Author: Don

The Listening Room

John Salmon notes that René Magritte‘s 110th Birthday was last Friday. Coincidentally, one of the LPs I recently recently transferred to CD was the first Dreams album, the cover of which is based on a Magritte painting. I posted one of the tunes here. ((Beck Ola, another album with a Magritte cover, will probably be in the next batch that I digitize.))

Those are the Brecker brothers, Billy Cobham and their bandmates floating in the air.

Below the fold are a few more of the albums that I pulled out to digitize recently. CDs have a lot of advantages over vinyl — they’re far more convenient; they don’t skip or get stuck (usually); there are no pops, clicks, hisses or rumbles — but for cover art, they can’t compare to LPs.

Continue reading “The Listening Room”

Hammers, strings and keys

I’ve got about fifteen CDs of music freshly digitized from my ancient vinyl, or about thirty LPs’ worth. That’s enough for now. Here’s one last batch of old favorites that I haven’t heard in years.

Pentangle, “Sally Go Round the Roses”
[mp3]http://tancos.net/audio/Sally Go Round the Roses.mp3[/mp3]

Metamora, “Bicycling to Sassor/Rhubarb”
[mp3]http://tancos.net/audio/Bicycling.mp3[/mp3]

Argent, “Lothlorien”
[mp3]http://tancos.net/audio/Lothlorien.mp3[/mp3]

Colosseum, “Bring Out Your Dead”
[mp3]http://tancos.net/audio/Bring Out Your Dead.mp3[/mp3]

Update: Here’s the original version of “Sally Go Round the Roses” from 1963.

Word games

Here’a a curiosity I came across: a 2002 interview with Hiroyuki Morioka, the author of the Crest/Banner of the Stars novels. One disappointing revelation: in its genesis, the Abh language has more in common with Pig Latin than Quenya:

Question: How was the Abh language developed?

Answer: It’s based on Japanese Actually I just changed the sounds of the words. First write it down using the alphabet, using consonants and sounds. Then mark the same vowels first. The basic idea is to group similar sounding vowels then shorten the syllables. Randomize the consonants. I’m sure no one will understand this explanation.

***

Question: Could you translate a word into the Abh language?

There was a demonstration next. He started with the Japanese word Takamagahara. He then changed it to TAKMGAHAR by reducing the number of vowels. One feature of Abh language is a consonant before a vowel changes. It finally became LAKMHAKAR. He doesn’t recommend anyone memorizing this.

Nevertheless, this has hasn’t stopped fans from compiling Baronh dictionaries.

Small-scale needlework

Not anime, but worth a look for anyone with an interest in Neil Gaiman or knitting. (The key is “sweaterxxs.”)

Update: Here are some more keys. “moustachio,” an example of live-action stop-motion animation, is my favorite of the bunch, though it has nothing directly to do with the movie.

buttoneyes
stopmotion
moustachio
puppetlove
armpithair

And now for something almost, but not quite, completely unrelated: Snape paper dolls.

Update II: And now for something that is completely different: a WordPress plugin that I might install late in the evening next March 31.

Update III: Here’s the trailer for Coraline.

Horns and harps

Here are some more tunes rescued from ancient vinyl. Let’s see how heterogenous a collection I can assemble.

The Klezmorim, “‘Papirosn”
[mp3]http://tancos.net/audio/Papirosn.mp3[/mp3]

Ann Heymann, “Baltiorum/Charlie’s Fancy”
[mp3]http://tancos.net/audio/BaltiorumCharliesFancy.mp3[/mp3]

Back Door, “Vienna Breakdown”
[mp3]http://tancos.net/audio/Vienna Breakdown.mp3[/mp3]

The list of lists, etc.

40 Signs of the Mike World Order:

27. New TV show: Pundit Deathmatch! Reigning champion – Ann Coulter!

How to identfy the Antichrist.

The upsides to an event earlier this month (you may need to scroll down a bit):

#7: Conservatism is inherently a tradition of complicity, satire, internal conflict, and cynicism. So with the Messiah as our next president, we’re in like Patricia Quinn!

A couple of jokes, one mathematical, one theological (the latter via René’s Apple).

Snape paper dolls to download and print. You can play with them while you read Joseph Bottum’s suggestions for revising the canon of children’s literature.