The Flatpack Revolution ®
6pm, 8th May 2008 - paula
A handful of people begin to arrive. Nerves are high and the air is thick. Temperatures rise as the pristine white rooms become busy with curious art viewers. I squeeze out a smile and look forward to the end of this awkward formality that is - ‘the exhibition opening’. Many stand and stare, others dare not look closely for fear of their reaction - or lack there of. Red wine flows, faces flush, temperature rises. Conversations turn to concept, technique and visuals, with a pinch of name dropping thrown in for good measure. My sister arrives, a sense of calm. She views my work, her instant reaction is straight and abrupt. “Oh, I get it - so this ones all about talking shit - am I right?” Thanks Grace - although far from the original concept…I love your take on it! 
My hell saturday re price shocker - paula
Morris, you sly old dog - emmet
It’s not that big record companies didn’t want to create innovative, useful services that customers would actually like to use. It’s just that they never knew how. Read Wired’s profile of Universal CEO Doug Morris from a while back and you’ll see:
Morris insists there wasn’t a thing he or anyone else could have done differently. “There’s no one in the record company that’s a technologist,” Morris explains. “That’s a misconception writers make all the time, that the record industry missed this. They didn’t. They just didn’t know what to do. It’s like if you were suddenly asked to operate on your dog to remove his kidney. What would you do?”
Personally, I would hire a vet. But to Morris, even that wasn’t an option. “We didn’t know who to hire,” he says, becoming more agitated. “I wouldn’t be able to recognize a good technology person — anyone with a good bullshit story would have gotten past me.” Morris’ almost willful cluelessness is telling. “He wasn’t prepared for a business that was going to be so totally disrupted by technology,” says a longtime industry insider who has worked with Morris. “He just doesn’t have that kind of mind.”
You crazy kids, with your iPods and computers and skateboards!
Well, maybe not. I asked a friend who knows about this type of thing and apparently some people are less than convinced. From an industry mailing list discussion of the article:
My feedback is that it is a bunch of revisionist history bunk designed to sidestep blame for a failed strategy over the last decade. To the question of why they didnt mandate one format Morris responds, ‘It never crossed anyone’s mind!’ What a preposterous notion. A2B would have loved the industry’s support for their format. You dont think Liquid wanted the industry’s support for their format?
Morris adds that they gave Apple a license because ‘we were just grateful that someone was selling online.’ Dick must have slept through the meetings with eMusic, MP3.com, A2B, Liquid, Real Networks, and dozens (if not hundreds) of others who all asked to sell UMG music.
Lets be clear here. Over the last decade the labels have embarked on a very calculated strategy with much thought and deliberation. They decided to liberally use the courts to sue companies. Everyone always brings up Napster as an example but there were plenty of people that were not anarchists like MP3.com that ended up in court.
Until I read that, I hadn’t questioned what Morris says in the Wired article at all, and even found the admission of incompetence kind of refreshing. It’s tempting to believe that music executives are simply the floundering dinosaurs that Morris is evidently happy to portray them to be. After all, it fits quite nicely with that same view of the music industry that the anti-RIAA set are fond of sending up.
Meanwhile, Universal are totally looking into getting an intern or someone to build them a new website soon. Just keep buying CDs until then, ok?
Cause and effect - emmet
If you’re unfamiliar with Auto-tune, and especially if you listen to much pop and rock, you might not hear it initially. When overdone, the effect yields an unnatural yodel or warble in a singer’s voice. But the sound is so commonplace in modern mainstream music that your ears may have tuned out the auto-tune!
How ‘American Idol’ Uses (and Abuses) Melisma
Often, there isn’t any musical justification of what they are doing. [Their runs] interfere with the flow of the melody, of the lyric, of the harmonies, sometimes of the rhythm itself. It’s frequently a very vulgar and ugly display. [That’s] the style of American Idol singers, most of whom are amateurs. [They] are simply mimicking the devices of the style’s most famous practitioners — singers like Mariah Carey, who indulge in runs.
Irish life imitates Father Ted. Again. - emmet
“Perhaps it could be enough for you to fail a drink-driving test,” the Rev. Brian D’Arcy, a priest from Enniskillen, told the Irish Times. “I don’t like to use the word wine, as it is Christ’s blood in the Eucharist — but it still has all the characteristics of wine when in the blood stream.”…
“I would often have three Masses to say in one day and while I had not thought about the impact of driving with the wine, it is probably now a factor that needs to be seriously considered,” the Rev. Stephen Farragher, a priest in Tuam, told the paper.
…
“If a call comes in that somebody is nearing death, I have no choice but to drive to where that person is and give him or her the last rites,” one priest told the Irish Independent.
Proposal Could Tip Irish Priests Over Legal Limit - Der Spiegel
Spectral - emmet
Visual miscellanea - emmet
There have not been many words here lately. No point in rocking the boat.
Mr. Culbreth, I presume? - emmet
Some people seems to hate receiving unsolicited — aka spam — email. I’ll bet those very same people would be unable to tell me where else I could get the chance to correspond with such people as:
- Dolores Boggs
- Yalena Darlington
- Elsie Huffman
- Norris Cummings
- Rocco Pen
- Zelma Gates
- Erwin Hearn
- Moon Lanier
- Julio Crookes
- Dwayne Jorgensen
- Randa Mcfarland
- Beulah Crocker
- Felix Roth
- Arnoldo Culbreth
- Clint Linea
- Sallie Helms
- Vito Sellar
- Inquirer T. Insect
- Whitney Hoskins
- Flooding L. Coachman
To name but a few.
My little neighbour is an artist - paula
My little neighbour has abandoned her umbrella and found a new hobby. She arrived over to distract me during my art making process. She observed and began to make her own creation on the window. I was impressed.
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