Okay ja ja ja

When I was in Berlin, I turned on my recorder and held it in my lap on the train. There was this kid in the seat in front of me talking to her mom, and at one point said "Okay, ja ja ja." So, I did what anyone would do: I looped part of it until it sounded like a beautiful singing voice. It took some reverb, equalizers, and a high bandpass filter to cut out the sound of the train, but I think it worked out. Wear headphones for this one. There's some stereo madness going on.

Original sample

Beautiful music

An Ice Skater and a Violinist?

Seriously, you have to be kidding me. Russia won the Eurovision Song Contest with a cheesy singer, an ice skater, and an over-dramatic violinist. To be fair, Ireland's entry was a puppet making fun of Eurovision.

Background: Eurovision, in its 53rd year, is a song contest between all the European countries (also Israel, for some reason, and Turkey, which is up for election, and Russia apparently, which is pretty anti-EU to begin with) which is pretty much American Idol on a continent-wide scale. The winner of the previous year holds the competition for the next year--Belgrade, Serbia, this year--and the whole thing is fairly political. The Nordic countries all vote for each other, the UK and Ireland vote for each other, all the Eastern Bloc countries vote for each other, and Germany, France, and Spain pretty much just got destroyed. Although, to be fair, Germany did a pretty bad job, France was a bit aloof, and Spain had its own dance (uno! the breakdance, dos! the cross-over(?), tres! the Michael Jackson, cuatro! the Robo Cop).

So, apparently Ireland had won five or six years in a row, due to some pop star with massive club beats and fireworks. It wasn't a total loss, though. Finland had a metal band, complete with pyrotechnics and a guy playing the drums with maces, while the guy from the UK was straight-up disco, and Denmark was probably the happiest song I've heard in years.

Really, you just have to youtube this to believe me.

Spain: http://youtube.com/watch?v=udVl4XNx4PM&feature=related

Ireland: http://youtube.com/watch?v=-n--JnAwirk&feature=related

Review session

On a sunny day like today, the spaces between the houses grow smaller, and the lady on the left suns herself in shorts, reading The Sun, while the construction workers on the right chisel shingles off the neighbor's roof and into our garden. The dog (left) is strangely quiet, either dead or deciding to take a break from its unnecessary and yet dedicated barking.

I, however, am studying for the first time in two or three weeks, and having a tough time with it. Keep in mind that the last time I was working was also the last time I posted something here: try to find a pattern. I re-read the beginning and the end of one of the novels for class (What Are You Like? by Anne Enright), and I highly recommend this practice. Granted, I'm studying like mad after getting my computer working again (power adapter, Madrid) but let's be honest, studying "like mad" is for me like how I do anything else "like mad"--that is, maybe disappointed or a little annoyed, but far from mad.

Let's just review:

1. I finished my score for the string quartet, "Wallace," still looking for players
2. I went to Madrid, got sunburned, left my power adapter there
3. Cousin Adam visited, took a cousin photo on top of Bray Head south of Dublin
4. Played Super Nintendo games on my computer
5. Felt guilty for not studying Community in Contemporary Irish Literature

Yes, this will be on the exam.

Of Mere Being

It was a great success. The performance (re-listening) had a few mistakes, but I would much, much rather have mistakes than a flawless, lifeless performance. Here's the recording from tonight. It cuts off weirdly at the end, before the applause, but that's my own fault since I was the one recording it. Really, there was applause at the end, trust me.