Audio – Page 3 – Monocultured

Foundlings 2

Of all the 6 and a half billion people in the world, what are the odds that any two people are a real match? Stories from people who know they’ve beat the odds, and the lengths they’ve gone to do it—including an American professor who sings Chinese opera for anyone who’ll listen, to get one step closer to his mate, and two kids who travel halfway around the country to find each other and become best friends.

→ This American Life episode 374: Somewhere Out There.

[audio:https://monocultured.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2009/03/374_-somewhere-out-there.mp3]

Bernie Madoff woke up in jail today, after pleading guilty to 11 charges stemming from an enormous Ponzi scheme. How enormous? The most recent court documents put the figure at $65 billion. In another amazing Planet Money Radio Dramatization, Alex Blumberg, Adam Davidson and David Kestenbaum act out a Ponzi scheme of their own.

→ NPR, Planet Money: A Ponzi Drama.

[audio:https://monocultured.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2009/03/17-planet-money_-a-ponzi-drama.mp3]

And two clips from Weeds. I don’t know if I look forwards to the next season, but It’s prolly worth a look.

[flv:https://www.monocultured.com/blog/blog_video/weeds_song.flv https://www.monocultured.com/blog/blog_video/weeds_song.png 640 266]

[flv:https://www.monocultured.com/blog/blog_video/weeds_pictures_of_mom.flv https://www.monocultured.com/blog/blog_video/weeds_pictures_of_mom.png 640 275]

Articles, stories and other lies.

The doctor in charge, who is now on trial, reportedly lured teenagers with unwanted pregnancies by offering to help with abortion. They would be locked up there until they gave birth, whereupon they would be forced to give up their babies for a token fee of around 20,000 naira (170 dollars, 135 euros).

→ Babies for sale in Nigeria [via Warren Ellis]

As the hornet enters the nest, a large mob of about five hundred honey bees surrounds it, completely covering it and preventing it from moving, and begin quickly vibrating their flight muscles. This has the effect of raising the temperature of the honey bee mass to 47 °C. The honey bees can just about tolerate this temperature, but the hornet cannot survive more than 46 °C, so it dies. Often several bees perish along with the intruder, but the death of the hornet scout prevents it from summoning reinforcements which would wipe out the colony.

→ Wikipedia on the giant Asian hornet

[audio:The_Cave_Part_3.mp3]

Rose-Marie Gascoigne of New Orleans was the first to answer. She had sat with her lightboard for hours each evening, accompanied by two disinterested tabbies. She said later that her heart had “just plain stopped” when the lights began to flicker on and off. “The whole world just held its breath. I could hear the blood rushing in my head. I knew what to do–what the hell else was that damn button for? It just took me a couple of days to work myself up to it. It was like sending a message to God.”

→ The loneliness engine [Via MetaFilter]

An artificial appropriation of different styles from different eras, the hipster represents the end of Western civilization – a culture lost in the superficiality of its past and unable to create any new meaning. Not only is it unsustainable, it is suicidal. While previous youth movements have challenged the dysfunction and decadence of their elders, today we have the “hipster” – a youth subculture that mirrors the doomed shallowness of mainstream society.

→ Hipster: The dead end of western civilization

And worst of all. Dumbest, deafest, shittest of all, you have removed the unstressed ‘a’ so that the stress that should have fallen on “nosh” is lost, and my piece ends on an unstressed syllable. When you’re winding up a piece of prose, metre is crucial. Can’t you hear? Can’t you hear that it is wrong? It’s not fucking rocket science. It’s fucking pre-GCSE scansion. I have written 350 restaurant reviews for The Times and i have never ended on an unstressed syllable. Fuck. fuck, fuck, fuck.

→ Giles Coren: Indefinite article, definitive anger

John Schula, 30, a Latino male from Montebello, and a 17-year-old boy were fatally wounded in what sheriff’s deputies described as a gang-related shooting in the 3900 block of Aleman Avenue at 10:45 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 18. The double homicide ended a year of relative calm in Pico Rivera. It took place near where 57-year-old grandmother Maria Hicks was gunned down in August 2007 after trying to intervene when taggers were spray-painting graffiti on a wall in her neighborhood.

→ Los Angeles Times: The homicide report

Arabiska kvinnor i media

Eller, en jordansk feminist, snarare. Seminariet kvinnliga röster om kvinnors villkor i arabiska media skulle haft två paneldeltagare, men Mari [sic?] från Libanon kunde inte komma. Enligt ett brev från henne som lästes upp skulle en debatt om yttrandefrihet “kännas som att debattera inredningen i köket medans huset brinner” så hon ställde in sitt besök och blev kvar i Beirut.

Kvar var Sawsan Zaidan från Jordanien, med Sophie Heine som utfrågare. SZ är en radiojournalist som fått upp feministiska frågor på agendan via sitt radioprogram; under 24 program belyste hon kvinnofrågor som annars inte diskuteras.

För tillfället är jag för slut i huvudet för att skriva ihop en bra sammanfattning – jag skriver en senare eller imorgon – men lyssna för all del på föreläsningen. Precis som de tidigare inspelningarna så är ljudet inte det bästa (trots att jag satt längst fram. eller på grund av att jag satt längst fram och högtalarna är riktade åt mitten), och folk hostar och prasslar de första fem minuterna. Men om du skruvar upp ljudet och lyssnar ordentligt så kanske du får ut något av det, hoppas jag.

De sista femton minuterna var ägnade åt frågor och svar, och jag har skrivit ner frågorna nedan, utifall de inte hörs på inspelningen. (bara kvinnor frågade, och det är inte så konstigt eftersom det var en överväldigande majoritet kvinnor på föreläsningen. Kvinnofrågor är fortfarande en fråga för kvinnor, så klart)

1) Det finns en stor andel kristna i de länder du har tagit upp. Jag kommer också från Jordanien och växte upp som kristen, och jag känner mig lika traditionstyngd som en muslim kvinna. Tror du inte att separationen mellan religion och tradition ändå är giltig?

2) Vilka makter i de muslimska länderna uppfattar står på din sida; vem har du fått stöd av?

3) Hedersmord och hedersvåld – vågar du ta upp det i ditt program?

4) Kan svenska kvinnor befria jordanska kvinnor?

5) Hur går finansieringen av oberoende media till, och hur ser lagen på oberoende media?

[audio:kvinnor_i_arabiska_medier_low.mp3]

Ladda ner en lågkvalitets-version via den här länken, eller orginalfilen på 50mb.

Determinism & kreationism

En kort debatt med Roland Poirier Martinsson, Maria Gunther-Axelsson och Nils Uddenberg, modererad av John Chrispinsson, angående kreationismens vara eller icke vara i förhållande till vetenskapen, men framför allt biologin & fysiken.

Jag missade de första fem minuterna av föreläsningen och kom in i slutet på Maria Gunther-Axelssons (hädanefter Maria G-A. För många bokstäver och mina händer har börjat skaka efter för mycket surt journalist-kaffe) presentation. Jag spelade in resten av föreläsningen och du kan lyssna på den nedan om du vill. Annars kan jag sammanfatta det hela med att alla fyra vid bordet höll med varandra, mer eller mindre. Även om Maria G-A & Roland P-M var religiösa i botten så kom en konsolidering mellan vetenskap och gudstro inte till stånd, utan religionen fick ta platsen som det självupplevda, obevisbara (även om alla var väl medvetna om att inte heller ateism går att bevisa).

Lagom intressant, men de böckerna som Maria G-A och Nils U promotar i samband med mässan kan vara läsvärda.

[audio:determinism_eller_kreationism_ 1.mp3]

Ladda ner mp3-filen genom att höger-klicka på den här länken.

1) Lasse Eriksson has a possy.
2) Jag kallar fenomenet att inte kunna komma fram eftersom folkmassan står helt stilla “att bli Hermaniserad“. eller Lizerad, beroende på vem folkskaran utgör en brandfara till förmån för. Historie-Herman i det här fallet.
3) Fin ide: Skrubba-på tattueringar av Piratförlagets författare. Jan Guillou var helt slut. Tog en Stina istället. Kanske en ny grej för att öka kidsens läseintresse – jag byter tre Mark mot din Kadefors.

Bruce Springsteen and I; An unaknowledged love affair

I haven’t been listening to new music lately. Apart from browsing the rather slim IDM vaults of 15megsoffame.com, I’ve been dedicating myself to Terry Pratchett most of the time. That, or recorded lectures (the teaching company is a favourite) on topics I can’t even recall at the moment, although I’m sure I’ve become a better and more confused person as a result.

As it turns out, my hampstering has lead me to have more music on my computer & iPod than I’ve had time to listen to, cause I found thunder road by Tortoise, sung by Will Oldham (aka bonnie ‘prince’ billy), and I really liked it. like, I am almost certain that there was a hint of a tear poking it’s head out of one of my eyes at some point. And that’s quite a lot.

Today I looked for the lyrics to the song, and was only slightly pertubed when it turns out that the song was originally written by Bruce Springsteen of all people. (Wikipedia article on the song here, and the lyrics to it are on this here fan-page.) I’ve always branded myself as someone who doesn’t like Bruce Springsteen, but this sounds false when compared to another statement I tend to do, which is that it’s content, not form that’s important. Since the song was written thirty years ago, I must’ve heard it somewhere before. The only reason I don’t recall it must be cause it sucked.

Then will oldham sings it, and it makes perfect sense. Form over content, indeed.

[audio:Thunder_Road.mp3]

Another brilliant track from the same album is another cover: Love is love by Lungfish. That’s about it from the album though – just get those two. The rest is rather bleak, if not outright crappy (the album is The Brave and the Bold, btw)

Sound art, performance, perserverence and endurance

My new years resolution (Technically, I came up with this a couple of days later, when Anna asked if she should sign me up for a reality tv show) was to say yes to things rather than my hitherto standard replies no, hell no and the occasional how much would you pay me to perform that?.

So I joined some of my newly made friends from the sound course to Musikens hus here in Gothenburg to watch three bands have an improv night.

I’ve always had the nagging suspicion that “improv night” meant “you have to be a musician to enjoy this, ’cause ours is a music for the brains, and you have an oh so tiny brain”. I wasn’t totally proven wrong.

I came in late for the first group, a three man jazz combo that played with a lot of umpfh. The band after that was called ‘Boogie’ (what’s the matter with the bad taste in naming things here in Gothenburg? Two days ago I listened to a classical music quartett called Kvart i ett which is a pün or play on words, meaning ‘a quarter to one’ and sounding like ‘kvartett’! Don’t your sides just split in despair over this?) and consisted of a drummer and a singer (and assorted bells and whatnots). When they didn’t improvise it sounded kinda like Coco rosie, which is double-plus good, and when they improvised it sounded like improvisation and bells and whatnots, which is un-good.

Anywho. It was nice and my simple mind could appreciate the beats and the singing. Short break, I go smoke, finish my beer and sit back down, and listen to 25 minutes of this:

[audio:Recording3.mp3]

And this sort of combined three elements of stuff I really can’t deal with:
* Performance
* Live show
* Experimental sound art

I don’t like performances on principle. It has something to do with my gut reaction of “what the hell made you think this was a good idea and how come no-one stopped you?“. Then again, I can’t watch embarrassing moments on TV either, so it’s probably just me being squeamish and such.

I don’t like concerts ’cause it’s so seldom that the music coincides with my fancy at the moment (When I’m sulking, I’d like to have Nick Cave standing by, but at other times I probably wouldn’t appreciate him as much), so most often I’m just not in the mood.

Finally, I’ve listened enough to experimental sound art to know that what they were doing had been done in the 70s and was abandoned because after the dust settled all you were left with was a bunch of noise that could only be appreciated while on drugs or heavy theoretical academia. Yes some people can probably relate to it. Yes it sorta pushing the boundries of how we interpret sounds and musical narration.

It’s just not very interesting. And it really doesn’t matter that those who are playing are very talented within their fields – There are a whole bunch of people who are really good at what they are doing, but what they are doing is shit.

Anywho. The three bands are going on tour. They hit Oslo next, and then Stockholm.

Avant garde falafel run

When you’re used to working on a few pieces of art-produce a year, there’s something liberating with getting a very short time limit and goal for a production. I’m taking a full time sound-art course this semester (apart from my regular full time studies at context & media), and we’re hopping around different faculties and trying stuff out.

This week we got divided into three groups, each of which had two days to produce a work according to instructions. Me and a music student (the first person named ‘Vanessa’ that I’ve met in real life) were supposed to put together a walk. That is, a audio-guided physical walk for people to listen to and walk/obey/experience/yawn at.

We went the low-brow way and came up with Falafel run: A sound thing for two people – One of whom is sitting in a couch reading, and the other is going to buy falafel. The two have phone contact through the whole thing, and the idea is that others who are listening to this are gonna follow the same route and end up with two falafels.

I wouldn’t call this a ‘good’ work, but rather ‘fun’ or ‘veering in an amusing direction’ maybe. if you’d like to give it a listen (or a try, if you’re in Gothenburg), just click below. If you’d like to download the files, they are here: www.monocultured.com/audio/falafel_run.zip

This is the walker
[audio:A-mixdown.mp3]

This is the sitter
[audio:B-mixdown.mp3]