The 8-bit Scene (or, behind the curve yet again!)

So the crew @ WBIM were kind enough to give me this hilarious compilation of 8-bit covers of Kraftwerk songs last semester called 8-Bit Operators (2007)....I have made public my deep affection for Kraftwerk in classes, conversation, and even a previous blog entry (see the Archive). It's a nice compliment in my collection to the compilation Trans-Slovenia Express (1994), which of course is a set of Slovene artists doing songs like "We Are The Robots" and such. 'FHB used the disc to make a series of station promos before I finally was allowed to abscond with it to my office....

If you're scratching your head going, "Erm, 8-bit?" think of the bleeps and pops you used to get with those 1st-Gen home gaming systems (Atari or Intellivision, anyone?). These systems were going into homes right around the time that Kraftwerk was coming out with records like Computer World (1981). (True fact: I had to read and write about an article in a science magazine for 8th grade science w/ Ms. Guptil, and I managed to get by with writing about a review for Computer World in a computer magazine....Then biked to Park Mall and picked up the record, much to the befuddlement of my Motley Crue-listening friends)....

8-bit seems like a pretty funny / cool mode to work in: using the aural landscape of the early home computing age, ripping it out of original context and re-processing it in all of its lo-fi glory. What a cool idea, I thought to myself. Then, thinking a little more, I realized I had students back in Bloomie two-plus years ago that were already way hip to 8-bit.

The course was "Production as Criticism," and we used Dogme95 as our problematic. For the final project, and in the spirit of Dogma, students had to draft a set of rules / constraints that they agreed to work under--the idea being that contraints can potentially invigorate ideas and creativity through problem solving. Anyhow....

One set of students did a project that looks for anything like a role play game you might have found on your Apple II, called In The Year 20XX (2006). You can cut & paste this link into your browser to see the film (note that the hero is uncoincidentally named Lars):

http://www.archive.org/details/In_The_Year_20XX

Long story short: guess who is behind the curve yet again? But you know, you could die trying and still never have a chance. The fun of teaching is enabling folks to do stuff you would never think up yourself, and see them learn/grow doing it.

Priceless.

Trolling the "used" bins @ Newbury Comics

The thrill of the $3.99 used CD continues....that's about as much as I can budget myself with a clean conscience to mine the depths of my '80s music cravings. This week? Peter Murphy's first solo effort after the Bauhaus meltdown, Should the World Fail to Fall Apart (1986). Somewhere I have a D90 cassette dub of this that I made off vinyl from the Minneapolis Public Library...."Canvas Beauty" is going to show up on some compilation discs this year, I kid you not.

Here's another guy named Peter Murphy who (spoiler alert!) flubs his chance at glory. Troll YouTube for the other one.



Inbox Reduction Resolution 2008
YEAR TO DATE: Yahoo: -20% BSC: +6%

The post-commencement fizz

Here's a gratuitous pic of three Commies from before the ceremony. Who's that stiff-looking guy on the left?!

I'm a little off-topic today, but not by much--I just want to reflect a bit on the accomplishments of the Class of 2008 (January edition!) whose graduation was last night.

Successfully navigating your way through college is not an easy task--there are any number of ways to get sidetracked, waylaid, or otherwise disposed (and no, we're not going to get into biographical specifics on this, thanks). My point is that completing your BA is a big deal, and something worth celebrating. Commencement is literally a rite of passage, and I was glad to see so many proud students (and even prouder parents, friends, etc.) last night.

Commencement, as the keynote speaker said (in his perhaps-a-tad-too-long-kinda-sorta speech), is also literally a beginning rather than simply an ending. It's true: for the Class of 2008, today is the first day of the rest of their lives....I heard great things that our Comm grads are already plugged into, and future plans being hatched. It's exciting!

And it's a good reminder that any one class, or even the accomplishment of completing a degree, is part of the broader and deeper life-journey that we're all on....As I used to say a whole lot more often, "It's all good." True, that.

Another RIP blog entry

This isn't good--one of my last entries of the fall/winter was regarding the murder of South African reggae artist Lucky Dube (see the archive for the post + a video). This week I'm sad to report not only the death of US actor Heath Ledger (perhaps most known from Brokeback Mountain and most recently in the Todd Haines Dylan antibiopic I'm Not There), but also Belizean singer and world music star Andy Palacio.

Palacio is the lesser known of the two, but well worth a listen. This past weekend I picked up the most recent issue of Songlines magazine, which pegged his album Watina as #2 in their "Best Albums 2007" survey (you can hear samples of his work at www.myspace.com/andypalacio). His body of work, recording and otherwise, recently garnered him the honor of being named UNESCO's 40th Artist for Peace. He was only 47.



IRR: BSC=389 (+6.6%/sem.); Yahoo=107 (+7.0%/sem.)

New Year's Resolutions (I know, I know)

I know what you're thinking, and you're right: new year's resolutions can be pretty lame. Personally, I think what makes them lame is that, if you're not careful, they can really set you up to fail. And who needs that?

Still, there's something to be said for the symbolic attempt to consciously vector one's life in positive directions....even if it IS doomed! And in a public forum, no less. Wait--who thought this was a good idea?

Of the New Year's resolutions I made this year, at least three are applicable here:

1) I hereby resolve to regularly blog once again. I figure if I can write 3x/week here, that's pretty good. Not coincidentally, my father is on a similar 3x/week kind of schedule, albeit not exactly of his own choosing. So if I can manage to have a new post for him every time he logs on for a post-Nadine's read, I'd be a happy camper. And if I'm blogging more, it puts me in a better spot to cajole my students to do the same (are you listening, gang?)....

2) I hereby resolve to get that darned book proposal out. My advisors in graduate school always framed our dissertations as "the first draft of your first book." Ok, then. I love the fact that BSC values teaching so highly, but both myself and the college would like to see some action on the research front beyond conferences and such. Fair enough. For the book to fly, the book proposal has to sing--how's that for a mixed metaphor? So that needs to happen asap, if not sooner. No pressure....

3) I hereby resolve to weed, prune, and ultimately drastically reduce my email inboxes. I'll track the progress of what I lovingly refer to as the "Inbox Reduction Resolution of 2008" (hereafter "IRR'08") through the spring semester....or at least until it gets annoying and/or boring. I'd love to hear your strategies on this--or if you even think this is a problem. For the record, I'm going into this with 365 emails in my Yahoo a/c, and an even 100 in my BSC a/c.

Item last: found two Rainer discs I didn't have, thanks to my friend Ryan who has succeeded in transplanting himself from Bloomie to the Old Pueblo this past year. Maybe more on that next week, but in the meantime here's a clip of him doing "Life Is Fine" on British TV....Enjoy.