Let’s Be Specific About Stuff

They’re Pod People, I Tell Ya! Pod People!

by Tynan on December 29, 2012

I was so pleased with myself for this ‘playlist’ of podcasts I made for the guy who runs the local coffee shop.

I couldn’t quite tell how much of it was the unsolicited gift bit/random act of gifting… or how oddly important it was that this dude I don’t know that well sees how smart and ‘switched on’ I was in my picks.

Either way, I figured it was only right that I shared the shameful sense of self-satisfaction I got and, of course, the pods I picked themselves.

(Judge if you like but, what’s the last nice thing you did for your own bestie barista..? You feelin’ good about that two dollar tip that you made sure he/she saw with the slo-mo hover hand technique?)

Radiolab – Season 5 – Ep. 3 – Race (I’m not gonna spoon feed you but from 34:05 on – particularly, Gladwell’s personal bit bout race and running and how much pointless pain a star athlete is made of – this’ll for certain show you what production can do to heighten a story.)

WTF with Marc Maron Podcast – Episode 333 – Daniel Smith (K, not all these need a note but, this kinda long form talk about life anxiety, blaming shit on your folks and sad sex teachers is why you hear your hip, ‘plugged in’ friends mentioning the Marc Maron Podcast. And how, ‘Really, you should hear the Anthony Bourdain one.’ True exhausting hipster, very true.)

Harmontown – Ep. 2 – The inception Of Girlfriends (Second show in, using your young girlfriend as your co-host/dj for an episode = Thing #366 That Radio’s Never Gonna Try.)

Stuff You Should Know – Nov. 8 2012 – What Will Happen When We Reach The Singularity? (The accelerating pace of our technological future! What I understand about it sounds super cool.)

You Made It Weird #101 – Jessica St. Clair

Fresh Air: Aaron Sorkin – The Writer Behind ‘The Newsroom’ (Explain yourself for making a thing we don’t love as much as other things you’ve made for us!)

You Look Nice Today – Schrodinger’s Conference Bag (“What Is Ronald McDonald House?” once again delivers as the most consistent comedy lead-in.)

The Mental Illness Happy Hour – Fred Stoller

All Songs Considered : 2013 Winter Music Preview (The beauty of this show is in the few tracks they’ll point me to next.)

Rob Paulsen and Maurice LaMarche – Nerdist Podcast

The Dana Gould Hour – Ep. 2 – …and hot pudding!

The Indoor Kids #40: Story and Gaming, the Sequel – Starring Devin Faraci (Or, I dunno, maybe the future of storytelling and games isn’t interesting to you…)

Jordan, Jesse, Go!: Episode 252: Downtown Lady with Jonah Ray and Andy Wood (How bout a genuine hippie’s bucket list and sensory depravation tank rental places?! If you really want an in point, start around 0:00 and continue ’til it’s done.)

I could keep going but I ran outta space on the gift flash drive.

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Sometimes, I Surprise Myself

by Tynan on December 5, 2012

There’s nothing better than hearing a personalized music experience while driving. Something about the act of driving. Hearing song after song of music that we love has a certain blissful, euphoric feeling to it. We’ve all jammed out when one of our favorite songs played on the radio, but few of us have had the chance to jam out to every one of our favorite songs. Yeah, a person can create aplaylist or shuffle their iPod, but the randomness and discovery elements are what make the personalized music experience so special. Our brains have a prediction mechanism and when a song plays that we love, yet hadn’t quite anticipated, it’s flooded with dopamine. It’s like winning at a slot machine.Truth is, music listeners (obsessives) play a painstakingly active role in their process of musical discovery.

I might argue, discovering music is more like weeding through the trash on a casino floor looking for coins; if you wanna find anything of value, you’ve gotta sift through the shit yourself.

I was reading another piece on the future of music… y’know, one of the ones where someone describes a dying industry with a broken distribution model, etc, etc. In the piece, there was some muckity muck at Billboard proclaiming music discovery to be “The Key To Digital Fortune.”

Billboard was pledging to pour money and manpower into this internet sinkhole of music discovery; the place where start-ups sail off the edge of the ocean in foolhardy attempts to reach the new world, all the while skiing in Pandora’s wake. (In actuality, Pandora’s off begging folks to help them turn a profit while “industry experts” serve notice to scare away the few that might someday time it out just right, sail off the edge of the known world and into the clouds on the horizon – launching off the bones of radio’s skeleton.)

Point is… I’ve never been to the edge of the ocean but if The Adventures of Baron Munchausen is to be believed… Up Becomes Down, And Down Becomes Up.

So, while they keep telling anyone who’ll listen that Music Discovery is the path to digital failure, maybe there’s a topsy turvy new world on the other side - past all the shipwrecked start-ups - where musical discovery discoverers find their fortune.

In the interim, after sifting through the garbage on the casino floor, here’s what I could scrape together..;

Majical Cloudz – What That Was

Steffaloo – Can’t You See

WHY? – Jonathan’s Hope

Wolf Rider – For You (Travelin’ Bags)

Waxahatchee – Be Good

Grass Giraffes – Better Alone + Backstories (I like ‘em both but I like Backstories – 3:15 in – better than Better Alone)

Andrew Bird – Fatal Shore

Superchunk – This Summer (I know it’s not summer but maybe you missed it… the song and the season)

Menahan Street Band – Lights Out

Tame Impala – Feels Like We Only Go Backwards – YouTube

Susanne Sundfør – White Foxes

Parquet Courts – Borrowed Time (I prefer ‘Picture Of Health’ off the record… sadly, there’s no video)

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Heir To Edison

by Tynan on October 20, 2012

He’s been called the “restless genius”, the “rightful heir to Thomas Edison”, a “jewier Tony Stark” (OK, that last one was me and it was meant to be endearing) but Ray Kurzweil is at minimum the poster boy for an optimistic manifest future, and that’s something.

This was a pretty good interview for getting him off his typically (nano-)robotic scripted pattern of speech.

I just love hearing about a future that doesn’t resemble a sunless hellscape where roving bands of dudes in pick-up trucks have formed raping parties.

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If Money Was No Object.

by Tynan on October 11, 2012

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Blanc. Drawing A.

by Tynan on October 4, 2012

Listening to Mel Blanc is a long warm sip of grampa’s cough medicine. Anybody who’s ever done voice over work is in the shadow of his shadow. (I’m not sure what that means but, I figure it’s doubly dark.)

If you want a short swig, you could just watch Mel machine gun an enrapt late night audience and a delighted Dave Letterman below. (It’s a choice between an hours worth of smiling eyes or just the ten minutes.)

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Fun Is A Discision.

by Tynan on September 25, 2012

When I’m not robotically doing my version of the Kottke, I like the idea of crafting a little home alone project… (those of you picturing a diorama with little Joe Pesci and Daniel Stern figurines trying to penetrate the defences of a young Macauley Culkin should just skip the rest and spend your day making that.)

I spent an hour making a mix CD for that family member who craves current, ‘relevant’ culture (you know the one); a carefully made and curated line-up of fun songs, aka. the mix that makes you smile the most.

Think about it.. better spent time than the hour you might spend on devour or the buzzfeed viral video & meme hunt you were about to embark on.

So.. Watch, listen, grin, repeat as needed.

THRIFT SHOP - MACKLEMORE & RYAN LEWIS FEAT. WANZ

Xylos – Summerlong

alt-J (∆) – Breezeblocks

The Avett Brothers – Murder in the City

Lord Huron – Time To Run

Kishi Bashi – Manchester

Simone White – Big Dreams And The Headlines

Now, Now- School Friends

The Neighbourhood – Sweater Weather

Soul Searchers – Blow Your Whistle

The Streets -Fit But You Know It

The Zolas – Knot in my Heart

Delicate Steve – Wally Wilder

Novos Baianos – Dê Um Rolê

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Life Without A Heartbeat

by Tynan on September 25, 2012

Flatline from Union HZ on Vimeo.

Flatline plays like a glimpse into a weird steampunk future where we replace our beating hearts with mechanical turbines; softly whirring where they used to beat. (Somebody fetch my tattered bowler and pointless goggles, I’m ready for the steampunk slam poetry jam.)

The net effect: Life With No Heartbeat And No Pulse.

Those same filmmakers made a short called Always A Fire about NFL draft pick Chad Jones’ learning to walk, and eventually run again, after a wicked car wreck… you get to see inside his leg and everything. It’s pretty gruesome, if you’re into that.

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Are You Saying ‘I Love Jews’ Or ‘Olive Juice’?

by Tynan on September 19, 2012

Y’know, how your mouth makes shapes when saying the words “Olive Juice” that appear identical to those made when declaring “I Love Jews”……?

No?

Put yourself in the soiled boots of a Palestinian olive farmer who toils in the shade of an ever-encroaching Jewish neighbor’s property line while-

Ah, fuck it.

There’s a blonde with boobs wrapped in snakeskin, moving her mouth in slow motion.

How you like them olives?

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Scale Of Ambition From Ivy League University Dorms

by Tynan on September 13, 2012

The Yudkowsky Ambition scale (for start-up companies):

1) We’re going to build the next Facebook!

2) We’re going to found the next Apple!

3) Our product will create sweeping political change! This will produce a major economic revolution in at least one country! (Seasteading would be change on this level if it worked; creating a new country successfully is around the same level of change as this.)

4) Our product is the next nuclear weapon. You wouldn’t want that in the wrong hands, would you?

5) This is going to be the equivalent of the invention of electricity if it works out.

6) We’re going to make an IQ-enhancing drug and produce basic change in the human condition.

7) We’re going to build serious Drexler-class molecular nanotechnology.

We’re going to upload a human brain into a computer.

9) We’re going to build a recursively self-improving Artificial Intelligence.

10) We think we’ve figured out how to hack into the computer our universe is running on.

Compare and contrast to your own life experience. For instance; Today, I downloaded back episodes of Merlin Mann’s productivity podcast and was flooded with the self-satisfaction of having gotten a lot done.

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Summer Jams And Assorted Preserves

by Tynan on September 6, 2012

How is it that everyone manages to pull their definitive ‘summer mix’ outta their assholes when they haven’t yet been through a summer of mixin’ it up?

Don’t bother answering, it’s rhetorical.

Xylos – Summerlong

Kishi Bashi – Manchester

Chairlift – I Belong In Your Arms

The Neighbourhood – Sweater Weather

alt-J (∆) Breezeblocks

Now, Now- School Friends

Hot Chip – Motion Sickness

Turtle Giant – We Were Kids

Simone White – Big Dreams And The Headlines

SonReal – Up Up Up

Goldroom – Fifteen (Music Video) (ft. Chela)