Wild adventures in the English Language
For someone that actually failed my mock English ‘o’ level (yet managed an A in English Lit which has always puzzled me) I’ve never been an enthusiastic linguist- instead preferring to bury my head in machine code frantically copying pages and pages of the latest Commodore 64 computer mag only to find ’syntax error at line 163′ the typical result – but that’s a whole other chapter. In recent years I have become more aware and interested in words and language and stumbled across Stephen’s Fry recent post on Language which made me laugh out loud/bow in humble respect/excite me and on a quite a few occasions turn to my dictionary. I feel lacking in alternative words to describe this piece further. Just read it. It’s brilliant.
“Glass and concrete sentences right next to half-timbered Elizabethan phrases, a Starbucks of an utterance dwelling in an expression that once belonged to a Victorian banker, an Apple Store of an accent in a converted Georgian merchant’s lingo”
“They whip out their Sharpies and take away and add apostrophes from public signs, shake their heads at prepositions which end sentences and mutter at split infinitives and misspellings, but do they bubble and froth and slobber and cream with joy at language? Do they ever let the tripping of the tips of their tongues against the tops of their teeth transport them to giddy euphoric bliss?”
And his observation about ‘One Nation Under CCTV’ is very interesting.
Oh, and he used the word ‘Twazzock’ i haven’t heard anyone use this since secondary school. Brilliant.
I Just love Yr Wall
First spotted at Mutate Britain – and now I think I’m in love with it. Such a simple idea so well executed by Tom Hogan - a super bright designer-flash progammer-come-artist. This video shows Erin Wilson in full flow
and a beautiful folk-sound-track from Laura Veirs.
<Click the image below>
Xmas Card from the Cat Defence League
(Joking).
So many photos and ideas for things to post following my recent trip to NYC – including this photo from a media exhibition at MOMA, NYC. No hate mail please, when I get a mo I’ll write up the artists’ rationale behind this piece and then you can take it up with him.
Come on baby light my file
This was one of the more amusing exhibits at Frieze Art Fair today.
Art meets Geek meets the Doors. Unfortunately, i took the video on my phone and there’s no simple way of rotating the movie (I’m sure there is if i buy QT Pro or another video editing software) done
Nokia announces ‘Comes with Music’
So Nokia makes it’s big music play. Key facts:
- Pay-as-you-go + £130 handset
- Catalogue from the Big 4 Majors
- DRM – won’t work on an iPod
- Tracks playable on mobile and PC (2 device)
- After 1 year you can ‘keep the tracks’ if they remain on the same handset or you transfer to a new Nokia handset.
I do support new business models and anything which shakes up the industry and challenges Apple’s dominance but I’m not sure this a good deal for artists or consumers. For the artist, I’m doubt very much they’ll see much of the cake from this deal and it feels like it’s another step towards commoditisation of their output. For the consumer, you’ve now got another proprietary segment of your music- I believe consumers want total interoperability across all devices (a la MP3) – but the real whince for me is that I don’t belive 80% of consumers understand DRM and what they’re actually buying into. It’s only when your PC crashes or you try and swap operating systems that it then dawns on you that you don’t own that music after all – it’s licensed to you by a technology company. But on the plus side, it feels almost free so why wouldn’t the average teenager go for it…look forward to seeing the ads for this service
Full details at Nokia site
Links du jour + Seesmic
Love this Diesel XXX campaign. Bit saucy but it’s very well done
Texting Your way to Love. US is really embracing texting these days. This is quite funny, came from a Stanford blog 
Seesmic – i really want to like them, want to use it but just can’t see why I would. Of course, I may not be the target audience but I just don’t get why i’d want a non-real time video conversation that has so much friction (time to make it, send it, watch someone else’s commets etc…). I think Loic Le Meur is v cool, has bags of energy but I just don’t get it currently….if I want real time then video/phone/IM works, if real time not an issue then I use email, text but video? Help me someone?
Muxtape -a cautionary tale from the digital music world
well, everyone thought the RIAA or majors took them down. Not exactly, but sort of.
Full story here
