loxosceles

Best music video I've seen in a long time. Simple, fun to watch, story makes sense, tiny ballerinas, cute guys. Now was that so hard?

Here are some other songs I have enjoyed lately:

Stephen Stephen by the guy from Apples in Stereo - love the song as well as the visuals

Waking up in the City by the Ditty Bops. Terrible bootleg video, great song. Fun fact: these two got married in California during that brief sunny time before Prop 8 passed.

Best song that I couldn't find a video for: I Love Math's Run Back Inside (link only available temporarily - then you'll have to get your own)

That's me and Chris singing.

Youtube link

          C                 Am
Well I've heard there was a secret chord,
     C                   Am
That David played and it pleased the Lord,
    F                         G      C       G
But you don't really care for music, do ya?
   C                   F        G
It goes like this, the 4th, the 5th,
    Am                 F
The minor fall and the major lift,
    G               E7          Am
The baffled king composing hallelujah,
     F           Am          F           C   G   C
Hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelu------jah

FitMusic has free downloadable workout music designed for particular BPM ranges. Another site that sells similar mixes has a chart of BPM and running speed. I don't know there's anything to those numbers, but it's worth a try on my next run.

I haven't made a habit of running with music, but I did listen to most of The Areas of My Expertise on last weekend's long run. Here is the device I use - the Sansa Clip. It's the size of a Shuffle, plus it has a nice display, can receive FM radio, and has a built-in mic to do voice recordings (with, amazingly, no background noise). And only $39 at Target for the 1GB model! Highly recommended.

Some more running music:
Jog Tunes Indie

I sprained my butt doing the Charleston.

It's embarrassing, AND true, AND I was doing the coolest awesomest move!

Imagine your stereotypical movie flapper, a girl from the 1920s with bobbed hair, a fringey dress, and a long string of fake pearls. She's dancing, twirling her necklace. And how is she dancing? It looks sort of like she's taking a step or two forward, a step or two back, while bouncing and twisting on her toes.

So there are all these cool variations you can do. Chris and I are taking a charleston class, and we learned some spiffy moves, like one where you spin in a circle as you're doing it, or where you kick your leg out on the forward step, or where you bend and touch the ground during the backward step. (Then I learned a bunch more moves at this weekend's Stompology workshop).

Another dancer told of a near-miss where he was bending to touch the ground at the same time as his partner decided to do a big kick. He was glad he didn't get kicked in the head, but Chris and I immediately thought how AWESOME it would look if we coordinated it (That's our reaction to aerials too: "We could get hurt? Hot dog, let's try it!"). So he bent down and I made a big circular kick around his head. Woohoo! Yeah! That was great! Then we decided to alternate, where he'd duck while I kicked, then I would duck while he kicked. Our friends told us it looked really amazing - just before I bent over a little too much and OW pulled a muscle in my butt.

I'm sitting on an ice pack now. I would find this blog post humiliating if it weren't so funny.

Yay for Ithaca Festival! Swing set had a performance at the "Swing & Salsa Dance Blast" along with some other awesome, talented dancers. (I LOVED the girl/guy salsa dance-off, btw.)

In the evening we went to the Silent Film Festival held at the State Theater. It's a beautiful, sorta run-down old theater, and we sat in the front row of the balcony.

The show was straight from 1916, with news clips, cartoons, and a Beatrice Fairfax double feature preceded by a singalong ("Oh Beatrice Fairfax, what shall I do? I want the bare facts, the truth from you...") The movies were filmed in Ithaca. In the silent film days, the Wharton brothers had a movie studio in the place that's now Stewart Park.

Best of all, there was live music - provided by a pianist whose specialty is playing for silent movies, and a singer/assistant who provided sound effects.

I'm convinced now that it's wrong to watch a silent movie in silence. The accompaniment transformed the film into a really engaging performance. The plot became crystal clear.

The show opened with some news clips. There would be a description of the newsworthy item, then some film of it. The pianist would change the mood of what he was playing usually as everyone was reading the caption. (Typically he would stop playing the melody but keep up the upbeat rhythm. When he decided what to play next, he'd work the new melody back in.) One caption mentioned the French army, so he worked a little Marseillese into the music, and the audience laughed. Another was about Harvard's crew team, and he played "row row row your boat". Sing! he told us. Now just this side! Now the other side! We got in a few verses in the round before the clip was over.

During the Krazy Kat cartoons, we got sound effects of the Kat's airplane and meowing for his serenade. For dialogue, an empty speech bubble would appear, and words would fill it in as the character said his piece.

The two Beatrice Fairfax stories barely involved Beatrice at all. They each started with three sets of characters: Beatrice and Jimmy, at the newspaper office; a young couple in love; and a handful of villains or suspicious characters. Jimmy would investigate the villains (he was a reporter) and soon enough an important clue would come when half of the lovelorn couple would write to Beatrice. Beatrice wasn't so much a character as she was a plot device.

I had thought that silent movies explained all the dialogue on little cards of text, but there was actually very little text used in the movie - just a little bit to introduce the characters or to deliver a very important line ("You'll find the murderer inside the vault!")

You don't really need much dialogue to show that a couple is in love. One card would identify the lovers, and then we'd see them chatting on the phone. The guy, smiling. The girl, giggling. What more do you need to know?

The piano didn't just set a mood - it really amplified the mood of the characters. When someone is worried, she doesn't say "I'm worried" or show it in her face; she shows it with her actions, and the pianist plays music that makes you a little nervous.

The sound effects were right there for the gunshots and phones ringing. There would be a "ding ding ding!" and a character would run across the room to answer the phone. Or somebody would open a door, and you'd hear the BANG as they were shot.

In one scene, the actors managed to convey "let's draw lots to see who has to kill these people we've captured" without saying a word. In another, one villain snuck up on two of the heroes listening at the door while his fellow villains discussed their plans inside. Why face them alone when five of his friends are on the other side of the door? He went downstairs and tapped on a drainpipe ("tink tink tink!") Inside the upstairs room, the villains all gathered around the pipe with hands cupped to their ears, listening, curious. So they opened the door to go downstairs, and the heroes tumbled in.

Now that is good storytelling - without a single word.

Here is Swing Set's performance from March 10, 2007. Swing Set is a performance/practice group here in Ithaca. Chris and I are the center couple in the back row. Enjoy!

This is what I played at tonight's Big Red Barn swing dance. I learned a few things the hard way but overall I like this set. It includes a lot of my favorite danceable tunes.

How Long Must I Wait For You (Louis Jordan)
Borneo (Bix Beiderbecke And Frankie Tr)
I'm Gonna Sit Right Down And W (Various Artists)
I Was A Little Too Lonely (You (Erin McKeown)
I'm Gonna Wash That Man Right (Bonnie Lou Williams)
Small Fry (Artie Shaw)
M-I-S-S-I-S-S-I-P-P-I (With Th (Ella Fitzgerald)
Parade of the Milk Bottle Caps (Big Band Sounds)
Marie (Tommy Dorsey Version) (Big Band Sounds)
Gris-Gris (Andrew Bird's Bowl Of Fire)
Kalamazoo (The Sounds of Glenn Miller)
Between 18th & 19th On Chestnu (Various Artists - Avid Enterta)
Sweet Sue, just you (Tommy Dorsey)
Yes, Yes Honey (Gene Krupa & His Orchestra)
My Baby Just Cares For Me (June Hutton)
Cou Cou (Erin McKeown)
Ain't We Got Fun (Doris Day with Paul Weston and)
Skokian (Bill Haley And The Comets)
You're Not The Only Oyster In (Various Artists)
Chartreuse - Louis Jordan (Various Artists)
Fifteen Minute Intermission (Cab Calloway)
Two Times - Bennie Moten's Kan (Various Artists - Avid)
Music Makers (Harry James & His Orchestra)
Little Town Girl (Cab Calloway)
Glenn Miller (String of Pearls)
Red Hot Dan (Fats Waller)
Jersey Bounce (Benny Goodman)
I Got The Sun In The Morning (June Christy And Stan Kenton)
Let me off uptown (Gene Krupa)
Killing Jive (The Cats And The Fiddle)
Dr. Heckle & Mr. Jibe - Johnny (Various Artists - Avid Enterta)
I'm Gonna Lock My Heart (And T (Various Artists - Avid Enterta)
Leap frog (Louis Armstrong)
Shake Rattle And Roll (Bill Haley And The Comets)
White Collar Boy (Belle and Sebastian)
For Dancers Only (Jimmie Lunceford)
Song of India (Tommy Dorsey)
Beyond The Sea (Bobby Darin)
Candyman (Christina Aguilera)


[*] The truncated tags are mostly from emusic, which only uses id3v1 tags in their mp3s. Need I mention that emusic's tracks are DRM-free and they have an excellent selection of swing and jazz tunes? It makes up for the tags, really it does.

And that's all I have to say about that.

This article, "Unhappy meals" by Michael Pollan confirms a few beliefs that I've been calling my "crackpot theories" in recent years, including that (a) we don't know shit about nutrition (future scientists will laugh at our carbs-vs-fat debates like we laugh at the Four Humors) and (b) numerical measurements of food contents (calories, etc) will be shown to be almost meaningless.

Pollan's story about the government always recommending "eat more" and never "eat less" is told in more detail in the book Food Politics, which has lots more juicy gossip on the USDA and friends.

Speaking of juicy gossip, word on the street is that the FSF's associate member meeting is set for Saturday, March 24th. If it's anything like the past meetings, it'll be on MIT's campus and will feature an amazing afternoon talk by Eben Moglen. His talk alone (full of juicy gossip about under-the-table deals in the software industry) is worth the price of membership, and you can think of the rest of the conference as a freebie!

The same weekend is the Boston Tea Party, a swing dance event with six tracks of workshops, and tons of dances and competitions. Only 20 minutes away! They even have a beginner's track, so if you're in town for the FSF meeting you can learn to swing dance while you're there.

Meanwhile the CFP is out for YAPC 2007! It's in Houston this year. Hopefully I'll be there, and hopefully I'll be speaking, but I don't know yet about what. (Hey perl dorks: If you heard my talk at PPW, did it leave any burning questions that you hoped would be addressed in a later talk?)

OK, your bonus for reading to the end of this rambling post: a song from the new-ish album Strange Conversation by Kris Delmhorst. All the songs are other people's poetry, set to her music. They're all beautiful tunes, and some of them are really rockin', like this one, "Water Water". The album also features an excellent rendition of anyone lived in a pretty how town done as a fast-paced country ballad. It's available on emusic, my favorite DRM-free mp3 store (cheaper than itunes, works on any device, and it's a great place to discover new music. No, they don't pay me to plug them, but I want to support them because they are awesome. Happy customer for 2 years now.). I browsed back through Kris Delmhorst's other albums; none of them grabbed me like Strange Conversation but I did like several of the tracks on Five Stories - especially the energetic "Honeyed Out" and the really sweet "Lullaby 101".

What I'm listening to this halloween.

01. The Decemberists - Shanty For The Arethusa
02. Nick Cave And The Bad Seeds - Red Right Hand
03. Andrew Birds Bowl Of Fire - Candy Shop
04. Rosengarden and Kraus - Satan Takes A Holiday
05. Squirrel Nut Zippers - Hell
06. Hillbilly Hellcats - Gypsy Queen
07. Dave Rudolf - Ghouls Are On The Loose
08. The Cramps - Surfin Dead
09. Victor R Vampire - Werewolf Love
10. Nick Cave And The Bad Seeds - Spell
11. The Decemberists - Leslie Anne Levine
12. The Mountain Goats - First Few Desperate Hours
13. Nick Cave And The Bad Seeds - Tupelo
14. Bone Orchard - Fats Terminal
15. Nick Cave And The Bad Seeds - The Curse Of Millhaven
16. Turkey Bones And The Wild Dogs - Raymond
17. The Cramps - Aloha From Hell
18. Nick Cave And The Bad Seeds - Supernaturally
19. Family Arts Theatre - Monsters Lullaby

You read that right - eighteen dark, creepy, scary tracks, and only one cheesy song about werewolves.

It would be wrong of me to share the song files with people who ask nicely, so I'll just mention that almost all of these songs are available from emusic (DRM-free and 20 cents a track!)

If music isn't scary enough for you, how about this?