Record industry - doomed - The music executives were dinosaurs; therefore, the article concludes, their inability to adapt seems to spell the end of the record industry (emphasis mine):
… many in the industry see the last seven years as a series of botched opportunities. And among the biggest, they say, was the labels’ failure to address online piracy at the beginning by making peace with the first file-sharing service, Napster. “They left billions and billions of dollars on the table by suing Napster — that was the moment that the labels killed themselves,” says Jeff Kwatinetz, CEO of management company the Firm. “The record business had an unbelievable opportunity there. They were all using the same service. It was as if everybody was listening to the same radio station. Then Napster shut down, and all those 30 or 40 million people went to other [file-sharing services].”
Let’s set aside the cryptic message of the lyrics in my previous post and look to the bare poetry of this one; it’s really really nice. This is a great song. It’s by Syd as in Syd Matters the French musician, not Syd Barrett of Pink Floyd. The name of the song is “Here’s a Love Song.” The previous link is a more produced version than the one I have (I’ve just guitar and singing), but I think you’ll enjoy it, nonetheless. Oh, and the bridge in that linked version is new to me, too. Anyway…
sleeping in saturdays
taking time to get to know your face
breathing in your smell on me
I’m addicted you know to vanilla these days
butterfly kisses and the promise you’ll spend all night this time
I just want to say thank you
for taking a chance on a feeling inside
so here’s a love song for all the times you felt second place
and here’s a love song for all the smiles that come when i see your face
here’s a love song
I walk into the winter night
the city lights take the place of stars in your eyes
I lost the moon again
or I’ll stop looking i guess
when love caught me by surprise
you’re gonna be hard to get over
so I won’t I don’t think for a very long time
and in the summer
I’ll warm your bed if you can promise you’ll warm mine
and here’s a love song for all the times i fell into your eyes
and here’s a love song for all the things you taught me last night
here’s a love song
here’s a love song for all the things that you never said
here’s a love song for the night you left your place at the end of my bed
here’s a love song
Obscure slang: 23 skidoo - “23 skidoo (sometimes 23 skiddoo) is an American slang phrase popularized in the early twentieth century, first appearing before World War I and becoming popular in the Roaring Twenties. It generally refers to leaving quickly. One nuance of the phrase suggests being rushed out by someone else. Another is taking advantage of a propitious opportunity to leave, that is, “getting [out] while the getting’s good.”
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Another source of the term has been rumored to come from the area around the Flat Iron building on 23rd street in NYC. Apparently, winds would swirl around the building and in the roaring 20’s groups of men would gather to watch women walk by with their skirts being blown up by the winds. The police would then ask the men to break-it-up and leave… hence the term 23 skidoo.”
Target Pharmacy - Amazing labeling system for pharmaceuticals that Target rolled out a couple of years ago. Also, I haven’t been able to find it, but they have this fantastic logo for their pharmacy that looks like a pill, and the little specs in one side are tiny Target logos. I thought it was really eye catching, both from far away and up close.
1992: Philharmonic plays Carnival of the Animals - Katy took me to see Joshua Bell at the Ordway for my birthday this past May. In addition to the violins sounding gorgeous, Mr. Bell was (to my untrained ears) awe-inspiringly amazing. (For someone who made his Carnegie Hall debut at the age of 18, I should hope so!)
Anyhow, one of the movements performed was Carnival of the Animals, which is typically accompanied with prose by Ogden Nash. In the past decade or so, however, verses by Mr. Peter Schickele are also used. He’s famous for inventing a fictional brother of J.S. Bach’s, named P.D.Q. Bach. Interestingly enough, P.D.Q. Bach actually has real recordings. For example, Oedipus Tex and Other Choral Calamities. Anyhow, now that you know who he is, a joke from Mr. Schickele:
The “Elephants” movement, for example, was preceded by a parable in which an elephant with a dreadful cold decides that he is at death’s door, and gives away all his worldly possessions. He wakes up the next day cured of his cold but penniless, from which Mr. Schickele drew the moral, “just because your trunk is packed doesn’t mean you’re ready to go.”
A cornucopia of unique business cards - See anything you like, Mykala? I liked two of the dentist ones—the one with floss threaded between teeth at the bottom, and the other with an embossed impression of teeth. Fun!
… the sound was so opulently gorgeous it almost defied belief! It was a total incarnation of the perfectionist’s wildest dreams: rich, velvety, airy, awesome, liquid, yet incredibly detailed. There were none of the analog disc’s problems. No marginal mistracking, no subtle VTA-error distortions, no disc-resonance smearing, no feedback-induced low-end boom or mud, no ticks or pops or pressing grumbles even at the highest listening levels. And there was no analog-tape flutter or modulation noise or transient-rounding or print-through or hiss.
I don’t know what much of that means, but I do know that the Sony CDP-101 was a big deal when it arrived. I think it’s hard now to understand what a massive jump in sound quality it was.
The father of the father of Engadget - Peter Rojas eulogizes his father, the man who inspired his passion for gadgets and technology. A heartfelt, moving, piece of writing. The paragraph that struck me most:
What always amazed me about him was how multifaceted he was. He was an intellectually curious physician living in a small town who had traveled the world, read at least a book a week up until he died, could continually kick my ass in Scrabble even though he didn’t learn English until he was 23, and knew practically everything there was to know about classical music, Spanish wines, and French cinema. All I wanted to be when I grew up was as smart as my dad.
Sometimes, when you’re job searching, you are looking up businesses and their locations in your area. Then, you find yourself Google Mapsing Hawaii, specifically the spot where you vacationed last…
Yes, there it is, 484 Kuhio Hwy, Kapaa, Kauai, Plantation Hale: Best Western. For being a Best Western, the place was very very clean, had a great view, and a very good concierge service. The thing that was coolest for me, coming from Minnesota, was that the hallways had no walls at the end. It was just stairs protected by the overhang from the roof. So, each morning when you stepped out of your room, there was a gentle Hawaiian breeze blowing through the hallway.
