 /blag
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Welcome, Eli writes
here.
See also Imagery and his other projects. |
| Japanese & Spanish "scorned woman" songs | 2 0 0 9 |
Jul 12 |
As part of our music startup, I’ve been listening to all sorts of music and music apps all day long. I’ve stumbled on some great apps, some great music, and some interesting parallels. Like these 2 wonderful songs about scorned women, very similar to me and yet coming from drastically different cultures:
| Light and sound, light as sound | 2 0 0 9 |
Jan 27 |
Auditorium is such a fun, original, spellbinding game! Visually and musically marvelous, it transcends language and is wonderfully unreal, ungrounded in reality, very abstract yet very sensual.
The online demo (a preview of an eventual larger game) is free and extremely addictive—say goodbye to your next hour.
| LHC rap | 2 0 0 8 |
Sep 10 |
| Tonight Radio | 2 0 0 8 |
Jul 12 |
As part of our WUXMs (Weekly User Experience Meetups, a tiny event of fine people), Chris crafted Tonight Radio, a very cool mashup to listen to the bands playing in town tonight, this week, this month; the idea is to make it easier to find and sample new cool bands to go watch live.
| G'bye Big Music | 2 0 0 8 |
Jan 14 |
I love the anecdote because it makes the point so well and it rings so true. The statistic surpassed even my dire expectations. And yes, major labels should have acted years ago. May we learn something from their example.
IN 2006 EMI, the world’s fourth-biggest recorded-music company, invited some teenagers into its headquarters in London to talk to its top managers about their listening habits. At the end of the session the EMI bosses thanked them for their comments and told them to help themselves to a big pile of CDs sitting on a table. But none of the teens took any of the CDs, even though they were free. “That was the moment we realised the game was completely up,â€? says a person who was there.
In America, according to Nielsen SoundScan, the volume of physical albums sold dropped by 19% in 2007 from the year before—faster than anyone had expected.
Tim Renner, a former boss of Universal Music in Germany, says the majors should have acted years ago. “Then they had the money and could have built the competence by buying concert agencies and merchandise companies,� he says. Now it may be too late.
| Juan Alazan | 2 0 0 8 |
Jan 12 |
A Spanish version of Mika’s Billy Brown. Apologies beforehand, I just have this hobby of translating songs—if the mood strikes one day I may even hurt your ears with my French version of Gloria Trevi’s Hoy me ire de casa
Update 15/January/2007:
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Billy Brown Oh Billy Brown had lived an ordinary life. Two kids, a dog, and a cautionary wife. While it was all going according to plan Then Billy Brown fell in love with another man. He met his lover almost every single day Making excuses for his dodgy holiday (Unto religion that he said and duty found They didn’t know his faith was earthly bound) |
Juan Alazan Oh Juan Alazan vivia una vida primorosa Dos ninhos, un perro y una esposa fastidiosa Aun cuando todo iba yendo acorde al plan Juan Alazan se enamoro de otro galan. De ver su amante ningun dia se perdia Haciendo excusas por tan locas correrias En cierta religion nueva y extranha. Lo que no sabian es que su fe era mundana. |
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Brown…Oh Billy Brown. Don’t let the stars get you down. Don’t let the waves let you drown. Brown…Oh Billy Brown. Gonna pick you up like a paper cup. Gonna shake the water out of every nook. Oh Billy Brown. |
Juan… oh Juan Alazan No te dejes por tus estrellas tumbar No te dejes por las olas ahogar Juan… oh Juan Alazan Habra que desdoblarse como carton Habra que sacudirse el agua de cada rincon. Oh Juan Alazan. |
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Oh Billy Brown needed a place, somewhere to go. He found an island off the coast of Mexico Leaving his lover and his family behind. Oh Billy Brown needed to find some peace of mind. And on his journey and his travels on the way, He met a girlie who was brave enough to say, When they made love he shared the burden of his mind. Oh Billy Brown you are a victim of the times. |
Oh Juan Alazan tenia que huir a cualquier sitio. Encontro una isla costa de Puerto Rico, Dejando su amante y su familia por detras.. Oh Juan Alazan solo buscaba paz mental. En aventuras en su larga travesia, Conocio una chica que valiente le decia, Cuando hacian el amor y el desahogaba sentimientos, “Oh Juan Alazan eres una victima de los tiempos.” |
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Brown…Oh Billy Brown. Don’t let the stars get you down. Don’t let the waves let you drown. Brown…Oh Billy Brown. Gonna pick you up like a paper cup. Gonna shake the water out of every nook. Oh Billy Brown. |
Juan… oh Juan Alazan No te dejes por tus estrellas tumbar No te dejes por las olas ahogar Juan… oh Juan Alazan Habra que desdoblarse como carton Habra que sacudirse el agua de cada rincon. Oh Juan Alazan. |
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Brown…Oh Billy Brown. Gonna pick you up like a paper cup. Gonna shake the water out of every nook. Oh Billy Brown. |
Juan… oh Juan Alazan Habra que desdoblarse como carton Habra que sacudirse el agua de cada rincon. Oh Juan Alazan. |
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Oh Billy Brown had lived an ordinary life. Two kids, a dog, and a cautionary wife. While it was all going according to plan Then Billy Brown fell in love with another man |
Oh Juan Alazan vivia una vida primorosa Dos ninhos, un perro y una esposa fastidiosa Aun cuando todo iba yendo acorde al plan Juan Alazan se enamoro de otro galan. |
| SeeqPod | 2 0 0 7 |
Dec 09 |
SeeqPod (YubNub’s “seeq“) crawls the web for mp3’s and streams (and queues) them for you right along search results. “Playable search” they call it, hinting they’ll use the word in expansive, unexpected ways. It’s kind of how you can now play YouTube videos within Google results. The instant gratification level of it all is sky-high. It’s long due and as clever a copyright hack as I’ve seen (like how music websites link to YouTube videos to play music but so much better). A big, dark underweb of mp3s has always been there, it’s just never been this discoverable, this sampleable.
I learned about it, btw, through one of the classiest, most elegant, best targeted spams ever. The SeeqPod team sent me a (probably automatic) email recommending me to try searching for Rufus Wrainwright through their search engine. Since their spam was so unusually well-written and targeted (I had written about Rufus Wainwright before), I tried it. Maybe in these days were spam filters are so effective spammers will have to resource to being useful and wanted. We can dream.
Update 11/Dec/07
Project Playlist (YubNub’s “projp“) is a very similar website, though SeeqPod’s interface is much better. One interesting feature of Project Playlist is that you can search other people’s playlists too, which is a great way to find similar music. SeeqPod, on the other hand, has the interesting “discover” feature, which recommends similar music. (Via Chepe.)
| How to shoot at someone who outdrew you | 2 0 0 7 |
Oct 26 |
I’m making a list of fascinating things about the English language. As, say, my interviewer at frog design can attest, I overflow with opinionated passion but suck at showcasing. I overtell and undershow. I’m constantly nagging people with my fawning for English, for its beauty, expressiveness, and flexibility, but when pressed to put my love into reasons I’m as vague and mushy as a Christian.
So I do lists. And this particular one is fairly advanced, with so many items and examples that there’s a multi-leveled hierarchy already. One of its headings is titled “informal, unique, almost idiomatic affixes”—y’know, stuff like she- (“the she-Shepherd“), out- (“innovators out-fail the competition”), over- (“don’t overdo it”), -away (“assume away”), -friendly (“gay-friendly”), -up (“trade up”), and so on. I find most of them not only unique to English but uniquely expressive.
One particularly good example is in the phrase in the title. The full context comes from a verse from Leonard Cohen’s Hallelujah (you can listen to it here, covered by Rufus Wainwright):
The lyrics manage to portray tragic, flawed love in two lines and it all hinges on that magic “outdrew” verb.
| La Tapatia | 2 0 0 7 |
Oct 14 |
Via Richard, un bizarrisimo video local: La Tapatia de El Personal. Producido por alumnos del CUAAD WP, el video es practicamente una guia sui generis del centro de Guadalajara.
Ah, no se, es tan malo que es bueno… Ademas de que siempre es raro ver cultura local capturada en medios como el video y la musica.
| David Elsewhere | 2 0 0 7 |
Oct 13 |