Berkeley, California composer and sound designer Rich Vreeland (aka “Disasterpeace“) has created the awesome flash based music generator and game titled January. It allows you to walk a character around by using the keyboard while catching musical snowflakes on your tongue that fall from the sky. A series of different keystrokes will allow you to change everything from the speed that you walk to the sound that each snowflake makes once it is caught. Rich has also created music for the popular indie video game FEZ.
January is a generative music tool. You walk around and lick snowflakes with your tongue, and the tool uses a set of rules to make choices about what the next note (or notes) will be. It also gives the player freedom to play various types of chords, and choose when and how notes will be played. There are a bunch of advanced features, which you can explore. It was made with Flixel and Flash/AS3.
Roger Ebert's review of the 2003 Van Sant movie "Elephant" contains some of the most coherent criticism of the way the media reports mass killings I've yet read:
Let me tell you a story. The day after Columbine, I was interviewed for the Tom Brokaw news program. The reporter had been assigned a theory and was seeking sound bites to support it. "Wouldn't you say," she asked, "that killings like this are influenced by violent movies?" No, I said, I wouldn't say that. "But what about 'Basketball Diaries'?" she asked. "Doesn't that have a scene of a boy walking into a school with a machine gun?" The obscure 1995 Leonardo Di Caprio movie did indeed have a brief fantasy scene of that nature, I said, but the movie failed at the box office (it grossed only $2.5 million), and it's unlikely the Columbine killers saw it.
The reporter looked disappointed, so I offered her my theory. "Events like this," I said, "if they are influenced by anything, are influenced by news programs like your own. When an unbalanced kid walks into a school and starts shooting, it becomes a major media event. Cable news drops ordinary programming and goes around the clock with it. The story is assigned a logo and a theme song; these two kids were packaged as the Trench Coat Mafia. The message is clear to other disturbed kids around the country: If I shoot up my school, I can be famous. The TV will talk about nothing else but me. Experts will try to figure out what I was thinking. The kids and teachers at school will see they shouldn't have messed with me. I'll go out in a blaze of glory."
In short, I said, events like Columbine are influenced far less by violent movies than by CNN, the NBC Nightly News and all the other news media, who glorify the killers in the guise of "explaining" them. I commended the policy at the Sun-Times, where our editor said the paper would no longer feature school killings on Page 1. The reporter thanked me and turned off the camera. Of course the interview was never used. They found plenty of talking heads to condemn violent movies, and everybody was happy.
Another piece of excellent analysis from Charlie Booker, in a 2009 installment of Newswipe, showing how the 24-hour news-cycle is part of the system that gives rise to mass shootings.
(Video link) Usually this time of year, a different Frank Capra movie starring Jimmy Stewart is the topic of conversation. But since filibuster reform is still hiding in the news, here is an alternate ending to Capra's Mr. Smith Goes to Washington -- featuring Jimmy Stewart impersonator and New York-based comedian Matthew Robert Gehring and directed by Zach Goldbaum -- that contains oodles of NSFW language, courtesy of the songwriting talents of Cee Lo Green. Teacher says, "Every time fake-Jimmy Stewart drops the f-bomb, an angel gets its wings!" (via YouTube)
J.R.R. Tolkien first discovered Pauline Baynes, one of his favorite illustrators, after she sent some of her clever reinterpretations of marginalia from the Luttrell Psalter, a medieval illuminated manuscript. So charmed was Tolkien by Baynes' ... Read more
THIS CONTEST IS CLOSED! Thanks to everyone who participated.
Sean Tidy was unsatisfied with the same old Christmas cards he saw in shops, so he decided to make his own. He said, "They are a fun twist on classic Christmas themes, with a little black metal, church burning sprinkled on top." These are definitely not your average Christmas cards. They have skulls, skeletons, and some dark occult elements that remind me of other culture's Christmas stories. Sean wants to share his unusual Occult Christmas cards with you all. He's giving away a set of 5 cards to one lucky Skull-A-Day fan!
PRIZE INFO: One set of five Occult Christmas cards (one of each design). Each card comes with a brown, ribbed envelope, and they are individually wrapped in cellophane. HOW TO ENTER: Leave a comment below telling us what unusual Winter holiday traditions you do. For example, my family opens all their presents on Christmas Eve vs. Christmas morning. "Santa" brings the kids more presents the following morning. CONTACT INFO: If you win, we need to contact you. With your comment, please include your email, or make sure your Blogger profile has a working email link for you on it. Entries are only valid with this information. WHERE TO ENTER: All entries must be made on this blog post, on Skull-A-Day.com. You CANNOT enter this contest by commenting on Facebook, Twitter, or Google+. CONTEST CLOSES: 11:59:59 PM Eastern Time Saturday, December 22nd. NUMBER OF WINNERS: One PRIZE SHIPS: This contest is open to all skull lovers around the world.
IF YOU DON'T WIN: Don't fret. Sean's Occult Christmas cards are available for purchase in his store. The are available in sets of 5 and 10, or sold individually. Also, you can see more of Sean's artwork on his Website and Facebook page.
Hurrah for St. Nick’s traditional henchman! Finally got to experience Krampus firsthand — three times, in fact, twice in its most traditional form in Bad Gastein, Austria, then again in a more urban setting (Munich) where different versions of the figure from different regions made their way through the city square.
Drones aren't just for the military and government anymore - regular citizens and makers
are embracing drones at an amazing rate and creating some very interesting uses for this
rapidly developing technology. Milo Danger designs, builds, flies & shoots an armed drone
to determine just how safe - or dangerous - these machines are in the hands of a novice flyer.
In New York City, there is quite a backlash to SantaCon, the annual Santa gathering that began in San Francisco back in 1994. After last year’s event, Gothamist strongly urged for it to stop completely and called it a “boorish parade of conformity” that needs “to be banished to the same circle of hell that awaits The Santa Clause star Tim Allen.” This year, Gothamist has issued a SantaCon warning stating that “New York City will once again be under siege by drunken frat boys on a mission to fulfill their favorite Christmas-themed date rape fantasies” (a reference to the large amount of SantaCon-related sexual harassment claims). They urge people to either stay indoors or leave town. To help local establishments combat trouble from intoxicated Santas, Eater NY has created three different “No Drunk Santas” signs, which can be downloaded at their site. SantaCon NYC is scheduled to take place on Saturday, December 15, 2012. As of this writing, over 26K people have RSVP’d at the SantaCon NYC Facebook event page. At the Santarchy page, there is a history of the event’s early years.
A while back, my friend Rich Vreeland, AKA Disasterpeace, made a Flash game called January where you catch snowflakes on your tongue and each plays a soft, pining note. Rich has been busy lately making music for other video games, but he just pushed out a big update to January. The new version trims down on the storyline in favor of a more capable music generator. It has auto-pilot functionality, a selection of keys to choose from, a pentatonic mode, and the ability to save your generated compositions as MIDI files.
Welcome to YouTube, the stuff of nightmares. A sampling follows; the criteria are "video includes Q Lazzarus's Goodbye Horses" and "subject appears alone."
