Pause

I have been listening to Led Zeppelin (Presence, "For Your Life") and the pauses in the soundscape. It appears that the gaps between the sounds of John Bohnham's fine drumwork are often much more important the actual noise of a stick on a skin.

John Cage did try to alert us to the power of the pause, but nearly five minutes of silence was probably too much, with or without a piano.

I have also been listening to Cage's prose, and marvel at his mastery of words. Cage had taken an interest in Zen and the Tao, using the "I Ching" for composition.

Nike ID, No ID

Nike ID
Originally uploaded by LoopZilla.

This is an exquisite example of the false choices given to modern consumers. The colours of shoe design can chosen onlarge touch sensitive displays in the Nike shop at Oxford Circus. Or online: here

The Nike symbol is called a "swoosh". Go figure. I thought it was a classical reference.

Smoke and Mirrors

As we move in being at home with Web 2.0, why do the cracks appear? FLCKR has the nerve to add this to all the page of all the images on the site!

.... meta name="description" content="Flickr is almost certainly the best online photo management and sharing application in the world. Show off your favorite photos to the world, securely and privately show photos to your friends and family, or blog the photos you take with a cameraphone."

No chance that that they could take the name or descripton of the image? Too hard?

Toilets

Toilets
Originally uploaded by LoopZilla.

I take it all back. My local boozer smells of toilets. Men's toilets. Bring back smoke?

A sober tale

Corner Shop
Originally uploaded by LoopZilla.

This is a former pub, or a former off licence. Or could it be both? A wonderful place to marvel at times past, at the slow pace of life.

A tale of two off licences

Open All Hours
Originally uploaded by LoopZilla.

A tale of two off licences. My local off licence, with the affection name "Open All Hours" has now closed. They were never much for actual staying open advertised hours. In fact, at 40 minutes before the evening closing time, they had pulled the shutters down. One Sunday afternoon, I ran into one of the staff who had decided not to show for work, saying that he couldn't be arsed.... and he was checking to see if anybody had opened up instead.

When challenged, staff report that they had to go home to eat. Fair enough. I was on my way home from work, I had not eaten, and I wished to pick up a few beers for the evening.

The other off licence was the branch of Oddbins at Canary Wharf (on the ground level of the DLR station concourse). Strange place Oddbins. I always get the feeling that I am not of the correct class to enter and buy some beer. Much like the first off licence, you get the feeling that you are doing them a big favour, so you had be good.

So, they have both gone. Call me old school, but I like service, a smile, conversation, a cheery goodbye, and stick to the advertised opening hours, and don't expect me to genuflect.

Outputs

I don't blog a great deal: that much is obvious! But I like to invite people to groups, so I either create the groups, or invite people to existing groups.

This week, three people have told me to stop sending them invites to groups, that is on Facebook, FLICKR or both.

I guess I don't understand the online community yet.