Joanna Newsom‘s Ys is utterly charming. Warning: may contain harps, swooping caterwauling, and VanDyke Parks-induced orchestral lushness.
Blog
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Audacity 1.3.2 broken as designed
When I’ve spent the last 3 hours splitting tracks in Audacity, the last thing I want to see is:
They’ve changed the way that Split works, so you now get a bunch of semi-useless ‘clips’ that you can’t do anything with. You can’t select a clip, or move them to new tracks (at least under Linux and OS X).
How apt that one of the tracks was trying to split was I Wanna Destroy You.
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see, I told you ages ago
Trendy roof turbines are not as green as they look says The Observer. <smugness/>
Paul Gipe has some thoughts on this:- Rooftop Turbines: Rooftop Mounting and Building Integration of Wind Turbines
- Roof Top Over the Top in Britain
- Roof Top Windsave in Scotland
The last one has a couple of pictures I took when we were in Scotland.
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As Ray Bradbury once said, “Wow!”
I’m totally stoked that today’s World Town Planning Day
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bleh
I will state for the record that the 401 was absolute bleh driving out to Goderich tonight. Snow tyres don’t like rain.
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all the stars came crashing down
Saw the Decemberists at the awful barn that is the Kool Haus last night. The place was fairly busy, but not full. A scalper offered me a derisory price for a spare ticket, so I don’t think they sold out.
They were pretty good; great in parts, kind of tired and meh in others. Naughty Chris Funk lit up on stage; that’ll mean a fine for the venue. That’ll teach him not to play banjo on stage.
Sensitive wee Scottish folkie Alasdair Roberts supported. He was good enough for me to buy the CD. -
house concert!
We went to a house concert last night to hear Chris Coole & Erynn Marshall play some Kentucky duets. Erynn’s back from BC to record with Chris; today’s a long day in the studio.
Great music, nice venue, excellent evening. Maybe we’ll eventually get enough money to buy Chris a new banjo head; his current one looks stricken with some dread skin disease …
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still walking in the parlor
I’m currently intrigued by a Lee Hammons tune that Chris Coole taught me — Walking in the Parlor. It’s very simple, never straying beyond the second fret, yet packs in enough drop- and double-thumb in a short piece to still make it challenging.
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tired
I’m hanging out near Warden and Danforth while I get snow tyres (I still can’t kick that spelling) fitted. It irks me that I could buy a nice fixie for the cost of these wheels, but that’s owning a car for you.
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WindShare: new site, stopped turbine
Windshare has a new website, which is nice. Unfortunately, the headline image shows a stopped turbine:
It’s kind of apt, given that the turbine’s been out of service for about a month. I liked the old days, when the turbine worked but the website was kinda crappy. -
wily fish
I took ten of the small platys over to Mike’s store last night. Catching the wee things was hard; I doubt the expression as difficult as catching platys in a planted aquarium will ever catch on, it’s definitely true. Maybe I should have tried thinking like a platy. On second thoughts, maybe not; all our ones seem to do is ingest, excrete and procreate.
In order to replace our dear departed cory, I picked up a couple of tiny Oto cats. They’ve been happily smooching the algae from the rocks ever since they were released.
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you go, Glen!
Congratulations are due to Glen Estill, who got his two Vestas V82s on the Bruce Peninsula running today. Glen is a pioneer of wind energy in Ontario, and we’re all grateful to him for his tireless work for the industry.
Update: further to my wind turbines from space obsession, I found Glen’s original V80 turbine at 44° 56′ 46.42″ N, 81° 15′ 47.12″ W.
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tunes I must learn (eventually)
Not all of these could be classed as banjo tunes, but I’d want to try, anyway:
- The Coo-Coo Bird (it’s not optional)
- The Old Plank Road (Uncle Dave’s delivery, which was more demented than the Rounders)
- Hot Corn, Cold Corn (like HMR; just how does one spell moo’m moo’m moo’m de boo’m boo’m de boo’m?)
- I’m Going In A Field (Nic Jones style)
- Bridges & Balloons (Joanna’s song’s just crying out to be covered with a broad Glasgow accent)
- Needle of Death (too many banjo tunes are too happy)
- Ghost (the Neutral Milk Hotel one)
- something by Sufjan (even if Peter Stampfel says he plays banjo kind of boringly)
- I Love How You Love Me (like Mangum, not Spector)
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Stewart’s Images :: UK October 2006
Stewart’s Images :: UK October 2006 contains photos of our trip.
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a good reason to blog less
Yesterday went to The Twelfth Fret and traded in the Goodtime for this:
It’s a Gold Tone Bob Carlin Signature. It sounds beautiful, and unlike me, plays like a dream. So if I’m not blogging so much, this might just be the reason.
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to lie down
This is
might beNic Jones: I’m Going In A Field [mp3].I’m not sure, though.
Whoever it is, it’s rather good, and accompanies part of the Claptrap DVD of Ivor Cutler’s Looking for the Truth with a Pin / Cutler’s Last Stand.
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tasty Eid treats
Shaira & Azim next door gave us some wonderful Eid sweets, plus a teatowel with an appropriate motif. Yay, thanks!
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dead cat
We lost a cory the other night. There were no warning signs beforehand.
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a good conference
Well, that’s CanWEA done another year. I think a good time was had by all.
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Welcome to The ‘Peg
Just arrived in Winnipeg for the CanWEA conference. It looks an interesting town, but I’ll be stuck inside, sadly.