Good Night

Post Midnight Mixed Bag

A feral collection of tunes -

Calexico - Crystal Frontier

The Velvet Underground - Oh! Sweet Nuthin'

The Brian Jonestown Massacre - Anemone

Maggie Nichols and Peter Nu - Don't Assume

Enjoy.

Maggie Nicols

Somewhere between Betty Carter and Patty Waters we have our improvising jazz singer who should be known much better than she is and much better than the Verve style of singing. That is - Maggie Nicols.

Irene Schweizer, George Lewis, Maggie Nicols, Joelle Leandre and Gunter Sommer -
The Storming of the Winter Palace

Maggie Nicols and Julie Tippetts - Clusone 1990

Maggie Nicols with Sid Thomas - Vivid Black

Les Diaboliques - Jubilation 1

Enjoy

Good Morning

Buttons

There seems to be a pattern to the weather of late in which we have variable mornings with more settled afternoons. Today was no exception and this I did a smidgen of sunbathing during the afternoon. There was a couple of magpies in the garden which I hope might be a good sign in improving finances. Well, we can hope.

I was finding a problem with a sticky key on my laptop. I used a dust blower and a fine brush and resolved the problem. It made me think of all the buttons that we press in our daily lives. Of course there is a niche literature on the pleasure, panic and the politics of pushing buttons. The touch of a finger can summon a taxi, turn on a TV, call for an elevator or 'like' a Facebook post - yes that dreaded like button! But are buttons simply neutral and natural mechanisms which ease our daily lives? Or in an Orwellian sense, who controls the button and who is the controlee?
This touchy subject was discussed in today's Thinking Allowed on BBC Radio 4 in which the buttonization of culture is deconstructed.

If you want to find out more then I recommend Rachel Plotnic's "Power Button - A History of Pleasure, Panic, and The Politics of Pushing" (MIT Press, 2018)



Now what have I done with that hi-fi remote control?

Word Of The Day

It has to be this one -

Skeuomorph


A skeuomorph is a derivative object that retains ornamental design cues (attributes) from structures that were inherent to the original. Examples include pottery embellished with imitation rivets reminiscent of similar pots made of metal and a software calendar that imitates the appearance of binding on a paper desk calendar.

Many computer programs have a skeuomorphic graphical user interface that emulates the aesthetics of physical objects. Examples include a digital contact list resembling a Rolodex,[ and IBM's 1998 RealThings package. A more extreme example is found in some music synthesis and audio processing software packages, which closely emulate physical musical instruments and audio equipment complete with buttons and dials On a smaller scale, the icons of GUIs may remain skeuomorphic representations of physical objects that are not longer directly applicable to the task they represent (such as a drawing of a floppy disk to represent "save").

Other virtual skeuomorphs do not employ literal images of some physical object; but rather allude to ritual human heuristics or heuristic motifs, such as slider bars that emulate linear potentiometers and visual tabs that behave like physical tabbed file folders. Another example is the swiping hand gesture for turning the "pages" or screens of a tablet display.

Virtual skeuomorphs can also be auditory. The shutter-click sound emitted by most camera phones when taking a picture is an auditory skeuomorph,. though it has also been deemed necessary for legal reasons especially due to voyeurism and child predator concerns.

Pushing The Music Forward

Time for some music - and please, no effing like buttons - comments are okay -

The Chemical Brothers - Push The Button - Galvanize

Squarepusher - Tundra

Matthew Herbert - You Saw it All

Enjoy.

Improvise Me

A mix of experimental jazz and improv now -

Taku Sugimoto - Spring

Sylvia Hallett - Woman with dustpan and broom

Derek Bailey - What it Is

with Jamaaladeen Tacuma (b) and Calvin Weston (d)

painting by Paul Klee

Enjoy

Good Night