Leon Bambrick's guitar tutorial eliminates all the boring parts. You don't even learn to tune until lesson five—and then it goes like this:
"Buy a tuner and ask your girlfriend to learn how to use it. If you can't afford either of these then ask either a roadie or the band playing after you to tune the guitar for you."
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Regular readers of this here blog may wonder why I've linked so many times to maps of the London Underground. I've always loved the clean design of Harry Beck's 1933 map because it looks so much like a circuit diagram and conveys complex three-dimensional information so clearly in 2D.
The London Transport Museum has put together a cool map that contrasts the original 1933 version with the 2004 iteration—and then with the real street grid.
Gosh, I does love the Internets!
Ada Calhoun writes about the summer she swanned around New York under the influence of Neil Gaiman's Sandman.
So true: "Some of the storylines took place in parts of New York I walked through every day. In one of my favorite mini-stories, Death has a talk with a skateboarder in Washington Square Park, where we bought pot before we realized: 1) it was frequently oregano, and 2) we were girls, and girls never had to buy their own drugs."
The end times must be nigh: Sony, the company that wouldn't even admit MP3 existed, now makes an iPod docking station.
Any explanation that includes YouTube clips of the Marx Brothers and Maria Callas is jake by me.
The Good, The Bad & The Queen
EMI/Parlophone
EMI/Parlophone
I was intrigued when I read about Damon Albarn's latest project, The Good, The Bad & The Queen. The Blur frontman would be joined by the Clash's Paul Simonon on bass, the Verve's Simon Tong on guitar, and Afrobeat pioneer Tony Allen. Oh, and the whole thing would be produced by Danger Mouse. I could already feel the bumping, staggering, shaking rhythms. I could taste the sadness, the drunkenness, the weirdness. I could hear the bubbly reverb, the foggy chants, the electronic wind, the faraway whistles, the playful piano…
When people ask me if I miss it, I'm quick to make a face. My left eye might scrunch up tight, while the right shoots out like a feathered arrow, raising its brow like an exclamation mark. My nose and lips tighten, become wrinkled. Everything about this face expresses some sort of pain, maybe even disgust. Like I've been slapped, like I've just downed a mouthful of sour milk. Do I miss it? Are you out of your mind? What is there to miss: Late nights?; Heavy gear?; Bad crowds?; No crowd?
"Nah, I don't miss it."
Then why is it that, when I listen to our old songs, chills…
If molecular interactions are electrical, doesn't it follow that dynamic electromagnetic field interactions are caused by electromagnetic resonance rather than through random collisions?
Dr. Mae-Wan Ho thinks so.