Music | planet and epoch

Dentro, muy dentro
como un implante
incrustado en mi interior

En mi cerebro
loop implacable
mi voluntad destruyó

Poquito a poco
tú te instalaste
¿eres huésped o invasor? Read the rest of this entry »

Why by Fire?

Death, Music, Poetry, Religion, Spanish, Translation Leave a comment

And who by fire?
Who by water?
Who in the sunshine?
Who in the night time?
Who by high ordeal?
Who by common trial?
Who in your merry, merry month of may?
Who by very slow decay?
and who shall I say is calling?

And who in her lonely slip?
Who by barbiturate?
Who in these realms of love?
Who by something blunt?
and who by avalanche?
Who by powder?
Who for his greed?
Who for his hunger?
and who shall I say is calling?

And who by brave assent?
Who by accident?
Who in solitude?
Who in this mirror?
Who by his lady’s command?
Who by his own hand?
Who in mortal chains?
Who in power?
and who shall I say is calling?

Y ¿quién por fuego?
¿Quién por agua?
¿Quién en claridad?
¿Quién en oscuridad?
¿Quién por ordalía?
o proceso común?
¿Quién en veces verdísimas?
¿Quién por decadencia?
Y ¿De parte de quién?

Y ¿quién por conmoción?
¿Quién por barbitúrico?
…en reinos del amor?
…por algo despuntado?
¿Quién por avalancha?
¿Quién por polvo?
¿Quién por avaricia?
¿Quién por hambre?
Y ¿De parte de quién?

Y ¿quién con valentía?
¿Quién por accidente?
¿Quién en solitario?
¿Quién en el espejo?
…por orden de su mujer?
…por su propia mano?
…en cadenas mortales?
¿Quién en poder?
Y ¿De parte de quién?

Elton John on Collaborating with Bernie Taupin

Music Leave a comment

Interview in October 4th, 1997 issue of Billboard magazine:
Timothy White: What was the inspiration for the title track of “Madman Across the Water”?
Elton John: Bernie comes up with these ideas first, and I never know, I never ask him. He just gives me the lyrics, we never bother to discuss it. [Chuckles] That’s why we’ve lasted these years, we don’t get on each other’s nerves. We don’t dissect each other! I have no idea, and that’s the honest truth.

Aterciopelados – “Don Dinero” – Spanish/English

Music, Spanish, Translation Leave a comment

Don Dinero cómo te quiero
Don Dinero eres el mero mero

Si quieres ser reina, te compro un castillo
Si estás enredada, te compro un cepillo
Si quieres casarte, te compro un anillo
Compro un destornillador si te falta un tornillo
Read the rest of this entry »

Aterciopelados – “Chica Difícil” – Spanish/English

Language, Music, Spanish, Translation Leave a comment

Soy una chica difícil
Pero yo valgo la pena
Yo busco un santo, un gran romeo
Que por mi vaya, vaya hasta el cielo

Coro:
Pícame el ojo, pélame el diente,
Échame flores, hazme canciones Read the rest of this entry »

Leonard Cohen Show

Music Leave a comment

I saw Leonard Cohen and company perform last night. Something that you may not realize when you listen to his recordings is that he skips a lot. No, I don’t mean that he skips over lyrics. I mean he frequently man-gallops. Perhaps it was only for this Phoenix, AZ audience, though. And perhaps he only skips off and on stage. He did this for at least five encores. For one encore, he played my favorite song, “Democracy”:

It’s coming to America first
The cradle of the best and of the worst
It’s here they’ve got the range
And the machinery for change
And it’s here they’ve got the spiritual thirst
It’s here the family’s broken
And it’s here the lonely say
That the heart has got to open
In a fundamental way
Democracy is coming
To the USA

Read the rest of this entry »

Sony Walkman NWZ-S615F

Electronics, Film, Music, Reference, Technology Leave a comment

After hours of searching, I finally figured out that the free version of Any Video Converter will convert video files I have into ones I can view on my Walkman device.

I have used the mpeg4 option at a resolution of 320×240. I chose a bit rate of 112 and a frame rate of 15.

Using that method, I get a pretty good picture. A roughly 700 MB .avi file became a roughly 64 MB .mp4 file. Puzzlingly, a roughly 400 MB .avi file became a roughly 120 MB .mp4.

I’m afraid I don’t care enough to figure out what caused these differences. To my knowledge, I encoded these files using the same method.

Anyway, I hope someone finds some of this useful!

Music Review Quotations

Music, Reference Leave a comment

Martina Kominiarek on the Counting Crows’ August and Everything After: “…I’d begun to sense my life was all wrong. Instead of trampling down everything that had thus far held all my meaning, I waited it out, riding the waves of Adam Duritz’s enormous accumulation of personal funk. (Though I thought I was riding his haunting lyrics, vocal passion, and perfectly timed crescendos.)”

“In ‘Mercury,’ Adam says his crazy girlfriend drives him nuts, and the drumbeats relate how she sucks him into a funhouse that feels like an underwater vacuum.”

Drumbeats from “Mercury”