Ten Tummy-Ticklin’ Tunes [5]
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Bob Marley & The Wailers – Natural Mystic
PJ Harvey & John Parish – Black Hearted Love
Odds and Ends #12
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One of the most common things I see on people’s (specifically girls’) Facebook info pages is Marilyn Monroe quotes. I never understood this. Here are some of her quotes that I’ve seen, each followed by what I think she was really trying to say:
“I’m selfish, impatient and a little insecure. I make mistakes, I am out of control and at times hard to handle. But if you can’t handle me at my worst, then you sure as hell don’t deserve me at my best.”
Translation: I can be a bitch whenever I want – which is all the time. Deal with it.
“Imperfection is beauty, madness is genius and it’s better to be absolutely ridiculous than absolutely boring.”
Translation: If you’re not intentionally drawing attention to yourself for one reason or another, you’re a boring person.
Aesop’s Fables
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I spent a couple days reading a collection of ~300 of Aesop’s Fables. These are some of my favorites:
The Kingdom of the Lion
“The beasts of the field and forest had a Lion as their king. He was neither wrathful, cruel, nor tyrannical, but just and gentle as a king could be. During his reign he made a royal proclamation for a general assembly of all the birds and beasts, and drew up conditions for a universal league, in which the Wolf and the Lamb, the Panther and the Kid, the Tiger and the Stag, the Dog and the Hare, should live together in perfect peace and amity. The Hare said, “Oh, how I have longed to see this day, in which the weak shall take their place with impunity by the side of the strong.” And after the Hare said this, he ran for his life.”
The Swallow and the Crow
The Swallow and the Crow had a contention about their plumage. The Crow put an end to the dispute by saying, “Your feathers are all very well in the spring, but mine protect me against the winter.”
“Act Your Age, Not Your Shoe Size”
AT THE END OF THE DAY…
…all the people that was rooting on me to fail, they’ve got to wake up tomorrow and have the same life that they had before they woke up today. They’ve got the same personal problems that they had today. And I’m going to continue to live the way I want to live and continue to do the things that I want to do with me and my family and be happy with that. So you know, they can get a few days, or a few months or whatever the case may be on being happy about not only myself, but the Miami Heat not accomplishing their goal, but they’ve got to get back to the real world at some point.
“AT THE END OF THE DAY”….we made you. Without us loser fans watching, your career and lifestyle don’t exist. Just be glad professional basketball exists and people care and YOU don’t have to go back to the real world, the one where you have a high school degree and no marketable skills. I hate when athletes act like what they’re doing is important, as if people’s lives depend on it. Like when an indignant Dwyane Wade said earlier in the season when Miami was in a slump that “The world is better now because the Heat is losing”. Well no, the world is about the same regardless of what the Heat do. Now if there was a shortage of doctors or engineers or firefighters, people who actually provide essential services to people, we’d all be in trouble. When the NBA lockout starts in the fall, people will be disappointed to miss out on seeing their favorite athletes play basketball. But no one in their right mind will think that something truly important is missing from their lives.
“You Wouldn’t Steal a Car…” – Radiohead’s Discovery and Why It’s Not That Simple
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12 pages for my Writing II class.
Abstract: “You Wouldn’t Steal a Car…” – Radiohead’s Discovery and Why It’s Not That Simple
This essay discusses the events surrounding Radiohead’s 2000 release Kid A, specifically the leak of live versions of numerous tracks – and eventually the entire album – well before its intended release date. Since the advent of Napster, illegal peer-to-peer sharing of free music has rapidly become one of the most-utilized resources for young people to acquire popular music. Despite claims to the contrary from major-label record companies as well as many big-name artists, I argue that unauthorized music downloading can have a strongly beneficial effect on an artist with a dedicated, burgeoning fan base. The early leak of Radiohead’s album Kid A in 2000 was instrumental in bringing the music an enormous level of exposure that actually served to greatly expand the group’s fan base and garnered them a reputation as forward-thinking recording artists in what was then, and still is, a rapidly evolving musical landscape. In effect, this event was a critical early demonstration that although the development of peer-to-peer sharing of music poses a difficult challenge to music industry norms, it can be harnessed as a potentially powerful marketing tool that can direct significant attention to an artist in a way that the music industry is still reluctant to fully embrace.
“Roll over, and listen to a little of this…”
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Wrote this one for my Beatles class comparing Chuck Berry’s and the Beatles’ versions of “Roll Over Beethoven”. Fun stuff.
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Terry Lok
Professor Levitz
Music History 68 – Section 1J
15 October 2010
“Roll over, and listen to a little of this…”
Although the Beatles’ early covers were typically faithful replications of the original songs, consciously or not, the group’s own burgeoning musical identity would always shine through subtly, just enough to intimate the complex nature of the band’s disparate range of influences and foreshadow the group’s bold exploration of the limits of popular music in the remaining years of the decade. The band’s cover of Chuck Berry’s “Roll Over Beethoven” demonstrates the Beatles’ love for African-American musical traditions like blues, R&B, and rock ‘n’ roll, but also reveals how their background as white, post-war English, working-class youth affected their interpretation of the song. The song (both versions) is a raucous, irreverent dismissal of conventional musical and social norms that succinctly captures the emotions of a budding generational conflict that would ultimately result in tremendous social upheaval over the course of the 1960s.
Black Eyed Peas
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A selection of tweets (unedited) from during/after this year’s Super Bowl halftime show:
God – never in my life have I wanted @kanyewest to interrupt a performance more. #superbowl #blackeyedpeas
The 2nd quarter game clock is basically a countdown clock to hell. #blackeyedpeas #sb45
After the #BlackEyedPeas’ halftime show performance, all 4 members have been arrested and charged with Cruel & Unusual punishment #sb45
Odds and Ends #11
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No organization today – just stream-of-consciousness rants:
If your car/motorcycle/whatever is heard before it’s seen, it’s too loud. If you’re one of these people, stop being an insecure little child that needs to prove your toughness by showing everyone how big/loud/annoying your stupid engine is. This puts you on about the level of a caveman. (I don’t even know if Dog the Bounty Hunter rides a loud bike, but he’s an asshole so the picture is relevant enough.)
In the library I always hear people slamming their keyboards. If they’re on the other side of the enclosure, I sometimes wonder if they’re just bashing their heads on the table because it’s difficult for me to imagine any other scenario until I actually see it. What did your computer ever do to you? Lay off the caffeine a little bit and relax.
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