This week’s This American Life (URL not valid until next week) explores a story that amused me when I saw it blow by in the online edition of the NYT a ways back. Involves Russians, artists, young people, and rum (or cognac).
The show’s second half is a melancholy revue of life in New Orleans, post-Katrina, that sounds like a prophecy for America.
Enjoy!
BoingBoing links to a webcomic by a fellow whose pal purchased a large number of 99-cent vibrators, and gave them to him.
I was just pulled out of my weekend slumber by the closing story on NPR’s Weekend Edition a profile of a Japanese alternative pop singer called Ayano Tsuji, who specializes in simply presented songs featuring mostly her voice, melodies with an insistent quality, and a ukelele. The segment may have been originally produced for the NPR afternoon magazine The World, which has a more extensive page on a story about the singer by the same producer, Robert Rand. That story aired in November, though, so maybe Mr. Rand is just a fan. It does seem that I’m not alone in my interest in the material.
As I listened to the story, I became more and more interested in the woman’s music, which sounded to me very much like some of my very favorite Dale Lawrence songs, the tunes that Dale was writing just at the end of his time with the Gizmos.Certainly, at least, Tsuji’s aesthetic lines up with the simplicity of some of Dale’s songs from that era.
I am blogging this so that my memory of the songs doesn’t erode away under the winds of sleep, and so that I can unearth Tsuji’s material for a closer look.
Happily at least one song, Neko no Onagaeshi, is available in transliteration. This song appears to have been used in the anime film “The Cat Returns.” Cori Chan also has a few lyrics and a translated song or two. Here are a few more English translations.
Here’s an MP3 of Kaze Ni Naru, which may actually be “Neko no Onagaeshi”. This does apppear to be that song, which is a fully-orchestrated version. It seems that there was also an acoustic-only release which I have yet to dig up. In general, it seems that her older releases featured simpler, sparer arrangements, based on commentary by others out in the intarweb.
The artist’s extensive site at her label, Speedstar Records, includes listenable samples from a recent release, Calendar Calendar, which appears to be a concept album of sorts. Interestingly there is one track (for July, it seems) produced by James Iha, late of Smashing Pumpkins, so perhaps I’m not imagining that Midwestern thing.
The label page also links to the artist’s official site. Kawaii!
Happily, she is appears to be an active blogger, which Google semi-successfully translates.
A hearty quack of welcome to WIUX. Wakka wakka wakka!
FWIW, I just had one of those sublime Apple experiences that constitute the technology world’s crack equivalent: I stumbled across our Airport Express for the first time since unlimbering our reciever/amplifer and thought, what the hell, might as well plug it in to see what happens. The led on the plug turned green, and I fired up iTunes with a stream from, as it happens, my parents’ classical station, the North Carolina-based WCPE, flipped the amp over to aux, and was rewarded with the magnolia-toned accent of the announcer welcoming a station in Bay City, Michigan. Easiest post-move technology experience yet.
Let’s hope the printer sharing is as sweet.
Yesterday I gave my parents a real-time video tour of the house and grounds via the magic of ‘high-speed’ internet and wifi. I must be a seriously negative creep because instead of marveling that we could do such a thing, I most have thunk on how aggravating and infuriating it is to deal with thousand-dollar technology that works as well as the two-dollar technology of 1968, at least as I recall it. Except the whole realtime video thing. And the two-dollar thing.
This of course fills me with well-warranted self-loathing, especially when I reflect on the fact that the easiest thing to cobble up on moving in to the new place was a Silvertone Victrola cabinet containing one (1) five-year-old iBook with an Airport card and one (1) set of high-quality powered spruce-cone computer speakers. I have been using this nightmare hybrid to stream in roughly equal proportion music from my 20-odd gb stash, near-real-time radio from local NPR gabfest KUOW, the same from old-home-place dusty classics champeen WFIU, and assorted other public radio streams including local cooler-than-thou woo-woo yipniks KEXP and also-old-home-place and shaggy enough to get me to relax faves WFHB.
Still, it’s the classical radio in front of the fire to which I’ve turned the most. Technology sucks.
Off in the Christmas Cosmos. [via MeFi]
[via Boing Boing] 10 + 100 Creative Commons Christmas Songs. I’ll be paying specific attention to A Medieval Christmas. Greg and I actually worked up a set book of obscure Christmas-related folksongs a few years ago but never really nailed the set. Looking at some really old European source material would be a great place to continue the project. i suppose looking at popular sheet music favorites of the 1840s to 1860s would be another good place to dig.
For a limited time only: Outlaws and Scalawags. Git it!