Another weekend of working on tech projects, another weekend of background noise, including the 1991 sequel Bill and Ted’s Bogus Journey, also free on YouTube for a limited time (within the United States, or via VPN).
This is the Bill and Ted film that introduced the character of Death, hilariously played by William Sadler:
Sadler has some serious nerd cred, as he also played the menacing character of Luther Sloan, Deputy Director of the Federation’s secret black ops organization, Section 31:
I want you to watch one video today: You Go High, We Go Low, which is one of the videos in Ian Danskin’s series, The Alt-Right Playbook. It’s especially important in light of Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s passing.
There’s going to be a battle over filling the vacancy in the Supreme Court, and the last time that happened, we had the Republicans breaking rules (or at least going outside them, and breaking sensible norms)…
and the Democrats taking the high road, giving us this…
and this:
Danskin argues that one of liberals’ weak points is that in embracing the idea that the ends do not justify the means, they tend to overemphasize the means and forget that the ends are the actual goal.
He points out that one of the key differences that separate liberals and conservatives — and which the alt-right has weaponized — is that conservatives primarily defend beliefs, and liberals primarily defend process. In this fight, liberals are playing by Harvard debating club rules of order, and conservatives are going by the norms of prison riots.
He reminds us of this important fact:
An action has no intrinsic value wholly separate from its outcome.
Remember, when you call out a conservative, MAGAt, or alt-righter and they reply “So much for the tolerant left,” they’re try to make us play by rules that they themselves aren’t following.
What they’re really saying is:
Watch the video:
To my friends and family who are members of The Tribe — Happy New Year!
I had no real plans for the weekend, but after watching this video, I feel like running out to Bearss Groves to buy a watermelon and a kiwi fruit (a.k.a. the fruit formerly known as the Chinese gooseberry):
That’s French electronic music artist Mezerg, whose videos aren’t just vehicles for catchy 4/4 dance numbers, but are interesting performance art pieces.
Here’s another video of his, where he’s jamming on the theremin, using it as a combination volume control and low-pass filter:
You can see more of his videos on his YouTube channel and his Facebook page.
Because I play the accordion and other keyboard instruments and sometime do a search on them, I see ads for musical instruments from time to time. Lately, I’ve been seeing ads for the thing pictured above.
They were banner ads, so the photo was tiny. At first glance I thought it was an ad for PVC pipes. Then I saw the text: Casual wind instrument. And it sells for less than $100.
When something is that cheap and described in such bland terms, it’s usually bad. Think of Zima: “Clear malt beverage”. Or the more accurate Canadian term for what gets called “American cheese” in the U.S.: “Processed cheese food”.
This thing has a name: It’s the Venova, made by Yamaha.
“The Venova is a completely new type of wind instrument,” says the website, “that is easy to learn. With simple fingerings and a sound like a saxophone, you can be playing music in no time!”
While it looks like PVC pipe, it’s actually made of its stronger cousin, ABS. It should take a drop without chipping (and definitely without denting), and it’s supposed to be water washable.
Here’s the burning question: What does it sound like?
Let’s first check out the Venova under the most ideal conditions: Professional musicians, recorded in a music studio, with the benefits of a little sound processing, backing tracks, and multiple takes:
Here’s the Venova under conditions you’re more likely to encounter: not in a music studio, occasionally with a backing track, but still being played by a professional musician:
Here’s a setting that you might find really familiar: In a music store, no backing tracks, just a decent player and the instrument:
Want some more in-depth reviews? Here are a few that take a closer look at the instrument:
There’s a lot of clever design in the Venova. There’s the “branched pipe”:
This gives the Venova a more complex sound. Yamaha’s promo material says that it helps make the Venova sound more like a conical wind instrument (such as the saxophone) than a cylindrical one (such as the recorder).
There’s also the “meandering pipe”:
It gives the Venova a longer air column in the same linear length. This allows for two things:
If I taught music at school, I’d give the Venova a look. It’s got a lot of the qualities that might make it a good instrument for musical education: Easy to play, in the key of C, durable, inexpensive.
Finally: There’s one wind instrument player I’d love to see on the Venova — the one and only Saxsquatch. C’mon, Yamaha, if it retails for under $100, you can easily send him one!
I’ve been silent because a lot of my time has been eaten by the “homework assignment” part of the job interview process at a pretty nice organization. I just submitted the assignment, and now I wait. Fingers crossed!