I found a scanner... And other thoughts

First of all, good news: I have updated the image of the flowchart appearing in the previous post and it now looks much better! Victoire. :)

Today morning I found myself thinking about a topic that I've had in my mind for a while. I recognise two aspects to it: one is the "buy three and pay for two" kind of deal that is so popular here in the UK. The other involves "membership/priority/club/whatever-suggests-an-affiliation-with-benefits cards". I guess I could engage a lenghty discussion on both aspects, but I think I'll limit myself to a rather concise comment on the second one, at least for the time being.

When it comes to club cards, the choice is fairly binary: you either decide to get one or say "No, thank you" instead. Clearly both choices are pretty much reversible, but let's not think about this - let's say you've made up your mind. What I then find interesting is the following observation: both choices affect your actions as a customer, the difference being in the way they do so. If you've got a club card, you'll be likely to become a quite regular customer - that's what these cards are made for, aren't they? This is a rather clear influence on your daily/weekly life. Now let's suppose you haven't got a club card: then what happens is that you may feel you've got more freedom of choice - and you're right, in a way. So you'll go wherever is more convenient depending on your actual needs, thinking that there is no bias in your choice because you don't own any membership card. Yet it may also happen that, after a while, you realise that you do go to that same place over and over anyway, which means that you could have benefited from getting such a card. Hmm. What do you do then? You may finally change your mind and become part of the club, so to say. Or you may resist. But why would you do so? Just as a general protest against consumerism? Fair enough. Sometimes you'll maybe feel like you're losing the opportunity to get a deal and spare a little money, but at least you won't have given up on your position. Ultimately, I guess that my point goes back to the beginning of the paragraph: yes and no are indeed different answers, but both of them will change your perception of that environment. Thus the issue is in the initial question to the customer: I know this may sound a bit over the top, but it just appears as though the offer of a club card is, in a way,  an invasive action as it effectively influences individual behaviour. Where does this lead then? Perhaps to this: no matter what choice you make - keep thinking with your mind and, if necessary, well... Disobey. [Please note that the photo above is not mine - I found it on the Guardian website. If you don't know where the mask comes from, you may wish to check this link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/V_for_Vendetta_(film)]

On a rather different note, I was coming back home tonight when I noticed a whole heap of Harley-Davidson motorbikes neatly parked on a significant portion of sidewalk. The scene in itself wasn't particularly eye-catching, but as I walked through this metallic assembly I felt a wave of heat coming from the vehicles and heard tickling and cracking sounds from the motors that were, I presume, still cooling down - the metal slowly readjusting its structure to the new temperature conditions. Cool. Immediately after this post-industrial observation I wondered whether I would have heard the bikers leaving whichever place they were at on that street. The answer came half an hour later - and it was yes, indeed you can. Rrrrroaaarrrrr. My reply, well, I guess it is contained in the photo shown below (which I took in Vienna). :)

Flowchart #1 - How I read a book

I thought I would start this post with an enthusiastic "What an amazing spring day today!", but then I realised that it is actually past midnight, so that "today" is now "yesterday" - what an amazing Friday! :) I spent one hour in the University Parks and it just felt like spring - I do love this season.
While I was coming back from the parks I chanced to witness quite an interesting - as much as spontaneous - choreography on Walton Street: a man, probably a dad, was carrying two very young girls, maybe his daughters, respectively on his back and in his arms. In turn, the girls were contributing to this titanic effort by holding each other's hands - impressive!
Also, earlier this week I went to the Jericho Café and wrote the first of what I hope will become a somehow regular entry of this blog - a variation on the theme of... flowcharts. The first attempt is thus shown below: apologies for the poor quality of the image, this will be easily improved as soon as I find a way to scan the page properly!

One of the reasons why I like the Jericho Café is that they seem to choose music that I fancy: indeed, yesterday I was extremely lucky and listened to a very good selection of songs by both John Lennon and the Beatles - greatest tune, their version of "Twist and Shout".
Enough for today - more music (and drawings with better quality) coming soon!

Unexpected events

Happy St Patrick's Day! I am not sure I want to go to the pub tonight - I like to talk to people, and being forced to shout at them because the place is so crowded that there is a "wall of noise" hardly bearable may not be my cup of tea. This said, yesterday evening I went to the Folk Club on Abingdon Road; it was a lovely evening, and part of my way of celebrating St Patrick's Day!

Yesterday I also bumped into a very interesting series of YouTube videos. Initially I was driven to the first one because of this odd title: "Tiny Desk Concert"... I started with Gillian Welch and David Rawlings, and ended up listening to about ten of these short concerts all set in the same place - an office. Brilliant! I am so glad I discovered this new source of interesting music. For this reason I prompty added the corresponding "official" website of the radio station (NPR) among the few ones listed in the side menu bar. :)

On a different note, today I went for a walk with my camera and ended up birdwatching: I spotted a wee tit (great tit or blue tit? Not sure...) on a beautiful almond tree (prunus dulcis). Who knows if one of the many attempts to take a picture of it was successful?

FolkRec - Maa Bonny Lad

Guess what? Another song I learnt from Anne Briggs! Before you formulate this thought - yes, this is becoming dangerously repetitive, which is why I promise that the next songs to appear on this blog will show some more input from myself, so to speak... I guess that the thing is: it took me quite some time to actually realise that folk songs do not have to stay the same "because it's the tradition" - one should sing them so as to reproduce how one feels about these stories. This time the recording is from May 2010. :)

FolkRec - The Recruited Collier

Together with "Let No Man Steal Your Thyme", another song I generally feel quite comfortable with. This recording also dates from April 2009 - and once more, I must thank Anne Briggs for such an intense version!

FolkRec - Let No Man Steal Your Thyme

... Oh yes, two videos in a row! Well, I thought that a full song would be more interesting than a sequence of nonsense French words.
Please note: I apologise for the first 20 seconds which are, well, blank -  I was looking for the right pitch... !

The photo is a very recent one - thanks to my friend Paola who took it less than one week ago while we were walking around Hampstead Heath, London. The song is a traditional British tune - I sing a version of it that I learnt from an early recording by Anne Briggs, probably one of my favourite folk singers (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anne_Briggs). I guess I particularly like this song (and this version) because of the melody, clearly, but also because of its "conciseness", if you will: a few metaphors explain in a pictorial way a couple of rather basic concepts related to human behaviour (whether one agrees or not is an entirely different matter). Now that I think of it, this might almost be taken as a definition of folk music... ? Anyway, I recorded this version of "Let No Man Steal Your Thyme" in 2009.

Look up... And listen

This is my first video with audio - wooow! Although it's a tiny achievement, I am pretty satisfied with the outcome. I took the black and white picture in 2007, while I was visiting my best friend who lived in Ireland at the time. That day we went for a beautiful trip to Glendalough, a site I would recommend for a visit if you happen to be around Dublin (http://www.megalithicireland.com/Glendalough%20Monastic.html). So... Thanks to Lucia and Paul for being my very professional guides. :) The audio comes from a sort-of-experimental recording I made in April 2011 - I was playing around with my bunch of magnet words (French edition!) and came up with this combination of "mots" which I quite liked. Don't ask why, please.

On the field #1 - A performance in central Oxford

Today after lunch I went to Broad Street to have a look at a performance I had read about on the very nice website of Modern Art Oxford - "Musica Practica". For some more official information I would redirect you here: http://www.modernartoxford.org.uk/whats-on/musica-practica/about/

Here are a few photos I took at the beginning of the performance. I must admit, I was probably more interested in how passers-by would react to this unusual presence than in the performance itself. This said, it was fascinating to see how the conductor moved his arms and hands (and sometimes his entire body) - I have always thought that these are very graceful movements. I stayed around for half an hour and saw tourists taking photos as well as "locals" (what does this really mean in a town where there are so many students arriving from almost every part of the planet?) acting as if nothing was happening. Suddenly a man wearing a white shirt stepped in, clearly trying to establish a dialogue with the performer. I suspect that this person is the artist and writer who is mentioned on the website (see above); I am not entirely sure that his entrance was an advisable move. Then I took this photo with the two of them, conductor and spectator (or second performer?), and when I looked again at the picture (here the third one) I thought: this is pretty much how any form of communication or attempt for popularisation of a given topic works. Often the "expert" may be regarded as someone standing on a pedestal - therefore difficult to interact with.

 

Yet here comes a "translator", here represented by the man wearing the white shirt: I can imagine he stepped in to make the meaning of the performance clearer (he would pass in front of the conductor intentionally varying the pace of his walk) and show that communication is possible and successful. "If I open a channel with the conductor then these people who keep on staring at him - without even approaching sometimes - may also start trying to query and engage with the performer."

Of course there is no guarantee of success, just like when one learns a new language; when one attempts at testing their knowledge by interacting with native speakers the comunication may be difficult and at times not very satisfactory. Still it would be such a pity not to try!

Manifesto?

"Et dans dix ans je m'en irai dis au pied d'un rosier, au pied d'une rose

Au pied d'un rosier, mon cœur s'y repose..."

Tri Yann

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vyHjhUSaSPM 

I do not like the Google empire very much. Yet here I am - with more to come. Why? Because coherence is good, but there is no need to be a monolithic rock. :)