite literally staring down the Pentagon the next. That sort of unsubtle progression is what the American highway is all about. From barren desert to Las Vegas in minutes; from midwestern Prairie to the shore of Lake Michigan in seven exits or less. It gets us there but it hardly makes us mindful of the lives of early explorers, for whom there were no quick revelations of urban scenery to contrast with the endless swaths of green.

Experiencing these cities themselves is almost better; stand at the corner of 7th and Pennsylvania SE at rush hour on a Friday and think about how fast you could be looking at cows. A thirty-five minute drive to the south will allow you that privilege. From Waveland Ave. In Chicago to the Dells–and all the cheese and farmland you could ever want–is barely an hour.

The National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences, best known for handing out the Daytime Emmy Awards, is expected to announce on Tuesday that it has created an award category to recognize original video content for computers, cellphones and other hand-held devices, like the video iPod and PlayStation Portable.

In other words, ‘Please, we really are relevant!’.

I’ll be in Chicago until Thursday of next week visiting a friend, attending a trade show, and seeing the sights. Expect a full report and photos on my return.
Also, my birthday is next week–so here’s my wishlist just in case.
Meanwhile, things can always be worse; you could always find dead things in your food. (Via boingboing)

After a slightly uncomfortable lunch–during which I was informed that an ultra-conservative who sits on our board might be attending our upcoming business trip to Chicago–I was reminded of many of the points Charles Pierce raises in his latest article for Esquire “Welcome To Idiot America.”

Fights over evolution—and its faddish new camouflage, intelligent design, a pseudoscience that posits without proof or method that science is inadequate to explain existence and that supernatural causes must be considered—roil up school districts across the country. The president of the United States announces that he believes ID ought to be taught in the public schools on an equal footing with the theory of evolution. And in Dover, Pennsylvania, during one of these many controversies, a pastor named Ray Mummert delivers the line that both ends our tour and, in every real sense, sums it up:

“We’ve been attacked,” he says, “by the intelligent, educated segment of the culture.”

I often wonder how these people avoid shame at using their brains for anything. The article is an affirming read for anyone with half a brain, and might make some others uncomfortable. Good I say. Not what I’d expect from Esquire, and I applaud them for running it. (Found on MeFi)