I'm listening to The Wall. No good can come of this…
Month: July 2007
Interesting proof :)
Now that's interesting…
I've just had a phone call from a headhunter. Apparently, somebody has given them a glowing referral about my software engineering skills and they'd like to talk to me about opportunities in the London-based banking software engineering field. They're going to call me later on tonight to talk about it.
In a word, buh???
Why New Music Doesn't Sound As Good As It Did
An interesting piece I found online. It's true, too.
Never mind that today's factory-produced starlets and mini-clones just don't have the practiced chops of the supergroups of yesteryear, pop in a new CD and you might notice that the quality of the music itselfmaybe something as simple as a snare drum hitjust doesn't sound as crisp and as clear as you're used to. Why is that?
It's part of the music industry's quest to make music louder and louder, and it's been going on for decades, at least since the birth of the compact disc. The key to the problem is that, in making the soft parts of a track louder (in the process making the entire track loud), you lose detail in the song: The difference between what's supposed to be loud and what's supposed to be soft becomes less and less. The result is that, sure, the soft parts of a song are nice and loud, but big noises like drum beats become muffled and fuzzy. But consumers often subconsciously equate loudness with quality, and thus, record producers pump up the volume. Anything to make a buck.
The bigger problem is that this is all unnecessary. Stereo equipment is more powerful today than ever, and last time I checked, every piece of music hardware had a volume knob.
Don't take my word for it: Pop in the first CD you bought and play it at the same volume level as the most recent one you bought. You might be shocked by what you hear.
Anyone still wondering why the music business is suffering?
Let me fetch my spear and magic helmet!
'What's Opera, Doc?,' a cartoon that would likely never be made today, celebrates golden anniversary
At any other time, the film would not have been made. Imagine the pitch: “Let's steal time and funding from our other projects so we can go way over budget making a cartoon with no jokes, and no real gags. The score will be a German opera. Kids won't get it. Most adults won't get it, but I don't care because I think it's funny.”
Fortunately, the time was 1956, the director was Chuck Jones, and the place was the Warners Bros. backlot animation studio dubbed “Termite Terrace.” The result released 50 years ago this week was “What's Opera, Doc?,” voted by animators in the 1994 book The 50 Greatest Cartoons: As Selected by 1,000 Animation Professionals to be the greatest cartoon of all time.
It is the antithesis of the routine cartoon. In place of snappy one-liners we see Elmer Fudd and Bugs Bunny singing their parts with complete sincerity and commitment. The backgrounds are beautifully textured paintings. The score is powerful and moving. Bugs cuts a striking figure in a metallic brassiere before Madonna was even born. It's audacious and decadent and beautiful and bold and everything the vast majority of cartoons would never dare to be.
Years later, it was my immense pleasure to meet Chuck and spend several hours with him. Never before, and never since, have I encountered someone as smart, funny, passionate and wry, all rolled into one delightful and charming package. I can only imagine the magic at work as he and fellow geniuses Friz Freleng, Bob Clampett, Mike Maltese, Maurice Noble, Mel Blanc, Carl Stalling and a host of others created thousands (yes, thousands) of cartoons featuring history's greatest ensemble cast.
Chuck told me he and his team of writers and animators never saw themselves as making cartoons for anyone but themselves. Months, and sometimes years, passed before their work ended up in theatres, and by then they had made so many new cartoons public reaction just wasn't on their radar. It was because they made cartoons to humour themselves, and because studio executives didn't much care what they did so long as they stayed on time and on budget, that “What's Opera, Doc?” was possible.
The key was placing it between two Wile E. Coyote and Road Runner cartoons in the production schedule. Formulaic by design, those ones could be done fast and cheap. Knock off the Coyote films ahead of schedule and under budget, reallocate the time and money to “What's Opera, Doc?” so the overall budgets remained intact, and voila! A masterpiece created right under the noses of studio executives who would have vetoed the idea long before Elmer Fudd could have raised his spear and donned his magic helmet.
A few years ago, when I staged a tribute to Chuck and his incredible body of work, showing 15 of his greatest cartoons on the big screen as they were originally meant to be seen, it wasn't “What's Opera, Doc?” that got the biggest reaction, initially. The nearly 500 people in attendance gave their most enthusiastic reaction to the opening credits of “One Froggy Evening” featuring Michigan J. Frog, and “Rabbit of Seville,” the famous Bugs Bunny-Elmer Fudd barbershop ditty. Both great cartoons, to be sure, and both on any animation historian's top 10. The interesting thing was that for weeks afterward, people told me how moved they were by “What's Opera, Doc?” Some had never seen it before. Others had seen it on TV, but absent the big screen and big sound, they had failed to fall under its spell. Seeing it that day, the way audiences first saw it in 1957, they were enthralled.
That's what makes “What's Opera, Doc?” the greatest cartoon ever, and that is why a piece of such grandeur will never be repeated.
That's not to say good work hasn't been done in recent years. The laughs are plentiful with The Simpsons in its heyday, Family Guy most of the time, and South Park when they find that sweet spot between satire and absurdity. On the big screen, Pixar tells stories as captivating as the greatest Disney epics of the past, and pulls the viewer into spectacular and compelling worlds.
They are all great in their own way, but they are to be expected. Animated sitcoms are supposed to be funny and irreverent and mildly scandalous. Feature films are supposed to have rich character development, radio-worthy songs, and captivating storylines. Bugs Bunny cartoons are not supposed to feature a lisping Viking rabbit hunter enthusiastically professing his operatic love for a bunny in drag.
These days, cartoons are made for the small screen, for syndication, for licensing, for Happy Meal toys and theme park rides. Gone are the days when someone like Chuck could trick the system and go on a flight of fancy to animation immortality with such a hugely impractical and absolutely beautiful film.
No one who knows and loves “What's Opera, Doc?” will ever hear Wagner's “Der Ring des Nibelungen” without hearing, in their own minds, “Kill da wabbit . . . kill da wabbit.” While classical music aficionados may be offended by that fact, I'm okay with it. More than okay with it.
:)
I like pig.
A story of redemption
How could I have ever forgotten the Jazz??
I hadn't even realized that the Jazzfest is on. I'm shocked!
I had a look at the lineup this year. I'd have loved to go see Bela Fleck and George Thorogood/Buddy Guy.
I sometimes miss Montreal in the summer. There was a recent picture on ![[info]](http://stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small}
montreal showing a packed subway with people coming home from the Jazz and the fireworks. Brings back memories :)
Slowly losing my mind
I'm really not into it today and my mind is going. Stop Dave! What are you doing, Dave? I can't let you do that Dave…
Ever since I've been at the office, I keep wanting to do stuff, and then completely forget what it is I wanted to do in the first place. It's highly annoying.
The day after the night before…
Very bleh day. It had potential, but it kind of fizzled out in the end. Last night was good. Met up with Donna and Will for his birthday do. We went punting on the Cam and managed to squeek in just before the rain set in. Then there was booze at a riverside bistro. Then there was really, really good food at Cafe Rouge on Bridge St. It was funny. This week is graduation week so everywhere is booked solid. We'd walked in earlier in the day and asked to see if it would be possible to book a table for later in the evening (that's when we found out about grad week and all), but the hostess told us that since it was just the two of us, she might be able to sneak us in if we came back later.
That's what we did, after the punting and the booze. There was a couple who came in the restaurant just before we did that got turned away because they didn't have a booking, but we were quietly ushered in to the restaurant. It turned out that we had prime seats in front of one of the only open windows in the place – and it was a relief cause the whole place was muggy because of the rain and the packed bodies. I had a very good onion soup and a great slab of dead cow with melted blue cheese. Loverly! We met up with Donna, Will and the rest of their troup for another round of drinks, and another, before calling it a day and grabbing a cab back home.
In other news, the cat now has a jingly-bell collar. It's impressive how short a time it took for him to get used to it. We got it for him in preparation of letting him go outside for reasonable periods of time at some point in the near future. We've also gotten a new cage for the gecko, who managed a houdini-like escape act but didn't go too far (we found her in a storage box, happily munching away at some treats). She now has a double-decker condo with better locks.
Today was meh. Slow start to the day, then Tesco for a shop, then home for some Rome reruns and some cooking. The Dr Who finale left a bit to be desired. A bit too much “poof! everything is right in the world again!!!”, but it had some redeeming features.
Dinner was a bit of a letdown. I'd planned onion soup, roast pig and tarte tatin. I think I was a bit too ambitious, given that I was running around all afternoon and trying to watch Dr Who at the same time. It was ok, but not as good as I've made before. Passing grade, but not much else.
I'd hoped to be able to have a nice long chat with Michel tonight but, as is seemingly our usual, we didn't connect. I haven't spoken to him more than a few sentences of email in … it's been that long that I can't even remember now. This is highly distressing… sigh.