Thursday, May 27, 2010

News: Noam Chomsky Craze in Paris

Avram Noam Chomsky, revolutionary in several fields, left his Bostonian arm chair and (after having been denied entry to Israel's West Bank last week) is visiting Paris this week. Already four (!) years ago there were rumours that this would happen and now the days have come.
If you won't make it to Paris in time or you don't manage to get one of the 50% of freely available tickets, check out the website chomsky.fr that was set up specifically for "his coming". They'll also put up video recordings after...

Addendum 28/5: Some of his appearances will be broadcasted live - for example the one at Collège de France later today.

Monday, May 24, 2010

May 25th: Happy Sad Towel Day

In commemoration of Douglas Adams, who sadly passed away nine years ago (on May 11, 2001), tomorrow people celebrate Towel Day a/k/a Geek Pride Day. Proudly carry your towel around or participate in an 'official' Towel Day event in your city (from Backnang, Germany, to Medellin, Colombia).

Krautrock (via tsw)

Friday, May 21, 2010

Non-conceptual Skill - Léon (Playing) Theremin

I went to this talk today in which a philosopher came to the revolutionary conclusion that there might be non-conceptual/ non-verbal thought.
She offered the pivotal examples of pre-linguistic children and non-linguistic animals as evidence, claiming that skills are a form of intelligent yet concept-independent behaviour.
As a theoretical (i.e., armchair) philosopher - how far can you dissociate your scholarly thoughts from your everyday experience? How best to minimize or eliminate your common sense?
Playing a musical instrument as prime example of skillful motor intelligence, I consider the Theremin (a/k/a aetherophone) as particularly interesting, as there isn't even proper tactile contact with the instrument involved. Check out the inventor's demonstration video (you may wanna skip to second 15):

Thursday, May 06, 2010

Death: Dwele w/ the Suite for Ma Dukes Orchestra - Angel

Leaving aside the whole discussion about the interaction effects of his fame and his death, Jay Dee a/k/a J Dilla has been dead for four years now and I don't know of anybody who filled his spot.

Last year, Mochilla organized a series of three "timeless" concerts "in homage to the composer/arrangers who have influenced hip-hop in the most literal and profound ways".
The DVD can now be purchased and one of the pieces is Dwele performing Dilla-produced Angel together with Miguel Atwood-Ferguson conducting the Suite for Ma Dukes Orchestra:

The Sounds of VTech / Dwele: Angel (Suite for Ma Dukes)


In addition, a review is up on okayplayer and more videos can be found on the timeless youtube channel and at digitalinberlin.de.