Monday, July 28, 2008

January 7, 2005

My favorite trick is to wait until someone’s download has one second left to go, then log out for two months.

Thursday, July 24, 2008

June 16, 2005

headline from today's Chicago Tribune:

Women astronauts hit glass ceiling

Tuesday, July 22, 2008

March 13, 2007

from http://www.signandsight.com/features/1090.html:

interviewer: You deliberately keep your distance from other living writers.

Thomas Bernhard: No, not deliberately at all. It comes naturally.

I: What, in your view, is a conversation?

TB: When talking is supposed to become conversation, that's when things get gruesome. There are collected conversations, hundreds of them, books full. Entire publishing houses live off them. Like something coming out of an anus, and then it gets squashed in between book covers.

...

TB: You can sit at home, put your books on the shelf, and when you look at them, you think: "Sad".

Monday, July 21, 2008

October 12, 2006

10:07:49 [D—] Hello, are you there?
10:19:02 [Seth] yes
10:24:17 [D—] I usually dont ask priviledges but you have a song I have been trying to get for a while and whenever you're on the queue is huge and when I get closer to top either you log off or i "lose" places in the queue
10:24:32 [D—] Is there a way i could get it? maybe a trade of songs or whatever?
10:30:17 [Seth] sure, I'll cut you to the front of the line
10:30:23 [Seth] you know about the Portsmouth Sinfonia, right?
10:34:39 [D—] nope
10:34:43 [D—] and thanks a lot!
10:35:03 [D—] I just had like 15-20 seconds of piano music on my computer
10:35:06 [D—] unidentified
10:35:23 [D—] so I asked a pianist for some help identifying the music
10:35:32 [D—] and odds are it is that song that you have
10:35:58 [D—] I am far from knowledgeable when it comes to classical music, but I did find this one beautiful :)
10:45:48 [Seth] this probably isn't the version you want; the Portsmouth Sinfonia is made up of people who don't know how to play their instruments
10:46:11 [D—] oh
10:46:40 [D—] thought it was "serious" since its bach
10:46:56 [Seth] I dunno, the piece might be recognizable... barely
10:47:24 [D—] guess the original will be hard to find
10:48:06 [D—] lol yeah thats definitely not the song I was looking for

Sunday, July 20, 2008

Friday, July 18, 2008

August 16, 2005

quotes from Thomas Dolby customer reviews on Amazon:

Thomas Dolby inspired me to create one of the first Floppy Disc files I ever owned

Another thing about this is that it was used in a Pantene commercial

I give it 4 thumbs - not pointing thumbs, just thumbs.

It still holds up, boys, never fear.

it has been an integral part of my life, the soundtrack to my inner thoughts and perceptions.

How I miss those electronic drums!

like Neil Armstrong's moon walk, a cul de sac

Pity poor Thomas Dolby.

Wednesday, July 16, 2008

November 8, 2005

They’re trying to determine if Philip Best is wearing any pants.

Tuesday, July 15, 2008

October 14, 2006

interviewer: But maybe you can work with these other media, write music for a ballet...

Misha Mengelberg: I hate ballet. [silence] It's very... athletic... The kind of ballet I'd like to see is... very old ladies knitting or something... Not a lot of... jumping about...

Monday, July 14, 2008

June 30, 2004

The one case where Clarence Thomas votes with the liberals is — of course — the pornography case.

Saturday, July 12, 2008

July 6, 2007

how the Ryoji Ikeda review at http://www.pitchforkmedia.com/article/record_review/18695-op?artist_title=18695-op actually begins:
Recently, the mouse problem at my apartment has gotten out of control. They run up the walls and crawl into my bird's cage to eat seeds, nibble through unopened loaves of Orowheat, and most heinous of all, they ate out the crotch of my roommate's old panties.
how it should begin:
They ate out the crotch of my roommate's old panties. They run up the walls, crawl into my bird's cage to eat seeds, and nibble through unopened loaves of Orowheat. The mouse problem at my apartment has gotten out of control.
Isn't it much more entertaining in that order? I think so.

If there is something surprising in a sentence, it should go at the end. Thus "They ate out of the crotch of my roommate's old panties" is better writing "The crotch of my roommate's old panties was entirely eaten out" (and not only because the latter uses the passive voice and ends with a preposition). Conversely, and this is my main point: if there is something surprising in a paragraph, it should go at the beginning — especially if it is the first paragraph.

I am willing to give Pitchfork writers this kind of advice for free occasionally, but if they want it on a regular basis, they'll have to pay for it.