Douglas Purdy

Archive for the ‘Music’ Category

Choreography

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Paint by numbers.
Exchange hollow greetings with someone who’ll do the same.
Smile appropriately for the right kinds of people,
with the right kinds of capital, financial or social.

Craft your character, rehearse your performance.
See which you sells the best and reinforce habits.
Walk to the altar, read from the prompter,
smile for your picture, and clap like a seal.

Is everyone looking at me?
Are they nodding their heads in approval?
Does this convince you? It never convinced me… it never convinced me.

Years don’t teach anything if you’re not listening…
or plugging your ears with bargain priced fantasies that are cheap to adopt,
but will surely break down right when you need a real understanding.

Choreography. Don’t think critically.
It’s all been figured out for you, and nothing means anything.

Is everyone looking at me?
Are they nodding their heads in approval?
Does this convince you? It never convinced me… it never convinced me.

Written by douglasp

August 13th, 2010 at 11:02 am

Posted in Music, Philosophy, Poems

Best Music of the 2000s

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QOTSA:  Songs for the deaf:  First it giveth
Coheed and Cambria: In Keeping Secrets Of Silent Earth: 3: A Favor House Atlantic
Justin Timberlake: FutureSex / LoveSounds: What Goes Around…/…Comes Around
Linkin Park & Jay-Z: Collision Course : Dirt Off Your Shoulder/Lying From You
My Chemical Romance: I Brought You My Bullets You Brought Me Your Love : Skylines and Turnstiles
My Chemical Romance : Three Cheers for Sweet Revenge : Thank You for the Venom
Red Hot Chili Peppers: Stadium Arcadium : Dani California
Incubus: Morning View : Wish you were here
Green Day: American Idiot: Give Me Novacaine
Mastodon : Blood Mountain: Blood and Thunder (Live)
Most Disappointing Albums of the 2000s: Chinese Democracy: Guns N’ Roses
Live Album of the 2000s:  Led Zeppelin: How the West was One
Live Single of the 2000s:  Bold as Love (Live): John Mayer
Artist of the 2000s:  My Chemical Romance
Best Track Title of the 2000s:  Honey, This Mirror Isn’t Big Enough for the Two of Us:  My Chemical Romance

Best Cover of the 2000s:  Imagine: A Perfect Circle

I went through iTunes tonight to determine my favorite music of the 2000s.

Based on number of tracks played and ratings, here is what what I found.

Top Albums

  1. Songs for the Deaf by Queens of the Stone Age (Best track: First It Giveth)
  2. In Keeping Secrets Of Silent Earth: 3 by Coheed and Cambria (Best track: A Favor House Atlantic)
  3. FutureSex / LoveSounds by Justin Timberlake (Best track: What Goes Around…/…Comes Around)
  4. Collision Course by Linkin Park & Jay-Z (Best track: Dirt Off Your Shoulder/Lying From You)
  5. I Brought You My Bullets You Brought Me Your Love by My Chemical Romance (BT: Skylines and Turnstiles)
  6. Three Cheers for Sweet Revenge by My Chemical Romance (BT: Thank You for the Venom)
  7. Stadium Arcadium by Red Hot Chili Peppers (BT: Dani California)
  8. Morning View by Incubus (BT: Wish You Were Here)
  9. Renegades by Rage Against the Machine (BT: I’m Housin’)
  10. Blood Mountain by Mastodon (BT: Blood and Thunder [Live])

Live Album of the 2000s

How the West was Won by Led Zeppelin

Live Single of the 2000s

Bold as Love (Live) by John Mayer

Artist of the 2000s:

My Chemical Romance

Best Cover of the 2000s

Imagine by A Perfect Circle

Imagine there’s no Heaven

It’s easy if you try

No hell below us

Above us only sky

Imagine all the people

Living for today

Imagine there’s no countries

It isn’t hard to do

Nothing to kill or die for

And no religion too

Imagine all the people

Living life in peace

You may say that I’m a dreamer

But I’m not the only one

I hope someday you’ll join us

And the world will be as one

Imagine no possessions

I wonder if you can

No need for greed or hunger

A brotherhood of man

Imagine all the people

Sharing all the world

You may say that I’m a dreamer

But I’m not the only one

I hope someday you’ll join us

And the world will live as one

Written by douglasp

January 2nd, 2010 at 8:01 am

Posted in Music

Loving the Zune

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I love the Zune HD.  I love the Zune desktop software – little touches like the below.

This is such good work and it shows the quality of (cool) work that Microsoft is capable of doing.

image

Written by douglasp

November 22nd, 2009 at 6:42 pm

Posted in Microsoft, Music

Icarus

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On golden wings I soar above you all

Downward my gaze is cast

Lofty, great, with terrible claw

Yet in the deep, I feel descending sorrow 

For one day, I know I will fall

Written by douglasp

August 3rd, 2009 at 5:41 pm

Posted in Music, Philosophy, Poems

To Pan

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Hymn of Pan (Shelley) Hymn to Pan (Crowley)
From the forests and highlands
We come, we come;
From the river-girt islands,
Where loud waves are dumb,
Listening to my sweet pipings.
The wind in the reeds and the rushes,
The bees on the bells of thyme,
The birds on the myrtle bushes,
The cicale above in the lime,
And the lizards below in the grass,
Were as silent as ever old Tmolus was,
Listening to my sweet pipings.

Liquid Peneus was flowing,
And all dark Tempe lay
In Pelion’s shadow, outgrowing
The light of the dying day,
Speeded by my sweet pipings.
The Sileni and Sylvans and Fauns,
And the Nymphs of the woods and waves,
To the edge of the moist river-lawns,
And the brink of the dewy caves,
And all that did then attend and follow,
Were silent with love, as you now, Apollo,
With envy of my sweet pipings.

I sang of the dancing stars,
I sang of the dædal earth,
And of heaven, and the giant wars,
And love, and death, and birth.
And then I changed my pipings—
Singing how down the vale of Mænalus
I pursued a maiden, and clasp’d a reed:
Gods and men, we are all deluded thus!
It breaks in our bosom, and then we bleed.
All wept—as I think both ye now would,
If envy or age had not frozen your blood—
At the sorrow of my sweet pipings.

Thrill with the lissome lust of the light,
O man! My man!
Come careering out of the night
Of Pan! Io Pan!
Io Pan! Io Pan! Come over the sea
From Sicily and from Arcady!
Roaming as Bacchus, with fauns and pards
And nymphs and satyrs for thy guards,
On a milk-white ass, come over the sea
To me, to me,
Come with Apollo in bridal dress
(Shepherdess and pythoness)
Come with Artemis, silken shod,
And wash thy white thigh, beautifal God,
In the moon of the woods, on the marble mount,
The dimpled dawn of the amber fount!
Dip the purple of passionate prayer
In the crimson shrine, the scarlet snare,
The soul that startles in eyes of blue
To watch thy wantonness weeping through
The tangled grove, the gnarled bole
Of the living tree that is spirit and soul
And body and brain – come over the sea,
(Io Pan! Io Pan!)
Devil or God, to me, to me,
My man! My man!
Come with trumpets sounding shrill
Over the hill!
Come with drums low muttering
From the spring!
Come with flute and come with pipe!
Am I not ripe?
I, who wait and writhe and wrestle
With air that hath no boughs to nestle
My body, weary of empty clasp,
Strong as a lion and sharp as an asp -
Come, O come!
I am numb
With the lonely lust of devildom.
Thrust the sword through the galling fetter,
All-devourer, all begetter;
Give me the sign of the Open Eye,
And the token erect of thorny thigh,
And the word of madness and mystery,
O Pan! Io Pan!
Io Pan! Io Pan Pan! Pan Pan! Pan,
I am a man:
Do as thou wilt, as a great god can,
O Pan! Io Pan!
Io Pan! Io Pan Pan! I am awake
In the grip of the snake.
The eagle slashes with beak and claw;
The Gods withdraw;
The great beasts come, Io Pan! I am borne
To death on the horn
Of the Unicorn.
I am Pan! Io Pan! Io Pan Pan! Pan!
I am thy mate, I am thy man,
Goat of thy flock, I am gold, I am god,
Flesh to thy bone, flower to thy rod.
With hoofs of steel I race on the rocks
Through solstice stubborn to equinox.
I rave; and I rape and I rip and I rend
Everlasting, world without end,
Mannikin, maiden, maenad, man,
In the might of Pan.
Io Pan! Io Pan Pan! Pan! Io Pan!

Written by douglasp

August 2nd, 2009 at 8:59 pm

Posted in Music, Philosophy, Poems

Going to California

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Spent my days with a woman unkind,
Smoked my stuff and drank all my wine.

Made up my mind to make a new start,
Going To California with an aching in my heart.

Someone told me there’s a girl out there with love in her eyes
and flowers in her hair.

Took my chances on a big jet plane,
never let them tell you that they’all are the same.

The sea was red and the sky was grey,
I wondered how tomorrow could ever follow today.

The mountains and the canyons started to tremble and shake
as the children of the sun began to awake.

Seems that the wrath of the Gods
Got a punch on the nose and it started to flow;
I think I might be sinking.

Throw me a line if I reach it in time
I’ll meet you up there where the path
Runs straight and high.

To find a queen without a king,
They say she plays guitar and cries and sings… la la la la

Ride a white mare in the footsteps of dawn
Tryin’ to find a woman who’s never, never, never been born.

Standing on a hill in my mountain of dreams,
Telling myself it’s not as hard, hard, hard as it seems.

Written by douglasp

April 3rd, 2009 at 5:03 am

Posted in Microsoft, Music, Poems

I want a Duo Dock for my iPhone

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I used to love the Powerbook Duo — especially the Dock.

I want now want a Duo Dock for my iPhone.

Context…

I am trying desperately not to bring my laptop to meetings any longer.

In the role I am in now working on code or whatever during a meeting will send the wrong message to the people presenting.

In addition, and more importantly, I can’t afford to miss anything because my wacky code failed.

I tried not bring my laptop to several meetings this week.

Three observations from that exercise…

  1. Paying attention (not continuous partial attention) does matter (and I call myself a Buddhist)
  2. I am way behind on work. :-)
  3. My iPhone is more important than ever (I will glance at it through the meeting — but at least there is no VS on it).

Once I get back to my office at the end of the day, I really just want a bigger screen and keyboard for my iPhone — thus my ask.

Of course, I still need a dev box, but I can just TS (VNC) into a desktop.

Actually, now that I think about it, what about a Duo Dock that was just in a laptop form factor with a keyboard, 13.3 screen and a port for the iPhone to slide into.

Could be something like the Foleo, but not have any onboard OS, etc — just a screen, keyboard and ports (maybe a SSD?).

As a Microsoft shareholder,  I wish we developed something like this first that has Windows Mobile on it — I would have to give up my iPhone for that — oh, of course, I would need to have the Zune player software on it.

BTW: One of the things I will say about the Zune — the desktop player rocks — especially when coupled with the Zune Pass (an all you can eat music download service).  I often hear new music on the Zune Marketplace and then buy it on ITunes.

[Updated:  Just saw a link for http://olo-computer.com/  -- that is hot -- but I think I want the Duo Dock for my office too.] 

Written by douglasp

November 15th, 2008 at 6:46 am

Posted in Apple, Microsoft, Music, Random

Song of the Day: Katzenjammer

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http://mp3.rhapsody.com/kyuss/wretch/katzenjammer

You cannot beat Kyuss on a Sunday afternoon.

Written by douglasp

November 9th, 2008 at 8:32 pm

Posted in Music

The Return of Led Zeppelin | Listening Post from Wired.com

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Written by douglasp

September 28th, 2008 at 5:05 am

Posted in Music

My Morning Jacket

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New album…

Love it…

Written by douglasp

June 15th, 2008 at 7:13 am

Posted in Music