Whateva
Last April, in an attempt to maintain the illusion that I'm some kind of academic, I presented my paper on "Clean Flicks: Issues of Consumption in the Video Rental Market" at the annual conference of the Utah Academy of Sciences, Arts & Letters. (I firmly placed myself in the Arts category, mainly to avoid the overcrowded Letters sessions.) I was the only male in the session, and I heard papers on "The Transition of Dancers," "Theatre's Critics," Isadora Duncan, and saw a fascinating presentation on "Exploring Social, Historical, and Political Issues through Movement" that should be turned into a book.
Anyway, I mention all this as prelude to news of a recent ruling against the film-editing practices of video rental outfits like Clean Flicks, which have taken on the responsibility of editing profanity, nudity, and "suggestive situations" out of major Hollywood films, so pious churchgoing hypocrites won't feel left out of the cultural zeitgiest (which is pretty much what I say in my paper, only in more stilted academic prose). The story of the ruling helpfully includes a non-nude image of Kate Winslet from Titanic, the film which spawned the misguided and pretentious Clean Flicks movement.
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I don't own an iPod, though I've just finished reading a book about the history of its development. I remain entrenched in my world of physical music products: CDs, vinyl, and the occasional cassette. (Just yesterday, I dug out my small cassette collection of 80's and early 90's Bob Dylan albums, in order to evaluate their condition before attempting to digitize them.)
But I have delved into the world of music downloading, and I'm about to mark the one-year anniversary of my first (legal) download. I generally limit myself to between 5 and 10 downloads a week, just because it's easy for me to get overwhelmed by all the music available out there in e-space. However, in that relatively short timespan, I've managed to download a total of 196 songs, amounting to 13 hours, 2 minutes, and 47 seconds on my laptop hard drive (or 913.06 MB). If I happen to buy a CD which contains one of the songs I've downloaded, I delete the file on my hard drive, so the current stats don't necessarily reflect the true amount of downloading I've done in the last year. And these donwloads are only a small fraction of the amount of music I purchase, stuck as I am in the CD generation (and probably part of the last generation that will feel any sort of attachment to those shiny aluminum discs).
I know anyone reading this who owns an iPod will be incredibly underwhelmed by my collection, but I hasten to point out that there are only a few artists (less than 10, actually) who are represented with more than one song, and none with more than two songs. So I at least have variety working in my favor.
Anyway, if none of that grabbed your interest, let me recommend one of my latests finds to you, a song I initially heard on XM Radio 47 and one which, in just a minute and a half, represents everything you will ever need to know about rock & roll: Liam Lynch's "United States of Whatever." Holy shite, it's hilarious. And the video is even better. I need to find out more about this dude.
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In other music news, I can't believe I didn't post on this earlier. I've never been a big Pink Floyd fan, although I occasionally find some of Roger Waters' stylish screams rather energizing. But I'm of the opinion that Pink Floyd, as an entity, became approximately 75% less interesting after the departure of Syd Barrett, and 20% less interesting after the acrimonious fued between Waters and, er, everyone else in the band. The remaining 5% interest I have in this band is roughly equal to the amount of interest I would have watching a frog twitch to its death in biology class, or waiting for a fatal accident in the next NASCAR event.
Anyway, as the bandmates who summarily dismissed him once said, shine on, Mr. Barrett. You deserved better in this life.
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Summer rerun doldrums have me peeking at spoilers and rumours for some of next season's programs. I'm excited that Jimmy Olsen is going to become a regular character on Smallville, and unnerved at the prospect that Battlestar Galactica's season opener is going to make yet another leap in the show's chronology (some spoilers in the links, if you care).
Haven't been watching much so far this summer, other than this show, which I totally shoulda tried out for. DOH!
Anyway, I mention all this as prelude to news of a recent ruling against the film-editing practices of video rental outfits like Clean Flicks, which have taken on the responsibility of editing profanity, nudity, and "suggestive situations" out of major Hollywood films, so pious churchgoing hypocrites won't feel left out of the cultural zeitgiest (which is pretty much what I say in my paper, only in more stilted academic prose). The story of the ruling helpfully includes a non-nude image of Kate Winslet from Titanic, the film which spawned the misguided and pretentious Clean Flicks movement.
*********************
I don't own an iPod, though I've just finished reading a book about the history of its development. I remain entrenched in my world of physical music products: CDs, vinyl, and the occasional cassette. (Just yesterday, I dug out my small cassette collection of 80's and early 90's Bob Dylan albums, in order to evaluate their condition before attempting to digitize them.)
But I have delved into the world of music downloading, and I'm about to mark the one-year anniversary of my first (legal) download. I generally limit myself to between 5 and 10 downloads a week, just because it's easy for me to get overwhelmed by all the music available out there in e-space. However, in that relatively short timespan, I've managed to download a total of 196 songs, amounting to 13 hours, 2 minutes, and 47 seconds on my laptop hard drive (or 913.06 MB). If I happen to buy a CD which contains one of the songs I've downloaded, I delete the file on my hard drive, so the current stats don't necessarily reflect the true amount of downloading I've done in the last year. And these donwloads are only a small fraction of the amount of music I purchase, stuck as I am in the CD generation (and probably part of the last generation that will feel any sort of attachment to those shiny aluminum discs).
I know anyone reading this who owns an iPod will be incredibly underwhelmed by my collection, but I hasten to point out that there are only a few artists (less than 10, actually) who are represented with more than one song, and none with more than two songs. So I at least have variety working in my favor.
Anyway, if none of that grabbed your interest, let me recommend one of my latests finds to you, a song I initially heard on XM Radio 47 and one which, in just a minute and a half, represents everything you will ever need to know about rock & roll: Liam Lynch's "United States of Whatever." Holy shite, it's hilarious. And the video is even better. I need to find out more about this dude.
********************************
In other music news, I can't believe I didn't post on this earlier. I've never been a big Pink Floyd fan, although I occasionally find some of Roger Waters' stylish screams rather energizing. But I'm of the opinion that Pink Floyd, as an entity, became approximately 75% less interesting after the departure of Syd Barrett, and 20% less interesting after the acrimonious fued between Waters and, er, everyone else in the band. The remaining 5% interest I have in this band is roughly equal to the amount of interest I would have watching a frog twitch to its death in biology class, or waiting for a fatal accident in the next NASCAR event.
Anyway, as the bandmates who summarily dismissed him once said, shine on, Mr. Barrett. You deserved better in this life.
************************
Summer rerun doldrums have me peeking at spoilers and rumours for some of next season's programs. I'm excited that Jimmy Olsen is going to become a regular character on Smallville, and unnerved at the prospect that Battlestar Galactica's season opener is going to make yet another leap in the show's chronology (some spoilers in the links, if you care).
Haven't been watching much so far this summer, other than this show, which I totally shoulda tried out for. DOH!
posted by Chazzbot at 9:50 PM
3 Comments:
I read an interesting point about the CleanFlicks situation: How would the "moral" filmmaker (speaking specifically in reference to an LDS filmmaker) feel if nudity, violence and language were edited INTO his/her wholesome film? The argument over editing films is that someone is tampering with your work. I'm delighted at the ruling. If you don't like it, don't watch it.
And I'd love to read your paper. Anyway that would be possible?
Uh, that should read "any way that would be possible," not what I typed.
If I remember right, the file of that paper is on a 3" floppy, which I can't access on my laptop. Can you wait until August when I have an office again?
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