Friday, March 28, 2008

Friday Downstreams (Matted Eye Meets Sky)


Tibetan Buddhist monks cry as they surround foreign journalists at the Jokhang Temple in Lhasa on Thursday. (The Central News Agency, via Reuters)


I just emerged after three days of hibernation. Sun is shinning and snow melting. Three days ago when I became possessed of a strange alien lump in the center of my crown, stuck by fever and pain, it was minus 10 degrees and snowing. This evening people wander happily along forest paths with flasks clinking in plastic bags. It's Friday in the student quarter. Spring is not too far away. Here is some joy to help you along.

Adobe Photoshop Express - Made You Look.
This link is probably moving around the web faster than grainy pictures of celebrities doing weird things to each other. Adobe's new Internet version called Photoshop Express is available for free at www.photoshop.com/express. It's probably the most sophisticated Webware product we've yet to see, adding even more online power to applications like Google's suite of Web-based word processing, spreadsheet and photo sharing programs.


WFMU's Beware of the Blog: The Field Guide to Staying Inside: The Hurdy Gurdy (Mp3s)
The hurdy gurdy is some thousand years old, a sort of imploded and rosined-up bicycle that was used to make a single note last way long in the days before electricity. Its design, a wheel that turns against depressed strings housed inside a wooden box, is far more economical than its predecessor - an early viol de gamba with a bow of several furlongs in length that required several grown men or a team of oxen to play. By the Donovanian Era, however, it had been contained in a small crank case and employed a second bridge, called a "dog" but crafted from raccoon bones, that lifted against the spinning wheel to create a buzzing sound thought to be pleasant.
As musical instruments got better with time, the hurdy gurdy came to be seen as an instrument for poor people, and was called the "Bettlerleier," or "beggar's lyre" in 17th Century Germany. This was long before the European Union, however, and other countries were free to like it. The French decided there was something fancy about it, and Venetian composer Antonio Vivaldi went so far as to compose for it.
In later years, the barrel organ, popularly played by street vendors with monkeys, came to be called by the same name, and, unrelated, popular singer Sting appeared on the 2004 Grammy telecast holding one, setting off a short-lived air-hurdy-gurdy craze.
Popular musicians other than Sting and Vivaldi have also worked with the hurdy gurdy, and TFGTSI is pleased to present an A-Z digest of some of the more notable vielists of the hurdy gurdy.


Stereogum Presents... Enjoyed: A Tribute to Björk's Post
On Monday 3/31, Stereogum releases Enjoyed, our song-by-song tribute to Björk's Post. Perfect material for a compilation by 11 different artists, no? Log on Monday to download the full album for free in MP3 format, read our new interview with Björk, and check out liner notes and videos from the contributing artists. Here's the album cover (designed by Scott Hansen), tracklist, and an early listen to Dirty Projectors' "Hyperballad."

Tracklist
Liars - "Army Of Me"
Dirty Projectors - "Hyperballad"
High Places - "Modern Things"
Bell - "It's Oh So Quiet"
Pattern Is Movement - "Enjoy"
Evangelicals - "You've Been Flirting Again"
Xiu Xiu - "Isobel"
Final Fantasy & Ed Droste - "Possibly Maybe"
White Hinterland - "I Miss You"
El Guincho - "Cover Me"
Atlas Sound - "Headphones

What Can Universities Do to Promote Open Access? (Event Video/Audio)
Peter Suber discusses “What Can Universities Do to Promote Open Access?”. strong>Runtime: 01:34:59, size: 320×240, 290MB, .MOV, H.264 codec. Everyone working in higher education should watch this.

U B U W E B - Film & Video: Maria Anna Tapeiner - The Body as a Matrix: Matthew Barney¹s Cremaster Cycle
The Body as a Matrix: Matthew Barney's Cremaster Cycle Video. With the five-part Cremaster Cycle of films, multi-award-winning artist Matthew Barney invented a densely layered and interconnected sculptural world that surreally combines sports, biology, sexuality, history, and mythology as it organically evolves. In this program, Barney, Guggenheim curator Nancy Spector, and others deconstruct the Cycle's filming and subsequent translation into sculptural installations. The locations, characters, and symbols that organize the Cycle films; the Cycle installations as spatial content carriers and extensions of the performances; and objectification of the body and undifferentiated sexuality are addressed, as are the intricacies of costuming, makeup, and sculpting with Barney's signature materials: plastic, metal, and Vaseline. Contains nudity and mature themes. (53 minutes.) The Arts, Art and Photography 2002

U B U W E B - Film & Video: Henry Miller - "Dinner With Henry"
Dinner With Henry is a rare, 30-minute documentary about Henry Miller. It is exactly what the title implies: footage of Henry having dinner. With him at the table is the film crew, and actress/model Brenda Venus, to whom Henry was enamoured in the final years of life. Henry - at age 87 - spends the majority of his time speaking on a number of subjects, the most persistent of which is Blaise Cendrars. Occasionally, he complains about the food. That is all. It may not be of much interest to a general audience, but is a curious "slice of life" for any Miller fan who likes to imagine being at the table with him.

UbuWeb Sound :: Tellus #10: All Guitars! (1985)
Includes Lee Ranaldo, Butthole Surfers, Bob Mould, Blixa Bargeld, Lydia Lunch, Thurston Moore, Glen Branca and more. Mp3s all free to download. Take me back to 1985......

MUTANT SOUNDS: Blue for Two-st,LP,1986,Sweden
Blue For Two were a Swedish synth band from the 80s,consisting of Freddie Wadling (of Cortex fame) and Henryk Lipp. The word synth pop or minimal synth though is not the exact word to describe the music here.Electronics are combined great with rock,jazz,ethnic music,cabaret influences and all this combined with Wadling's deep dark voice a unique atmosphere is created. Sometimes it reminds Low -era Bowie ,especially in the vocal part.

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