Bookie

I am slowly starting the process of preparing for the move to Syracuse. I'm not actually moving until July, but I know how slow I can be when packing all my earthly belongings and I really would like to avoid the inevitable situation on June 29th where I look around and say "hmm, maybe I should pick up some boxes tomorrow?"

Right now most things seem easy to condense and move, but I'm not sure what to do with some of my books. Academic books and the fiction will either go with me or get stored at my mom's new place (oh yeah, my mom is getting a new house, woo!) but I have no idea what to do with what I like to call the "expired" books. A Leonard Maltin movie guide from 1995? Course catalogs from Oberlin? A GRE prep book from before the test changed formats? I don't want to just throw them away, but no library is going to want them. Are these sort of things recyclable? And what about the text books that I don't want and can't seem to sell online? I really don't want to continue schleping these things around, but I can't draw the line between discarding books and burning them -- it makes my soul say "ouch".

Any suggestions?

Read More......

Play List: Blarney

I still don't know if I like the song "Poker Face". Theoretically I should -- Lady Gaga seems to be a hybrid of the positive attributes of Christina Aguilera and Britney Spears. The first few times I listened to the song it passed the American Bandstand test ("It's got a good beat and you can dance to it"). I heard the chorus once as a ringtone and it sounded like something I would enjoy, though I couldn't fully distinguish what was being said. Something along the lines of "hee-ba-hi, hee-ba-hi hee-ba-ho-bi-ba-na-de-daadaaa (huminana huminana)". It wasn't until one of the students on my staff included it on a mix CD that I was able to put all the pieces together (and rip the track for my own purposes). Yay, now I can have the song on my Shuffle and get the real translation of "hee-ba-hi".

And that's where the problem lies...


With the song playing directly into my ears, I can actually listen to the lyrics and...they're not good. Like, at all. It reminds me of the "poems" that people would write in my high school creative writing class, though to Gaga's credit her metaphors aren't as thoroughly mixed. I realize it is pop music we're talking about here and expectations are low. It's not like this song will be passed to future generations, but the lyrics are so bad that it actually detracts from the listening experience. It's hard to get my dance on when I keep on stopping to say "that's dumb".

There are plenty of instances of this bizarre phenomenon in pop music. Here are some examples:

"A Horse with No Name" ~ America

"There were plants and birds and rocks and things"
"The heat was hot"

"MacArthur Park (Abridged)" ~ Donna Summer

...yeah.

"The War Song" ~ Culture Club

"War, war is stupid / and people are stupid / and love means nothing / in some strange waters." Besides being absolutely insipid, I think this may be a protest in response to the Falkland Islands conflict.

"Video" ~ India.Arie
"Keep your Cristal and your pistol / I'd rather have a pretty piece of crystal"

These songs, with the possible exception of "MacArthur Park", are perfectly serviceable but have the occasional lyric that makes my earholes say "ouch". I have a couple of theories as to the causes of these errors, though it is hard to pinpoint what exactly happened. I can't tell if the songwriter painted him/herself into a corner and didn't want to have to undo an entire section (India.Arie maybe). Or, in America's case, they may have come up with the riff and cadence first and then tried to see what would fit in with whatever story they were trying to tell. A thesaurus might have been handy, but a lack of one didn't stop them. As for Culture Club, this just screams "filler track", though if it was released as a single that might explain why the group dissolved not too much later. Sadly, I think Lady Gaga is expecting people to not pay that much attention, which is fair since it is a great club song -- just keep it off your iPod.

Are there other songs that you have encountered where one word choice or line makes you cringe, affecting your reception of the song?

Read More......

Idol Rules: October Surprise

Tamyra Gray. LaToya London. Chris Daughtry. Tonight's elimination is going to add someone to that infamous list of 4th place finishers. What makes this year's fourth place different is that it is going to be epic no matter who ends up getting bounced. Seriously, set your DVR's, VCR's or watch tonight's elimination live, because it will be the most amazing elimination ever...


Part of my premise is based on the fact that I don't believe we are going to get the inevitable Adam Lambert-Danny Gokey finale that people have been predicting since February. Allison and Kris have proven to be quite capable and deserving of reaching this stage of the competition, and the complacency of the voters is going to shake things up.

I think the only person truly safe is Adam, since there was the wake-up call provided by his appearance in the bottom three (though not necessarily bottom two) last week. Although I didn't care for either of his performances last night, they were the most universally well-received so he has quite a big safety net. BUT if he does get eliminated, most likely because of complacency, we may see an entire auditorium shit themselves on live TV.

Eliminating Allison Iraheta will create an interesting scenario. As the last female and contestant-of-color, it's going to annoy quite a large group of viewers. However, based on this week alone, I think her elimination would be the most surprising. Adam and Kris were on the bubble last week. While the individual performances of Allison and Kris were not well received, her duet with Adam did earn her bonus points. I think the consensus would be along the lines of "she didn't deserve to go this week".

The awesomeness of a Kris Allen elimination will have a delayed effect. Besides being saddled with Gokey and a terrible song choice (Styx, seriously?), he then had to immediately follow up that performance. The cards are not in his favor, although his performance was my favorite of the night. What is interesting is that both Kris and Gokey have been attracting the "cougar" vote, a term that makes my poli-sci heart turn ice cold. I have no idea how valid that particular political cleavage is, but there must be some reason that some went with Danny and some with Kris and I don't see them jumping sides. In other words, if Kris is eliminated this week, I can see there being quite a bit of backlash against Danny next week.

And then there's Danny. Everything about the performance, from song choice to execution, just blared "Bad Idea". I haven't had an Idol WTF moment like that since that girl crying for Sanjaya during British Invasion week back in Season 6. Based on this week alone, Danny deserves to go home. However, can you imagine the reaction if one of the presumptive finalists is eliminated this early? Best of all, if Danny does get the boot, he has to do "Dream On" as his sing-out. How awesome is THAT going to be?

What do I think will happen? Kris and Danny will end up on the Seal, but beyond that I'm just not sure. I want Kris to stay (and perhaps win) but I think I may be clinging to a hope that just isn't there.

Read More......

Play List: Twitter

It was either Jon Stewart or Joel McHale who this week described Twitter as the Internet's Macarena. That's pretty fair, although I doubt there will be a wedding where everyone decides to start tweeting or a board meeting where everyone starts dancing -- though I'm waiting for someone to prove me wrong. It's an interesting medium that is still in its infancy, but I'm curious to see where it will be six months from now. That is, if it is still relevant.

The one feature that simultaneously intrigues and concerns me is the "Trending Topics" list on your twitter homepage. This is where you can find ten topics that are featured in a significant number of tweets. On the one hand, it is pretty cool that you get to see what's on the collective consciousness of the users of Twitters (I don't think they're called "Twits", so I'm resisting the urge to name them such). At the same time, I'm not too keen on having the the words of my tweets entered into a Top 100 countdown.

Anyway, I looked at the list of trending topics at around 9:15pm Sunday and found an interesting list. My challenge: come up with a soundtrack for the Tweet Countdown. The good news: Susan Boyle was not on the list at that moment, so I don't have to encounter that song again.


Swine Flu





#therescue

I had no idea what this topic was about. The use of a hashtag (#) allows other users to show up in searches based on whatever follows the hashtag. In this case, #therescue refers to an organization called Invisible Children that works on trying to stop the fighting in Uganda and DR Congo, particularly child soldiers. I had not heard of any of this before writing this paragraph.



Amazing Race

Originally I thought of "Roam" by the B-52's, but I couldn't find a postable video that wasn't muted by Warner Music Group. I think this is an appropriate Plan B.



Red Sox and Yankees



Mexico



Bea Arthur

Dammit, Warner Music Group. I wanted to post the theme to Maude ("Thank You for Being a Friend" seems a bit sappy to use now) but that is also muted. Rosie to the rescue.



CDC

Read More......

Idol Rules: Top 7 Redux

Let me share with you a couple of tweets that one of my friends posted during last night's results show:

way to go america, your entire bottom three is the brown people. i hate you. if allison goes, so do i.

just because you already voted for one person of color recently doesn't mean you used up your quota!

I find this response to be somewhat baffling. The underlying assumption here seems to be that the voting public should be considering the demographic balance of the remaining contestants when making their selection. For a show that is a popularity contest disguised as a singing competition I fail to see how last night's results are based exclusively on racism.

Lil Rounds needed to go home last night. It has been obvious the last few weeks that her passion for this competition has been extinguished and she was just trying to skate by. There are two issues at play here. First, she was put in the (arguably racist) Whitney/Mariah/Mary J. box where she had to be this season's "diva" (an incredibly loaded term). However, I think Lil's ultimate problem was that she is not a pop singer. That is not to say she is not a singer, she just lacks the bravado of a pop star. For example, let's take Josh Groban and ABBA. Josh Groban is a singer, but he isn't really a pop singer -- if he tried to do a cover of "Dancing Queen" it would be a hot mess. Conversely, if ABBA were to phonetically learn "You Raise Me Up" it would probably cause a rash of some sort in your earhole. Both Groban and ABBA have enjoyed success at their ends of the singing spectrum, but Idol is at one end while Lil is at the other.

Then there is Anoop. His race has nothing to do with why he was eliminated. His odious personality was the cause of his elimination. Performance-wise, he has shown improvement the last couple of weeks yet he kept finding himself in the bottom three. Obnoxiousness outweighs a good performance -- it is a popularity contest, after all. Frankly, I'm a little surprised he lasted this long.

Allison's appearance in the bottom three was disappointing but not all that surprising. You have five contestants left: Adam, who is probably still the frontrunner; Danny, who is a weakening contender; Kris who is the dark horse of this competition; Matt, whose fanbase was probably working overtime trying to keep him alive due to the save; and Allison who has been middling in the eyes of the electorate. The third person in the B3 last night was going to be Allison or Matt and it will be one of those two who go home next week, so I don't believe her skin color is playing a role in her appearance last night.

I'm guessing if Matt was in the B3, this post would not be happening. It is unsettling to see the contestants of color on the danger side of the stage, but the reasons they were there had very little to do with their skin tone.

Read More......

Play List: Eulogy

Two of the classes that were part of my Religion major were "Issues in Medical Ethics" and "Ethical Issues in Death & Dying" (or, Deathics). One of the topics highlighted in both courses was to make sure your final directives are made clear to your loved ones before you are in the situation where they will come in to play. I think at the time the lesson dealt more with life support issues, organ donation, and cremation versus burial, but the first directive I came up with was music oriented. NO bagpipes, NO "Amazing Grace", NO BAGPIPES PLAYING "AMAZING GRACE".

Last week I caught this article on Yahoo News about what songs are the most popular at funerals. The study was commissioned by the British company Co-operative Funeralcare and they do this study every couple of years or so. Their findings, which can be found here, are interesting in a dark humor sort of way.

The top popular song choice was "My Way" by either Frank Sinatra or this version by Shirley Bassey:



Neither version would be my choice. If I wanted something that theatrical, I would probably go with "The Impossible Dream", though chances are I would avoid any song with such pomp.

The only song on the top ten that I was not familiar with was Gerry and the Pacemakers' "You'll Never Walk Alone":



I can see why this one would be popular for this context, but again I wouldn't want something so over the top. Maybe it's my Irish heritage talking, but I think I would want the music to be celebratory rather than making people sadder.

The alternative, I suppose, would be to go to the "quirky choices" section. My favorite item on that list: The Trammps "Disco Inferno"



It's a good track, but not quite how I would like to be remembered. It is in the ballpark being an up-tempo dance number, but unless I died in a fire or too much funk it wouldn't be all that relevant.

Here are three choices I'm tossing around:



Bjork "New World"



Stevie Nicks "Landslide"



Elvis Costello "Everyday I Write the Book"

I realize it is kind of morbid, but what song or songs would you be considering for this situation? Are there some songs that are totally inappropriate or ones that you think the list overlooked?

Read More......

Boyle-ing Point

This Susan Boyle thing is really starting to creep me out. For those of you who don't know who I am talking about, let me give you a rundown.

Susan Boyle appeared on the program Britain's Got Talent last week. She sang the song "I Dreamed a Dream" from the show Les Miz. After her performance, the audience was cheering and the judges all gave reviews that led to three "Yes" votes for moving her on to the next phase of the competition. Pretty typical reality show sequence of events, but that doesn't explain why Boyle is being described as an internet sensation. Some other facts to color the scene: Boyle is 47, unemployed, and, in her own words, lives with a cat and has never been kissed.

And then she broke the interwebs.

The consensus is that Boyle gave a good performance on the show. Many would say excellent and I have yet to see a review that called it anything less than good, so let's go with the less extreme opinion. However, that's where the joy ends. Many of the blogs that I subscribe to have shared their positive opinions on the Susan Boyle Experience and have since been inundated with flame wars about the varying degrees of opinions and the application of semantics.

People have taken offense at Boyle being referred to as "older". 47 is older than me, so I would describe her as older. But those in their 50's, who do not consider themselves "older", have expressed contempt for that term being applied to someone younger than them. There's "older" used as an adjective of comparison, which seems to be the more common usage in this case, and "older" used as a pejorative adjective which I don't think has been the intention of any use of the term.

The other issue that has come up is physical nature of Ms. Boyle. She is not ugly, she is not glamorously beautiful, she is just...average. I don't have any of her measurements, but she appears to be average in just about every dimension. If anything, she is the human manifestation of beige. This has created intense debate about lookism, particularly in the realm of talent based reality television. It is an interesting conversation topic, but the vitriol is getting a bit much.

There's nothing that bothers me about Susan Boyle personally. Her performance is a joy to behold, which also seems to be part of the general consensus. If anything, the presentation is a bit overwrought, but that is a fault of production and outside of her control. However, all this joy is eradicated as soon as people have shared their reactions on the web. Civility is beginning to go to the wayside because one person's joy does not necessarily synch up with another.

What I'm taking from the clip is that extraordinary talent should be celebrated, regardless of the source. Why does that celebration need to be shouted down by other celebrators?

Read More......

RGT: Eggshells

I've not been in the best of moods recently. This is what came up when I put "rube goldberg grumpy" in the YouTube search box. You may want to watch with the sound muted if you're at work.

Read More......

Idol Rules: Top 7

I've been skipping out on the last couple of weeks of this section of the blog mainly because there wasn't too much to write about. Megan Joy and Scott MacIntyre were on borrowed time and the themes weren't that interesting either (songs that are available on iTunes and songs from the year you were born).

This week, however, SUCKED so there should be plenty to write about. Spoilers abound, so if you are still unaware of tonight's results read at your own risk.

Top 7 week revolves around the theme of fatigue. For the contestants, this is their 7th competitive week. That's seven weeks of rehearsals, 6 Ford commercials, countless interviews and public appearances, as well as being sequestered with the same dozen people the entire time. On the flipside, the audience is getting pretty fatigued as well. The show has been on twice a week since mid-January with over 48 hours of programming so far. That's 2 days worth of Coca-Cola product placement, off-key auditions, and Tatiana. It has taken 6 weeks to get rid of all the dead weight on the show and it is now reaching the point where a quadruple elimination sounds like a good idea.

The show tends to compound the fatigue by having the top 7 theme be something incredibly tedious. In the past it has been Billy Joel (season 2), Barry Manilow (season 3), the Great American Songbook (season 5) and this week's theme of movie soundtracks. Granted, this week's theme is pretty vague yet we end up with 6 ballads, two of which are attributed to Bryan Adams. The group sing this week was "Maniac", which would have been awesome if someone, anyone, had performed that on Tuesday. Instead, it was one snoozer after another with Adam Lambert being the only high energy performance. Then, because the show refuses to invest in a stopwatch, only two judges would critique each performance. This could have worked if Simon critiqued all the performances and they rotated who the second judge was. Instead, Paula and Simon critiqued the odd number performances while Kara and Randy flapped their gums for the even number performances. And the show still ran over. Way to go.

There is one thing to look forward to with the Top 7 elimination: Solomon. Two groups of three would be formed on stage. The last ungrouped contestant would then be asked to join which group s/he thought was safe. Yes, it's manufactured drama, but depending on who the show made Solomon could make things interesting. I could see Danny or Anoop being totally assy about the whole thing while Matt or Kris would likely be devastated. The last couple of seasons Melinda Doolittle and David Archuleta were the Solomons and they refused to make a choice. Maybe that's what the show was trying to avoid by not doing Solomon this year. Thanks, show.

This week's bottom three were Anoop, Matt and Lil. It should be noted that the two guys were evaluated by Randy and Kara. It was then revealed that Matt was on the block this week. He might be next week also because the judges decided to save him. In other words, this tedious week was pointless. Not cool show. Also, we're going to be stuck with a Top 5 situation which always makes the show awkward.

But that's a couple weeks away. Next week is disco which could go really well or really badly.

Read More......

Play List: Counterpoint

There were two internet destinations that figured prominently in my freshman year of college: Art of the Mix and Audiogalaxy. The former allowed me to share with others the carefully crafted mix tapes I devised during my high school years while the latter allowed me to build a rather extensive mp3 collection for future mixes.

Nowadays, I find mixing to be somewhat uninspired because there are fewer limitations. I didn't get a CD burner until twelfth grade, so all of mixes up to that point were actual mix tapes. Mix construction at that time required extensive planning. First you pick a theme and then select songs related to that theme. After repeatedly listening to specific tracks, you narrow down your list and create a dossier that included the length of each track. Once you narrow down your list to 12-15 tracks, you have to create a flow from one track to the next. It could be a drum beat, a choice of tempo, some connective fiber linking one song to the next. However, with a tape you are limited to either 30 or 45 minutes to a side, so you need to structure your tracks so that connections can flow without a tape flip cutting into the middle of a track or having over two minutes of silence. I probably went through a ream of paper in high school just from adding up the total minutes of a proposed list -- but it was worth it.

CD Burning adjusted those limitations. Instead you could have up to 80 minutes of continuous music expounding on a theme of your choosing. Arranging flow was also easier as shuffling tracks just involved a click and a drag instead of swapping CDs and skip-searching track numbers. Also, with services like Audiogalazy and Kazaa, if there was a song that you needed to complete your thesis it was only a short download away. There is a distinct disadvantage to the switch from tape to CD: If you want to present a point/counterpoint type mix (such as God/Devil), you don't have the flipping of a tape to facilitate that transition of thought.

Modern music technology has made this process almost impossible. A playlist, as Nick and Norah have shown us, can be infinite. Synthesizing an idea is no longer necessary because there is no technologically forced limitation. I still use my first generation iPod Shuffle on a daily basis, but 8.5 hours is way too much when conveying an idea, particularly if you want to present a dichotomy.

A playlist idea that I have been batting around revolves around the idea of Point/Counterpoint, Rebuttal/Response, A-Side/B-Side. Since my music library has exploded in the last few years, I feel like I have missed music based discussions between tracks that may not have realized they were in conversation with one another. I feel the list is incomplete, partly because my library will always be incomplete, partly because sometimes I will only make the connection if the right synapses fire at the right time. Here is my list so far:

"The Way I Are" Timbaland /
"My Love Don't Cost a Thing" Jennifer Lopez

"My Humps" Black Eyed Peas /
"Thong Song" Sisqo

"Shut Up and Drive" Rihanna /
"Little Red Corvette" Prince

"Lovestoned/I Think That She Knows" Justin Timberlake /
"Layla" Derek and the Dominos

"Southern Man" Neil Young /
"Sweet Home Alabama" Lynyrd Skynyrd

That last item would probably get cut in the final draft, since the rebuttal is explicit in the latter song, but hopefully you get the idea. As you can see it is a rather short list and not enough for even a cassette.

What songs do you think would work for a mix like this?

Read More......