Category: Uncategorized

Curmudgeon mode: on.

Lunch. Listening to the first movement of Mahler’s Symphony #1. (BTW, it’s available for a liten at the Beeb. Just poke around a while in the “radio” files. Most of ’em are real Audio–which I despise–but play well with the OLD windows Media player. heh)

Anyway, listening (and recording–why not?) it struck me that I’m also listening in my head to a Leinsdorf-directed version. I do that. I hear what is happening (recording or live) but what I really hear is what’s in my head. The Beeb’s symphony is good. Well worth a listen. I happen to live with Leinsdorf’s version in my head more.

And that’s really how I listen to music: with one’s memory and mental “ears” tuning, comparing, editing in and out of the performance to hear the best. From what I can tell, most folks don’t really listen to music. Oh, they hear what’s going on, sorta. The beat affects them and some of the other sounds–maybe lyrics or whatever. But, if recording sales are any indication, what sells is stuff people can’t really be listening to. If they listened to it carefully (and had ears to hear and tonal, rhythmic and linguistic development to understand what they were hearing), most top 40 “artists” would be living on skid row.

Seriously.

go to my blogroll and CLICK on Keep the Coffee Coming. (Or, what the heck, just CLICK on the link in the previous sentence. heh). Listen to some of the music she blogs. Compare and contrast the artistry of most of the folks she posts to the crap manufactured for top 40 rcordings. There’s (usually, for almost all the songs Kat posts) a qualitative difference in prosody, melodic composition, instrumental artistry and the simple ability to reproduce pitch accurately of the music Kat posts as against the crap being churned out for big CD sales/radio play nowadays.

The problem is that all too many consumers have crap for ears. And what’s between their ears is so degraded (in ability to understand what the music they listen to is) that they don’t even know it.

Sad, really. Because better music would also help those who listen to it be more able to handle abstract thought. (ClICK HERE for just one of many lists of articles about the benefits of good music on thinking and learning) Hmmm… could it be that that is the key to Red State intelligence? Despite the crap lyrics and even crappier vowell and consonant production of so-called “country” singers, they at least still produce music that has (usually) a good sense of tonality, decent prosody, more logical structures and better-quality harmonies than other crap. Higher quality crap music=higher quality crap thinking? maybe…

Curmudgeon mode: staying on…

Just stopping in briefly.

Yeh, another reason to insist on assimilation: Stopped to make some lunch. Had to turn the twist-tie on a new package of corn tortillas backwards to open it.

I blame some wetback working for slave labor wages in the tortilla factory who’s not learned that quitessentially American lesson: Righty-tighty; Lefty-loosey.

*sigh*

It’s evil and it’s ugly… but I want one!

CLICK HERE (1MB download) to play the mpeg.

h.t. Noahware

For Guard The Borders today, I’m going to lean heavily on Daffyd ap Hugh…

In fact, if you want, you can simply skip this post entirely and go directly to this post on Big Lizards, page down until you get to his immigration comments and just read. As an intro to ap Hugh’s commentary, let me just say that while he endorses a “fence” or “wall” approach to guarding our borders, he has some interesting—no, important—things to say about gates, too.

A brief sample:

…America needs a constant influx of new blood, new ways of thinking, and new cultures… so long as the immigrants themselves are forced to assimilate. This is a point that Dennis Prager stressed with a great deal of vim (and volume). In a very literal sense, America was built by immigrants, but immigrants who had every intention of becoming Americans — not living as Poles, Russians, Chinese, or Mexicans in exile.

Our schools should indoct[r]inate both the children of immigrants and the native born in what it means to be an American — and why the immigrants left their home countries in the first place. Our civic, cultural, and religious institutions should echo, not fight this message. And the government should not merely encourage but require assimilation as a necessary condition to continued guest-worker privileges…

Just go there. A Feast of Talk, and the Law of Barriers

Guard the Borders… but make a way for those law-abiding citizens of other lands to become Americans, not just invade and set up their own ghettos.

(Hmmm… seems like we need to look at “allowing” some in academia, among the Mass Media Podpeople and others to learn how to become Americans, too… )

Guard the Borders Blogburst features posts every Monday on border security, immigration and related issues.

Linked at Cao’s Blog–open trackback Wednesday, TMH’s Bacon Bits’ Bacon Break and Stop the ACLU’s Open Trackback Party

N.B.: edited some typos and added the links to Cao, TMH and Stop the ACLU.

For you coffee lovers out there (and I certainly hope you all render prayers of gratitude daily—if not hourly, minute-by-minute!—for the Holy Brew (see also here for a link to a “chorale” version of The Coffee Anthem), THIS from the photoartistic eye of Rick Lee:

Coffee at Lord & Taylor’s

Oh. Yum.

h.t. What my friends have to say…

No, not the game. I mean something that is truly trivial to pursue.

I had another one of those “When/how did you start blogging” emails last night and it spurred me to check my stats/TTLB ranking. Trivial pursuit. Let’s see… from the time I checked the same the say before (then the *CRASH!* day of) my first “blogiversary” I have something like sixty fewer links noted by TTLB Blogosphere Ecosystem. And I’m ranked about 400 places higher.

Since I’ve lost my dreadlock wig and chicken bone rattles, these sorts of voodoo phenomena have stumped me.

And, naturally, because I don’t show the sitemeter stats on my front page, my “visitors” stats are stuck at late March 2005.

But who cares? It’s a truly trivial pursuit, anyway. The real goal is distracting all the voices in my head.  Heh

Just now trying out Opera version 9 Preview. Yeh, it’s a beta version, not yet ready for prime time. or is it? So far, really, really snappy load times, great display of web pages—even faster a better in those categories than Opera 8.5, which has greeatly ourperformed both Firefox and Internet Exploder on my machines.

Nice.

Importing and setting up new wallpapers, skins has improved, too. Lotsa other neat new features, I’m still digging around in.

Fun.

Back to it. Yeh, I know: a tough job, but somebody’s gotta do it…

heh

Going strong on three legs. One kinda petered out when the tagee forgot to play the whole game, and one is AWOL, About par.

OTOH, The MaryHunter, Cao and Romeocat have all tagged some real live wires!

I’ll work this week on a post harvesting all the posts I can find (those who play the “ACLU: Here’s Your Sign” meme pool game to a “T” are easiest to find; those who don’t will be hit and miss) and making a lil linkfest outa it as a resource in developing real-world memes to combat the enemies of America that call themselves the ACLU.

Meanwhile, here’s one standout blogger who’s really taken the bit between his teeth and bids well to run away with a first place showing if Stop the ACLU decides to hold a linkfest/vote on the best sign (I need to talk to John/Jay about that, I guess… ). Here are two of the examples of fine signage iHillary has contributed. Check the blog for more, cos there’s more great info (and another sign) there, and I have a feeling more to come…

iHillary, sign #1: ACLU Jihadist Donkey

iHillary, sign #2: Deconstructing America (Ya just have to love the backhand reference to post modernism.)

Edited post to include links to the original meme post, for reference.

Linked at Stop the ACLU

What’s with that?

Can someone explain to me why women think “pink” is a color, not a vicious assault on the eyes? I mean, really, whatever devil’s brew of pigments Satan’s minions use to come up with it, pink is never more than a pallid, weak,  sickly red. Like red? Fine. Use RED. This abortion called “pink” is disgusting.

I think maybe so many women think this ugly so-called color is appealing is because of early patterning stemming from abusive parenting. I mean, folks, what else can you call it when parents inflict “pink” on girl babies—pink clothes, toys, rooms for heaven’s sake?!?!

*sigh*

Oh. Well. At least I have sunglasses. (Although with some so-called “pinks” a blindfold would be more useful.)

Coda: BTW, you heard that Barbie and Ken split up, didn’t you? Yeh, The real story is that Ken had spent so many years being brainwashed by Barbie pink that he finally ran off with Blaine. (Yeh, Blaine was only dating Barbie to get to Ken, anyway.)

Nah, there’s no good reason. I’m just doing this cos I can.

Watching some excessively violent choreography on one computer featuring the dance interpretations of Jet Li. heh

Updating an old Win98 comp.

Blogging this entry on another.

Just cos I can, that’s all.