Radiohead jazz

NPR on Radiohead’s influence on jazz:

Oddly enough, Yorke/Greenwood/Selway et al. might just be the most-played jazz composers to have emerged in the last 20 years - even though they’re not really jazz composers.

The Brad Mehldau solo piano version of Exit Music linked at the top of the post is great - scary jazz, but great.




The decline of the Music Industry

Grim tidings. Interesting observation that one of the reasons may be that listeners aren’t having to replace CDs with a new better sounding medium (instead they’re just ripping their existing collection). That is in stark contrast to the LP to CD upgrade boom.




Phones at dinner

I’m this guy’s mum - put it away. We had a family dinner where the topic of how British Parliament worked (Lords, MPs, etc.), and it was much a more entertaining discussion trying to work it out via brain power rather than lazily looking it up. This tweet has it right:

My new standard of cool: when I’m hanging out with you, I never see your phone ever ever ever. (via Daring Fireball)




The double play

It’s hard to explain the attraction of Baseball to a non-fan (though not as hard as cricket), but there’s something about the precision and slow construction/destruction of an inning. Like the double-play as explained by this graphic on Eephus League:

There is little on this earth that I love more than the double play; when executed well it’s as graceful and smooth as any ballet and it whispers “There is order amidst all the chaos.”




NFL jerseys with advertising

The horror. And to think this is not just accepted but embraced in the rest of the sporting world. Most bizarre thing: many of the comments to the post want to know if they can buy one.




The Crossing

He looked up. His pale hair looked white. He looked fourteen going on some age that never was. He looked as if he’d been sitting there and God had made the trees and rocks around him. He looked like his own reincarnation and then his own again. Above all else he looked to be filled with a terrible sadness. As if he harbored news of some horrendous loss that no one else had heard of yet. Some vast tragedy not of fact or incident or event but of the way the world was.

Cormac McCarthy - The Crossing




Make your own Coke

Want to make your own Coca Cola? Public Radio show This American Life think they’ve found a documented copy of the original secret flavour:

  • Alcohol - 8 oz
  • Orange Oil -20 drops
  • Lemon Oil - 30 drops
  • Nutmeg Oil - 10 drops
  • Coriander Oil - 5  drops
  • Neroli Oil - 10 drops
  • Cinnamon Oil - 10 drops

Mmm, coriander. I love that it’s real ingredients, not just “Flavouring xyz”.