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Saturday, February 08, 2003 |
Instant Live CDs of a Concert? Testing to Begin in Boston
"Experiments are rife in the music business these days -- and Boston will be a test market for one of the most novel of them. Clear Channel Concerts, the nation's largest concert promoter, has ambitious plans to record live CDs of its shows and sell them to patrons within five minutes after those shows end. Clear Channel is targeting Boston as the first site for the new plan, according to sources within the organization.... [The Shifted Librarian]
This is just a no brainer. Dylan could make so much money by selling live CDs. It would be just great if they had, at the concession stand, a CD of last night's show. Or even just doing, say, one show a week to CD would cut way down on bootlegging, and make some money. It seems like tons of people go to shows and then want copies of them afterwards. The artist might as well be getting this money as anyone, especially Clear Channel. I can't imagine it would take that much overhead to do it, either.
9:42:56 PM Permalink
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Bob Frankston: Spam Fixation. The solution is not to blame the spammers, the solution is to take charge of our availability and gain control over our availability. We can start by recognizing that we are victims of bad tools and a lack of understanding more than we are victims of spammers. [Tomalak's Realm] [Scott Mace's Radio Weblog]
One of the smartest things I've read about Spam.
9:29:06 PM Permalink
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Merce Cunningham
Last night I saw a pretty remarkable performance by the Merce Cunningham Dance Company at Cal Performances at Zellerbach Hall at UC Berkeley. The company is celebrating its 50th anniversary:
Merce Cunningham and his extraordinary company return with two special programs celebrating their 50th anniversary. The program includes a representative sampling of his work over the decades and the U.S. premiere of Fluid Canvas, "the culmination of a lifetime's fascination with movement… all [Cunningham's] imagination and intelligence has been distilled into 25 luxurious minutes of immaculate, gripping choreography" (The Times, London). In addition, the Kronos Quartet will join the troupe on Friday evening for a special MinEvent, set to John Cage's 30 pieces for String Quartet in tribute to Cunningham's long and productive partnership with the great 20th-century composer.
Program A: (Fri): Suite for Five, music by John Cage; MinEvent (with Kronos Quartet), music by John Cage; Fluid Canvas, music by John King.
Program B: (Sat): Pictures, music by David Behrman; Fluid Canvas; How to Pass, Kick, Fall and Run, music by John Cage.
It was pretty interesting stuff, even though I don't know a lot about dance and its history. My pal Gary said at the end that he liked Suite for Five the best, and I think I did too, though the new Fluid Canvas was probably the most dynamic of the three. The first two had really interesting music by John Cage. I was especially taken with Thirty Pieces for String Quartet. Cage called it "earthquake proof," and from the nature of it, it seems like on every hearing it would be different. I deserves another focused listening; it was a treat seeing the Kronos Quartet playing the composition, separated around the auditorium.
It was stirring to see Cunninham himself step onto the stage to take a bow at the end. Wearng denims and supporting himself with a cane, it's always nice to see, even briefly, a living legend. (In sort of related aside, I saw on TV tonight some of a Cal-Oregon basketball game. Seeing the gym, I remembered seeing Rashan Roland Kirk in that gym in 1977.)
9:15:56 PM Permalink
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Sign me up
Mother Jones has a terrific interview with John Perry Barlow, mostly talking about what a disaster this administration is. And this is a man from Wyoming, who calls Dick Cheney "friend." He discussed the counterculture that he feels he's a part of. Sign me up:
I think the counterculture believes that there are ways to manage being the world's most powerful country that involve creation of consensus -- ruling by virtuous example rather than by force of arms. Managing the world that has fallen to us to manage in a way that it has some morality. I think that that counterculture is very concerned about the completely unchecked ability of multinational corporations to roam the planet and serve their hungers without any meaningful regulation now. That counterculture probably agrees that mass media are bad for you, particularly television. I suppose drugs are an element. And it appreciates irony -- as opposed to the administration, which clearly has an irony deficiency.
Alas, the problem with this definition is that it's negative. It says what the counterculture is against, but not what it's for. I guess that's where the "counter" in counterculture comes from, come to think of it.
Then he says something curious:
Actually I'm discouraged with the role of the Internet in the antiwar movement. Because so far what I see happening is that cyberspace is a great place for everybody to declaim. There are a million virtual streetcorners with a million lonely pamphleteers on them, all of them decrying the war and not actually coming together in any organized fashion to oppose it. It strikes me that existing political institutions -- whether it's the administration or Congress or large corporations -- only respond to other institutions. I don't care how many individuals you have marching in the streets, they're not going to pay attention until there's a leader for those individuals who can come forward and say I represent the organization of those individuals and we're going to amass the necessary money and votes to kick you the hell out of office. Then they pay attention. But not until. And so right at the moment it would strike me that the Internet is counterproductive to peace.
He's right. Most weblogs, and I speak for myself here, have few readers, and it's hard to see how the conversations tie together.
MJ: Is it true you used to be a Republican?
JPB: Yeah, actually, until embarrassingly recently. There is, in small numbers these days, though it used to be larger, a libertarian wing of Republicanism that fit my political beliefs pretty succinctly. But that was before George Bush II and the Christian fascists took over.
9:00:42 PM Permalink
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A Blight on our Nation
In this morning's San Francisco Chronicle, Nancy Eichler sums it up nicely:
Editor -- Regarding Friday's editorial, "Broken promises," consider the following as well: Since President Bush has been in office, our country's economic surplus has been squandered, important treaties have been abrogated, allies have been dismissed as irrelevant and we face serious deficits which will be a terrible and long-term burden. The Bush economic recovery/stimulus plan will not assist those citizens who are most in need nor will it decrease the 5.7 percent unemployment rate, and it most certainly will not benefit the nation.
Bush has made a mockery of our democracy, foreign relations, protection of the environment, the needy, judicial fairness, corporate reform and accountability, the economy, etc.
This is an abbreviated list of how Bush has, in only two years, created a blight on our nation and I cannot think of anything he has done that can be remotely considered a betterment for mankind. He is, rather, a force of destruction.
I saw something the other day, also in the Chron, in a piece about a local right wing loudmouth, saying that Bush had "restored dignity to the office." I guess if all that's important to you is that the guy doesn't get illicit blowjobs, then Dubya meets your standards (so far as we know). But it's hard to think of any other way in which this guy has been anything but an abbomination in office. My kids and their kids in turn are going to be paying for this in more ways that just monetarily.
8:48:55 PM Permalink
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Benford on the future of the space program
Gregory Benford is one of my favorite science fiction writers; and in my two brief encounters, a very gracious person. His writing contains both superb speculative fiction, and often contains high literary value as well. Here's a good piece on Columbia and the future of the space program:
The past Director of NASA said to me a few years ago that he thought the agency had about a decade to prove itself. Around 2010 the Baby Boomers will start to retire and the Federal budget will come under greater pressure. Space could go into a slow, agonizing withering. He thought this was a distinct possibility if NASA did no more than fly around in cycles over our heads. "It has to go somewhere else," he said.
The obvious target that has huge scientific possibility is Mars. Did life arise there, and does it persist beneath the bleak surface? No robot remotely within our capability can descend down a thermal vent or drill and find an answer. Only humans are qualified to do the science necessary, on the spot.
A Mars expedition would be the grandest exploit open to the 21st century. It would take about 2.5 years, every day closely monitored by a huge Earthside audience and fraught with peril.
This is what we should be doing. Such an adventure would resonate with a world beset by wars and woes. It has a grandeur appropriate to the advanced nations, who should do it together.
The first step will be getting away from the poor, clunky shuttle, a beast designed 30 years ago and visibly failing now. How we respond to the challenge of this failure will tell the tale for decades to come, and may become a marking metaphor for the entire century.
This is a great idea. Our current president's daddy actually proposed a trip to Mars years ago, but like most interesting proposals from the current guy, it was more designed to meet the PR needs of the moment than a serious proposal. I know this boy doesn't have the vision to handle it, but I wish someone would do it. Maybe the Chinese?
For the long term, and I mean more than probably about 50 to 100 years from now, we need a space elevator. An elevator to geosynchronous orbit would be a great way to get into space. It's clear that if we survive and are to be a space-going rae, we'll build these, as Arthur Clarke suggested, in several places around the world. But the chances of getting backing for that now are nill: materials aren't ready (though the research to develop them would have fantastic payback), and imagine the terror of a 23,000 mile-long elevtor falling on the earth!
7:26:28 PM Permalink
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Nostradamus rears his ugly head again...
Here's the latest Quasimodo (oops, I mean Nostradamus) prediction:
In the mission of the first blue star,
a child of the holy land among the seven shall perish,
as the ship descends heavens sky,
the lone star bescattered with wreckage.
Of course, it's as bogus as these things usually are, fodder for the lamebrains among us. This is the first, and I guess I've been lucky, and so far only case I've seen of the wacky coming out about Columbia. I'm scared to look, but I bet the nutcase newsgroups are already filled with UFO and religious connections to this.
2:01:23 PM Permalink
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© Copyright 2004 Steve Michel.
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