I suppose it might be a bit late to ask him… But nevertheless: could Glenn Gould please just shut. the. fuck. up.
Glen: we know you’re a bloody genius, and you do temper that clavier mighty well indeed. But seriously: ENOUGH WITH THE HUMING ALREADY. It is driving me batshit crazy (not that I need much these days).
Thanks.
A couple weeks ago, I was buried up to my armpits in Game Theory (nothing to do with Quake or World of Warcraft, trust me), Decision Theory, Cryptology and a dozen other fascinating topics. After a couple days non-stop writing/reading/studying/coding on those topics, I felt I really needed a two-hour break. Yet, feeling guilty about leaving my books for a minute, I compromised by downloading renting that award-winning movie about John Nash. I figured if I was not studying, at least watching a biopic on one of the pioneer in the field of Game Theory wouldn’t be straying too far off.
As it turns out, the movie is not as bad as I’d expected (which is not to say it is any good). Russel Crowe is as convincing as you would imagine a hunky Australian actor playing a nerdy US mathematician to be. All along, you half-expect Crowe to draw a gladius and slice open his mathematical studies nemesis. Instead, you see him mumbling and x-ray-visioning his way into mathematical stardom and bona-fide paranoid schizophrenia.
We had a couple tix for the Qwartz “Electronic Music Awards” last Friday (went, despite knowing this would imply spending the rest of my week-end, reading up the works of Messrs. von Neuman, Morgenstern and Nash, a coffee IV hooked to my arm)…
Despite grand ambitions and a few catchy headliners (most notably: Bjork and Pierre Henry, both a last-minute no-show), the whole event had a very homemade vibe to it. Most of the MC’s time was spent calling for people to come on stage who often had apparently picked that time to go drink champagne or weren’t even attending to begin with… The show ended up running a couple hours late (we gave up and left shortly before the end, leaving only a very scarce crowd behind us).
All this bickering notwithstanding, we had a cool evening: the live sets were very eclectic, ranging from über-experimental stuff, to dancefloor-friendly, beat-heavy electronica. The people were friendly and the venue absolutely gorgeous.
A few random rantish thoughts:
For somewhat more constructive insights on that event, you can check out this post (in French) from a blogger in my feed list who, as it turns out, also went.
Look what I found, while cleaning up and putting the place back into shape for 2007: last year’s Music Quizz long due results !
Overall, all of them were found, which goes to show they weren’t that hard, though not one person had them all, so perhaps they weren’t that easy…
And so it went:
Time for another music quizz…
While the last one was all about unearthing hidden samples, we are doing things a bit differently this time:
All track excerpts below are full on covers, rather than mere remixes of the originals. Styles of both original material and covers run across a very large span, so you all have a chance, no matter what your tastes veer to. We got a fairly even spread across rock, folk, house and electro. Often both between either version of a track.
Rules are simple: original song title and interpret gets you 1 point, cover artist gets you another. DO NOT post your answers in the comment area below, but use the contact form instead.
Results and name of lucky winner of a surprise worthless gift will be announced next weekend.
The tracks:
I took from my five remaining daily hours of sleep schedule to go watch Shortbus last Sunday.
I know it’s been released a few eons ago in other parts of the civilized world and that, by now, everybody has either seen it or think John Cameron Mitchell is the antichrist (or both)… Yet I felt I should add to the general consensus (met amidst people of taste):
This is one brilliant, thoroughly enjoyable movie.
Definitely not a family movie, and you might not want to take a date there without checking out before… But otherwise: best way to spend ten bucks with your clothes on, these days.
Don’t mind me saying so, but I would make one incredibly bad lawyer.
When I argue my cases, I can’t stay on track, I digress into oblivion, and whenever possible, jump on the most hyperbolic formulations, usually for my sole petty amusement, at great cost to the convincing potential of my arguments. Also, while I certainly love spending hours dissecting the law, I tend to focus on its spirit, and shun its letter altogether; a luxury I understand no sane lawyer could ever afford.
Yet, I have opinions (bet you hadn’t noticed), and I sometimes discuss them. I sometimes even discuss them with actual lawyers, pretty eloquent [French] bloggers at that. A while back the conversation wandered over to the topic of intellectual property. At the time, I did a pathetic job of exposing my somewhat moderate, if slightly provocatively formulated, views on the matter…
Then recently, while reading up on entirely unrelated matters, I stumbled upon a small text by Mr. Jefferson that happened to sum up most perfectly the essence of my thought on this.
The most basic courtesy would call for me to write this post in French, as I am after all reporting and threading on a discussion I had in French, but the quoted material is in English and there’s been a real dearth of pompous highbrow rants on this blog, so I hope my original debater will overlook this unforgivable faux-pas and not hesitate to respond in whichever language he may prefer… Anyway, here is what this famous American communist close to my heart, had to say on the topic of intellectual property:
If nature has made any one thing less susceptible than all others of exclusive property, it is the action of the thinking power called an idea, which an individual may exclusively possess as long as he keeps it to himself; but the moment it is divulged, it forces itself into the possession of every one, and the receiver cannot dispossess himself of it. Its peculiar character, too, is that no one possesses the less, because every other possesses the whole of it. He who receives an idea from me, receives instruction himself without lessening mine; as he who lights his taper at mine, receives light without darkening me. That ideas should freely spread from one to another over the globe, for the moral and mutual instruction of man, and improvement of his condition, seems to have been peculiarly and benevolently designed by nature, when she made them, like fire, expansible over all space, without lessening their density in any point, and like the air in which we breathe, move, and have our physical being, incapable of confinement or exclusive appropriation. Inventions then cannot, in nature, be a subject of property. Society may give an exclusive right to the profits arising from them, as an encouragement to men to pursue ideas which may produce utility, but this may or may not be done, according to the will and convenience of the society, without claim or complaint from anybody.
“The Writings of Thomas Jefferson”. Edited by Andrew A. Lipscomb and Albert Ellery Bergh, 1905
I know I haven’t posted much (read: anything) of interest on this blog in a long while.
This isn’t about to change. But in the meantime, here is a Music Quiz, on par with what we had here a while back, made of dub, reggae, disco and pretty much everything in between… It’s tough but interesting (very large spectrum and a few unsuspected samples).
Go have a go at it (I think I got about 5 out of eight).
On my way to work this morning, it downed on me that what the world so desperately needs right now is yet another Human League electro remix, and that I may be the ideal candidate for the task.
Unfortunately, my project-manager, on the other hand, seems to think that what the world desperately needs, is another 3000 lines of code by Monday and that, incidentally, I am the ideal, if not only, candidate for the task.
I think I may be a sell-out.
I’m not sure if anything can still be done for the reputation of this blog, seeing how the past 24 hours have seen an unusually high amount of somewhat sensible, even possibly useful information put here. Frankly, I don’t know if my blogger’s ethics will ever recover.
I will try nonetheless.
Wars of the Geeks is officially over, silly inconsequent navel-gazing is now back for the month.
Let’s start by what should have been yesterday’s sum up of how to succeed at cooking an enjoyable Summer evening with friends. It goes a little something like this:
[steps sideways, does two entrechats and starts singing while tap-dancing to the beat]
Shake but do not stir, serve fresh with cocktail straws.
Such a fabulous evening that our little Cinéma de quartier might very well be on its way to become a regular bi-monthly.
Then there also was yesterday’s recipe: another kind of enjoyable dish. Though it’s made of much harder-to-find of ingredients and I am not even quite sure I remember myself how the cooking process went.
If you absolutely want to try at home, I think it involved a bottle of contraband Absinth, eye-burning Japanese menthol eye drops, one of the most furious thunderstorm of the Summer and lots of Parisian girls running by in the street, wearing but thin blouses soaking wet from the sudden rain.
Also what appears to be a medium-sized rodent stuck to my living room table in a puddle of melted wax and solidifying liquor. But I will only be able to confirm that when I finish removing the few dozens glasses and beer bottles stacked over it.