This made no sense to me until I saw "facepalm" next to it. Then I laughed.
February 2010
"Audrey (Royal Beats 2)"
"Audrey (Royal Beats 2)" [mp3 removed]
Another iteration of this Vermona drum machine beat series I've been working on. The device has three drums that can be kicks or toms depending on the tuning and the attack/decay envelope. Here I tuned them to different pitches and used them to play reductive melodies. Why not just use a synth? These toms sound really good to me, and filtering them makes them even more sensuous.
The bass is a long, distorted note recorded earlier on one of the toms, then given different pitches after the fact, using a software "tune" plug in. And am continuing to explore compression plugins to punch up some of the sounds.
This could be longer than two minutes--am thinking of ways to add to it. Also thinking about making the tom "solo" in the middle a bit less random. [Update: Changed a few notes in the "solo" and reposted the song.]
Take the shirtless guy - please
From the annual TED conference (Technocrats Embrace the Dharma) comes "The Shirtless Dancing Guy" theory of leadership. In a video shown at the conference, a man dances a goofy dance by himself outdoors, then another man runs up and joins him, then a mob forms, all dancing the goofy dance.
Simplified, the shirtless dancing guy is a "lone nut" until someone follows him--it is the "first follower" that turns solo insanity into a mass movement. This isn't offered as a parable of the Third Reich but rather some kind of wisdom about building people-powered initiatives. MyDD, a center-left site, cites it with favor.
A counterexample might be the scene in Forrest Gump where Tom Hanks runs cross-country. Hanks' "first follower" asks "why are you running?" and joins him without getting a decent answer. More runners join. Three years Hanks suddenly stops, in the middle of Monument Valley, leaving a hundred runners stranded without a clue.
The shirtless guy in the TED video is dancing at a music festival. Presumably everyone came to dance and have fun and then go home, so "leadership" has a pretty low bar.
(edited for clarity, tone)
Ron Paul's Celebrity Doppelganger
It's not Sir Ian McKellen as Magneto as some have suggested but rather Dame Margaret Rutherford playing Agatha Christie's Miss Marple:
