This could be a tape, a High Fidelity top N list, a digitape (which the spell checker suggests should be written ‘digit ape’), a tribute or just plain flame-bait!
It’s a few names/sounds/sensations that have been rattling around my brain for quite sometime.
In today’s starkly visual world, where video dominates (from YouTube:“http://www.youtube.com/fiveyear” – five years dude! – to the debate over HTML5, or more accurately over the <video> tag), a disembodied voice can still evoke strong emotion – maybe even more so, unaccustomed as we become to the lack of visual stimulus.
This is given in no particular order and is incomplete, highly personal, biased and – in stark contrast to it’s title and subject – replete with visual content.
You really should close your eyes…
Maria Callas, la Divina. What more is there to say…
Cecilia Bartoli, whose voice made me go back to opera after long years. “There once was a King…”
Petra Magoni. Love at first note.
Madeleine Peyroux. Smokie nights, low lights and cacique con cola.
Cassandra Wilson for haunting my midsummer full moons all these years
Η Ιφιγένεια, των Νάμα. Δροσιά το καλοκαίρι, ταξίδι, μικρές οδύσσειες.1
Estrella Morente Της χρωστάω το νόστο κάθε επιστροφής.2
Alternatively, you can pretend you’re listening to radio.
1Cool in the summer, travel, little odysseys – I know, it doesn’t translate well
2I owe her the nostalgia of every return
Continue Reading…
Posted by Vassilis Rizopoulos on May 26, 2010
This was inspired by 5 things you should know before dating a journalist, which I found quite funny (while itching to deconstruct – which I won’t do).
1. Google is our friend
…and Twitter, Facebook etc…
If you are of a “dating age” then you have a life online and we have the means to expose it.
If you have a life online, you have a computer and we know how it works.
And the best part is, you will give us your passwords, surrender your laptops and let us configure your smartphones, because, hey… we know how to fix it.
So it’s best you don’t try to hide anything. We don’t have to find things out, your computers will tell us.
2. We like our toys
Be it computers, cameras, remote controls or actual toys.
Inquisitive brains like to fiddle with things, find out how they work, what makes them tick and how to make them do new and interesting things.
With the right application domain, you could be in for the time of your life.
3. You will be tuned out
Programming requires attributes that at extremes would be considered autism.
Present us with an interesting enough problem and we will tune the world out.
Present us with a boring subject and we will tune the world out.
You need to find the right balance of subjects and alternation velocity.
Be careful of the “black hole” subject though. This is a subject that once breached will create an endless monologue of minute details that will kill anything and everything by sheer force of boredom.
And never, ever, put two geeks that share the same “black hole” subject in the same room.
You are guaranteed a super massive black hole that will suck your conversational universe, compact it and eliminate it in the vortex of incomprehensible detail that is stored in the programmer’s mind. Add an internet connection and you might never get out alive.
4. Don’t ask us to fix your computer.
Especially don’t ever utter the words “I have this problem with my computer, maybe you could help me…” within a month of meeting, even if it is a pretext for luring the target to your bedroom.
There is nothing more boring than cleaning up a Windows installation for the Nth time and the aversion effect is immediate.
Let it be known there is a problem (“darn, my laptop started acting up again”), let them offer, never ask.
For more repercussions see also 1.
5. Variation guaranteed.
Programmers vary wildly, in personality, in interests, in body shapes.
You could claim above average intelligence until you see the state some software projects end up in, so no, anything goes.
You better consciously avoid stereotypes (the geek, the nerd, the asocial, the unwashed etc.) and keep an open mind.
Surprises, good and bad, are part of living.
Posted by Vassilis Rizopoulos on May 20, 2010