it's a linkfest!
I’ve been unbelievably busy, and the blog post wannabes have been piling up till I can’t see straight. So here is a sampling of stuff I’ve run into, with minimal comments:
Helvetica: the font of the 20th century? Maybe, maybe not. But in any case, there is a celebration of the humble typeface, including a film and an exhibit at the Museum of Modern Art. Helvetica celebrates its 50th anniversary this year!
After that, you will probably decide it is time to dive into the world of duct tape fashion.
Or maybe you will want to get in a quick game of Cat with Bow Golf (warning: may be addictive).
If I can figure out what the hell TiddlyWiki is, I think it might be very useful. I’ve been struggling with to-do lists for years, because everything I do is long, convoluted, riddled with conditionals and deadlines for certain components. It’s hard to know if I’m on track or teetering on the edge of disaster. Maybe this can help—anybody tried it?
I just ran into this today: VideoJug has how-to spots on lots and lots of subjects. My favorites so far are How To Be a Perfect Boyfriend and How To Be a Perfect Girlfriend (the latter is funnier, I think); young men may wish to know How To Undo Her Bra with One Hand, while young women may find How to Dress Sexy Without Looking Slutty helpful. There’s all kinds of real advice here, such as How To Tie a Four-in-Hand Knot, but I figure you guys are as lowbrow as I am.
I recently ran into music from the Montreal band Stars. Lots of interesting stuff on their website, including videos (QuickTime required), but my favorite is the ’80s-pop confection of “Ageless Beauty” (click on the title, #2 in the Salon Summer Soundtrack Contest list, to download the MP3). For that matter, there is lots of interesting music on that list, so you may want to spend some time there.
If creating music is your thing, or you like gadgets, Create Digital Music is chock-full of good stuff: news, reviews, features, forums, hardware, software, mac, windows, oddities—just to read the main nav heads on the home page.
Ableton Live is an extremely popular music-creation tool for everyone from live DJs to composers. I’ve played around with it some, and it’s pretty mind-boggling in its flexibility and ease-of-use. It features a highly innovative user interface which makes Pro Tools look like the Beast From the ’90s (which of course it is—not to take anything away from PT’s ubiquity or power). Anyway, if you’d like a taste of what all the hubbub is about, check out some how-to movies for Live here. I don’t know if anyone else will be interested in this, but I wanted to post the link so I don’t lose it. Until that mythical future when I actually have time to sit down and seriously learn to use Live.
Okay, this one is for hardcore audio people: KeyToSound is a site for the company founded by Max Groenlund, a highly regarded innovator in the field of software synthesizers. Since the dawn of time, the price point of a new synthesizer was around $2000. These days you can buy a fully functional software synth (including re-creations of some of those classic synths), with a much better graphical interface, for around $250. In fact, you can download a fully-functioning free synthesizer called Remedy from the website. It’s not half bad—you can hear a contest using nothing but Remedy sounds here. Of course, the KeyToSound people really want you to get one of their commercial products, such as the NextSyn software synth (free demo available) or some amazing audio processing plugins. They have a dynamic EQ whose very concept blows my mind, and they seem to be held in high regard by the industry. But in any case, if you want to use a fully programmable synthesizer in GarageBand or something, download Remedy and try it out.
Finally, this seems a more than a little gimmicky, but it’s kinda fun to play with: Musicovery employs a sort of internet radio to turn you onto music you may like according to various criteria, such as a two-way matrix running from dark to positive and calm to energetic.
Whew! Okay, hope that keeps you all busy for a while.