Fnord.

I was listening to Elbow this morning while working on a report, and was struck by this lyric fragment:

Words to make me stay

You said “Leave me and the plants die.”

It really struck me as a compressed vignette, a moment where two people are struggling to make a relationship work and one of them tries a bit of humor to lighten the mood. Elbow is good that way, succinct and intelligent lyrics everywhere.

(The song is Not a Job, from Cast of Thousands. Listen to it here on last.fm)

The next thought that I had was a bit random - while everyone likes to think that they have a sense of humor, those that have defective ones are the same people who are angered when you try to introduce humor into stressful situations. “This is no time for jokes!” and similar responses. On the contrary, stress is exactly the time for humor.

Of course, to make this all quite humorous, I just got an email of familial bad news. So now I have to try and apply the medicine I’ve just prescribed. Ahh, life, never dull.

I just (legally, thanks much) downloaded the first part of Ghosts 1-IV from the NIN website. High-quality free MP3s of the first disc, the rest is must-pay. I’m on my second listen now, first impressions are surprise and liking - it’s very ambient and chill, much more so than anything previous. More background music, especially given the total lack of vocals.

I was initially a huge fan of NIN (Hi, Chase!) but soured on or about the third album. Who knows, maybe this’ll get me listening again. Anyway, worth a download if you’re curious. I really like this idea of giving away a portion of the album, no DRM, very nice.

I’ve been a fan of Leonard Cohen for a while now. He’s kind of an acquired taste, but so are many worthwhile things. On a related note, Chris got into ‘The West Wing’ a while ago, and from that had me buy a copy of Jeff Buckley’s ‘Grace’ album for his cover of ‘Hallelujah.’

I gotta admit, the cover is excellent, and changes the song completely. What I didn’t realize was that Hallelujah has become a complete cliche, and was used dozens of time in various versions, n TV shows and movies.

But wait, it gets better - it was used so often that there’s an excellent paper about the songs, how its used and what it all means. The bad news is that all of the ambiguity, complexity and politics of the original are lost, and it becomes a signifier of loss and sadness. Ahh well.

What they’re singing there, aside from what I believe professionals call “twaddle,” is the chorus of a Leonard Cohen song. This is mildly incredible. Twenty-five years ago, a character on the TV show The Young Ones named Neal–the hippie–said, “I’m beginning to feel like a Leonard Cohen record, cause nobody ever listens to me.” Today, in contrast, one particular Leonard Cohen song is featured prominently in no less than three separate episodes of teen uberdrama The OC, and can be heard in at least twenty-four separate movies and TV episodes, almost always as the soundtrack to a montage of people being sad.

What I hope to show today is how, exactly, that happened to a song called “Hallelujah.”

The author is Michael Barthel and the paper is “It Doesn’t Matter Which You Heard”: the Curious Cultural Journey of Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah”. Well worth a read.

Every now and then I run across someone declaiming how Mozart is the best composer ever, blah blah blah. I was thinking unrelated thoughts the other day, and I had a mini-revelation:

Mozart and light-roast coffee have the same weakness: A total lack of intensity.

Consider: With notable exceptions like the Requiem, most of Mozart is background (chamber) music. It’s light, cheerful, complex, cerebral and lacking in dynamic range. As devoid of emotion as possible, since chamber music is supposed to provide the audio backdrop for upper-class socialization. It doesn’t engage, it doesn’t compel.

Light roasted coffees are the same way. You’ll see descriptions like ‘floral’, ‘hints of X and Y,’ ’subtle notes of Z’ and so on. Blah blah blah. Real coffee looks like this:

That’s a sublime French roast from Norm Whiting. (More on him in a bit.) It’s complex, intense, multi-layered and very tasty. Unlike a lot of places, Norm has an excellent mix of first-rate beans in his roast; many roasters just take cheap beans and cook ‘em dark. Beware such crap!

Unless we’ve already met, you have likely never heard of Whiting Coffee. They don’t advertise, don’t have a website, and do post-paid mail order! (You pay after you get the coffee — unheard of, eh?)

The other amazing thing about Norm is the value compared to other roasters. If I go elsewhere, I usually have to pay about $30/lb to match or exceed his roast. Shipped to my door, his is $8.

Yep, $8. So any excuses about cost are gone. Call the man at (505) 344-9144, tell him I sent you if you like. And for the love of god buy beans and grind them yourself!

Getting back to musical comparisons, I’ll cut this short due to Anna bedtime - if complexity is why you like Mozart, try any or all of the following by my man JSB:

1. The Brandenburg Concertos
2. Art of Fugue
3. Musical Offering
4. The works for organ, especially canons and fugues. (The F minor fugue is a revelation - the Bowyer performance is quite good.)
5. Goldberg variations . I like the Feltsman performance of these.
6. And, of course, the coffee cantata.

Ol’ JSB did it all. Best enjoyed with a cuppa from Norm.

You may or may not agree with the following:

The Allegretto from Beethoven’s 7th is the greatest piece of music in the Western canon. Schubert said so; Wagner agreed; and though I’ve long considered The Right Brothers’ “Bush was Right” a strong contender for the title, in the end where Wagner goes I go.

Personally, I’m not sure. It’s a personal favorite, but anyway. The point of my post is that this page has done something that I’ve not seen before: They used YouTube to propose an hypothesis, defend it with musicology and portions of the clip, and generally used the Internet to do interactive musical education.

That’s damned cool.

In this, Bernard Chazelle talks, very knowledgeably, about the structure and progression of the Alegretto and why its so affecting. (Seriously, the peak of the movement would move a stone to tears.) The clip is the Berlin Philharmonic, Karajan conducting, and Bernard’s explanations are readable and fascinating.

Probably other people have been doing this, and I just missed it, but it struck me that the YouTube + music + HTML combination was wonderful. If you’ve taken a music appreciation class, you know how much easier it is when the professor is pausing the music and explaining. I’ve tried, but the same thing from a bound book just doesn’t work. If you can imagine the music from reading the score, then you’re probably not the person a music appreciation text aims for… Ironic, that.

Anyway, read the page, watch the clip and if you’re like me, go and play your CD of it on your stereo, loud.

Via Boing Boing, the welcome news that Best of Bootie 2007 is out!

On that front, there’s also a single song mashing up the entire top 40 for 2007:

(That’s also from Boing Boing.)

Downloading now - both are free, what are you waiting for? Enjoy!

In cleaning up today, I was playing one of my (several) unplayed CMJ CDs, and found myself entranced by Regina Spektor’s ‘Fidelity.’ You can hear it for free by watching the video on YouTube:

I am, of course, at least a year behind in discovering this lovely track, but there you are. Learn more on her wikipedia page and the wikipedia page for the single. Me like!

Update 3/3/08: This page has all of her videos on YouTube FYI.

(Sorry for the verbose title, I’m learning to write ‘em for Google searchers) A while ago, I posted about the Moda vibe duo ‘phones:

I managed to raise some funds and bought a pair, so this is my review. A bit of background will help in understanding my perspective and wants here. I walk to a shuttle bus (30 min) which then carries me to work (another 30 minutes or so). I’m looking for headphone that will:

1. Sound good
2. Not fall out of my ears
3. Block some, but not all, exterior noise so that I can safely cross streets. At the same time, I want them to reduce external noise enough that I can listen on a noisy bus without endangering my hearing.
4. Support the microphone/switch function of the iPhone

The v-moda Vibe Duos are just the ticket. They ship with several sets of different-sized rubber shields, which you can exchange until you get a good fit. Sound is good, not excellent, and more colored than I usually prefer. (I’m a big fan of very flat response, e.g. Grado and Mackie). In this case, the Duos have very heavy bass response. However, if you simply choose the ‘Bass reduction’ EQ setting on your iPhone, they sound quite acceptable. I’ve been happy so far, on the bus/walk and also on a couple of turboprop and jet flights. I like:

1. The cloth cable cover has much less microphonic noise than the rubber one on my Etymotics. Nice.
2. My iPhone is no longer as obvious with these.
3. Good, non-fatiguing sound. I watched an entire movie on a recent flight (MD80 “Long Beach Death Tube“, not the quietest plane out there.) and they worked well. You could hear the soft and loud sections well without excessive volume.
4. OK carrying case for tossing into your bag or backpack.

Minor nits:

1. The chromed plastic widget where the cable splits is annoyingly flashy. It’s not clear if I can remove it or not, certainly not easily.
2. The switch on the microphone is too small, such that its hard to double-click for next track. I prefer the Apple design, where the entire piece is the switch.
3. Not as flat of response as more expensive ‘phones.

Overall? Recommended. If you fly a lot, you can skip the microphone (useless en route) and just get the cheap adapter for your usual set of headphones. I think that I may do just that and use my ER4Ps the next time I have a long flight. The Duos represent a more versatile alternative for those times when you want the full iPhone functionality.

As previously griped about, the iPhone earbuds kinda suck. They don’t stay in place and are nearly useless on the noisy bus I ride. I can’t use my etymotics, either, due to the stoopid iPhone headphone jack being recessed. Even if I buy the adapter, I lose the microphone/switch that makes the whole thing work.

Man, I am one spoiled nerd, aren’t I?

Anyway, much googling later I have a potential solution, the v-moda Vibe Duo:

These are pretty new, basically a modified pair of their semi-sealed Vibe earphones with a microphone and switch added, $101 from their store. Be careful, though, as there is also an older version that has the mic but lacks the switch! Even worse, that’s what the Apple store is selling, and you don’t want it. You want part number VDB-NERO.

The old version gets a B+ from iLounge, and they’re pretty picky. I had considered the predecessor for my iPod before Chris bought me the Etymotics, so from my reading I think the audio quality is decent. Not studio monitors, but OK.

As an alternative, there’s the Shure iPhone adapter with microphone for $40:

My problem with that is the total length; adding a mic in the middle of the cable is kind of a lose.

Leave me a comment if you’ve tried either!

Believe it or not, at least two friends have told me that the following sixteen dollar gizmo ‘changed their lives’. Really. In so many words!

What is it? Well, it used to have the clever moniker of “Hold the Phone,” and is sold by the droids helpful people at Radio Shack, where they now call it the “AC Vent Wireless Phone Mount”. Kinda lost the sizzle there, dudes.

Here’s their pic of it:

It used to cost twice as much, so the new price seems a fair trade for the staid name.

Oh yeah, the review: It works great. You can read the display and reach the controls, and its much safer since your eyes are closer to the road ahead. I’ve used it for 2nd gen 20G, third-gen 60G, 4th-gen 30G, Nano, and they all fit. The sides slide in and out on a spring release to accommodate different widths. The only thing that didn’t fit was a case with an integral belt clip that pushed the ipod too far out from the back.

You slide the back bits into the air vent, and it has a lower tripod to stabilize it. Width is adjustable, so it should fit most air vents. Check and see where on the dash your vents are before you get one, though.

Recommended, quite a lot. I’ve been using this one for years and was thrilled to find that it’d fit the new Nanos.

Oh yeah, here’s the Radio Shack link. Sorry.