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By Kyle, August 9, 2010 5:50 am

The Eagles – Wasted Time

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Congratulations. We’ve now been wasting time together for the last three years. It was on this very day, August 9th, 2007 that I published my first post on this blog. If I’ve taken an average of 20 minutes to write each post, I’ve wasted nearly an entire week of living during the last 3 years. If you’ve taken an average of 30 seconds to read each post, you’ve thankfully only wasted 3 hours of your life.

In the fourth year of this blog, I hope to do more of the same, although perhaps with a few new tweaks. I know a few years ago I had the not-so-brilliant idea of trying to start off each post by writing a bit about a random song on my iTunes playing. One potential idea is to select a blog at random from the ones that I read and start the creative juices flowing by referencing that blog. Who knows. You may find a new way to waste your time then!

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By Kyle, August 6, 2010 2:37 pm

Theme (Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind) – Jon Brion

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On certain Fridays, the US population will flock into theatres to see a movie for the sole reason that it stars a certain actor, say Johnny Depp, regardless of its potentially high or low quality.

On other Fridays, a slightly smaller though still significant group will flock to a film for the sole reason that it was directed by a certain individual, again, someone like Wes Anderson, even when he puts out absolute flops.

However, this Friday I anticipate going to see a released film that looks absolutely awful (at least from its previews), that being The Other Guys, an action comedy starring Mark Wahlberg and Will Ferrell. This is typically not the type of film that I’d ever have much of an interest in seeing, yet I will go, solely because one of my very favorite musician’s, Jon Brion, scored film.

I’ve often found that more times than not, a film’s score can either ruin an otherwise great film, or enhance a merely mediocre one. And while Brion probably will never again reach another cinematic high as grand as an Eternal Sunshine for the Spotless Mind, or a Punch-Drunk Love, I’m hoping he’s still got some great film music inside of him, at least enough to redeem an otherwise cheesy-looking, hollywood-folks-have-to-feed-their-families-too film. We’ll just have to wait and see hear.

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By Kyle, August 3, 2010 7:19 am

The Cat Empire – Hotel California

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On the outside: Cultivated, sophisticated, refined.

“The President’s daughter is to be kidnapped – and on the orders of the President!”

On the inside: Utter trash.

Today begins day two of Daskala training here in Palm Springs, where they’ve spent the first day putting us up in one of the nicest hotels I’ve ever been in, as well as giving us the Daskala spiel that I’ve already heard twice before.

Today should be much better as we get together in content groups (I think) and actually start to look at the ways the technology platform can help our kids in our school.

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By Kyle, July 31, 2010 8:31 am

Children of Bodom – Oops, I Did It Again

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Southern California summer is a time for golfing (as is spring, fall, and parts of winter). My third time out on a course this year proved a slight improvement, as I found myself being able to definitively hit many decent shots. The trick is, to be able to string those shots all together on the same hole. However, much like my boys in orange and blue who can somehow manage 7 hits without scoring a run, my great shots seem to always be mitigated by 4-putts, pulls left, and drives that travel just past the ladies tees. Luckily, I lost no golf balls and took no mulligans so I’ll at least chalk it up as a moral victory.

Summer is also the time for ridiculously amazing cover songs, the one here being discovered barely a few hours after golf, thus ending the day on a much needed positive note.

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By Kyle, July 28, 2010 5:47 pm

Passion Pit – Dreams

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In just thirty short minutes, I head out the door, walk for approximately 94 seconds and attend my local neighborhood meeting.

My hope, dare I say it, my dream is that something slightly more productive than neighbors ranting about the feral cats that seem to be overtaking the neighborhood (hey, at least they’re only cats, and not Starbucks stores).

On the positive side, the neighborhood does seem to have its act together insofar as we’ve successfully gotten overnight parking restrictions to be enacted on our street (keeping non-residents from parking vehicles long term in our precious parking places). Not only this, but representatives from both the LAPD and the LA City Council often grace us with their presence at their meetings. When little communities start to make noise, the folks in power start to listen.

My hope is that noise is something a bit more than “MEOW!!!!”

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By Kyle, July 25, 2010 4:33 pm

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Apparently there’s plenty of Mets fans in my neighborhood as evidenced by the plethora of Mets caps, jerseys, and t-shirts worn by those filling the seats at Dodger Stadium this weekend (I wore this shirt for two of the three games I attended).

And although I did have to painfully watch the Mets lose two out of three games (they also lost Thursday), I got to watch some excellent baseball, with some amazing, low-scoring, great defensively played games. But, being the ever-optimist that I am, I have faith that the Mets will turn this offensive slump around, figure out how to hit the baseball, and start winning again.

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By Kyle, July 22, 2010 11:12 am

…see?…

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By Kyle, July 19, 2010 8:13 am

MGMT – Flash Delirium

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“At least they’re running a stable OS”, he said as he wandered past the flight departures display.

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By Kyle, July 16, 2010 2:02 pm

Jónsi – Go Do

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This picture makes me want to get up off my butt and go explore L.A. I get to do that a little bit this weekend, as today and tomorrow take me on:

Three

Separate

Trips

to Griffith Park, an amazing oasis of pines, trails, and views in the city.

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By Kyle, July 13, 2010 10:06 am

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You’ve all heard this bit of Beethoven before, likely more times than you’d care to given its cultural familiarity and prominence in the canon of Western music.

But this past Sunday, an old re-run of RadioLab’s episode on “Time” pointed me to a recent project that has re-imagined Beethoven’s famous Ninth Symphony, not with a re-instrumentation, or a re-arrangement, or even a re-recording, but with a revolution in the relationship between the music and time.

9 Beet Stretch is a recording of the Ninth Symphony that has been digitally slowed down to fit not into the space of a typical 70 minutes, but rather into an entire day! That’s right, in this recording, each of the notes, chords, and rests lasts approximately 24 times its normal length without pitch alteration. The whole symphony takes an entire day to be heard in this recording, and the result is not what you’d expect. I’ve been listening to this thing on and off for the past couple of days (the entire work is continually streamed across the internet), and I’ve got to say, I’m hooked.

Rather than simply dulling the magnificence of this work by the pace, 9 Beet Stretch allows the listener to hear things in the work that have never been heard before as he literally basks in the sonic landscape that is Beethoven. At every moment, you are fully aware that yes, this must be Beethoven’s Ninth, but you entirely find yourself lost in the time of it. As music played for ambient effect, there’s not much that begins to top this.

In short, turn the lights down low, turn the speakers way up, grab a glass of wine, and give a listen.