Tony – Page 11 – OZTHOUGHTS

What You Need To Consider When Buying An Ereader

Ereader or Tablet? Which should you buy? A bit of help for you here…

It can be very confusing when you think you might like to leap into the world of ereading and ebooks. There are so many different models out there, and the considerable problem of the various ebook formats as well.

ereaders

To help you a bit in making a choice I shall discuss some of the main considerations you should take into account before parting with your hard earned money and committing yourself to one or other model of ereader.

Does colour matter to you?

The first thing to consider is do you want to read novels rather than ebooks with loads of illustrations or magazines or comics? If the answer to that question is comics, magazines and other reading matter with lots of colour and illustrations, then you need to consider a tablet rather than a dedicated ereader, as most real ereaders are monochrome, and not really very good to view images with.

There are a number of ereaders with LCD screens which can manage colour OK, but their screens tend to be too small to be really pleasurable to view images with. But with things such as the iPad and similar tablets, comics, magazines newspapers and coffee table ebooks and similar are a real pleasure to read and gaze upon, given the brilliant colours they can offer you.

If on the other hand you want to read ebooks that are basically text – novels and similar, then probably a real, dedicated monochrome ereader is what you want, as they are specifically designed for this form of reading, and are totally optimised for such ebooks.

So that is your first decision. Colour and images = tablet. Text and almost no images = dedicated monochrome ereader.

Screen size.

This is perhaps the next consideration. If you are suffering from any sort of eye troubles, then the larger the screen you can get is something you should think about. Since if you have a smallish screen, and need the text size to be large, obviously you can then only fit so many words onto the screen at a time, so with a small screen you will be turning pages like a mad thing, but with a larger screen you will be able to have the letters quite large, but still have a reasonable number of words per page.

Currently the only large screen dedicated ereader I am aware of is the Kindle DX, which has a screen that is 9.7 inches diagonally across, room enough to make the letters huge and still have lots of words on the screen, otherwise you should consider a tablet again.

Most dedicated ereaders these days have a screen that is about 6 or 7 inches diagonally, which if your eyes are OK, is much like reading an average paper back.

So, if your eyes are OK, then any dedicated ereader will work for you , if not, consider a tablet with a much larger screen whatever sort of ebooks you want to read on it.

Front light or clip on reading light.

Continue reading “What You Need To Consider When Buying An Ereader”

Hi Stranger – Weird And Spooky Video

This video which apparently is intended to make you feel better, has totally captivated me. A very hypnotic creature.

Here is a truly odd fish of an animation. Apparently its purpose is to make you feel better if you should be feeling down.

To be honest, I am not sure if it would achieve that simple aim, as it is so darned spooky and off the wall. Its protagonist is a totally unsympathetic sort of soft and shiny pink naked creature, somewhat humanoid who talks in a very odd voice, sort of syrupy – telling you how much “he” likes you.

Hmmmmmm……….

Oh well, rather than me blathering on about it, I think it best if I simply shut up and let you experience it for yourself – So here it is.

Hi Stranger from Kirsten Lepore on Vimeo.

So, now you have seen (and heard it), I hope you are feeling better, more positive and generally happy?

My Encounter With Tiny Tim… Very Odd…

Many years ago, about 1966 or thereabouts, I was asked by the Bonzo Dog Doo Dah Band (who were friends of mine) to do the lighting for their part in a concert that they were going to take part in at the Royal Albert Hall. This was to be a large scale concert, with a […]

Many years ago, about 1966 or thereabouts, I was asked by the Bonzo Dog Doo Dah Band (who were friends of mine) to do the lighting for their part in a concert that they were going to take part in at the Royal Albert Hall.

This was to be a large scale concert, with a load of bands and performers who were popular at the time, such as The Doo Dah Band as mentioned above, also The Small Faces, Joe Cocker and many others, and of course as you will have guessed from the title of this post, the extra-ordinary Tiny Tim.How Lighting worked at the Albert Hall.

Before I get onto Tiny Tim, I should mention how lighting was handled in the Albert Hall in those far off days before the advent of simple touring lighting control boards and rock tour lighting rigs. Back then in halls such as the Albert Hall, one had to work with what they had rigged, and the actual control system consisted of huge mechanical dimmers down below in the cellars of the hall. So “Lighting Directors” such as I had to sit upstairs in a small booth high above the audience with one of the Albert Hall electricians sitting beside me who had an old fashioned telephone to pass on to the guys in the cellar what I wanted to have happen with the lighting…

So for example I would ask for the main lighting to be dimmed to create a bit of atmosphere, this command was duly passed onto the electricians in the cellar, who then dashed around setting up the dimmers, so that on my word of command which would be relayed to them by the electrician sitting next to me, they could crank all those huge mechanical dimmers into their new positions, thus changing the lighting on the stage.

Cumbersome to say the least….

Anyhow, on the day of the concerts there was a general rehearsal of all the performers and their sound and lights people, including me of course.

There was also a small backing orchestra there for any performers who might need a bit of support – which included Cocker, and obviously, Tiny Tim.

Cocker did his rehearsal perfectly, not surprisingly and in due time it was Tiny Tim’s turn.

He came slowly onto the stage with two “handlers” in suits, one of whom carried his ukulele for him. They walked one on each side of Tiny Tim, each grasping him by his arms, and led him up to the microphone he would be using, and handed him his ukulele and stood a bit back from him. The orchestra commenced to play his music, and at the right moment, one of his handlers tapped Tiny Tim on his shoulder, and like a sort of performing robot, Tiny Tim went into his act, which he did impeccably.

Then when he arrived at the end of his act, he simply stopped, and stood there immoveable. His two handlers took him by his arms again, and started to lead him off-stage. I was standing nearby as all this was happening, and as Tiny Tim was led of the stage, he asked in a sort of little boy voice “Where are we going?” to which one of his handlers replied in a gentle voice “we are going home Tiny, home….” And off they went.

My overwhelming impression at the time was that he was a very sad and strange creature, and I have had no reason to change this impression since. When you see interviews with him, and look at his very odd shape and appearance (the original pear shaped man), this feeling is only made stronger. He was seriously odd, but when he wasn’t singing in that memorable falsetto, he actually had a very pleasing baritone voice, as you can hear of you check out an older post of mine in which I included a video of him singing “Brother, Can You Spare A Dime” (Link to that post).

So to end this little bit of nostalgia, and to give you a better idea of what a curious and sad man he was, here he is in one of the many TV interviews he did after he ceased to be so famous..

An odd and sad creature.

Jesus’ Blood Never Failed Me Yet – Haunting Song

How a simple, yet deeply felt song can effect one – Even if it is sung by an old Tramp

I first heard this haunting small tune over a year ago, but it refuses to leave me alone. The sound of that man’s quavery voice, even with its shades of Spike Milligan, is captivating in its simplicity and purity.

Before I start to discuss it, I feel that you need to hear it, so you know what it is I am so moved by. So here is the shortest version of this little song as used by Gavin Bryars.

Do you see what I mean about the power of this simple bit of music? And yes, it is Tom Waits you hear in this extract from a much longer work.

Here is what the composer Gavin Bryars has to say about the background of his use of this extremely powerful, if simple, song.

In 1971, when I lived in London, I was working with a friend, Alan Power, on a film about people living rough in the area around Elephant and Castle and Waterloo Station. In the course of being filmed, some people broke into drunken song – sometimes bits of opera, sometimes sentimental ballads – and one, who in fact did not drink, sang a religious song “Jesus’ Blood Never Failed Me Yet”. This was not ultimately used in the film and I was given all the unused sections of tape, including this one.

When I played it at home, I found that his singing was in tune with my piano, and I improvised a simple accompaniment. I noticed, too, that the first section of the song – 13 bars in length – formed an effective loop which repeated in a slightly unpredictable way [in the notes for the 1993 recording on Point, Bryars wrote that while the singer’s pitch was quite accurate, his sense of tempo was irregular]. I took the tape loop to Leicester, where I was working in the Fine Art Department, and copied the loop onto a continuous reel of tape, thinking about perhaps adding an orchestrated accompaniment to this. The door of the recording room opened on to one of the large painting studios and I left the tape copying, with the door open, while I went to have a cup of coffee. When I came back I found the normally lively room unnaturally subdued. People were moving about much more slowly than usual and a few were sitting alone, quietly weeping.

Continue reading “Jesus’ Blood Never Failed Me Yet – Haunting Song”

Circus? The Most Terrifying Art There Is

We love clowns? No we don’t! We are terrified of them, and for good, if deep reasons too.

We all love a circus – Well actually, this is not true. A large part of going to a circus is being bored or scared out of our wits by supposedly funny clowns. I know, there will be animal acts, jugglers and acrobats of various persuasions as well, and occasionally they are enough to make it worth the effort of going to the circus. But generally (with the exception of the Good Old Cirque du Soleil) most circuses are tatty, boring and amateur. But one thing that we can always rely upon is that the clowns will scare the hell out of us.

RBBB Clowns jung stevens burnes

Of late there has been a sort of move in the clown profession to clean up their act a bit, and to become less scary – but this is doomed to fail, as actually the whole point of clowns is to be seriously frightening.

The ones in the above photo show exactly what I mean – they are all friendly looking, grinning away at the camera, but can you imagine meeting even one of them late at night when you are alone on the street? You would run a mile I guarantee it.

I have never really understood why they are so frightening, or even why they should be so… Surely the idea is to make us happy not scared.

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Looking at the photo above, the little girl’s reaction to that dreadful creature beside her is totally appropriate, and is typical of how kids really react to clowns – adults pretend to find them funny, but actually underneath, they are also scared and appalled by the creature in front of them. Continue reading “Circus? The Most Terrifying Art There Is”

Laughter Track Makes A Show Funny

My attention was drawn to a rather curious fact last evening. One of my favourite TV shows is The Big Bang Theory, and it has been for quite a few years as well. I simply find its gentle humour pleasing, and I had always found it very funny as well. However, last evening […]

My attention was drawn to a rather curious fact last evening. One of my favourite TV shows is The Big Bang Theory, and it has been for quite a few years as well. I simply find its gentle humour pleasing, and I had always found it very funny as well.

However, last evening a friend told me about the huge number of Big Bang videos on Youtube that have had the laughter track edited out somehow, and he suggested I might find it interesting to watch a few of them. So I did.

But before I show you any of those “laugh free” videos, here is a short one with laugh track to sort of set the scene and point the way.

Now that I enjoyed, and even laughed at some of their comments. But unfortunately, having also seen a number of the “no laugh” videos, I found myself listening much more critically, and my enjoyment was markedly less than normal.

So, now for the Moment Of Truth. Here is a video with that laughter edited out, so it is just the words the cast speak, and no audience reaction to help things along. Continue reading “Laughter Track Makes A Show Funny”

David Zinn – Creator Of Fantastic Street Art

A friend recently introduced me to the work of David Zinn, an Ann Arbor based commercial artist, who in his spare time goes out with a box of chalk and creates the most wonderful images on the street, simply for the fun of it.

Typically his street art-work consists of whimsical visual jokes making use of street furniture, bricks or any other fixed object on the street as you will see in the images below. Apparently he has been happily drawing on pavements and similar since about 1987, and has frequently been a feature of the various street festivals they have there, more about these in the videos below.

As he is actually a commercial artist, he obviously earns his living from the various creations that he makes, not least being these superb (but temporary) chalk drawings. So he photographs them and turns them into books, calendars and other such useful things, which he then sells via his website.. So if what you see here amuses you, drop by his site and see if there is anything there you would like to own, and make him into a happy man by so doing. Here is the link you need to achieve that:

http://zinnart.com/

OK, so enough of his blurb stuff, what does his work actually look like? Well here is a small sample of the thousands of images he has created over the years on various pavements all over the world.

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Or these……………….

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So now you have a reasonable idea of his work, and have met his main character, the charming Sluggo – that sort of green creature with eyes on stalks. Sluggo, and a flying pig named Philomena are two creatures who figure very largely in Zinn’s work, and are justly both famous and much loved in Ann Arbor where they appear at very regular intervals on the streets. Continue reading “David Zinn – Creator Of Fantastic Street Art”

Strange And Powerful SF Film

I stumbled upon this strange but fascinating short Science Fiction film last night called The Gift, and was so taken with it that I felt it might amuse you too… So here it is in all its strange and dreamlike being. Actually, dreamlike is perhaps not the best word, nightmarish might be nearer the mark I suspect. […]

I stumbled upon this strange but fascinating short Science Fiction film last night called The Gift, and was so taken with it that I felt it might amuse you too… So here it is in all its strange and dreamlike being.

Actually, dreamlike is perhaps not the best word, nightmarish might be nearer the mark I suspect. This is one very strange and Kafkaesque film, with smatterings of all sorts of other types of action films. Insane car chases through the streets of Moscow (How did they do that? Is it all CGI I wonder?), a mysterious box presented as a sort of gift, murder, intelligent robots, a strange and silent man in an old army great coat who obviously has a mission of some sort, but what that might be is never made clear and a whole slew of other strange and dreamlike mysteries.

One of the comments posted on this video seemed to me (most unusually for a comment on Youtube!!) to sum it up rather well, so here is that comment to give you an idea of what you are about to see………………………

The device was ‘opened’ by a DNA scan of a piece of hair, which it destroyed during the scan. He only had a locket of hair in the small jewelry case. Perhaps the device is from centuries past and can ONLY be opened by the hair from the original owner? It might have been a way for a descendant to actually view their ancestors, maybe even communicate, but he was stabbed before he had the chance? The reference to the mystical unicorn only mimics the ancient belief that they were so rare that only two mating pairs ever existed at any one time. Indicating that the device was truly rare in a world where technology is extremely advanced. Either way it looks at though the device is useless with out the hairs to activate it. Interesting concept, left wanting. Very analogous to the ‘whats in the briefcase ‘ conundrum of Pulp Fiction, a physical thing or an ideal?

So I hope that all of the above will have whetted your appetite enough for you to sit still for the 4 minutes and 55 seconds that this film lasts, and more importantly, I hope you find it as curious and gripping as I did.

So here it comes, The Gift from the studios of the CG Brothers.

Odd, wasn’t it? But enjoyable too I hope?

Árstíðir – Amazing Singing In Station

Árstíðir, an a-cappella singing group from Iceland, who were touring in Germany in 2013, found themselves in the railway station at Wuppertal after a concert, and were so taken with the acoustic quality of the booking hall that they decided to make use of it, and to sing a 13th century Icelandic hymn before catching their […]

Árstíðir, an a-cappella singing group from Iceland, who were touring in Germany in 2013, found themselves in the railway station at Wuppertal after a concert, and were so taken with the acoustic quality of the booking hall that they decided to make use of it, and to sing a 13th century Icelandic hymn before catching their train – as one does.. A sort of impromptu Flash Mob.

I know that this happened in 2013, and that this little video went viral about as soon as it was posted – but I have only just now become aware of it, and I suspect there are lots of other people out there who missed it in 2013, so here it is again for all of us who missed it the first time round.

Isn’t that magnificent? I can well see why the acoustics of that booking hall moved them to want to sing, and to sing that particular song (an Icelandic hymn “Heyr, himna smiður” the words for which were written by Kolbeinn Tumason in 1208. The music was composed in the 1970s by Þorkell Sigurbjörnsson, who was one of Iceland’s foremost composers).

That fantastic decay (as that sort of sound is known to sound engineers, when it takes an age before the sound dies away) simply demanded to be used for a song such as the one they sang. The depth of the sound, the complexity that the slow decay engendered all combined to make it into a superbly moving performance.

I so envy those travelers who were lucky enough to be present while they sang this song. Can you imagine being there and those fabulous singers simply suddenly bursting into that sublime singing? An event to remember for your entire life I would think.

By the way, it wasn’t a set up, they really did simply wander into the booking hall, and registered the amazing acoustics there, and decided to sing that song, as they felt that it would sound perfect in that place. The “performance” was filmed by their manager who was with them, and luckily for us, had his video camera with him, so he was able to film and preserve this performance for the rest of us.

Also notice the way that some of the singers moved about at the start of the song, they were trying to get themselves into the best position acoustically, so that the sound of their singing was optimal in the wonderful echoing booking hall.

In passing, I have a cousin in France who was a choir master before he retired, and whenever I was with him, and we found ourselves driving past a church in some small French village, he would screech to a halt, dash into the church and wander around in it humming loudly, testing the acoustics in case one day he might be asked to perform there with one or other of his choirs.

This was both funny, and somewhat embarrassing as you can perhaps imagine.

Ylvis – Norway’s Silly Songsmiths….

This will be a very short post, with a few examples of the work of those two Norwegian brothers known as Ylvis. as I have already written a somewhat longer one already today. While I was checking Facebook just now, I came across a video that a friend had posted there, and was so pleasantly […]

This will be a very short post, with a few examples of the work of those two Norwegian brothers known as Ylvis. as I have already written a somewhat longer one already today.

While I was checking Facebook just now, I came across a video that a friend had posted there, and was so pleasantly surprised by its happy idiocy, that I had a look at some of their other work, and whilst you all probably already know their work, I couldn’t resist bunging those two, plus a long and complex prank with a lift that talks to simply share the enjoyment.

So here we go, first a beautiful and soulful song called Stonehenge by Ylvis.

Oh, by the way, I have to warn you, the language in these two videos is extreme, so possibly not to your taste… you have been warned!

See what I mean? Silly but pleasing.

And now for something completely different… also full of very strong swear words, but very beautiful and even soulful at times…

Stand by for the poetry and soulfulness of the song called Someone Like Me.

Still with me? LOL

And to finish this brief post off, here is a long prank they played in a hotel somewhere, in which they set up a lift so that it apparently could talk to passengers in it… truly inspired and funny. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did. Continue reading “Ylvis – Norway’s Silly Songsmiths….”