Friday, March 30, 2007
Songs in the Key of Life
One thing I've discovered about the iPod, it really does help me discover the songs that've been buried in the depths of my collection, brought them to light. I was sceptical about that effect - after all, I do have all the songs already on my computer - but I suppose having 40GB of music around you is very different from carrying 1GB as I used to do.
Unearthed songs that I've rediscovered the joys of:
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One thing I've discovered about the iPod, it really does help me discover the songs that've been buried in the depths of my collection, brought them to light. I was sceptical about that effect - after all, I do have all the songs already on my computer - but I suppose having 40GB of music around you is very different from carrying 1GB as I used to do.
Unearthed songs that I've rediscovered the joys of:
- Ryan Adam "La Cienaga Just Smiled". (Ryan Adams is great walking-around-town music: always has the ring of late 90s/early 00s East village music to me, and that always has special memories...)
- Tapes N' Tapes "50s Parking"
- Gomez "Get Myself Arrested" - If I recall correctly, I wrote a review of the album when it first came out. Still like it.
- Mitch Ryder and the Detroit Wheels "Devil With a Blue Dress On / Good Golly Miss Molly". Listening to this made me think, I want to DJ again. On a mid-week night, with my choice of music. And one night I'll just do garage-band music. (And on another night I'll do bizarre cover songs, but that's another subject for another day.)
Labels: ipod, itunes, music
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Tuesday, March 27, 2007
(Someday I'll Be A) One Hit Wonder
Was listening to my iPod and on came a live version of Blind Melon's "No Rain", in which Shannon Hoon (God rest his soul) lets the crowd sing the entire second verse. Such exuberance. And it made me think, if someday I could write just one song that people would know the lyrics to and sing along to, I would be very, very happy. It wouldn't have to be genius - "No Rain" is catchy, but it's not going to make Q's top 100 lists anytime soon.
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Was listening to my iPod and on came a live version of Blind Melon's "No Rain", in which Shannon Hoon (God rest his soul) lets the crowd sing the entire second verse. Such exuberance. And it made me think, if someday I could write just one song that people would know the lyrics to and sing along to, I would be very, very happy. It wouldn't have to be genius - "No Rain" is catchy, but it's not going to make Q's top 100 lists anytime soon.
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Monday, March 26, 2007
Music and Lyrics
Quick thoughts about Music and Lyrics - watching Music and Lyrics was like going in to see a good covers band. Very predictable, but enjoyable nonetheless. You want Hugh Grant and Drew Barrymore to reprise the roles they've come to claim as their own - Hugh enjoyably wry, Drew bubbly and somewhat kooky. And they do it well, despite a predictable plot. Hugh, in particular, clearly has fun as Alex Fletcher, a washed-up less famous half of former 80s sensation PoP. (There's more than a little of Wham in PoP, and more than a little Andrew Ridgely in Grant's character.)
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Quick thoughts about Music and Lyrics - watching Music and Lyrics was like going in to see a good covers band. Very predictable, but enjoyable nonetheless. You want Hugh Grant and Drew Barrymore to reprise the roles they've come to claim as their own - Hugh enjoyably wry, Drew bubbly and somewhat kooky. And they do it well, despite a predictable plot. Hugh, in particular, clearly has fun as Alex Fletcher, a washed-up less famous half of former 80s sensation PoP. (There's more than a little of Wham in PoP, and more than a little Andrew Ridgely in Grant's character.)
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The Return
Haven't updated in quite a bit. Just got an iPod (iPod Video, 80GB). Those two facts are not related. Well, mostly.
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Haven't updated in quite a bit. Just got an iPod (iPod Video, 80GB). Those two facts are not related. Well, mostly.
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Tuesday, March 13, 2007
Beauty, Beholder, etc
Women that women are more likely to call attractive than men:
Sarah Jessica Parker
Nicole Kidman
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Women that women are more likely to call attractive than men:
Sarah Jessica Parker
Nicole Kidman
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Wednesday, March 07, 2007
Shaken, Not Stirred
The news today was the tremors from the Sumatra quakes: was on the 24th floor in the conference room, and then the room shook so violently I got giddy. For a while I thought it was the usual - every now and then I find the room starts spinning to me. But no, it was really spinning, or at least, shaking. (Incidentally, today was the first time I've heard Singapore mentioned on the BBC World Service in a long time - they had to evacuate the World Service office here, apparently.)
The tragedy, of course, is in Sumatra. Not sure how to help out with donations at the moment. But I notice the South-East Asia Earthquake and Tsunami Blog, which I was involved in back in the day, has a new entry up, and hopefully details come out soon.
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The news today was the tremors from the Sumatra quakes: was on the 24th floor in the conference room, and then the room shook so violently I got giddy. For a while I thought it was the usual - every now and then I find the room starts spinning to me. But no, it was really spinning, or at least, shaking. (Incidentally, today was the first time I've heard Singapore mentioned on the BBC World Service in a long time - they had to evacuate the World Service office here, apparently.)
The tragedy, of course, is in Sumatra. Not sure how to help out with donations at the moment. But I notice the South-East Asia Earthquake and Tsunami Blog, which I was involved in back in the day, has a new entry up, and hopefully details come out soon.
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Monday, March 05, 2007
Casimir Pulaski Day
On the first (or fifth) of March, on the holiday.
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On the first (or fifth) of March, on the holiday.
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Sunday, March 04, 2007
Dreamgirls: And I Am Telling You
Dreamgirls is shot Bill Condon style - lots that reminded me of Chicago. Or is that just because there are so few movie musicals these days? In any case, for an avid, avowed Motown fan such as myself, Dreamgirls was a great exercise in spot-the-parallels (ooh, and just as I typed that, the Supremes' "Where Did Our Love Go?" came on): the Dreamgirls = the Supremes, Curtis Taylor Jr. = Berry Gordy etc. etc. (although obviously it isn't a direct adaptation, and Paramount has been careful to make clear that it's a fictionalised account).
But enough rambling. The fact is, Dreamgirls, like the musical it was based on, is a show of two acts, and the first act, which belongs to Effie White (Jennifer Hudson), is bang on in terms of that early Motown infectiousness (it must be really hard to write songs for a musical based on Motown, but Henry Krieger has the chops). And it's not news, but good lord, "And I Am Telling You I'm Not Going" is a showstopper. Jennifer Hudson's performance is electric - her voice is defiant and vulnerable at the same time - and it made me want to get out of my seat and just whoop in applause (it's up there with the version Jennifer Holliday did at the '82 Tonys). It's the kind of moment that show what musicals are capable of, that show how music can take a film to places that ordinary dialogue can't.
Incidentally, random trivia bit on "And I Am Telling You I'm Not Going": Jim Carrey sang it on the last episode of The Garry Shandling Show. I'm not kidding. It was amazing. Sammy Davis did it on The Tonight Show in 1982, but didn't do it as well as Jim Carrey. (Link) Man, would love to see the Carrey take.
Back to Dreamgirls: the second act, while solid, is more focused on Curtis Taylor (Jamie Foxx) and Deena Jones (Beyonce Knowles) and the trouble is, Effie is a character of such vim and emotion that the rest of the film post-"And I Am Telling You" pales in comparison. But perhaps that was Motown for you: after its 1960s heyday, where was there to go?
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Dreamgirls is shot Bill Condon style - lots that reminded me of Chicago. Or is that just because there are so few movie musicals these days? In any case, for an avid, avowed Motown fan such as myself, Dreamgirls was a great exercise in spot-the-parallels (ooh, and just as I typed that, the Supremes' "Where Did Our Love Go?" came on): the Dreamgirls = the Supremes, Curtis Taylor Jr. = Berry Gordy etc. etc. (although obviously it isn't a direct adaptation, and Paramount has been careful to make clear that it's a fictionalised account).
But enough rambling. The fact is, Dreamgirls, like the musical it was based on, is a show of two acts, and the first act, which belongs to Effie White (Jennifer Hudson), is bang on in terms of that early Motown infectiousness (it must be really hard to write songs for a musical based on Motown, but Henry Krieger has the chops). And it's not news, but good lord, "And I Am Telling You I'm Not Going" is a showstopper. Jennifer Hudson's performance is electric - her voice is defiant and vulnerable at the same time - and it made me want to get out of my seat and just whoop in applause (it's up there with the version Jennifer Holliday did at the '82 Tonys). It's the kind of moment that show what musicals are capable of, that show how music can take a film to places that ordinary dialogue can't.
Incidentally, random trivia bit on "And I Am Telling You I'm Not Going": Jim Carrey sang it on the last episode of The Garry Shandling Show. I'm not kidding. It was amazing. Sammy Davis did it on The Tonight Show in 1982, but didn't do it as well as Jim Carrey. (Link) Man, would love to see the Carrey take.
Back to Dreamgirls: the second act, while solid, is more focused on Curtis Taylor (Jamie Foxx) and Deena Jones (Beyonce Knowles) and the trouble is, Effie is a character of such vim and emotion that the rest of the film post-"And I Am Telling You" pales in comparison. But perhaps that was Motown for you: after its 1960s heyday, where was there to go?
Labels: film, review
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Saturday, March 03, 2007
Linksfest: Lettuce Pray
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- Iceberg lettuce safe (via Popgadget)
- Zodiac looks v promising. Here's a 6-6-6 tribute to David Fincher via Kottke: 6 of his best commercials, 6 of his best music videos, and his 6 feature films.
- Still can't believe Mitch Hedberg died so young. Here Jesse Kornbluth reviews Hedberg.
- Mixed race, pretty face?
Labels: links
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Seeing Liberal Bias in Everything
So I was reading about "Conservapedia" in the Guardian, and this part on the 'liberal bias' of Wikipedia amused me:
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So I was reading about "Conservapedia" in the Guardian, and this part on the 'liberal bias' of Wikipedia amused me:
Among his criticisms listed on Conservapedia, Mr Schlafly explains how many Wikipedia articles often use British spelling instead of American English and says that it "refuses" to give enough credit to Christianity for the Renaissance.British spelling as an example of liberal bias? Now that's reaching...
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Friday, March 02, 2007
I Heart New York and Ess Gee
Was searching around for pics of the "I Love New York" logo to show how the Singapore Day 2007 "I Love Sg" logo uses the totally wrong typeface if it's intending to be a play on Milton Glaser's famous logo. Okay, so not everyone has American Typewriter (or the variant that Glaser used) but surely one could use a Courier typewriter-style font.
Also, while searching, I came across this tourist site promoting the Finger Lakes region as "the heart of New York state". I have to say, though, from their map, the region looks to me less like a heart and more like the Y-fronts of New York state.
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Was searching around for pics of the "I Love New York" logo to show how the Singapore Day 2007 "I Love
Also, while searching, I came across this tourist site promoting the Finger Lakes region as "the heart of New York state". I have to say, though, from their map, the region looks to me less like a heart and more like the Y-fronts of New York state.
Labels: fonts, type
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Thursday, March 01, 2007
Mac zealots
Old friend Baratunde Thurston has a funny post up on how any post criticising Macs - even by Mac users themselves - seems to bring out zealots in full force.
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Old friend Baratunde Thurston has a funny post up on how any post criticising Macs - even by Mac users themselves - seems to bring out zealots in full force.
Oh, now I get it. I'm with Goliath's crew. That completely explains why my installation didn't work. Clearly my mind is not yet prepared, and I must continue to study "the Macintosh Way" until I figure out how to not "overthink things.Meanwhile, Rolling Stone asks: is Apple the new Evil Empire?
Labels: apple, mac
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