Wednesday, November 07, 2007

Thursday, September 13, 2007

Some Random Album Covers



Wednesday, September 12, 2007

Status Report



Ha. Well, just a little levity from R. Crumb to interrupt the ennui...



Okay, naptime!

Friday, July 13, 2007

It's Under Control



From the Wigu cartoon here. Or read The Case of Atlantis! from the beginning...

What can I say? I relate to Quincy Tinkle on almost the same level as Bob Parr aka Mr. Incredible from The Incredibles:

Thursday, May 24, 2007

Paddington Rose



(2001-2007)

Friday, May 04, 2007

Some "Goats" Dialogue From The Archive

Diablo (holding drink): That red dude! He's the one who gave us those spooky demon matches back in New Jersey.

Fish (Out of beer glass, sitting, wide-eyed): The matches that burn space and time. The matches that Toothgnip wants. Do you still have those?

Diablo (holding drink): Yeah. They're in a safe but uncomfortable place. One of these days I'm going to have to get myself some pockets.

(Diablo is a chicken, you see. Fish, is of course a fish. I think he's a Pisces. Probably working for scale...)

Monday, March 26, 2007

Time Magazine Makes An Observation

"Achewood", "Penny Arcade" and "PvP" are among the internet-only comics mentioned in an article at the Time magazine website last week...

In one story arc a wealthy pleasure-loving cat named Ray dies and goes to hell, where he's forced to drive a 1982 Subaru Brat and gets drunk with legendary bluesman Robert Johnson at a Best Western. This kind of thing never happens to Garfield.

Read the full article here, or just click some of the webcomics links on the left.

Oh, and another recent add to my regular web browsing: "xkcd", which occasionally contains strong language (which may be unsuitable for children), unusual humor (which may be unsuitable for adults), and advanced mathematics (which may be unsuitable for liberal-arts majors).

Thursday, March 08, 2007

Plunderphonics

John Oswald is a Canadian avant-garde composer and conceptualist who was involved in audio splice 'n dice years before the ubiquity of computer sound cards made mash-ups the the domain of so many DJ's, music lovers and tech geeks.

"Plexure" is a composition Oswald created in 1992, constructed entirely from brief fragments cloned from thousands of mostly pop recordings from 1982-1992, the first decade of the compact disc era. It's built on a structure that begins with the slowest songs from that time (mostly ballads and blues), and proceeds gradually to the fastest (bluegrass and speed metal).

Since Plexure's release, Oswald has continued to play with, tweak, and refine the piece, resulting, more than ten years later in "prePlex". The original bar-of-each-song version of "prePlex" was about 33 minutes long. But, Oswald thought there were parts that worked, and parts that didn't; he wished to hear a version that in a way, swung all the way through.

Lengthy rounds of editing, throwing out material, listening, and making further improvements ensued. He couldn't listen to the thing right through without stopping the playback to change something. Finally, he began playing back "prePlex" all the way through without stopping, for himself, and for others. After a few minor adjustments, he decided it was working like accelerating clockwork, and ready to be heard by the world. Which is not to say that there won't be more revisions before the track ends up on vinyl and DVD.

In its current "final" form, "prePlex" is fourteen minutes and twelve seconds, not necessarily just the intros, but often recognizeable samples of a whole lotta different songs, blended, mixed, morphed and organized into a composition of steadily increasing tempo. The original 1993 CD version included artists such as Aretha Vanilli, Bing Stingspreen, Bo No Ma, Sam & Deee-Lite, Sam & Dead, Engelbert Costello, Ice Garfunkle, Bolton Chili Overdire, Moody Crue, XTZ Top, John Lennoncamp, Bee Jesus, B.T.O'Conner, Sinead O'Connick Jr., Twisted Steely, Axl Galas, 9 Inch Monkees, Bo Dire, Percy Faithful, Joni Cocker, Superloaf, Jon Bon Elton, Little Keith Richard, Twisted Kross, Madonna & Englishmen, Fats Bono, Spinal Top, Dire No More, Doobie Osmond, Debbie Idol, Frank Sinappa, Allman Dominoes, They Might Be Grateful, Anthrax Squeeze Factory, Halen Oates, U-52s, Depeche Mould, AC/Dylan, Marianne Faith No Morrisey, Blondie Sabbath, Ozzie Osmond, Cheap Pixie Peppers, Beastie Shop Beach, Lynrd Lovett, Cream Styx, Jerry Harry, Jello Bellafonte, Milli Fudge, Ozzy Loaf, The Captain & Terence, Joni Shithead, Spiro Giants, Stevie Ray Vangelis, Jethro Byrne, Mariah Cocker, Sound Garth, Yo Yo McCartney, T.L.C.& C. Meat Factor, Whitney REMTV Hammercamp, Bonnie Ratt, Alannarama, 10,000 Nine Inch Megasmiths, Bobby Bon Jackson, Julian Lennox, Paula McCarey, and Kool Mo Chuck. Yeah, I hear a lot of that!

Click to read more about "prePlex" and other Plunderphonics projects...

And here's the "Save As..." option.

http://www.plunderphonics.com/

http://www.pfony.com/

Thursday, February 08, 2007

Roy Wood - "Dear Elaine"



Known in the UK as leader of the Move and Wizzard (and founder of ELO), Wood is largely unknown in the USA. The song is from Roy's 1973 Boulders solo LP on which he plays all the instruments and supplies all the vocals. I don't know if there's actual lute on the recording, and I doubt if it was recorded in his back garden, but it's a gently surreal promo film for a pleasant tune.

Two blog posts in one day, yow. Little to no content, of course, but that's our pledge to you, the blog consumer!
Winter Scene

This was actually early December, before the Winter Solstice, but you know what I mean.

Currently there is a little less snow and it's much colder, but the photo turned out okay, so here it is.

Tuesday, January 09, 2007

Spamalot

My work e-mail address has finally been found by spammers. The amount that makes it all the way to my computer is still fairly low, so I take a look at it sometimes... Seems like most of it is advertisements in the form of a jpg with enough accompanying text to make it seem legitimate. The text is generally one of two forms: what reads like excerpts from one or several unrelated books or what reads like sentences randomly generated from noun adjective verb clumps. Today's example is in the latter category.

The dope was coming in heavier and heavier waves, and now he just wished she would shut up and go away. When a recliner defined by the insurance agent is proverbial, the judge inside a pine cone can be kind to a phony avocado pit. The power drill buries a salad dressing from another movie theater, and a nation from the cough syrup plans an escape from the short order cook related to a plaintiff a hesitantly shabby industrial complex.

The former category can have some intriguing plot twists, almost enough to make you wish there was more of it. Maybe they should try to sell fiction instead of replica watches, herbal weight loss pills, and hot stock tips.

He was finally able to convince her that returning to work would put him forward, not back. Annie's marriage had been dissolved in a much more legal fashion than Paul had anticipated. Annie lay silent and face-down in blood and spilled champagne and fragments of green glass. It dripped steadily from one side of the board which lay across the arms of the wheelchair.
Well, you get the drift. I'll leave you with a final thought:
Sometimes a green submarine hides, but a girl scout always sanitizes the paper napkin! Indeed, another fried judge figures out an avocado pit defined by a short order cook. A pig pen starts reminiscing about lost glory, and an obsequious crane takes a coffee break; however, the chestnut living with the tomato makes love to an ostensibly stoic customer. Furthermore, the purple bowling ball self-flagellates, and a turkey feverishly is a big fan of a jersey cow inside a chestnut.