Mahound’s Weblog

It’s probably nothing new for our British folks, but “Eloisa to Abelard” is one of the most amazing poems I’ve ever read. Divine, erotic and tragic: a perfect trinity that is fulfilled by this wonderful work by Alexander Pope.

I come, I come! prepare your roseate bow’rs,
Celestial palms, and ever-blooming flow’rs.
Thither, where sinners may have rest, I go,
Where flames refin’d in breasts seraphic glow:
Thou, Abelard! the last sad office pay,
And smooth my passage to the realms of day;
See my lips tremble, and my eye-balls roll,
Suck my last breath, and catch my flying soul!

• http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Eloisa_to_Abelard

Falling asleep to Mike Oldfield’s rendition…

R.I.P. Arthur C. Clarke (1917 - 2008).

… no, I’m not going crazy… and it was not through iTunes. I was looking for interpretations of the opus “El Maestro”, from the renaissance spanish vihuelist Luis de Milan, which contains some beautiful vihuela + voice portuguese, spanish and italian songs. I hapened to find it at magnatune.com, performed by Jacob Heringman and Catherine King. I listened to the album once, using the mp3 streaming option available from magnatune, and got convinced. Magnatune allows a “make your price” scheme, being that the minimum for an album is 5 USD. I ended up paying 8 USD, which is the default price, since it’s roughly the same as 5 EUR, a round price, something that I would pay for a promo CD in a regular store. Then, I downloaded it in FLAC (magnatune offers WAV, FLAC, AAC, MP3 and OGG). I got the artwork, in PDF, as well.
The license allows me to share 3 copies of the work with my friends - that’s great, since it promotes sharing (I like to share my tastes with my friends, and I end up listening to some of their suggestions). And there’s no DRM, so… no big brother or bad policeman around, fighting to restrict your rights.
It’s obvious you won’t find mainstream audio at magnatune. However, the available genres span from medieval music performers to electronic composers, jazz, metal and even some pop. And I got very surprised with the quality of some of them. Well, you can listen to them for free… just give them a try.

Tags: renaissance, luis de milan, magnatune, drm, music, freedom, creative commons, el maestro, vihuela

Mandelbrot in ASCII

I’d like to call your attention for the magnificent work of Robin Rimbaud, also known as Scanner. His album “Messe” is a  great piece of art, blending sacred music with the noisy patterns of the quotidian.

Status Quo:

• Reading: “Weaving the Web” (T. Berners-Lee and M. Fischetti) , “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?” (P. K. Dick)
• Willing to watch:
  • “2001 - A Space Odyssey” (S. Kubrick)
• Recently watched:
  • “Kin Dza Dza” (G. Daneliya)
  • “Water” (D. Mehta) - a must see…
  • “Irréversible” (G. Noé)
  • “Banlieue 13” (P. Morel)
  • “The Maltese Falcon” (J. Huston)
• Currently listening to:
  • Scanner, a.k.a. Robin Rimbaud
  • Aphex Twin

One of the most amazing films I’ve ever seen. Perfectly fits with the pictures of India that I’ve been collecting through Rushdie’s works, in the last years.

Hello, hello, hello.

It has been a long time since I last wrote for this blog. Actually, it has been a long time since I have written anything useful. Why? Well, internship report (now ready, but the presentation is yet to come), job interviews, my current job at CERN… everything has been conspiring, lately, in a way that prevents me from getting enough “free” time to keep this humble blog of mine up to date.

Well, in spite of the lack of time (OK, I have time, but it doesn’t reach the threshold for me to come here and write), I have been thinking about three main things:

• I urgently need an open source MIDI arpeggiator. Generalizing, the world needs a decent open source MIDI arpeggiator;
• Web 3.0, and the way it blends with REST and Service-based architectures;
• OO Content Storage - An easy, QL-less way of storing and retrieving OO data… it’s still a germinating idea, but that I find quite interesting;

The summary of the Status Quo follows:

• Reading: “Weaving the Web” (T. Berners-Lee and M. Fischetti) , “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?” (P. K. Dick)
• Recently read: “VALIS” (P. K. Dick)
• Willing to watch:
  • “Conte d’hiver” (E. Rohmer)
• Recently watched:
  • “Ma nuit chez Maud” (E. Rohmer)
  • “eXistenZ” (D. Cronenberg)
  • “Lost in La Mancha” (T. Gilliam)
  • “Ken Park” (L. Clark, E. Lachman)
• Currently listening to:
  • Porcupine Tree
  • Frank Zappa
  • Goran Bregovic
  • Scanner (DJ)

If you know the classical guitar repertoire, you know Villa-Lobos at least by name, and you probably recognize one or two of his études and preludios. But his most recognizable melodies are, no doubt the “Cantilena” from his Bachiana no. 5, and the Tocata from the 2nd Bachiana, also known as “O Trenzinho do Caipira” (roughly “Peasant’s Train“).

Yesterday, I decided to spend some time watching “Villa Lobos - A Life of Passion”, a biography of the composer,  and a very good movie. I normally don’t like biographical movies on music-related characters, as they tend to reject the musical details and focus on the intrigues. However, this one is at almost perfect equilibrium. We can see Villa-Lobos perform as a young man, playing is cello, guitar, piano, conducting orchestras in front of raging crowds… “enough! enough of this horrible music!” The OST is wonderfully chosen amongst Villa-Lobos’ repertoire. And I bet that those who don’t know a lot about the “maestro” will definitely get surprised when they listen to his art. Should we call him the “tropical Stravinsky”? Or should Villa-Lobos be included, instead, in the same category as Bartók or the (somewhat younger) portuguese Lopes Graça, who, like Villa-Lobos, were excellent in the art of fusion between folklore and contemporary music? Maybe both (and his opera speak for themselves), with a twist of Tárrega.

Yes, I do buy (good) music, nowadays. My “special edition” of Dream Theater’s latest album, “Systematic Chaos”, has arrived today by mail. It features a documentary with the “making of” the album, filmed and directed by Mike Portnoy himself. I confess I had already listened to the album many times (sorry, guys, I could not resist…) Its heavy tone and lyrical quality impress me very much.

I love it when Mike hits an high note in the back vocals of “Prophets of War”, and says something like “that was really Roger Taylor!” And then, seconds after, “I really feel more Queen coming up… this ‘woooooaaaaa’”, and then he records several layers of back vocals, resembling those of Queen.

Great album, great artwork, great band… a pity that the tickets for Zurich are already sold out… maybe I’ll see them live (again) by fall.