Third Bloggiversary for My Future Past

Today is the third anniversary of my first post at this blog.  Wow!  What did I have in mind when I started out?

Welcome to my future past, a logorrhea of the profound and the inane, a warehouse of dust and dreams, a diner where the absurd and the rational may commune.

Hmm, maybe "logorrhea" doesn't bring the right image to mind....

I was looking for a creative outlet, and what I found was a community.  Many thanks to the friends I've met through the old Cleveland Weblogger Meetup Group at meetup.com, my co-conspirators of the Lake Erie Moose Society, and my new friends at the Ohio Blogging Association - and a shout-out to the folks at Blogger, in whose honor I've doubled the 'g' in "bloggiversary".  Here's to many more!  What will the future bring?

Albums: X Unclogged

This is one of a series of posts about music.  I'll describe albums that are not famous and mostly not critically acclaimed either, but they grabbed me and held on.  I'd like to try to capture the mystique of each one for you.

Unclogged, by X, is American music.  It is rock played by four people on a stage.  It is not 'unplugged', but the name was probably a joking reference to that genre.  X were a punk band, but if you listen, you'll hear echoes of rockabilly, folk, country, and other American forms.

You will also hear vocal harmonies that I don't have words for, except "unexpected".  You might remember "Burning House of Love" as pretty standard rock radio fare from 1985.  Here, it's reborn as a boom-chick.  Listen when Exene Cervenka joins John Doe:

Frail female vocals, vibraphones, atmosphere ... this album was made for me.

Albums: Tabula Rasa

This is one of a series of posts about music.  I'll describe albums that are not famous and mostly not critically acclaimed either, but they grabbed me and held on.  I'd like to try to capture the mystique of each one for you.

And now for something completely different.  Hit Play on the video below and let it creep up on you.  It's a long track. 

I'm breaking my rule to bring you Tabula Rasa by Arvo Part, an acknowledged masterpiece.  Part is an Estonian minimalist composer of choral and orchestral music.  All that probably sounds like bollocks to a rock listener, which is what I was when I first heard it.  But Tabula Rasa has this:  atmosphere.

In this track, twelve cellos play a slow, aching melody several times, expressing a different emotion each time.  It forms an arc of tragedy:  quiet comprehension is followed by keening grief, then anger, and finally exhaustion.

Turn the lights off.

Albums: Fear of Fours

This is one of a series of posts about music.  I'll describe albums that are not famous and mostly not critically acclaimed either, but they grabbed me and held on.  I'd like to try to capture the mystique of each one for you.

In Fear of Fours, Lamb created an album as off-balance as the Talking Heads' Remain in Light, but warmer and less paranoid.  There are songs here that build to epic heights, but what fascinates me is lyrics like these:

This was a body
Now it's a home
For you, my little alien

I feel you moving
It's oh so strange
Do you like the music

I'm a happy home
What's it like in there
I'm a happy home
I hope it's cozy in there

There can be no doubt that these are the lyrics of a pregnant woman.  In 1992, Bjork wrote this:  "this is a lucky night for me/a night when one plus one is three."  In 1993, we heard her daughter on her first solo album, Debut.

It's not something you hear sung about much.  Pregnancy is not very rock and roll, right?  But here is this music that was inspired by it.  And it's a whirlwind of conversational bass lines, syncopation, and beeps and bloops.

Albums: This Is Not Here

This is one of a series of posts about music.  I'll describe albums that are not famous and mostly not critically acclaimed either, but they grabbed me and held on.  I'd like to try to capture the mystique of each one for you.

Tonetraeger is the name of the band, and it's German for "bootleg".  Their second album, This Is Not Here, sounds like the German countryside.  It's pastoral but seems to be populated by machines.  You see, they are sort of a techno band - but these days, all bands are, and yet none are the way they were.

Which is nicer, I don't know, going on a train or to see people go?
Which is better, to be inside waving, going for a ride?  Or to be outside waving back, and watching the train speed down the track?
I think I know.  It's nicer to watch ... except when you go.

Ten years ago, electronic music was more about the novelty of the rapidly evolving tools.  It was around the mid-2000s that this began to give way to simple utility.  Here, vibraphones are arranged alongside the clicks and pops that used to be affectations of the all-digital.  This generation of musicians simply grew up with electronic tools and they use them freely with all the older ones.

It's a peaceful album, in the way that Pink Floyd's Meddle is.  Also, it's happy:  there is no angst here - strange, coming from the country that gave us the word.  It is that rare piece of pop music that is light and occasionally silly but still evokes a mood and raises questions.

Firefox Android Sync is here! Uh, wait....

A new version of Firefox that runs on Android phones includes a feature called Sync.  If you activate it, Sync synchronizes your bookmarks, browsing history, open tabs, and passwords between your desktop computer and your phone.  Doesn't that sound awesome?  No more fumbling around with Delicious for bookmarks or mSecure for website passwords!

...Until you think about security.  Imagine this scenario:  you do some online banking at home, and the next day you lose your phone.  The person who finds your phone notices that you have Firefox, so he opens the browser and types "bank" into the URL bar.  Autocomplete helpfully fills in the name of your bank, and the phone automatically logs in to the site.  He's in your checking account.

What does Mozilla have to say about Sync's security?  On Mozilla's Sync page, they assure you that your data is encrypted so the "bad guys" (their words, not mine) can't intercept it or decode it.  After some digging, I was able to learn that your passwords are stored on Mozilla's servers; they are encrypted during transmission and in storage.  That will be good enough for most people, as far as you trust Mozilla, and as long as nobody touches your phone.

Here's what Mozilla says to do in the event that you lose your phone.  In a nutshell, you have to change your Sync password and then change every password you used in Firefox, because until you do, your phone can log into all those sites even though it's no longer syncing.  Wow, better be quick and thorough.

So can I use Sync for bookmarks but, say, not for passwords?  Apparently not, according to the answers at this Mozilla support forum query.  The last answer sums up my feelings about it pretty well.

Firefox, this is half-baked.  It's dangerous.  You are giving tools to thieves and setting up your users for some serious pain.  Pull the plug on Sync and fix it.

Albums: Melody of Certain Damaged Lemons

This is the first of a short series of posts about music.  I'll describe albums that are not famous and mostly not critically acclaimed either, but they grabbed me and held on.  I'd like to try to capture the mystique of each one for you.

Blonde Redhead is a strange band, and Melody of Certain Damaged Lemons is a strange album.  It was a strange choice to turn some of the track titles into a poem:

7.  This Is Not
8.  A Cure
9.  For the Damaged
10.  Mother

The playing is orderly and tight, with touches of syncopation, but the vocals are fragile and faltering.  These vocals, and the strange lyrics, evoke mental illness.  Themes echo through the album:  secrets, damage.  Characters are introduced as vocalists.  The progression from light through driving and back to lightness sounds like the plot of a film.  I'd like to see that film.  Maybe imagining it is what keeps me coming back to this album.