http://www.proppe.org/blog Mon, 21 Sep 2009 03:01:21 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en I've long had a fascination with the idea of windsurfing on the open ocean, but it has always seemed like a distant dream. The added dimension of actually surfing on waves seemed thrilling, but the skills required to be able to even attempt it are fairly advanced and the awesome ... http://www.proppe.org/blog/2009/09/20/break-on-through/ I walk my windsurfing rig down the ramp to the water's edge, gently lower it into the bay, wade out a bit, fly the sail and let the wind pull me up onto the board. Looking forward, I hook into the harness, let my toes find the footstraps, and find ... http://www.proppe.org/blog/2009/02/01/windsurfing-revisited/ Beak has achieved that confoundingly difficult feat: originality and catchiness. He's managed to integrate acoustic guitar with breakbeats and IDM in an ingeniously seamless way. The first track of Amoral Mayor Earwig EP, how a hot air balloon works, starts out straightforwardly enough. Some quiet acoustic guitar plucks, repeating and slowly ... http://www.proppe.org/blog/2007/12/31/beak/ Normally I avoid repetition in music. Usually my iTunes is randomly shuffling from my "Not Recently Played" playlist. Yet I find myself playing these two netlabel albums by Glander multiple times a week. Music that is highly repetitive, with long, sprawling arcs, and four on the floor kick drum. Reading ... http://www.proppe.org/blog/2007/12/20/glander-heavy-weights-vate/ Miraculously I remembered to turn on the TV Sunday night to catch a new episode of The Simpsons (I get TV for free on this amazing real time wireless technology called "broadcast"). It was a pretty funny episode, not relying on cameos, etc. But then it had one of those ... http://www.proppe.org/blog/2007/12/19/everyday/ A giant in the modern music world passed away last week: Karlheinz Stockhausen. He seemed to appear in every chapter of the modern music books I studied in grad school, such was his influence. I had always thought him a realist and pragmatist, so I was surprised (and touched) a ... http://www.proppe.org/blog/2007/12/13/karlheinz-stockhausen-1928-2007/ [thumb:77:l:l=g]After years of my photo gallery on this site having a completely different look, I've finally integrated it with the theme of this blog (oh-so-cleverly named Nightcappuccino). Thanks to some hard work by Billy Bullock, who ported the k2 theme to Coppermine, it just took a few tweaks to get ... http://www.proppe.org/blog/2007/12/08/finally-updated-the-photo-gallery-theme/ Recently Nathan posted a series of photo manipulations called Homeosis. Something about the contrast between ominousness and whimsey hit me in the creative nerve. It struck me that there was music implied in these compositions. They seemed to be a glimpse into, or evidence of, another history. This is a ... http://www.proppe.org/blog/2007/12/04/podcast-10-homeosis-1-sketch-01/ scribbles - simple drawing for Mac This is the way of Indie Mac development. Create a tool that either does something (one thing) new or does something old in a new, easier way. Make it beautiful and fun to use. Take advantage of the APIs Apple provides, like Core Animation. ... http://www.proppe.org/blog/2007/12/04/scribbles-simple-drawing-for-mac-by-atebits/ Konterkonzept EP by Julius Lagerfeld from the Interdisco netlabel. This is music with an evil grin. The Joker's henchmen would dance to this. Yes, it's electronica, but moreso, it is electric. According to Lagerfeld, "it was created by exclusively using hardware synthesizers to set a counterpoint to the prevailing approaches of ... http://www.proppe.org/blog/2007/12/02/julius-lagerfeld-konterkonzept-ep-id19/