Form Determines Content: LP to CD

It's almost become a truism to say that form determines content; that is, any message is altered by the form used to express it. As a Literature teacher I use this phrase regularly. Here today I'm reflecting again on the change from LP to CD and how that has impacted the artwork (by this I mean the total package, sound and liner notes and image) involved.

My selected example is the Beatles' Abbey Road album. I've been listening to the remastered version recently and thinking about the overwhelming shock of silence that comes at the end of the LP's side one. Let me take you back: the last track of side one as originally envisioned and issued was Lennon's I Want You, seven-and-a-half minutes of desire and its aftermath. The band gets into a lazy, compulsive, hypnotic riff that feels like it could go on forever. Apparently-- I remember reading at the time-- The Beatles weren't sure how best to end the track so they simply cut the tape (btw, I later discovered that the South African cassette edition had a fade-out instead: which was a horrible perversion of the original). Well, that sudden silence always came as a shock, and with the original vinyl that shock lingered and bled into a moment or longer of pondering it and indeed some thinking about the whole of side one. You see, the music quite literally stopped at that point. If you wanted to hear some more you had to get up, walk over to the record player, and turn the album over.

In literature terms, the silence was followed by white space-- the space between stanzas or the space of a chapter break. I Want You was intended to be followed by silence.

But this is not so any longer: I Want You is now followed after a very short pause by Here Comes The Sun and the brilliant segueing drama of the album's original side two.

As useful and convenient as this might be, it obviously does damage to the original artwork. It is like repainting a canvas of Renoir's or reshaping a hand of Michaelangelo's David.

Nowadays Abbey Road can be played in the background, on continuous replay, as an aural wallpaper.

This, for sure, is a pity.

On the other hand, of course, Abbey Road becomes almost a new work. That could be a good thing.

In any event, form determines content.

Furthermore, and more obviously, the imagery of the cover doesn't carry the same weight and impact as with the original LP. Abbey Road's cover is now iconic; but the CD age has diminished the power of the packaging. When The Byrds first flew to rarified heights of influence and glory, their leader, Roger McGuinn, said that LPs were 'electronic magazines'. It was a useful way to think of them then. The newer CDs are obviously of a different kind: more pamphlets than magazines.

Blessed are the Noisemakers (vuvuzela 2)

Well, 2010 has come and gone (the world cup, that is) and we wait to define its legacy. One thing is already certain--vuvuzelas are here to stay. The plastic noisemakers have been embraced by the youth and any congregation of students in town, whether for sports or a hip-hop/rap session, is likely to be found wielding them. And, as we all know, most of Swaziland's population is below the age of 19...

Tantra-of-Thomas

Just a note that one of my other blogs, Tantra of Thomas, a blog of meditations on the Gospel of Thomas, Tantra, and Zen, is back up and running @ http://tantraofthomas.blogspot.com

Jesus and Buddha: those normal humans!

Here's an interesting idea I thought about recently:we think Jesus and the Buddha (and other spiritual leaders) are abnormal and superhuman but they aren't--they are what humans were intended to be! It's the rest of us that are abnormal!

How to Mxit

I like to smile
and cuddle
and kiss
and

well, it was cold on Thursday.

Love is never a duality

We are aware of love because we live in a world without it. The world does not know what love is-- its art, its music, its films, its books--it does not recognise love and so it cannot describe it. Love is never a duality; it is not a man and a woman: it is the man and the woman together, a unity, in a place where neither of them any longer exist. In the place where you can no longer tell who is who and which is which, you might find love. Love is beyond the body, love is beyond the mind. Love is beyond duality; it cannot be described in words, for a word always implies its opposite. To say 'I love' means that I can also say 'I hate'. This is not love but just talking. This is liking or lusting; it is desire, not love. Love is beyond such distinctions. Love is beyond words.The world talks of falling in love because it knows also of falling out of love. Love is love. It doesn't have a falling out or a falling in. It deepens but it doesn't run away. It doesn't have valleys or mountaintops because it is the air and the stone and the plants--the very fabric from which the valleys and mountains are made.

Peppermint vs Jolicloud

Ok, I've been trying out these two implementations of a Cloud-based OS, and I like them both. It's amazing how quickly my thinking has adjusted to their different designs. My verdict right now is to use Peppermint for laptops and Jolicloud for networks--but that decision is based primarily on the fact that I can't get Jolicloud to install on anything other than my Samsung NC10, where it works just fine.

Both use online suites of apps-- Google's; and, in Jolicloud's case, Adobe's air.

They differ in interface design and underlying technologies.

Both are built on Ubuntu, but Jolicloud looks more like an iPhone desktop than Ubuntu. Peppermint looks like Linux Mint. Rather than a browser, dedicated panes are used to run web applications: Peppermint uses Mozilla's Prism; Jolicloud uses Google's Chrome.

I have had no problems at all so far with either system (although I'm using the Peppermint respin rather than the initial buggy offering).

Which will be the winner? probably something else entirely, but these are showing the way to go. Recommended.

South Africa 2010 World Cup

Africa, and Africans, are really really hoping that their teams will shine at this year's World Cup. It's more than a matter of pride; it's a belief that somehow history will be corrected. I was in a restaurant/bar in town the other day when a warm-up game was on the TV there. I asked a waitress who she thought would win the game. She looked up at the TV: it showed 'Portugal 0, Mozambique 0'. Without a moment's hesitation she replied, "Mozambique". Her response was representative. [The final result of that game was Portugal 3, Mozambique 0.]

Caffeine @ work

Well, there it is. I checked my Facebook page and a window popped up asking me if I wanted to link my profile to 'things I was interested in'. What the ? I thought. Then I looked at the list-- yes, these are my areas of interest; they have obviously been culled from my blogs over the years. I was amazed: there were things there I had completely forgotten about (I have been blogging for a long time).

Google's Caffeine

There has been widespread (worldspread) concern about Google's collection of data and many are already viewing Google as the 21st Century's Big Brother. I'm personally not so concerned; I'm aware, so I reduce the risks: I don't use credit cards nor do I use Internet Banking and so on. Even so, my footprint is all over the web and there's no way I can ever be anonymous. I'm also aware that a remote computer (running windows, which I don't) can be hacked within 15 minutes of logging on to the net. And Google analytics is running in the background, all the time.

In short, I'm neither naive nor paranoid; I believe the Cloud is a good thing and I embrace it.

But still, I'm staggered by the figures released by Google regarding their new Caffeine engine:
* Caffeine will constantly monitor the web to search, store and index information
* It will process information in parallel, not in linear fashion (which means thousands of
pages--like this one--at once) every second
* the database can hold 100 million GB of information

Blowing the 2010 trumpet (vuvuzela)

Today, in the UK Times, there is this comment: "Shame on the visiting footballers and coaches who, before the World Cup has even begun, are whining about the noise made by vuvuzelas, the metre-long plastic trumpets with which South African football fans serenade and spur on their team!"
The sound made by the vuvuzelas is in fact entirely appropriate since it is South Africa that is hosting the football World Cup. It is exactly the sound familiar to gentlemen like President Zuma, who, as a past herdboy, will know the sound intimately; it is the sound made by cows in the field--deep and indeed deeply monotonous. But that's what you get from cows. In case people don't remember, this region is rooted on cow culture: the structure and shape of homesteads (kraals), the use of cow manure for a variety of things, the notion of cows being a sign of wealth--even for paying marriage dowry (lobola). And as a vegetarian I can personally attest to the multitude of dishes that involve cuts and pieces of cow. I'm not particularly a fan either, but come Friday my ears will also be ringing to that sound.