Then the Lord said to the Accuser:

"Have you considered my servant Job? Blameless and upright, a man who fears God and shuns evil."

"Does Job fear God for nothing?" the Accuser replied. "You have blessed the work of his hands, his flocks and herds are spread across the land. But strike everything he has, he will surely curse you to your face."

Then the Accuser went out from the presence of the Lord.

...for your listening pleasure. Feed it through your good speakers.

01. The Accuser
02. The Fall
03. The Saviour
04. The Joy

Download zipped album.

You can also write a review. Or better, share this post in your Google Reader. :)

500 Days of Summer

Went to see this last Friday with RM.

This is a story of boy meets girl. The boy, Tom Hansen of Margate, New Jersey, grew up believing that he'd never truly be happy until the day he met the one. This belief stemmed from early exposure to sad British pop music and a total mis-reading of the movie 'The Graduate'. The girl, Summer Finn of Shinnecock, Michigan, did not share this belief. Since the disintegration of her parent's marriage she'd only love two things. The first was her long dark hair. The second was how easily she could cut it off and not feel a thing. Tom meets Summer on January 8th. He knows almost immediately she is who he has been searching for. This is a story of boy meets girl, but you should know upfront, this is not a love story.



summer move forward and paint me the fabric of fall...

No, without the death and darkness of Vienna Teng's Drought -- it is the remedy for that sort of thing -- a source of perspective, an enlightened* film about dismantling the myth of 'the one' (and basically taking a vivisecting approach to all the well-established clices of the romantic comedy genre) in the context of modern love. All set to an awesome soundtrack. (Officially on my wishlist, that is, after a backlog of other acquisitions.) If you dislike romantic comedies for any of the usual reasons, this is for you. If you like romantic comedies, you've probably seen too many of them, and you need a good dose of this.

* enlightened := broad in scope, applying picasa's 'i feel lucky' to a zoomed out photograph. meaning it rings true.

Current music: Trifonic - Good Enough

Google Reader Feed Streams

Yes, indeed, it's possible to create google reader pages for different tags. It's like me editing a personalized magazine of what's out there.

So, here we are.

Jade's science feed (journal articles, news/blog clippings)

Jade's music feed (an assortment of free music downloads)

Jade's eco feed (green-ness)

Current music: Boxing Fox - Do you live?

I can shine even in the darkness

Current music: Lamb - Gabriel

cuteness prevails

Would you light my candle...?

There's only us
There's only this
Forget regret--or life is yours to miss.
No other road
No other way
No day but today...

Dear readers, I would have posted this sooner, but such craziness. That said, if you've never seen RENT, be it in film or live format, you need to (yes, I mean you!). For those who aren't aware, several characters are portrayed by the same actors on stage and on the big screen.



(RM: wait, you'd never seen it live?! seriously?) Yes, seriously. And now, remedied. Thank D for that, and for informing that it is, indeed, the last tour, and for poking in, just now, and telling me she just listened to several albums by the guy who plays Roger. Woohoo!




Current music: Faye Wong - April Snow

correction/update. ahem.

So an observant reader pointed out something about the earlier post on compensation for musicians and the RIAA. Apparently there is much variation in how much artists are compensated, and when you're signed on with a major label, sales on iTunes compensate you the same in terms of royalties as with the sale of a CD.

Current music: Recoil - Red River Cargo

Speaking of business models with large revenue streams while making absolutely no real contributions to society...

When the RIAA strikes, the settlement funds do not get paid to artists, but instead fuels the system, accelerating the cycle of litigation.

Settlement payments can be made on a website, where the funds are used to sue more defendants. None of the money is paid to artists.

The quick settlements have left largely unexamined some basic legal questions, such as the legality of the RIAA's investigative tactics, and the question of what proof should be required to hold a defendant liable for peer-to-peer copyright infringement.
(Source: Wired)

Ummm... wait, why is this still an issue? Oh, right, this is why.

Here's a not-so-radical idea. Consider the model of the initial release of Radiohead's In Rainbows, where customers could pay whatever price they deemed appropriate for the music. Let there be a site where fans can pay artists directly an amount they deem appropriate, that is, knowing that the musician's cut is around 60 cents per song download (do correct me if other sources differ). That way, fans can retro-actively contribute to the lives and livelihoods of musicians whose work they like after being affected by their music.

And even if you're one of those people who only listen to music on Pandora (or primarily/exclusively to artists who release under creative commons), you could contribute to your favorite artists, a bit like giving them a proportional thumbs up in the scaled, quantitative democracy of capitalism.

Scarcity of replicable goods/services/media is simply not a property of the Information Age. Scarcity of eyeballs is. The wise have already realized the emergent characteristics of this paradigm shift.

Current music: Peter Gabriel - Down to Earth