From: owner-fegmaniax-digest@smoe.org (fegmaniax-digest) To: fegmaniax-digest@smoe.org Subject: fegmaniax-digest V16 #192 Reply-To: fegmaniax@smoe.org Sender: owner-fegmaniax-digest@smoe.org Errors-To: owner-fegmaniax-digest@smoe.org Precedence: bulk fegmaniax-digest Saturday, May 5 2007 Volume 16 : Number 192 Today's Subjects: ----------------- Re: like you're dying to know what really bugs me.... ["Lauren Elizabeth"] Re: Wraith Pinned to the Steak [Steve Schiavo ] Re: like you're dying to know what really bugs me.... [Steve Schiavo ] Re: T-birds (and they were Fab-ulous!) add... [Steve Schiavo ] Re: like you're dying to know what really bugs me.... [kevin ] Re: kids come running for the bland taste of Wilco [Rex ] Re: fegmaniax-digest V16 #191 [grutness@slingshot.co.nz] RE: REAP ["Michael Sweeney" ] magic band reunion mp3 ["Stewart C. Russell" ] Re: When Eb rocks he rocks, and when Eb rolls he rolls [Rex ] Re: like you're dying to know what really bugs me.... [Sebastian Hagedorn] Re: Essential Robyn ["Gary Sedgwick" ] Syd Barrett: The king of freak London [HwyCDRrev@aol.com] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Fri, 4 May 2007 16:05:22 -0400 From: "Lauren Elizabeth" Subject: Re: like you're dying to know what really bugs me.... tc says: > http://www.myspace.com/justacaveman oh my, i love that god only made it to the #2 friends slot. xo - -- - -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- "People with opinions just go around bothering one another." - The Buddha ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 4 May 2007 15:10:46 -0500 From: Steve Schiavo Subject: Re: Wraith Pinned to the Steak On May 2, 2007, at 7:33 PM, 2and2makes5@comcast.net wrote: > I heard an Outback steakhouse ( the D. Lang themed eatery chain) > radio ad that sounded an awful lot like the Apples in Stereos > singing "Let's go to Outback" to Of Montreal's "Wraith Pinned to > the Mist." have any other US fegs heard this ('specially Philly > Phegs), or am I making this up? There are all kinds of little bits of songs from "obscure" bands used in commercials these days. I'm pretty sure there's a second commercial that uses Of Montreal. Also one that uses the Hey La part of the New Pornographer's The Bleeding Heart Show. No doubt Fegs could point out more. - - Steve _______________ Consciousness occurs at the fundamental level of Planck scale geometry, normally in and around microtubules between our ears. But when brain coherence is lost, quantum information related to consciousness and the unconscious mind remain in the universe, distributed but still entangled. ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 4 May 2007 15:21:01 -0500 From: Steve Schiavo Subject: Re: like you're dying to know what really bugs me.... On May 4, 2007, at 3:02 PM, Lauren Elizabeth wrote: > as an aside, i think i read the caveman guy went to the oscars (or > some such ceremony) but had to go in his caveman getup and whatever i > was reading was saying, jeez, if the caveman guy is popular enough to > send to the oscars, give the actor a night off . You guys know that there is talk of TV series? > the cavemen ads seem really strange to me because they're some weird > mixture of high-brow and low-brow. it's kind of like people who know > something about when and when not to make fun of PC people, but only > on a really simplistic level. i.e. assholes. The joke, broadly, is that the *caveman* is actually a sensitive neurotic guy. - - Steve _______________ Interaction with cosmic intelligence may be influence by Penrose noncomputable Platonic wisdom embedded in Planck scale geometry. ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 4 May 2007 15:25:58 -0500 From: 2fs Subject: Re: like you're dying to know what really bugs me.... On 5/4/07, Lauren Elizabeth wrote: > > 2fs says: > > Well, it may not be the caveman's fault. I mean, if the script says > > "four-foot by five-foot," then it should be up to the prop department to > > mock up an ad that's 4x5 - not about 3x5 or 2.5x5 as in the ad. > > well, yes that why it bugs me so much. i imagine the ad's not cheap > to make or run, so it seems really stupid to not go to the bother of > getting it somewhat right. Somewhere on an ancient VHS tape, I have a tape of an ad that misspelled "choclate" (sic) - granted, in small print near the bottom of the screen, but still.. > as an aside, i think i read the caveman guy went to the oscars (or > some such ceremony) but had to go in his caveman getup and whatever i > was reading was saying, jeez, if the caveman guy is popular enough to > send to the oscars, give the actor a night off . Maybe they did - maybe that was just some no-name actor in "caveman" makeup... - -- ...Jeff Norman The Architectural Dance Society http://spanghew.blogspot.com ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 4 May 2007 15:33:50 -0500 From: 2fs Subject: Re: like you're dying to know what really bugs me.... On 5/4/07, Steve Schiavo wrote: > > On May 4, 2007, at 3:02 PM, Lauren Elizabeth wrote: > > > the cavemen ads seem really strange to me because they're some weird > > mixture of high-brow and low-brow. it's kind of like people who know > > something about when and when not to make fun of PC people, but only > > on a really simplistic level. i.e. assholes. > > The joke, broadly, is that the *caveman* is actually a sensitive > neurotic guy. But as far as I can tell, it's also that the company (within the ad) is oblivious to, or doesn't care about, that fact - thus the "even a caveman" bit continues (within the world of the ads). In that respect it seems another of those having-it-both-ways ads: the company pokes fun at the image of corporations as insensitive juggernauts, but also suggests that it's not really one of those or it wouldn't be able to so wittily, and lightly, poke fun at that image. But there is the slightest tinge of discomfort in the ads (which Vivien, I believe, pointed out). For example, I can't help but imagine that one hundred years ago, the tagline would have been "even a pygmy could do it" or something... - -- ...Jeff Norman The Architectural Dance Society http://spanghew.blogspot.com ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 4 May 2007 16:43:16 -0400 From: "Lauren Elizabeth" Subject: Re: like you're dying to know what really bugs me.... 2fs says: > In that respect it seems another of those having-it-both-ways ads: the > company pokes fun at the image of corporations as insensitive juggernauts, > but also suggests that it's not really one of those or it wouldn't be able > to so wittily, and lightly, poke fun at that image. this is exactly the kind of thing that david foster wallace will spend six pages trying to explain. xo - -- - -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- "People with opinions just go around bothering one another." - The Buddha ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 4 May 2007 15:48:20 -0500 From: 2fs Subject: Re: like you're dying to know what really bugs me.... On 5/4/07, Lauren Elizabeth wrote: > > 2fs says: > > In that respect it seems another of those having-it-both-ways ads: the > > company pokes fun at the image of corporations as insensitive > juggernauts, > > but also suggests that it's not really one of those or it wouldn't be > able > > to so wittily, and lightly, poke fun at that image. > > this is exactly the kind of thing that david foster wallace will spend > six pages trying to explain. Plus footnotes. - -- ...Jeff Norman The Architectural Dance Society http://spanghew.blogspot.com ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 4 May 2007 13:49:31 -0700 (PDT) From: Benjamin Lukoff Subject: Re: like you're dying to know what really bugs me.... On Fri, 4 May 2007, 2fs wrote: > On 5/4/07, Lauren Elizabeth wrote: > > > > 2fs says: > > > Well, it may not be the caveman's fault. I mean, if the script says > > > "four-foot by five-foot," then it should be up to the prop department to > > > mock up an ad that's 4x5 - not about 3x5 or 2.5x5 as in the ad. > > > > well, yes that why it bugs me so much. i imagine the ad's not cheap > > to make or run, so it seems really stupid to not go to the bother of > > getting it somewhat right. > > > Somewhere on an ancient VHS tape, I have a tape of an ad that misspelled > "choclate" (sic) - granted, in small print near the bottom of the screen, > but still.. You're not surprised, are you? ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 4 May 2007 17:05:02 -0400 From: "Lauren Elizabeth" Subject: Re: T-birds (and they were Fab-ulous!) add... i say: > does anyone know if there was an opening song for "kimba"? i have to thank the person who sent this offlist: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uYXuCu8apL0 ...and inflict that killer song upon all of you. okay, you've probably all been down this road: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ALzDcMDhf2o&NR=1 but i haven't so bear with me. (1) i think that may be the best opening for any show ever. i love it at the end when it seems like the song is dying down, but it gains a last glorious burst of energy with the best lyrics of the bunch. (2) as the commenter points out, that *is* an awfully big explosion. what was in that car? a nuclear bomb? and check out that explosion choreography. those sissy 80s kids didn't have that in their wheaties. (3) no wonder i had a crush on speed. he is sooooooooooooooo cool. x "adventure's waiting just ahead" o - -- - -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- "People with opinions just go around bothering one another." - The Buddha ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 4 May 2007 15:39:05 -0700 From: "vivien lyon" Subject: found poem... on ipod I haven't posted anything like this in a long time, but.... I was searching for a song title on my ipod, and scrolled past the "i" section, only to read this poem: It's a crime It's a curse It's a laugh It's a mystic trip It's all downhill from here It's all gonna break It's all in your mind It's getting colder It's time It can't come quickly enough. V. ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 4 May 2007 18:40:44 -0500 From: Steve Schiavo Subject: Re: T-birds (and they were Fab-ulous!) add... On May 4, 2007, at 4:05 PM, Lauren Elizabeth wrote: > (1) i think that may be the best opening for any show ever. There is this - - - Steve _______________ Interconnectedness among living beings can be accounted for by nonlocal quantum entanglement. ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 4 May 2007 17:55:54 -0700 (GMT-07:00) From: kevin Subject: Re: Wraith Pinned to the Steak >Consciousness occurs at the fundamental level of Planck scale >geometry, normally in and around microtubules between our ears. But >when brain coherence is lost, quantum information related to >consciousness and the unconscious mind remain in the universe, >distributed but still entangled. I'd just like to know where the above came from. ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 4 May 2007 18:02:30 -0700 (GMT-07:00) From: kevin Subject: Re: like you're dying to know what really bugs me.... >I can't help but imagine that one >hundred years ago, the tagline would have been "even a pygmy could do it" or >something... > Or as the great Tom Lehrer put it: New math New-ew-ew-ew math It's so simple, so very simple That only a child can do it. Although I could never totally relate since I was out of school before the dreaded "new math" happened. But Tom Lehrer can make anything sound funny - suicide, racism, folk music, whatever. ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 4 May 2007 18:05:41 -0700 (GMT-07:00) From: kevin Subject: Re: like you're dying to know what really bugs me.... >but i do have to say, the geico talking lizard is one of the few >talking spokes-animals (animated or real) that doesn't bug the hell >out of me - kind of a tall order, so i have to give geico credit for >that one. i like him because he reminds of niles crane. > That sounds like the original gecko, before they replaced him with the current one who doesn't sound like as much of a toff. ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 5 May 2007 12:10:36 +1200 From: grutness@slingshot.co.nz Subject: Re: fegmaniax-digest V16 #190 >Why can't you be like Endicott? (OK, OK -- semi-obscure Kid Creole and the >Coconuts joke, but...how often do you get a chance to make a reference like >that?) (besides, I love that song...) you mean... I'm not the only person on the planet who's ever heard of it, let alone likes it? James PS - is it possible I sense a thread on childhood TV crushes developing? - -- James Dignan, Dunedin, New Zealand -.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.- =-.-=-.-=-.- You talk to me as if from a distance .-=-.-=-.-=-. -=-. And I reply with impressions chosen from another time .-=- .-=-.-=-.-=-.-=- (Brian Eno - "By this River") -.-=-.-=-.-=-.-= ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 4 May 2007 20:12:54 -0500 From: Steve Schiavo Subject: Re: Wraith Pinned to the Steak On May 4, 2007, at 7:55 PM, kevin wrote: > >> Consciousness occurs at the fundamental level of Planck scale >> geometry, normally in and around microtubules between our ears. But >> when brain coherence is lost, quantum information related to >> consciousness and the unconscious mind remain in the universe, >> distributed but still entangled. > > I'd just like to know where the above came from. or - - Steve ___________ Not since the medieval church baptized, as it were, Aristotle as some sort of early  very early  church father has there been an intellectual hijacking as audacious as the attempt to present Americas principal founders as devout Christians. Such an attempt is now in high gear among people who argue that the founders were kindred spirits with todays evangelicals, and that they founded a Christian nation. - George F. Will ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 4 May 2007 18:16:30 -0700 From: Rex Subject: Re: kids come running for the bland taste of Wilco On 5/3/07, natalie jacobs wrote: > > > The song I heard on the radio was "What Light," one of the many songs on > the > album with amazingly trite lyrics. I still can't believe the guy who was > responsible for "She's a Jar" and "Jesus, Etc." is now writing lyrics like > "On and on and on, we'll stay together, yeah." Amen. Some of the titles seem to imply better songs than they are, because, like, more care was taken in which phrase was extracted for titular usage than was with the lyrics themselves. Sigh. It's Around the Sun All Over Again. How are you holding up, Miles? - -Rex ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 05 May 2007 01:20:11 +0000 From: "Michael Sweeney" Subject: Re: T-birds (and they were Fab-ulous!) add... Lauren said: >Sweeney says: >>...And don't even get me started about my kiddie crush on the >>English-accented "Lady Penelope" puppet character... >a puppet?! OK, a marionette, actually, a cute marionette with a fetching, kicky, classy "Swinging London" accent. What can I say? >i was way more sophisticated and had a crush on a real person - mr. speed >racer. Oh, yeah, you're right -- that was WAAAAAAAY more realistic and sophisticated (and Trixie, that bitch -- couldn't Speed see she just wasn't right for him?)... >btw, for years i was looking for confirmation that the television show >"prince planet" actually existed...then i remembered wikipedia: >http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prince_Planet >wikipedia: it answers all questions, it kills all mysteries. Yeah, for me it was the mid-'60s cartoon show, "Linus the Lionhearted" and, especially, a record album of songs from it (no doubt, ordered from the back of a cereal box) that I used to listen to when I was very small. I looked for it for years, in record stores, flea markets, collectibles places, etc. Then came...eBay -- everything you ever used to have or never got, available from someone, somewhere... Wiki and eBay: The both helpful and "Oh, is THAT all there is?" twin killers of knowledge and items quests... Michael Sweeney Also tracked down the type of '60s kitschy, rotating-light Christmas tree star my family had when we were kids, and I bought / sent ones for / to my siblings; but one brother rec'd it (shipped directly from the seller, who forgot to include a card from me) and wondered who sent it to him and why; "You recognized it, right?" I asked..."Yeah," he said..."And you didn't think it had to be from one of us?"...I could hear the sheepish shrug over the phone...D'Oh! _________________________________________________________________ Watch free concerts with Pink, Rod Stewart, Oasis and more. Visit MSN In Concert today. http://music.msn.com/presents?icid=ncmsnpresentstagline ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 05 May 2007 01:40:53 +0000 From: "Michael Sweeney" Subject: RE: REAP Michael Bachman: >>[ME:] Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo astronaut Wally Schirra, 84. >>Only Scott Carpenter and John Glenn remain of the original Mercury 7. Man, I'm getting old... >I know what you mean. I'll probably watch my DVD copy of "The Right >Stuff" tonight. >My father ran a horizontal boring mill for a living, and he machined >some of the parts for the Gemini program back in the mid-60's. Pretty >secret stuff and his machine had security screens around it so no one >could observe what the parts looked like that he was working on. Very cool story! When we took my niece to Disney World a few years back, we also stayed in Cocoa Beach a few days, and stayed at this cool, on-the-beach little motel, all aqua and retro from the '50s...where it turned out the Gemini 'nauts stayed when they were training together. Also had these cute little lizards running up and down the paths between the apartments / cabins (think they were all connected, but were designed and landscaped sorta individually, rather than in a uniform-front row) and some sort of crabs that lived under the edges of the sidewalks (and in other holes), popping out cautiously at times. A very nice place to stay... Michael "Disney was for the kid; Kennedy Space Center was for me" Sweeney _________________________________________________________________ Get a FREE Web site, company branded e-mail and more from Microsoft Office Live! http://clk.atdmt.com/MRT/go/mcrssaub0050001411mrt/direct/01/ ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 5 May 2007 13:51:00 +1200 From: grutness@slingshot.co.nz Subject: Re: fegmaniax-digest V16 #191 > > <"After the scheduled show at the Summer stage in New York, Richard > > (Llloyd) will be severing his ties with Television, after 34 years."> > > > > does his name really have three "L"s in it? > >that would be so badass. To be *really* pedantic in a Welsh way, it doesn't have any Ls in it at all. It has one LL (a separate letter in Welsh, which is where the surname Lloyd comes from). >I always liked the coolness factor of all the album titles by the >Go-Betweens that had double "L" in them: >"Send Me A Lullaby", "Before Hollywood", "Spring Hill Fair", "Liberty >Belle and the Black Diamond Express", "Tallulah" "16 Lovers Lane"(aka >16LL), "Bellavista Terrace" and "Bright Yellow, Bright Orange". Currently listening to a Chills album which I shall just refer to by the initials SB... James - -- James Dignan, Dunedin, New Zealand -.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.- =-.-=-.-=-.- You talk to me as if from a distance .-=-.-=-.-=-. -=-. And I reply with impressions chosen from another time .-=- .-=-.-=-.-=-.-=- (Brian Eno - "By this River") -.-=-.-=-.-=-.-= ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 05 May 2007 01:54:26 +0000 From: "Michael Sweeney" Subject: RE: REAP Mr. Wells: >>[Mr. Me:] Only Scott Carpenter and John Glenn remain of the original >>Mercury 7. >>Man, I'm getting old... > >Not sure I knew anyone was still going other than Glenn (and he doesn't >look so hot), but this is still a bit wistful for me. As boys we used to >consume stories of the Mercury 7 - no one had stones like those guys. >Beyond cool. I wonder when I stopped caring? When I was a kid in the 1960s, I thought (very abstractly) that I wanted to be either an astronaut or a baseball player. Then, must've been about the turn o' the millennium, when I was 37 / 38, I had a weird realization: Had I become a baseball player, my career would likely be over already; had I gone the astronaut route, I likely wouldn't even had made it to space by then... I know that's all blue sky, anyway, ignoring the long odds in either case (not to mention the zero likelihood of my being in the military (pre-astronaut), anyway), but...it gave me pause. Amplified the other day by seeing something David Halberstam had written, about Michael Jordan facing the end of the career he'd known and excelled at in his late 30s, while he (Halberstam) could still do what he does (and what I do) into his 70s... Michael Sweeney ...I'm no Halberstam -- and I ain't likely making it into my 70s -- I'm just sayin'... _________________________________________________________________ Get a FREE Web site, company branded e-mail and more from Microsoft Office Live! http://clk.atdmt.com/MRT/go/mcrssaub0050001411mrt/direct/01/ ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 04 May 2007 22:14:32 -0400 From: "Stewart C. Russell" Subject: magic band reunion mp3 nowt to do with Robyn, I know, but back in 2003(ish) someone flipped me a copy of a BBC radio show that had the reformed Magic Band play at Camber Sands at All Tomorrow's Parties. Does that someone still have it and could send it, please? My guitar teacher is a huge MB fan, and hadn't heard any of the reformation stuff. cheers, Stewart ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 4 May 2007 19:16:25 -0700 From: Rex Subject: Re: When Eb rocks he rocks, and when Eb rolls he rolls On 5/4/07, Stacked Crooked wrote: > > hey, > if anyfeg is headed down to the decemberists show tonight, come and say, > "what's up, beeyatch?", won't you? > > > <"After the scheduled show at the Summer stage in New York, Richard > (Llloyd) will be severing his ties with Television, after 34 years."> > > does his name really have three "L"s in it? Erm... no. But if you check out all of the stuff he's writing about the split and his upcoming solo... erm... experience... he's acting odd enough to warrant 5 or 6 l's. He insists that you never speak the name of his new not-record. And it goes on from there. Weird. you'll be kickING yourself over that come > sundown, my man, as these opportunities don't arise very fuckING often. > > anythING that cuts to the quick like this? Am I missING somethING? "Penultimate" must be one of the most often misused words in the language. I especially like it when it's used to mean "quintessential", as in "Jerry Maguire is the penultimate Tom Cruise character"... it sort of implies that someone's not long for this world. - -Rex ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 4 May 2007 19:18:58 -0700 From: Rex Subject: Re: like you're dying to know what really bugs me.... On 5/4/07, kevin wrote: > > >but maybe >it's just geico misrepresenting cavemen again. whenever did > tv get so >complicated. > > > The Geico cavemen always remind me of a Neil Young review from way back > that described him as a "Neanderthal sissy." Got a chuckle out of that. Please. Neil is totally Cro-Mag. - -Rex ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 4 May 2007 19:33:30 -0700 From: Rex Subject: Re: T-birds (and they were Fab-ulous!) add... On 5/3/07, Lauren Elizabeth wrote: > > > > does anyone know if there was an opening song for "kimba"? Yeah... it went "Kimba the White Lion is his name", in part. Kimba was an exotic treat that was only sporadically viewable on Channel 7, WDCA, at my house... usually the channels only ran from 2 through 6. Usually we could only see it at my Grandma's house. Just like Star Trek! WDCA was weird. They had a mascot named Captain 20 who was on all their kids' shows and ads, including the Channel 20 Club, wherein he hosted the segments wearing Vulcan ears, but mysteriously tooled around in a chroma-key model of a Klingon battle cruiser. And even more confusingly, he would sporadically have R2-D2 on as a guest, The same guy, Dick Drysell, was also the vampire host, a la Count Floyd on the creature feature. My brother and I used to imagine him as a sort of tin hitler, like the only guy who worked at the station so he put himself in everything, and indeed the credits to his shows listed his name over and over again... damn, now I feel a little nostalgic for local TV. - -Rex ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 05 May 2007 02:39:31 +0000 From: michaeljbachman@comcast.net Subject: Re: fegmaniax-digest V16 #191 - -------------- Original message -------------- From: grutness@slingshot.co.nz > > > <"After the scheduled show at the Summer stage in New York, Richard > > > (Llloyd) will be severing his ties with Television, after 34 years."> > > > > > > does his name really have three "L"s in it? > > > >that would be so badass. > > To be *really* pedantic in a Welsh way, it doesn't have any Ls in it > at all. It has one LL (a separate letter in Welsh, which is where the > surname Lloyd comes from). > > >I always liked the coolness factor of all the album titles by the > >Go-Betweens that had double "L" in them: > >"Send Me A Lullaby", "Before Hollywood", "Spring Hill Fair", "Liberty > >Belle and the Black Diamond Express", "Tallulah" "16 Lovers Lane"(aka > >16LL), "Bellavista Terrace" and "Bright Yellow, Bright Orange". > James wrote: > Currently listening to a Chills album which I shall just refer to by > the initials SB... > Soft Bomb! A perfect pop album! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zpyYzsG8oXw MJ Bachman ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 4 May 2007 20:27:52 -0700 From: Rex Subject: Re: fegmaniax-digest V16 #191 On 5/4/07, michaeljbachman@comcast.net wrote: > > > > Currently listening to a Chills album which I shall just refer to by > > the initials SB... > > > > Soft Bomb! A perfect pop album! Or... a different Chills album... or two... Wonder why that "album titles linked by letter combos" thing is so particularly antipodal. (Well, the GB's and Chills are the only ones I can think of at all, but still...) - -Rx ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 05 May 2007 09:49:35 +0200 From: Sebastian Hagedorn Subject: Re: like you're dying to know what really bugs me.... - -- kevin is rumored to have mumbled on 4. Mai 2007 18:02:30 -0700 regarding Re: like you're dying to know what really bugs me....: > Or as the great Tom Lehrer put it: > New math > New-ew-ew-ew math > It's so simple, so very simple > That only a child can do it. > > Although I could never totally relate since I was out of school before > the dreaded "new math" happened. But Tom Lehrer can make anything sound > funny - suicide, racism, folk music, whatever. I was taught "new math" (I didn't know it had that name until just now), and I enjoyed it! I have no way of knowing how things would've turned out otherwise and how accurate my memory is, but I think I really grasped set theory as an abstract concept very early on. And I consider that a good thing. I remember it being said that parents couldn't understand "new math", but from my perspective it's inexplicable why that should have been the case!? - -- Sebastian Hagedorn Am alten Stellwerk 22, 50733 Kvln, Germany http://www.uni-koeln.de/~a0620/ "Being just contaminates the void" - Robyn Hitchcock ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 5 May 2007 13:05:36 +0100 (BST) From: "Gary Sedgwick" Subject: Re: Essential Robyn Many thanks for all the many suggestions! I think the best was making a CD of more than 15 tracks... a lot of those songs simply can't be left out. BTW, my band (The Poppy Seeds) is playing next Tuesday 8th May at Industry in Shoreditch - details on our gigs page http://www.thepoppyseeds.com/gigs.jsp - would be good to see some fellow fegs there! Gary ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 5 May 2007 10:15:25 EDT From: HwyCDRrev@aol.com Subject: Syd Barrett: The king of freak London Syd Barrett: The king of freak London Legendary rock producer and contemporary Joe Boyd remembers vividly the impact Pink Floyd's Syd Barrett made in 1966 Published: 04 May 2007 In September 1965, Allen Ginsberg stole the show at the Poetry Olympics at the Albert Hall. The following spring, rumours began to reach London (via antennae in Indica Books) of Ken Kesey's Acid Tests in San Francisco and New York's Lower East Side heroes the Fugs. Month-old copies of the Village Voice carried reviews of underground films by Jack Smith and Jonas Mekas while Situationist happenings occurred in Paris and the drugged and bearded Provos emerged as a political force on the Amsterdam city council. London had its creative eccentrics, but its primary function in the coming revolution seemed to be as a hub of communication. Extraordinary characters stopped over in London on their way from Paris to Ireland, New York to Morocco or San Francisco to Delhi. The central drama of Don't Look Back is Dylan's visit to London. London, after all, had The Beatles and the Stones and mini-skirts and Kings Road, all well-established and profitable "overground" phenomena. While new, drugs-and-politics-fuelled energy was bursting forth all over the world in the summer of 1966, there was no sign that London's own revolution would be anything special: the excitement, so far, was imported. Then, in late August, came stirrings in London W11. All accounts of London's "psychedelic underground" start with the Powis Square benefits for the London Free School. The lights, the music, the atmosphere, the Notting Hill freaks, the drugs, Pink Floyd on stage, the dancing... Suddenly, there was a focus, a regular event to talk about, to look forward to, to compare with other events. The ripples of joy that spread through W11 in its wake were palpable. We had lift-off! The joy lasted just under a year. There are many analyses of the causes of the rise and fall of Freak London during those 11 months and some have much to recommend them. Around the same time as the Stones bust, for example, John Hopkins, editor of International Times, co-proprietor of UFO Club and inspirational figure, was jailed for eight months, plunging most of us - to say nothing of Hoppy himself - into a gloom that took a long time to lift. Weekend hippies began to outnumber the original Freaks at concerts and demonstrations. But those months also mark the arc of Syd Barrett's journey across the London sky. When he retreated into incomprehensible silence, the joy came to an end. That's way too pat, you're thinking. Too sentimental, too convenient in the week leading up to a Tribute To Syd concert at the Barbican. But let's look more closely at the music that inspired that magical year. The kind of extended improvisations for which the Pink Floyd were famous can be - and usually are - - tedious beyond bearing. But if the guitar player at the heart of it is a genuinely original player and if the jumping-off point is a jaunty, slightly demented English music-hall melody, those trippy excursions into the abstract become something else entirely. "All movement is accomplished in six stages/And the seventh brings return." Where did that melody come from? It has nothing to do with The Beatles, nothing to do with The Stones or Dylan or anything else afoot in pop music in 1966. It was so surprising - it made a roomful of stoned kids look up and grin, first at the stage, then at each other. Light shows were central to what happened that year. In the colourful gloom the four members of Pink Floyd were so serious, so self-effacing, as they stared down at their instruments while blobs of light bubbled and covered the stage, you could barely make out any individual features. But there is nothing remarkable about hiding in the murky light unless the audience is trying to pierce it and see someone's face. Syd's sparkling eyes always shone in the murk. Self-effacement was fascinating when the singer was that beautiful. That year may have marked the birth of a counterculture in which the usual ambitions of capitalism were forsworn, but the London Free School, International Times and the UFO Club were full of driven hustlers, schemers and dreamers. I know - I was one of them. Desires and urgencies surged through the crowds at concerts, even amidst the tripped-out and genuinely loving currents that passed through everyone. Underneath, Syd could have been the most ambitious of us all but he never showed it. His unconcern was the hurricane's eye around which the storm generated such powerful winds. The brilliance of his songs, thrown almost casually into our midst, gave us the confidence to create what we did. We knew the music we were dancing to was world class. Without Syd, we would have been a colony of the American Cultural Revolution. With him, a new world of unabashedly English music was born, owing almost nothing to the blues that Pink Anderson and Floyd Council had sung in 1930s South Carolina, the blues that had inspired almost all of British pop music up until the spring of 1967. On 10 May, a diverse group of singers and musicians will pay tribute to Syd. They - the list currently includes Chrissie Hynde, Vashti Bunyan, Kevin Ayers, Mike Heron, Robyn Hitchcock and others we're not allowed to mention - will sing songs from all of Syd's "periods". Many have gravitated towards the "later" songs from the (for me) hard-to-bear solo albums. On those CDs, you hear a damaged man, but you also hear great songs. When did he write them? I sat next to him in the winter of 1966 in his manager's flat as he sang song after song, explaining that the group couldn't use them all and maybe I knew someone else who would like to record them? All appear on the solo albums. The great bassist Danny Thompson is eloquent in his ridicule of the praise and honours that fall to the recently deceased. "What about when he was alive?" But when Syd was alive, paying homage seemed like an intrusion. Besides, we have to be honest: profits will go to a charity chosen by Syd's family, but we're really doing this to remind ourselves how important he was to us, how beloved he was and how things wouldn't be the same if he hadn't written his curious, oh-so-English songs. "You're the kind of girl that fits into my world/I'll give you anything everything if you want things." "If you want things." No American could have written that. We're stuck with our desires, our all-too-linear ambitions and our compulsion to file greatness in its proper place. If we're very lucky, on 10 May, we'll catch a bit of the off-hand breeze kicked up by Syd's hurricane 40 years ago. "I know a room of musical tunes/Some rhyme some ching." Take a couple if you wish, they're on the dish. Syd Barrett - Madcap's Last Laugh, Barbican, London EC2 (020-7638 8891), 10 May _http://enjoyment.independent.co.uk/music/features/article2509105.ece_ (http://enjoyment.independent.co.uk/music/features/article2509105.ece) ************************************** See what's free at http://www.aol.com. ------------------------------ End of fegmaniax-digest V16 #192 ********************************