Open Claw Speaking

Yesterday I sat in a seminar for much of the day.

By the afternoon I had grown weary of the subject matter, and was instead fascinated by the gesticulations of the speaker.

I noted her techniques of "Open Claw Speaking," and made a list of her many styles:

• Open Claw Speaking giving way to Finger Mesh
• Claw Rotator
• Open Palm "Wax On"
• Two Finger Windshield Wiper
• Invisible Inverted Longhorn Outline
• Progressive Chop
• Orb Polisher
• Wafter
• Alternating Flipper

And then I wondered what would happen were she to battle Donald Rumsfeld with his 1000 Styles.

One can only wonder...

Panic!

Another mennu method wednesday at the loop lounge.Wednesday, September 27, 2006
11:00PM
In the front.
Be there.

Happy 5767

"...and they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruninghooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more."

-Isaiah 2:4

May we all be inscribed in the book of life and good deeds.

Speaking of Revolutions

It cracks me up.

Just yesterday I was musing on peaceful revolutions with colors, fragrances, petals, etc.

And today, on my way to work I hear about a peaceful coup in Thailand.

Now all they need is a catchy name...

Revolutions

While listening to the news this morning, I heard about the current crisis going on in Hungary. There's a scandal over comments the Hungarian prime minister, Ferenc Gyurcsany, made in a private address to his party. Here's the excerpt:

They can understand that it is worth being a politician here at the beginning of the 21st Century because we can create a different world. Only for this. Livelihood can be found in many other ways.

I know that this is easy for me to say. I know. Do not keep bringing it up against me. But this is the only reason it is worth doing it. I almost perished because I had to pretend for 18 months that we were governing.

Instead, we lied morning, noon and night. I do not want to carry on with this. Either we do it and have the personnel for it, or others will do it. I will never give an interview at the end of which we part with each other in argument. Never. I will never hurt the Hungarian left. Never.

I shouldn't pretend to understand anything about the situation there, but when the BBC broadcaster mentioned that it is the most significant event in Hungary since the end of communism, it made me think about revolutions.

I prefer my revolutions to be non-violent and brightly colored, otherwise I like them to have a nice soft feel and a pleasant aroma:

• The Rose Revolution of Georgia in 2003 to depose their corrupt government.*
• The Orange Revolution in the Ukraine in 2004 over election fraud.
• The Tulip Revolution of 2005 in Kyrgyzstan which deposed Askar Akayev. (Interesting note: In the early stages of the revolution, the media variously referred to the unrest as the "Pink," "Lemon", "Silk", "Daffodil", or "Sandpaper" Revolution. But it was "Tulip Revolution," a term that Akayev himself used in a speech warning that no such Color Revolution should happen in Kyrgyzstan, which stuck in the end. )
• The Cedar Revolution of 2005 in Lebanon to get rid of Syrian troops from that country.
• The Velvet Revolution of Czechoslovakia in 1989 to get rid of communism.
• The Singing Revolution of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania of 1988-1990 which led to those countries becoming independant from the Soviet Union.
• I think all of these can be personified in Prince.

*Many of the European revolutions were due to the efforts of George Soros.

September 11, 2006

Some people went to solemn assemblies on September 11. I stood up to the terrorists by continuing with my way of life. And that involves Monday Night Football. But I didn't want to miss the president's address. So I decided to put a splitter on my cable wire and hook up a second television. And then, just to gratuitously emulate Elvis, I hooked up a third.

So I had Bush speaking right in front of me, the football game on the right, and, Star Trek, why not, on the left.

I have an equal distaste for both Bush and Gowron.

Perpendicular Rediculousness

I'm always running out of hard drive space.

My 250 gigabyte hard drive is almost completely full of music. I know it's a lot of music, but I still need more space. How else will I be able to achieve my goal of collecting all the music of the 20th and 21st centuries? I've been waiting for the 500 gig drives to drop down to around $100. I figure that should happen by Presidents Day of 2007, if not sooner.

Hard drive manufacturers are working on ways to fit more data on a hard drive. Hitachi has been developing something called Perpendicular Recording which they explain in white paper entitled, and I'm not making this up, "Perpendicular Recording: A Boon For Consumer Electronics." As some of my readers may know, I'm a fan of the word "boon" and I try to use it whenever appropriate. Then again, I try to speak with as much pizzazz as I can. But I digress. Let me return to the subject at hand: perpendicular recording. To explain this new technology, the folks at Hitachi have made an utterly rediculous flash animation called "Get Perpendicular."

You can watch it by clicking here.

Anything Can Happen Day

As you may or may not know,
Wednesday is
"Anything Can Happen Day."

So I put together a mix today.

And figured I would put it online today.
Yes................................................TODAY!

I'm also going to put up a copy of
my Pink Floyd Covers Mix,
"Dark Side of the Covers."

And if I have time,
I'll also post
"under the covers with the mennu method."

No wait,
my computer can't keep up.

Alright, the other mix will go up tomorrow.
Or later tonight.

Did I say not today?
I meant TODAY!
Here's the covers mix:
"under the covers with the mennu method."

Modern Inventions Hinder the Development of Wisdom

Here's a complaint about a modern innovation which has become ubiquitous in our time:

The specific which you have discovered is an aid not to memory, but to reminiscence, and you give your disciples not truth, but only the semblance of truth; they will be hearers of many things and will have learned nothing; they will appear to be omniscient and will generally know nothing; they will be tiresome company, having the show of wisdom without the reality.

I know what you're thinking. It's computers right?
Wrong.
It's Socrates complaining about his students use of writing.
You can read more about it in Plato's book Phaedrus.

Having Nothing to Say

Benjamin Disraeli said:

It is better to remain silent and have people say, "I wonder what he's thinking," than to speak up and have people say, "I wonder why he spoke."

Rabbi Yechiel Fishman, the fish

Click on the picture to go to the slide show which tells the tale, or should I say tail, or maybe the tale of the tail of Rabbi Yechiel Fishman, the fish. He was delicious for two days. I haven't figured out how to make the captions show automatically, so you need to leave your mouse over the slide show. Good luck. I'll post the recipe and the method soon. Although I think I've spent a little too much time on this fish already.

Last Night at the Loop

Last night I had a guest DJ spot at the Loop Lounge.
It's been my goal to DJ there for a while, and I'm very happy to have had the opportunity.
I also want to thank all my friends for coming out, particularly those who managed to get in from Manhattan.

Here's last night's playlist:

1-Let's Go Crazy-Prince & the Revolution
2-Action Figure Party-Action Figure Party
3-Rock the Casbah-The Clash
4-Three Pump Chump-Slunt
5-One More Time-Joe Jackson
6-Winter Wooskie-Belle & Sebastian
7-Rotating Head-English Beat
8-Chicharrons N Boogaloo-Chicharrons
9-Dance In My Blood-Men, Women & Children
10-Interesting Drug-Morrissey
11-Such Great Heights-The Postal Service
12-Maps-Yeah Yeah Yeahs
13-Ladyflash-The Go! Team
14-My My Metrocard-Le Tigre
15-Chauffeur-The Fitness
16-Autopilot-Golden Boy with Miss Kittin
17-Groove Is In The Heart-Deee-Lite

Under The Covers

I'm working on a new mix tentatively titled: "under the covers with the mennu method."

You can listen to it as one big hairy, but high quality .wma file. I've had problems downloading it with Internet Explorer, but no problems at all doing it with Firefox. Oh yeah, here's the file.

Otherwise you can read the playlist and hum the tunes to yourself...

1. Handle With Care - Jenny Lewis With the Watson Twins (Travelling Wilburys)
2. Lets Go To Bed - Ivy (The Cure)
3. Just Can't Get Enough - Nouvelle Vague (Depeche Mode)
4. Sympathy for the Devil - Bossa N' Stones (The Rolling Stones)
5. Stayin Alive - Ozzy Osbourne (The Bee Gees)
6. Faith - The Boy Least Likely To (George Michael)
7. Lost In The Supermarket - The Afghan Whigs (The Clash)
8. Rusty Cage - Johnny Cash (Soundgarden)
9. Hot for Teacher - Lounge Against The Machine (Van Halen)
10. Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood - Santa Esmeralda (The Animals)
11. Common People - Pulp (William Shatner)
12. Jump Into The Fire - LCD Soundsystem (Harry Nilsson)
13. Paint It Black - U2 (The Rolling Stones)
14. How Soon Is Now? - t.A.T.u. (The Smiths)
15. Pop Life - Life Without Buildings (Prince)
16. Gin and Juice - The Gourds (Snoop Doggy Dog)
17. Boyz N The Hood - Dynamite Hack (N.W.A.)
18. Across the Universe - Rufus Wainwright (The Beatles)
19. Pink Moon - Beck (Nick Drake)
20. Wonderwall - Radiohead (Oasis)
21. Within You Without You - Alan Lorber Orchestra (The Beatles)
22. Private Eyes - Towa Tei (Hall & Oates)
    

Everyone Wants To Be Like Mennu

I need to have a talk with the Japanese Prime Minister. He needs to come up with his own sense of personal style.

Silver Jews - People

On my recent mix, Belmar, I included a track by Silver Jews. It's the oldest song on the mix (1998), but it's gotten a huge response from, well, People. People love this track. Here's a sample of the lyrics:

"I love to see a rainbow from a garden hose
lit up like the blood of a centerfold
I love the city and the city rain,
suburban kids with biblical names.

People ask people to watch their scotch.
People send people up to the moon.
When they return, well there isn't much.
People be careful not to crest too soon. "

You can read the rest of the lyrics here.

They're going to be performing in Tel Aviv on July 10-11. (The shows are sold out!)

Blathering on and on over instant messenger when I was asked a really simple question

T: what's your scene right about now?
mennu: right now right now I'm in my underwear contemplating going downstairs to get my shorts on and go to the quick check to get a cuppa coff, after which I'll return and do some job applications while waiting for a call from TD waterhouse which will then necessitate a trip to Paramus. Once out, of course, I could take a trip out to MetroWest and drop off my grades and graded final exams and talk to sue about next year, but at the moment I'm listening to "Cassettes Won't Listen - Lunch for Breakfast" which is apropo since I haven't had anything to eat today, and I'm also trying to get a rough draft of the coverart for the rough draft of the mix.

Greetings From Belmar, NJ

Click on this picture (or here) to check out my new mix called "Belmar."

The mix is currently going into the later stages of production and should be ready as a CD mix by July 4th weekend. That's right. A mix. On a CD. A CD-flavored CD. Like the kind you put into a CD player.

In the meantime, you can listen to it online as I gather together materials, and decide on the cover art and packaging.

Josh Cheslow: The Mayor of Marshmallows and a Puppety Oddball

Next in my series of ringtones, here's Josh Cheslow with his ringtone. Click on the image (or here) to launch the flash animation.
This best exemplifies what goes on in my mind when The Chezz calls. 

The Gratuitously Long Post Title Which Does Its Best To Emulate The Very Long Song Titles Listed on Wikipedia Under A Similar Heading

Check out this Wikipedia entry for Songs With Particularly Long Song Titles. It loooks like a solid competition between:

1. Sufjan Stevens (4)
2. Of Montreal (3)*
3. The Flaming Lips (2)

My Favorite Titles:

• The Black Hawk War, or, How to Demolish an Entire Civilization and Still Feel Good About Yourself in the Morning, or, We Apologize for the Inconvenience but You're Going to Have to Leave Now, or, I Have Fought the Big Knives and Will Continue to Fight Them until They Are off Our Lands! By Sufjan Stevens (Illinois)
• Regretting What I Said to You When You Called Me At 11:00 On Friday Morning To Tell Me That 1:00 Friday Afternoon You Were Gonna Leave Your Office, Go Downstairs, Hail A Cab, To Go Out To The Airport, To Catch A Plane, To Go Skiing In The Alps For Two Weeks. Not That I Wanted To Go With You; I Wasn't Able To Leave Town, I'm Not A Very Good Skier, I Couldn't Expect You To Pay My Way, But After Going Out With You For Three Years, I Don't Like Surprises. (A Musical Apology) By Christine Lavin (Future Fossils)
• I Got My Heart Broken By A Girl On Myspace®, Tragedies Like This Have Left Me Wondering Where Exactly My Life Is Going and Made Me Consider Spending Less Time By The Computer. By Sever The Head of Potemkin.
• I'm a Cranky Old Yank in a Clanky Old Tank on the Streets of Yokohama with my Honolulu Mama Doin’ Those Beat-o, Beat-o Flat-on-My-Seat-o, Hirohito Blues. By Hoagy Carmichael.
• Multi-Variational Stimuli of Sub-Turgid Foci Covering Cross Evaluative Techniques for Cognitive Analysis of Hypersignificant Graph Peaks Following Those Intersubjective Modules Having Biodegradable Seepage. By Man or Astroman (A Spectrum of Infinite Scale).
  

*Two of them are about Dustin Hoffman in one way or another.

Music at the Push of a Button

I'm working on a big mix for the summer. So I've spent a lot of time sifting through music, and my computer has not been holding up well. The computer regualrly overheats and has no more storage space. It takes the computer about 7 minutes to boot up, which is a pretty long time.

This morning I made a disc to listen to in the car while I go and get my coffee. I decided to shut the computer down, before I left so it would not overheat.

When I got home with my hot coffee, I had a number of very good ideas about what to put on and off the mix. I was excited to make the playlist updates on the computer. I nearly lost my enthusiasm when I thought about how long it would take to boot the computer up. As the computer began its long start-up sequence, I glanced at my clock-radio(pictured), and thought, "music at the push of a button! How novel!" I pushed the on button and was instantaneously able to enjoy mid-day jazz from Newark. The speed of delivery made my head spin.

Two Options:
1 - You could click here and listen to my local jazz station wherever you are.
2 - You could click here and listen to Clock Radio by Action Figure Party.