30 days of music - Day 1: my favourite song

There's this internet meme going around that I thought would be fun to be part of. Y'know, one song posted everyday for 30 days, to fit a description. Pretty simple stuff really.

Why would I do that, you ask?

Well:

1. Because I like music and I like arranging music into lists more
2. Because I really need to make more of an effort into completing my writing and posting on my blog everyday. (3 posts all year. Disgraceful.)
3. It's a great opportunity to explore all that music, and music sharing options, don't-ya-think.

And yes, I have a fondness for Cheese. Don't laugh, don't judge.

Oh and yea, do share with me your songs. It'll be fun.

Day 01: my favourite song




My first genuine music craze, the first and only poster to go up on my walls.

I have about five different versions of this song in my collection, each one making my heart melt in a very shameless, breathless, lovesick, girly, oh-I-wish-it-were-me kind of way to hear JBJ sing those words.

Plus it's a pretty good tune. So there.

Here's the rest of what's coming up this month for anyone who'd like to think about it as well. You know you want to.

Day 02: your least favourite song
Day 03: a song that makes you happy
Day 04: a song that makes you sad
Day 05: a song that reminds you of someone
Day 06: a song that reminds you of somewhere
Day 07: a song that reminds you of a certain event
Day 08: a song you know all the words to
Day 09: a song you can dance to
Day 10: a song that makes you fall asleep
Day 11: a song from your favourite band
Day 12: a song from a band you hate
Day 13: a song that is a guilty pleasure
Day 14: a song that no one would expect you to love
Day 15: a song that describes you
Day 18: a song that you used to love but now hate
Day 19: a song from your favourite album
Day 20: a song you listen to when you're angry
Day 21: a song you listen to when you're happy
Day 22: a song you listen to when you're sad
Day 23; a song that you want to play at your wedding
Day 24: a song you want played at your funeral
Day 25: a song that makes you laugh
Day 26: a song that you can play on an instrument
Day 27: a song that you wish you could play
Day 28; a song that makes you feel guilty
Day 29: a song from my childhood
Day 30: your favourite song this time last year

Playing with words

It never ceases to surprise me, how many options a fast Internet connection offers for distraction and procrastination.

This is what happens when I put my blog into wordle.net, the winner of the Best Use of Typography award at the Webby Awards 2009.

Wordle created a tag cloud of the most commonly used words in my blog.


Really? These? How awfully dull. Little green mango might just decide to go down the sex-drugs-rock 'n' roll way to inject some drama into any future word cloud.

(Image from http://wordle.net)

Watching and listening

I found myself at the Science museum, London this weekend, for two very interesting exhibitions.

First - a newly opened exhibit on F1 technology in everyday life.
I was missing the race at Barcelona anyway, and this was my way of consoling myself. The technology on display, which included millimetre-thin dining tables, wheelchairs and high-tech fishing lines, is a far cry from the 'everyday' that happens everyday in your and my homes. It remains however a testament to the engineering superiority of Formula 1.

Second - the Listening Post.
I don't know enough about art to be able to adequately describe this exhibit. It is, at the same time, a work of art, technology, a mirror to society and an astute observation of the philosophies of human conversation.

Made of many (the booklet says 200) tiny electronic screens suspended like a grid and with an accompanying Sci-fi voice soundtrack, this displays fragments from Internet conversations across the world in continually changing patterns and themes.

The creators - Mark Hansen and Ben Rubin say that these are part of 'real-time', 'unedited' and 'uncensored' Internet chats and emails. I can't figure out how that works.

The pace and manner in which the bits of words come together, accompanied by a voice reading out the texts to me is lyrical. Indeed, the artists have divided their work into movements that seem to rise and ebb.

It's brilliant. I spent a good half hour staring transfixed at the blinking screens. Voyeuristically following thousands of thoughts - nonsensical, profound, funny, banal, personal.

It felt exhilarating, to be part of this world, to consider the possibility that someone somewhere might be listening to those thoughts and feelings let loose into cyberspace. Why, they may be sharing the same thoughts.

I think the Listening Post is more attractive because of the anonymity offered to all these conversations.

I've mentioned in previous posts how the idea that I may be getting an audience who can identify me and hold me accountable for all I do and say online has taken some getting used. But something like the Listening Post seems to suggest that my every little blog post or microblog is only part of a larger discourse that is taking place online. Who I am doesn't matter. What I say matters little. That I say it has a significant impact in making me part of a larger community and is my contribution to human communication.

Even if it sometimes feels like I'm shouting in the dark.


As a post script, I must add that there was a third special I went to - a Wallace and Gromit something-something. I crashed in on a kiddie party and probably was the only adult there who stayed for the show despite having no child to distract for half an hour.

Still here

So yes, I've been too busy to update this blog.
But as always, I've more excuses as I defend myself.

It's one thing to fill up white paper. When the paper becomes coloured, the pressures of creativity and relevance are that much stronger.

Plus now I hold too many crayons, so much to write about, I don't know which ones to start with, which stories to tell....