Allow me to take a moment away from my thrilling and dynamic series of posts on “Museums and the Digital Domain” to post a photo of my costume from from this past weekend’s Halloween shenanigans, courtesy of Ms. Morgan Holzer:
Oh yeah, that’s me, your humble narrator, dressed like freaking Number Six! Although I ended up having to explain all night long who I was supposed to be, and the balloon I was using as Rover flew away during the day, it was still totally worth lining my good jacket with gaff tape and wearing white pants. You can clearly see from the expression in my face that my life is my own, and that you won’t hold me.
So if next year, I finally get David Byrne’s Big White Suit together for Halloween, the circle will be complete.
…because I’m on vacation and it’s time for me to get off of the computer and on the beach. The first thing is that I have a guest post up on Nina Simon’s Museum Two (2.0?) blog called “Language Matters.” It’s a collection of vaguely useful tips and tricks on how to sell technology projects to those who are not predisposed to doing them. It’s delivered in my standard rant format, so hopefully it’s entertaining.
Another thing that I’ve been loving lately is the “Museum Pipes” blog, written by my colleague at the Met, Piotr Adamczyk. Piotr is pushing the boundaries of what might be done with museum data when it’s exposed via APIs and pushed through Yahoo Pipes. As making collections data available this way moves from being exceptional to ordinary over the next year, it’s good that people like Piotr are already figuring out how to do more. Check his site out; it’s the jam. You’ll need an API key from the Brooklyn Museum to test many of the pipes.
Also, if you haven’t checked out the Indianapolis Museum of Art’s ArtBabble yet, go there right now. So awesome. It’s currently still by invitation only, but I have a few beta invites left; contact me if you’d like one.
Also, last thing: in a few short weeks, I’ll be heading to London for the second of two design sessions around the ConservationSpace project. If you’re in the neighborhood, and would like to hang out a bit, lemme know.
While trying (mostly successfully) to avoid work over a delicious Thanksgiving weekend, I discovered this excellent BBC documentary from 2003 about the BBC Radiophonic Workshop. The Radiophonic Workshop, with its stable of composers including Delia Derbyshire, Brian Hodgson, and the amazing John Baker, was a lab for the production of electronic music, mostly for BBC radio and television programs (the most famous example being the Workshop’s “realization” of Ron Grainer’s theme music for Dr. Who). Growing up in the U.S. of A., I grew up mostly ignorant of the pioneering electronic work created by these folks, but boy howdy, these composers were doing work that was easily the equal of their more heralded counterparts at IRCAM or in the Groupe de Recherches Musicales. That all of this unbelievable work was done with such limited resources makes it even that much more astounding. If you have an hour or so at your disposal, I highly recommend checking this documentary out. Amazing.
So there you go. After eight years, I waited in line for 90 minutes and pulled the damn lever. I have to say, the spirit in line at my voting precinct here in Prospect Heights was amazing–everyone was in great spirits, moms from PS9 were offering baked goodies to folks waiting, and people were driving around the neighborhood with Obama speeches blaring out of their windows. I wish that there were something truly momentous I could actually say, but I just don’t think I’m that good of a writer. I’ll leave my friend Kraig Smith over at Boy Hates Girl to write the things I wish I had the pithy prose to write. Suffice to say, I’ve never, in all my 15 years of voting, felt happier about a vote. Let’s do this thing, people.
Apologies, y’all: it’s been a hell of a long time since I’ve rapped at ya here on kovenjsmith.com. So much happening. A couple of things coming up:
For those of you in the New York metro area with time on your hands this evening, I will be playing with the M. David Hornbuckle Dixieland Space Orchestra at the Alphabet Lounge (104 Ave. C, Manhattan). If you can’t make it to the show, at least click over to their Web page and enjoy the laid back sounds kicking out of your speakers.
I will be premiering a new piece with Cornfield Dance on Sunday, September 16th at 2pm at the Construction Company, which is located at 10 E. 18th St in Manhattan. The as-yet-untitled piece will feature members of The Monster Zero Orchestra, so you know it’ll be bad-ass. More details will be forthcoming in the next week.
So there you go. After eight years, I waited in line for 90 minutes and pulled the damn lever. I have to say, the spirit in line at my voting precinct here in Prospect Heights was amazing–everyone was in great spirits, moms from PS9 were offering baked goodies to folks waiting, and people were driving around the neighborhood with ![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](http://img.zemanta.com/reblog_e.png?x-id=82aad9cf-a61f-4fa2-9814-326ffb5f48ee)
