Little Running Bear

So here’s the thing. I’ve only just discovered shuffle on my iPod.

For as long as I’ve had the ability to randomise music (starting with a button on my first CD player in 1989) I’ve never wanted to. I’ve always thought that an album was created as an album. I never really bought compilation CDs and never had much interest in a best of/greatest hits collection.

I want to know exactly what my favourite bands were doing at one particular time and I feel it’s, in some way, disrespectful to just give a cursory glance to the last 10 years, or whatever the contrivance for the latest collection was.

Also, albums as a whole work like a time machine for me. I can put on REM’s Document and remember being in my friend’s basement, playing it for him and waiting for his reaction to this wonderful discovery I’d made. A single song from that album won’t transport me back to that day in year 10. It has to be the whole thing.

It’s the same with Sonic Youth, Run DMC, Beastie Boys, Superchunk, Sebadoh… I could namecheck for hours but I think you get the point.

Probably this all comes from my wanting so strongly to control my environment. I feel like listening to this particular artist from this era and I’ll go on a journey with them. Fuck you if you don’t want to come with me. It’s where I am and where I’m going and you never understood me anyway.

Yes, it brings out the tediously rebellious teenager in me. So what? Like you don’t have one in you? Don’t judge me.

If I want to throw caution to the wind and two seemingly unrelated songs back-to-back I’ll listen to the radio. Garry Seven’s “Smoke ‘em if you’ve got ‘em” on 3RRR on a Friday night is perfect for this. It’s always full of surprises, all of them curious and exciting. When each song starts it puts a smile on my face and makes me wonder at how Seven came to put those two songs together.

Another reason I rejected the random play function is because, so often when I was at a friend’s house for a party or a little get together and the random was selected I was disappointed for two reasons: There was no filter for when the shit songs in my friend’s collection came on (songs my friend likes but potentially fill me with the urge to stab); How lazy my friend was that they didn’t take 30 minutes to put together a playlist of some sort.

So I’ve never put the random function into play on any of my music devices and maintained my snobbery. Until last week when I accidentally started playing the Top 25 Played playlist on my iPod. As it was playing I thought: I like all these songs but I’ve heard them so much (derr).

I have almost 4000 songs on my iPod. So much that I’ve forgotten a lot of what’s there. So I decided to start playing in shuffle mode. AND I LOVE IT!

I love it because all the songs I have on my little device are grade-A, 100% superbly rockin’ tracks. There’s almost no room for disappointment (except for the discovery that I have a Death Cab for Cutie album on there — must remember to delete). Every song is a surprise and puts a smile on my face. It’s just like listening to the radio but without any breaks and without the danger of having any songs I don’t like.

Now I understand why shuffle/random is so popular. It’s taken me so long and I feel like such a doofus. Bring the random. Free me up. Remove the control from my listening and just throw those songs at me.

I’m off to rediscover the buried treasure in my music collection. Excuse me.

Nb: Just because I’ve started embracing this sort of freedom does not mean that I’m becoming like all those goddamn sandle-wearing, sun-loving, ‘ooh look at the pretty flowers’ people who are happy and enjoy life. I still use the music to block all that shit out.

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Dated » June 7th, 2008

Ah, the joys of a Friday afternoon. The weeks since the Comedy Festival ended seem to have been nonstop madness. In that time I’ve been dealing with Twitter and trying to work out what it’s good for.

I’ve found the joy and frustration of global conversation. I don’t really understand why I like it. It has something to do with feeling connected without actually being connected. It’s a false intimacy, and that sounds like a bad thing but it isn’t.

A couple of months ago I was at the MODM meeting talking to some people who were having an entire conversation about what had happened on Twitter that day. I hadn’t really dabbled then and I didn’t get it. Somebody tried to explain it to me but it made no sense. Why would anybody want everbody to know what they were doing? Why would they give up their privacy like that?

The magic with Twitter is the way different people use it. Some use it like status updates on Facebook, some use it as conversation, but the most interesting are the ones who use it as a nanoblog. A link with a punchy description can pique my interest. A comment about the world I can’t see outside my window might spark an idea.

The other thing is the very nature of writing in only 140 characters. It takes a lot of discipline to get as much of an idea out as possible in around 20 words without using txt shortcode.

I’ll probably get sick of it the way I got sick of Facebook (yes, sick of Facebook but still love playing scrabbulous, what a dilemma) but for the moment I’m trying to rock the nanoblog vibe and really enjoying it.

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Dated » May 16th, 2008

I’m spending a night at home having bangers and mash for dinner. The bangers are outside on the back stoop in the imitation George Foreman grill joined to the kitchen by a long extension cord. I have to make them outside because they smell up the house too much, making everything smell of sausages for days.

This is comfort food for a comforting dinner. Also, I had some in the freezer and I’m lazy and didn’t want to go to the supermarket. Laziness, is comforting.

The need for comfort food tonight comes from having a night at home all to myself. Early on during the Comedy Festival I caught a cold and somewhere along the lines I thought the wise idea would be to just power through it, dose myself up on cold and flu tablets and keep going out every night.

Apparently the thing needed to get rid of a cold is plenty of rest. Who knew? So I’m taking two nights off. I will see no shows. I will rest. I will catch up on all the TV I need to watch for Boxcutters. I will eat bangers and mash and try to forget that there’s a world outside continuing without me.

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Dated » April 1st, 2008

Wow, it seems like only last weekend I was at the Grand Prix. Now it’s Comedy Festival already. I meant to blog about the GP but didn’t have the time. That’s a shame because it would have been a really entertaining and interesting post.

Anyway, for those interested, I’ll be trying to cover my movements through the Comedy Festival on Twitter. You can read/follow/stalk at http://twitter.com/sealfur.

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Dated » March 20th, 2008

Points of interest

Businesses

Podcasts

Inpress

Search Results

Sometimes I feel like such a N00B

It’s the NanoBlog, Charlie Brown!

Bangers and Mash for Dinner

And So Comedy Festival Begins