The record industry is going to have to accept the fact that the words "copyright infringement" don't mean much to today's aspiring artists. Musicians have always had influences, now we just hear them in a more direct fashion. They want to take what's old and fashion it into something new. Reinterpret, re-imagine, reconstruct. Those are the key terms for a new and different type of artist, one that latches onto pop culture like never before and thinks about it in ways never conceived. The future is democracy. The future is access. The future is the ability to use whatever we want, however we want. The music industry has just seen the beginning with "Rock Band." The next steps will be brought about by people like Girl Talk [labelmate of mine on Illegal Art] who reinterpret what they have seen and heard into something new. But then again, isn't that an old-fashioned definition of art?

From Steve McDonagh's blog via Philo's blog.

Well, duh. That's what i've been saying for over 10 years.

another monday. another headache forming as i sit staring at my monitor.

interesting and fun weekend. Saw Yaqui tribal easter rituals, pretty fascinating stuff, amazing syncretism (mixing of catholic and native spiritual traditions) with crazy costumes, sacred clowns, fire, fireworks, music and dancing and parading, godparents beating off evil spirits with sticks, Judas burned at the stake in a pyre of garbage bags (yuk!), girlfriends crushing on teenage boys who dance like deers all night, old women chanting, water drums and scrapers.... and I have no photos or video or audio of any of this because recording, even sketching at these ceremonies is forbidden...

Earth First Journal annual pie party last night. yum. people/socializing overload.

amazing friendships. art, music, food, drink, dogs, love, lovemaking; coffee and juice. virus hoaxes. missing spreadsheets. need to go get groceries really badly.

and i would write more and more cleverly and clearly than this cursory stream-of-concious acccount if i could just not have this headache right now. sigh.

NY Times article about how multitasking is not a very good idea, and you should avoid interruptions and distractions. (via philo's blog) It also says young people are actually worse at multitasking than older folks.

I'm excited about going to this event in a week and a half:

I plan to take a camera and document it. I like that it's been going on for years and that it's a smaller (and perhaps less "radical") but very real version of my vision of what the No Borders Camp in November could be like.

funny and interesting (sort of) tv talk show segment about Twitter, and then Rex, one of the 'experts' on the show, blogs about it, and there's some interesting comments too. social networking fads, trends, next big things....

wtfait, meanwhile people are still starving to death in bolivia and haiti and hell, new orleans for that matter, and polar bears are drowning and and and...

Former speaker of the House of Represetatives Newt Gingrich (what is he now, just a racist hatemonger on the lecture circuit?) gave a speech decrying bilingual education and calling Spanish "the language of living in a ghetto". He received cheers from the crowd of members of the National Federation of Republican Women.
(via Mun2 Daily Dos)

I'm the featured interviewee this week on the blog of Some Assembly Required, a radio show in Minneapolis about sample-based music, sound collage, etc. I think this interview happened via email at least 6 months ago if not more. But anyway, it's interesting to read because it talks about the personal experience of the host of the show, Jon, meeting me online about 10 years ago.

In other news, I had just about the worst headache i've ever experienced today, to where I was basically incapacitated most of the afternoon. It was so horrible. I'm still feeling crappy but the pain has ebbed. I don't know what's going on. Maybe a combination of not treating my back right, flirting with caffeine, dehydration, and allergies.

Latest addition on Phonophilia.com: a recording of a speech and performance I gave in Brussels in May 2000. This was the first time I'd been invited outside of my local geographical area to present my work as an artist and as "evangelist" of "cultural recycling" - and as founder of Detritus.net. It also happened to be the first time I travelled abroad, other than brief trips into Canada. And it was the beginning of my continuing project to make field recordings in odd or interesting places.

The presentation I made is still pretty interesting, content-wise, though my speaking style leaves a bit to be desired - but I will provide as an excuse the fact of jet lag and that it was about 10 pm and I'd arrived in Brussels at about 6am that morning on my flight from San Francisco. And I was nervous as hell to be one of only 2 north americans there.

More about this trip (photos, email bulletins, etc) is at http://www.detritus.net/steev/europe2000/

I'm psyched that the 2nd season of Young American Bodies has begun. In fact, it's up to the third episode already. It continues to be extremely interesting and fresh and real, I think.

Hmm, I could have sworn I blogged about YAB before, but now I can't find it. maybe i just delicioused it? Anyway, briefly, it's a really smart, modern, intelligent and realistic web-based tv show about several 20-somethings in Chicago and their love/sex lives. It's featured content on nerve.com, but there's also a myspace page for it and its own web site: http://youngamericanbodies.com (new episodes appear on the nerve site first)

However there's 2 things I don't like about it: I'm disappointed that there's an ad one has to watch before each episode now, and I'm disappointed there's no RSS feed for the series. I can't be bothered to rememeber to look at episodic web content unless I can subscribe to it in my feed reader! wwaaaaaah.

Great April Fool's joke from Google. Even more beguiling that they left it up today - well, at least for a little while... the link from their front page is now gone.

Another somewhat funny internet-based fool's joke was an announcement that 4 teachers from the spanish school i went to in Guatemala went on a surprise vacation to New York City. Complete with clever photoshopped snapshots.