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| So, I go to the UC today, content to sit in relative quiet, listening to the music of my choice on my fine, beautiful iPod and scan my notes, maybe thumb through the Echo (how can so many people support a minimum wage increase?) and enjoy my lunch in relative serenity. But alas! my plan was not to be. For as soon as I sat down a group of tools began to play their horrid "music" at the far side of the building, and I could hear their tenuous attempt at melody smash my eardrums, making conversation, enjoying my own music, or even simple focus impossible. My hatred of this falls in many areas.
First, I find it downright obtrusive. I can't hear my friends, my iPod, hell I can't even hear myself think. And I'm at the far side of the UC. The band's levels were all too loud. Not to mention that their music sounded like someone kept feeding guitars and minorities into a wood chipper and amplifying the sound. I'm sure you guys sound dandy in your mom's basement, but that isn't an indication that you should bring your horrid affront to all music from Homer to Beck to the general public.
Second, is this seriously what my tuition is paying for? Sod scattered around the campus and shitty bands? Every department could use new faculty and we're paying for this miserable disturbance. Jesus. Who do I complain to? Seriously.
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| 12/23/06: My family and I are watching something about JFK. My comment:
"God, it's so full of bullshit and lies. I'll tell you what, Ford needs
to hurry up and fucking die. He's the last one alive form the Warren
Commission. When he drops, that whole study gets declassified. Then,
we'll have a way better picture of what happened to JFK. Fucker needs
to die." And he died today.
I don't feel guilty, but I do feel like I had ESP. | | |
| So, I was wandering around the internets the other day and I came across some more mashups. Intriuged, I have begun scouring the internets for any interesting ones I can find. For those of you unfamiliar with a mashup, it's where you take the lyrics of a song and then lay it over a sample from a different song. Think of the slew of remix tracks that came out after Jay-Z's Black Album.
What amuses me about the genre is that nothing is sacred. Nothing. The backing sample is just picked for its beat. That's all. If it had some previous significance, it no longer does. Classic example: the mashup from the Grey Album of Dirt Off Your Shoulder profoundly violated one of the most touching and memorable Beatles songs: John's tribute to his late mother Julia. In the most recent batch, I found one that would make Pullen start sobbing: try removing all the lyrics from Smells Like Teen Spirit and putting on top of the guitars...Bootylicious. And there was one that actually made me feel ill. Take the single most politically charged Clash Song with the most poignant social obvservaions for the global scene when it was released: This is Radio Clash, take away all those brilliant political lyrics and lay over it....Hollaback Girl. I seriously felt sick.
Which isn't to say there aren't any good ones. I found a pretty nifty mashup of Dirt Off Your Shoulder on top of Bittersweet Symphony (ironically sampled itself off the Rolling Stones' The Last Time). I also thought that laying Promiscuous on top of Rock With You was kind of smart. There's also a couple entire albums of Beasties/Beatles mashups that sound pretty neat.
15 pages of overall writing down...40 to go. Not to mention a quintet of tests just around the corner with knives, pipes and wrenches...and the rope, revolver, and candlestick...waiting to kick my ass. Bring. It. On. | | |
| OK, if you haven't seen it on my facebook or heard about it yet: Here's Charles at Date Auction: http://charlesdances.ytmnd.com/
I was half-kidding about drinking beer and watching Bond on Friday night, but it's starting to sound like a better and better idea, and Wood just got the Best of Bond for his birthday. So, we could actually feasibly pick out a Bond movie and do it. The alternative is equally appealing: Wood turns 21 Friday and talks of some major bad movie action has been circulating. So, let me know what those of you who will be around Friday are feeling. | | |
| So...Bond comes out Friday and I'm trying to decide whether or not to go. On the one hand it IS based on an Ian Fleming novel: the first to be based on one of his full-length books since For Your Eyes Only back in 1977. Gadgets are downplayed, action is downplayed more than in recent years (though still there) and the emphasis is put back on plot. On the other hand, Craig looks like he's going to be a terrible Bond. All of the good Bonds: Connery, Moore, Brosnan, had a certain swagger and self-confidence they brought to the role. When they said the classic lines, you KNEW they were James Bond from the smirk and confidence put behind them. From what I've seen of Craig, he completely lacks that, which puts him in a category with Dalton and Lazenby as the Bonds we'd rather forget. When he says he's Bond, you just get the idea that he's just some tool going as Bond for Halloween. But the strange thing is, iMDB fans seem to love him, especially fans of the books. Be that as it may, not what I want to watch for 2 hours. Maybe we should just rent From Russia with Love or Goldeneye or Goldfinger or something and just get drunk and watch that.
My sleeping habits are miles out of whack. I keep napping away the afternoon, but I think today it was justified. Rainy days are the best excuse to nap. Still, I keep pushing back and avoiding my pages of papers to write. Next couple weeks will most certainly be hell. | | |
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