As a former bit part actor, I have the utmost sympathy for those for whom an on-the-job mistake mean public humiliation, albeit temporary. However, I’ll not deny that I enjoy the guilty delights that Schadenfreude offers. Russell Davies recently pointed out an excellent post on the blog of Alex Ross, the music critic of the New York Times. It highlights a great page full of trumpet fluffs, the Infamous Portsmouth Symphonia and an organist playing Handel’s Messiah who just has to be heard to be believed. Enjoy, guiltily or otherwise.
Lost your keys, guys?
December 10th, 2006A BREED LEGS THEN HOOT (3,4,5,6)
December 9th, 2006
Geo. Washington saluting the bravery of Sean Bonner
An American acquaintance of mine, Sean Bonner, appears to be taking a great deal for taking a brave stand. Sean, a media commentator and art wrangler of no small regard, has been trying to bring the long-raging ‘The Long Horse Debate‘ and subsequent concerns around equine provenance to the attention of the wider public. Castigated by some, dismissed by others, there can be no doubt as to the robust nature of his constitution and the strength of his conviction. I’ll leave you to draw your own conclusions.
Snow Patrol to play our backyard
December 9th, 2006
In what will be their debut New Zealand gig, indie-darlings turned mainstream stadium-fillers Snow Patrol, surfing the success of their Eyes Open album down under, will play Auckland in February next year. Tickets went on sale here in NZ earlier today and, given their rapid sell outs in Oz, I scooped a pair up before they disappeared. The gig is good news on several levels in this house.Firstly, the concert is a few weeks after my birthday so it’ll a nice treat to banish the post-birthday blues. This inevitable melancholia will undoubtedly be further compounded by the fact that, between now and then, we will have hosted by two lots of relatives and a friend and her daughter and I’ll be ready for a rare night out.Secondly, the venue is the Trust Stadium, which is just a 15 minute drive from our house. This will mean a quick drive to the neighbouring shopping area to park up, and grab a bite to eat before a leisurely walk to the stadium. After the gig, a leisurely walk back passed the post-gig jams to the car and a 15 minute drive home.
However, the last reason is the best. Over the last year or so, the younger of my teenagers has moved from the mainstream poppy preoccupations of the average pre-teen towards more rock and indie, fuelled by the more edgy, bleep-worthy of Auckland’s FM stations. On the quiet, and while her mother rails against the DJ’s language and the playlists’ lyrics, this has pleased me no end for it is nice to have at least one musical ally in the house. As Snow Patrol’s output to date resides not only on my iPod but now on hers too, it is fitting that it was she who told me about the gig. It only seems right
that she is the one who gets the other ticket and goes to her first ever gig.
I can’t remember who I saw at my first gig but I can recall the anticipation, buzz and excitement that preceded going to a concert as a teenager and I saw it all in her face when I called her over to look at the email confirmation on my iBook. More than that, I am shamelessly flattered that she’d even be seen at a gig with her Dad. I suspect that the thought hasn’t crossed her mind yet and I’ll be having to swear that I won’t dance or sing along when the time arrives.
Technorati Tags: snow patrol, music, ipod, itunes
Surf those Flickr Tags
December 7th, 2006
Airtight Interactive have come up with a nice spin on browsing Flikr. Enter a search term and it their Flickr Related Tag Browser will return a Zeitgeist-like compilation of images to the centre of your screen that are tagged with that term. These will be surrounded by related links which, according to AI, are “…a list of ‘related’ tags, based on clustered usage analysis.” All this allows the viewer to go on a remote ‘stream of consciousness’ type wander through Flickr, with the option to click-through to the site if an image takes your fancy.
Taped
December 6th, 2006
Metroblogging Auckland
December 6th, 2006I blog here. I blog at No.8 Wire. And now I’ve rejoined the Metroblogging network.
Those with long memories will recall that in 2004 I helped launch and headed up the London Metroblogging effort, the first non-US city to join the network. After a couple of years away and a move to the other side of the world, I recently managed to talk Sean Bonner into letting me have a second bite of the cherry.
For now, I am running Metroblogging Auckland as a one-man-show but am on the lookout for local bloggers to join the team, so if you or someone you know are interested, drop me a line via the Auckland site.
The iPhone – myth or Motorola?
December 5th, 2006Today’s The Joy of Tech – a nice tease for the Mac devotees out there and who’s to say they’re not right? Surfing to www.iphone.org, a domain registered to Apple in Cupertino, takes you to Apple’s main web page.
There again, they would do that, wouldn’t they?
A little housekeeping
November 26th, 2006Please bear with me while I freshen the blog up a little.
Robert Altman
November 22nd, 2006
Strange to relate, last night we watched Gosford Park and today we learn of Robert Altman’s death. From the impact of M*A*S*H‘s mirror on the Vietnam conflict and the knowing movie industry inside jokes of The Player to this year’s film interpretation of the US public radio series A Prairie Home Companion (the wonderful work of one of my favourite broadcasters and authors Garrison Keillor), Altman was never a Hollywood favourite but he was hard to ignore.
Ron Mueck at The Brooklyn Museum
November 21st, 2006
Even viewed on the web, the installations of Ron Mueck are startling and hard to process; so they must be stunning in the flesh.