Uncategorized – Page 61 – The Designer Monologues

July 17, 2009April 19, 2010

Short Friday Music

Been very busy, so I haven’t had the time to go scouting as much as I’d like to.

Here is some new music that I did find, though:

First up: I always prefer to listen to songs in their original language — songwriters write lyrics with specific rhythms and tones in mind, in addition to meaning. This gets lost when the songs are translated. Shakira is a great example of this — I love her Spanish material, but can’t stand the English stuff that has been released. She has a new song, and I stumbled across a site that had in in both language versions — the problem is that the directly-translated lyrics are awful. So, instead of giving you “She Wolf”, I’m giving you the version she wrote first: Shakira – “Loba.”

Zero 7, one of my favorite electronica outfits, has their first new album in 3 years coming out soon. The first track from Yeah Ghost has been sent out to various blogs, and it sound as good as everything else they’ve done: Zero 7 – “Everything Up (Zizou).”

Here’s a track from London-based Guy Connelly, who records under the name Clock Opera – “Once and For All.”

I still haven’t found a complete track from the new Muse album. They’re doing a brilliant marketing scheme, where they’ve taken a song from the album, “The United States of Eurasia”, put it on USB sticks and scattered in in various cities around the globe. They’re doing a world-wide scavenger hunt. Here’s a news story about it. They’ve also leaked an all-too brief sample of the song, which, if you want to torture yourself with an incomplete listen, can be heard by clicking here.

July 16, 2009

Print On Demand Card and Board Games

This is very cool: The Game Crafter.

Pricing is way too high for distribution (of course), but prototypes or even direct-to-consumer would be a nice fit….

July 14, 2009

Brief Reviewage

Insanely busy — I have three major projects which all have to be completed before the end of the month, so I apologize for not posting as often as I normally would.

Figured that I’d devote this post to brief reviews:

We went to see Public Enemies this weekend — I enjoyed it quite a bit. Michael Mann is one of my favorite directors, and I’m a sucker for the 1930s. I was already pretty well-versed in the story of “Public Enemy Number One”, John Dillinger, but even so, the film didn’t drag for me at all — which is saying something, as it clocks in at 2 1/2 hours. Depp turns in his usual effortless excellence — although for me, the film was made by the supporting actors (especially Jason Clarke as Red Hamilton and Stephen Graham as Baby Face Nelson).

I finally read Theodore Roszak’s novel Flicker, years after having it recommended by . The best way that I can sum it up: Eco’s Foucault’s Pendulum (in the depth of information) or Brown’s DaVinci Code (in the overall theme of art hiding secrets), except concerned with the secret history of the cinema. As a cinephile and a fan of historical conspiracies, this was right up my alley. I’d love to find more like this. I loved every page of it.

Less loved was Space Captain Smith by Toby Frost. Part of the problem here was my own expectations — I was hoping for something that took itself more seriously, even while being light-hearted: something more along the lines of Fraser’s Flashman, but in a steampunk setting. Sadly, what I got was a book written in an unbearably smug pastiche of Douglas Adams’ style — but without Adams’ ability. The whole thing had a wink-to-the-audience, “aren’t I clever?” feel which so turned me off, I put the book down unfinished and haven’t looked back.

and I watched Gabriel on DVD, courtesy of Netflix. It’s an Australian film featuring Arch-Angels (or “Arcs” as the script calls them) versus The Fallen, fighting over control of Purgatory (called “Midworld”), which takes the form of a dark city. Very 90s White Wolf — lots of Big Coats^TM and guns — surprisingly no katanas, which was the first indication that it might rise above it’s brethren. I have to admit that not only did I enjoy the movie (probably because I was expecting total crap), but I started thinking about how it would be fun to do an angels-vs-demons RPG, without venturing into the territory of Engel or In Nomine.

Anyway — there you have it. Some things which have wedged their way into my brain recently, squeezing into the narrow gaps between the brainspace demanded by work projects.