Friday, May 27, 2011

Now for something completely different...

I started this blog with the idea that I'll write about things related to books and technology and what not. But I find myself moving more towards things that I like and things I want to talk about, which aren't always related to books or technology.

The more I talk about the things I like, the more I want to talk about the things I love. So I'm going to try to get an eensy weensy bit honest here and tell a story to the few of you who have yet to click away.

Almost nobody who knows me knows that I write a lot. Mostly you could say it's poetry, but that's hard for me to say (and it took me a long time to come to the point where it was acceptable if you said it). Silly really. But after a while of writing what you think is unclassifiable, what do you got? Something no one can read because they can't find it. So screw it.

Over to the right is a short poem I wrote on the back of a business card last night. It's sort of about football. It's more about the athletes who train everyday and the trophies or the cups they work for.

I ripped this business card style right from Hugh Macleod, an excellent illustrator I've linked to many times before. Just look at the older posts from this month if you want to see what wows me about that guy. I'm not looking to do the same thing as him. I'm just looking for a format that's short and small, that can travel light better than a whole book can.

I'll still be writing about all sorts of stuff related to technology and publishing. I just wanted to give this side of me, the part that I see with, a bit of air.

Tuesday, May 24, 2011

Why music beats most other art forms

Daniel Lanois For the Beauty of Wynona
Album art by reknowned Czech Artist Jan Saudek


I have a feeling music is more popular than ever before. This might be like a Golden Age we’re in or something.

Is there another art form that reaches people the way music does? Music is instant. 2 - 3 minutes. If you like the song, you want another one. Like enough of them, you'll pull together to see the band live.

Music is so powerful that there are tons of sites and bloggers that talk about how technology is helping bands break, changing music distribution, killing major labels, etc. etc. I subscribe to the Lefsetz letter. A lot of the time he talks about Katy Perry and Lady Gaga, how these types of acts will be gone in a couple of years, how grass rooters like Arcade Fire and Mumford and Sons are doing it the long-haul right way, how older artists aren’t engaging a young audience properly (You mean it’s not actually Stevie Nicks who’s Tweeting?). Sometimes it can be a little bit too much.

If you read enough of that sort of stuff, you sort of lose track of how powerful music is on its own. It’s just about good songs. 2-3 minutes that communicate something, that succeed in making you want more or do not.

So in the spirit of simplicity and good songs, here are two from Canadian songwriter and producer Daniel Lanois' For the Beauty of Wynona. It was released in 1993, but I just discovered them today. They are instant.

The Messenger
"Oh the door that closes tightly
is the door that can swing wide..."



Rocky World
"She's turning twenty, and out on the make
Pounding the blacktop with a habit to shake
She's looking for a manger in the eyes of a stranger
down in the streets of a rocky world..."


Read more after the jump...