Links Galore...

... as promised. Well, not promised... at least not promised as in Promised Land. Speaking of - here's "The True, Inerrant And Completely Credible Fundamentalist History Of The Universe". By John Hanks. And don't quibble.

What a brilliant transition that just was...

Laaaaaaame!

And that would be a legitimate comment regarding the previous entry. However, that's what happens when one impersonates inanimate objects. Speaking of: I pity inanimate objects because they can't move - from specks of dust to paperweights or a pound note sealed in resin... Plastic Santas in perpetual underwater snowstorms, sculptures that appear to be moving but aren't: I feel sorry for them all! What are they thinking when they arrive at a place? Do they sigh with disappointment, and when they leave do they have regrets? Is a sofa as happy in one corner as it is in another - and how does the room feel about it? I pity inanimate objects. I pity inanimate objects... I pity inanimate objects: I pity them all.
Physics isn't fair - is a tree as a rocking horse? An ambition fulfilled... and is the sawdust jealous? I worry about these things. Peppercorns don't move until they contaminate the ice-cream three weeks later. Is the gold in Fort Knox happy gold? I care about these things!
Some things are better left alone... grains of sand prefer their own company. But magnets are two faced. No choice for sugar - but what choice could there be - but to drown in coffee or to drown in tea... the frustrations of being inanimate. Maybe it's better that way: the fewer the moving parts the less there is to go wrong! I wonder about these things.
I pity inanimate objects. I pity inanimate objects!
I pity inanimate objects... I pity them all.

© Godley & Creme - I Pity Inanimate Objects

Thirty-One.

Good evening, and welcome to the Arthur Ludlow Memorial Baths, Newport, for this year's finals of the All-England Summarize Proust Competition. (pull back slightly to reveal big banner across the top of the stage: 'All-England Summarize Proust Competition') As you may remember, each contestant has to give a brief summary of Proust's 'A La Recherche du Temps Perdu', once in a swimsuit and once in evening dress. The field has now narrowed to three finalists and your judges tonight are... (cut to panel of judges at long desk; they are all cut-outs of smiling photos of the following) Alec and Eric Bedser, ex-Surrey cricketers, Stewart Surridge, ex-captain of Surrey, Omar Sharif, Laurie Fishlock, ex-Surrey opening batsman, Peter May, the former Surrey and England Captain, and Yehudi Menuhin, the world-famous violinist and the President of the Surrey Cricket Club. And right now it's time to meet your host for tonight Arthur Mee! Get the full Monty here...

Twenny Nine.

On March 29, 1977 (exactly 29 years ago today) Lee Harvey Oswald's best friend - and coincidentally a friend of both Jackie Kennedy and George HW Bush - Dallas socialite George de Mohrenschildt died from a self-inflicted shotgun wound to the mouth, at 3:45 pm. It is likely he was going to be called to testify before the House Select Committee on Assassinations. Mohrenschildt alleged that Lee Harvey Oswald did not kill John F. Kennedy.

We Need Perssssspective!

I'm not much of a hunter anymore. However, the collector part still is pretty much intact. Which is sort of not so good, as I find myself surrounded with a collection of stuff that is growing daily by a fair amount. Except those days when I play dead or find other excuses to not move. Ransacking my compjootah I found my bookmarks still there after upgrading to Firefox 1.5. No big deal, you might say... well, you're right. It would make an interesting collection though taking pictures of people right after a harddisk crash. Or when updating an application had just deleted all documents, especially those that hadn't been backupped. Whatever. A bloody long and winding introduction... basically, I was going to tell you that I'm about to post some of the links I have collected over the past couple of months and combine it with some improv on the word perspective. Which I have lost interest in by now, so here's a link regarding perspective, while I continue to improve my impersonation of inanimate objects.

Life Out of Context.

Those of you that have sort of followed this blog know that I like music, my bike, Kukul Mas, taking pictures, bright people and whatnot. After uploading pics, babbling about food (er - have I?) and posting lyrics of songs that probably don't mean much to you people, today I want to point you to an interesting read, an excerpt from Walter Mosley's "Life Out of Context" (Nation Books). It's not long, so it won't take much of your time. Still, it makes good food for thought. Guten Appetit!

Spring Is In The Air...

I had just cleaned and polished my trusty old Stevens bike when it started snowing heavily, so using it was a no-go for the last two weeks or so - unless I wanted to start all over again. Guess what: I didn't. But that's history... today I was out biking the whole afternoon. Say good bye! to hybernation. Or something.

Awww...

... apparently one isn't supposed to upload oversized pictures here, so the Alster-panorama I just posted is cropped. Heavily. It consists of five single shots manually stitched together (first time I ever tried something like that) forming a massive 2900 x 600 view of our beautiful Alster, but Blogger compresses the upload to one third of its actual size. Kayak!

Bora's Panorama Unit.

Do You Know This?

... found this on the Net - a box featuring an optical illusion: the ring in the middle actually is at the bottom of that thingie. Now what I really would like to know is what kind of symbol / ornament (whatever you'd call it) underlies this design? It does look like some ancient symbol to me... anyone?

Passe Le Chardonnay!

Today is Sunday. The day off. And I'm going to test your patience with this 100kB upload featuring one of the more spectacular aspects of Google Earth. It's a picture of the Heathrow Airport - taken from a satellite in orbit - showing two parked Concordes. Which is a real rarity these days. Just like me. For now, I leave you alone to admire these two beauties in quiet meditation, and I will return with... erm, something I haven't decided yet. You do your admirational routine and I make something up! Up somethig. Like mortarboard.

Midnight, er, Rambler?

Pleasure grounds right opposite of my cave celebrated the start of a new season tonight. So do I, after applying some math. What a coincidance. Oh drink-a-drink-a-drink, to Lilly the Pink-a-Pink-a-Pink...

Creativity Boost.

Well, actually not a creativity boost, but a collection of useful links / tutorials if you're working with graphics, want some hints on web design or Flash... once your skills grow, these might boost your creativity. Or maybe not. Actually, this is just another post that shows I have no concept whatsoever regarding this here blog. Why should I - I've got the cheese helmet. And you know what? I'm already wearing it!

Retro-Crush.

It's truly a costume only a blind superhero would pick out. This yellow and red monstrosity only lasted 11 issues before being replaced with the all red version we know and love today...
... writes Robert Berry over at retrocrush.com - a site dedicated to all (well, a lot) things retro. The picture above is taken from the section "The Worst Superhero Costumes Of All Time!". Among others, there's sections about movies, comic books, interviews... retrocrush. The name says it all.

Dear Diary...

... what a drag! They put me in this second hand Khaki, I had to grow a mustache and the mosquitos don't care that I'm a clinking actor. The director is drunk from dusk till dawn, the river Kwai actually is called Mekhong, and aircon hasn't been invented in this part of the world. As hasn't Corned Beef. Instead it's swamp cabbage, day in day out. Somehow I sense people are going to make fun of me one day... oh well.

Brain Teaser.

You are an expert on paranormal activity and have been hired to locate a spirit haunting an old resort hotel. Strong signs indicate that the spirit lies behind one of four doors. The inscriptions on each door read as follows:

Door A: It's behind B or C
Door B: It's behind A or D
Door C: It's in here
Door D: It's not in here

Your psychic powers have told you three of the inscriptions are false, and one is true. Behind which door will you find the spirit?

You'll find the answer here...

Nice Meat, You...

... found at engrish.com.

My Spine (Is The Bass Line)

No guts, no blood, no brains at all! (repeat 4x)

My spine is the bassline
And the top line could be broken glass
All amusing views of those better men
Dirty habits hand on the purse's string

Quiet fear of the passing time
Gently magnify the dividing line
All this history could be blown away on a breath of lust

Trajectory, synchronicity,
How the choice is made with a fresh resolve
Jamming tight up to the barrier
Down a string of nerves, so these feelings go

My spine is the bassline
And the top line is the distant past
All that history, all those books have gone
They've been blown away on a breath of lust

No guts, no blood, no brains at all! (repeat 4x)

He can rip it out the chassis and gearbox
Could replace it with a neck and a chest
He can feel it in the back in the ribcage
He can kick it 'til it gets in the sense
He's been reading about dying in public
He's been tensing up his arms and his legs
He can have you home in a heap in a heartbeat
He'll go messing with the civil defense
There's no joy in the squander of resource
There's more passion in the pump of a plug
He can leave you at the club with the cashbox
He can push you at the pressure above

(repeat and fade)

Shriekback is a band formed in 1982 by Barry Andrews, formerly of XTC and League of Gentlemen (keyboards/synthesizers/vocals), Carl Marsh (guitars/vocals), and Dave Allen, formerly of the Gang of Four (bass). They were joined by Martyn Barker on drums in 1983. Popular for their exploration of the darker, funkier side of music, usually featuring Dave Allen's driving basslines, they self-described as an "avant-garde musical outfit". They were popular among a limited audience, both for their poetic, often intellectual lyrics, and for their dance-worthy music that couldn't be categorized easily. They were no 'rock band' as many sources claim - that wouldn't do them justice. They had (and still have) to be seen in context with bands like (late) Talking Heads, (early) Human League, Cabaret Voltaire and the likes, but formed their own niche of hard and dark electronic funk building up on the remains of New Wave. 1985, with the release of Oil And Gold, Carl Marsh left the band to join Happyhead, and one year later Dave Allen left (after Big Night Music) to play in King Swamp, The Elastic Purejoy, and most recently in the reformed Gang of Four. Both Allen and Marsh did return to the studio to contribute to the recording of Shriekback's 2003 release, Having a Moment. Why do I tell you all this? One of the milestone tracks of that time - My Spine (Is The Bass Line) - found its way back on my stereo, and I was wondering what had happened to them. Besides, I was searching for the lyrics to that song as the intro line had somehow survived the decay of my grey cells... As I couldn't find them (hidden in some cached archives) I thought to put them here, as Shriekback certainly deserve to be remembered. There you are!

Keep Movin', Keep Movin'!

... at no extra charge.

Monday Monday

Another post in the Room With A View series. The advantage of being up early - capturing spectacular sunrises. Well, trying at least. Reality always is much more spectacular - that's because camera lenses are shit compared to the human eye. Or a decent Kukul Mas. Have a nice one, you lot, you!

Baby It's Cold Outside.

... that song, made famous by Johnny Mercer and Margaret Whiting (and maybe Louis Armstrong) must have been composed on a night like this. Now who turned the heating down?

(click the above picture to be taken to a blog page with loads of nice pictures of Hamburg!)

Let It Snow...

Awesome! We haven't had as much snow in the last five years combined. Although a little late, I appreciate the effort, Pete! The city looks so much friendlier. Forecasts say we gonna have frost through the whole next week. We'll see...

Inside Looking Out.

These days (while it's snowing heavily outside) I'm wading through piles of old records, simply because I'm quite bored with what's happening in the music business today. And yesterday, too. And as it looks, tomorrow all the same. And I'm not talking about commercial mainstream here, mind you... question: when did the CD format appear? Anybody? In 1982, Sony and Philips both had products ready to go. In the fall of the same year, CD technology is introduced in Europe, then in the US in the spring of '83. That year, 30,000 players were sold in the US as well as 300,000 CDs. However, the development took quite some time: in 1970, Philips introduced a glass disc prototype to be read by a laser, and while professionals utilized tape based PCM recording in broadcast and recording, a Digital Audio Disc Convention was held in Tokyo in 1978 where standards were defined as well as specifications agreed upon - amongst others the maximum playing time was decided to be slightly more than 74 minutes. And that's the biggest change: while average playing time of vinyl records was about 20 minutes per side (unless you decided to reduce volume level and thereby degrading fidelity), and five, six, even seven minute songs weren't that unusual, the average record (containing 'progressive' music) sported six to eight tracks or forty minutes of playback. And because after twenty minutes you had to flip sides, the whole perception was different. Often, the first track on side B would be killer. There was the usual single / strong track on side A that was intended to demand air play, so after turning the record over you had to hear another strong track right away to perceive that record as a 'good' one. So if you had an album with six tracks, and four of them are somewhat outstanding, that made a killer LP (of course...). On today's CDs, you easily find twelve tracks or more. Now if four of these twelve were good, that would still be less than one third (unless these four were also the longest tracks). That would be one explanation of why we seem to have so many mediocre records today - but they could still provide as many strong tracks as those killer albums back in the old days. The reason this isn't the case is that a) there's a lot of designer bands out there today. Forget about personalities, exploring new terrain, forming an entity - it's simple marketing decisions. No experiments, so you get the same song in different disguises with the occasional ballad thrown in. b) It's so much harder to fill a CD with decent stuff just because there's so much space, so the artist(s) might get lost in their decisions on which songs to pick. They have to produce more tracks to chose from in the first place, so that's another diluting factor... Less is more? Definitely the case here. Why am I telling you this? I don't know - it just occurred to me while listening to the old vinyls, all (well, some) of those memories came back and I was just wondering... when did I have such a strong feeling with a new CD these days? And what's wrong with today's radio playing all that designer stuff? But that's just a different post... one last thing - which is totally random, but anyway. Among those treasures I'm listening through, there's Nick Mason's Ficticious Sports, an exceptional record by Nick Mason (yes, that Nick Mason) together with Robert Wyatt and the Carla Bley Band. With excellent reviews and a spectacular line-up it is said to have missed the Top 150 album charts. A lot of Floyd fans hated this when it came out (I read). Hm. They don't know shit. Amazing side note: the used CD goes for $99 US on Amazon. Highly recommended - if priced reasonably...

No Title As Of Yet.

I was doing the usual things people do on a Thursday night, you know - listening to music from the stoneage, designing 3-D knobs to be used on the GUI of an MS-20 emulation, picking my nose... when I stumbled across a couple of sites dealing with places... abandoned places. Just as I was about to ignore them, it appeared to me I was not the Man Who Fell to Earth (according to my therapist). And those distant memories of being a child actually weren't programmed in by the Borg but are real memories (again, according to my therapist). And among those memories I found a strange attraction towards... abandoned buildings. Or pictures thereof. So for the few humans out there reading this blog that share this preference (or that just feel a bit bored right now...) here's some places to go see. First, there's infiltration.org. Spooky name. Spooky pikshaz. Next stop, abandoned memories. Pure loneliness... And all of a sudden, it's like four hours later and I really have to go sleep. I get carried away way too easily.

Greetings. Earthlings!

Evening, dudes and dudettes! Here's some greetings in the form of..., er, the above :o). H.A.N.D.? Have A Nice Day! And yes - did that one moy cellf.

Marching Band.

March. 1st. Last month of this year's first quarter. I mean - wasn't it NYE just... like the day before yesterday? Okay, my sense of time hasn't improved very much, and that might be linked to the fact that I'm turning 100 next... something. Anyway, as I haven't gotten around to posting that much last month, I said to myself "Bunka..." - I'm not calling myself Bunka in private, you know, but let's just leave it that way for now... "Bunka, it's March already. What does that tell us?" To be honest, that triggered a discussion about what I meant by "us", as to whether I was implying I'm multiple personalities. Which molded into an argument between all participants and isn't much of your business. So, where wozzeye? March. Ah ja. March Ides, pt I & II (Matching Mole - not Marching Mole...). March de la Winni (The Residents). Oh - When The Saints Go Marching In (various). Oddest name so far: Fear Before The March Of Flames. Say what?? Their song titles are equally strange, to say the least: Sarah Goldfarb, Where Are Your Manners? March Of The Pigs (NIN). March (wife of Homer Simpson). You see, the month of March is so important that Hollywood and the RIAA have been paying tribute since the last five hundred years (and continue to do so, it seems). Unfortunately, I didn't realize that there's not much room to play around with the word March, or march even, until it was too late. Now what am I going to do with this crab? Blaskapelle!