From: owner-alloy-digest@smoe.org (alloy-digest) To: alloy-digest@smoe.org Subject: alloy-digest V5 #252 Reply-To: alloy@smoe.org Sender: owner-alloy-digest@smoe.org Errors-To: owner-alloy-digest@smoe.org Precedence: bulk X-To-Unsubscribe: Send mail to "alloy-digest-request@smoe.org" X-To-Unsubscribe: with "unsubscribe" as the body. alloy-digest Wednesday, October 18 2000 Volume 05 : Number 252 Today's Subjects: ----------------- Alloy: Re: alloy-digest V5 #251 ["Julie Sweeney" ] Re: Alloy: weekend fun! [Brian Clayton ] Re: Alloy: weekend fun! [Slarvibarglhee Subject: Alloy: Re: alloy-digest V5 #251 Robin: Sorry to hear about your pneumonia... I had it last April and actually was hospitalized for a couple of days (due to the pin-headedness of the on-call doctor that weekend, who advised me that with a 104 degree fever it was probably just the flu and he didn't really need to see me), and you're right, it is no fun. I couldn't believe how completely exhausted I was--you can't get up, much less leave the house. You know, I never have dreams with Thomas in them, which is surprising, since he's a pretty major part of the audial landscape around here. This reminds me of a discussion Damien and I had the other day, while driving to Minneapolis.... and you will have to forgive me, since I am not a musician and am bound to get some of the lingo wrong. He made the comment, listening to One of Our Submarines, that he still can't figure out how Thomas can create such lush, full sound, with so much texture, and yet give that song such a hollow, almost empty sound. The drums have such a metallic quality, and in general there is an edgier feel to it than much of Thomas' other music. Our conversation then turned to how he goes about writing, and I commented that I think he must be one of those who "hears" what he wants to do, has the big picture almost complete in his mind and then tweaks and fills in until it's just right. And this led Damien to the big question, one we thought would make a great discussion for Alloy--if Thomas had been born a century earlier, with only conventional instrumentation at his disposal, how would his particular talent have expressed itself? Thomas without synth--what would his music have sounded like? Have I got that mostly right, Damien? By the way, Robin, I don't think Damien ever got back to you about using his dad's submarine post... when I mentioned it to him, he hadn't gotten around to reading his Alloy mail, but commented that he wouldn't mind a bit if you used it. Well, get better... get LOTS of rest and good food and plenty of water. - --Julie Sweeney ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 17 Oct 2000 09:15:47 -0600 From: "Keith Stansell" Subject: Re: Alloy: weekend fun! Hi Robin and All. Actually, I do have a tale of leaving the house, and even leaving my town, complete with a Dolby tie-in to boot. Weekend before last, I went to Las Vegas to a friend's wedding. Everyone left early Sunday morning but I had a late night flight back so I had most of the day to walk around and kill time (if not money). I walked along the front of the a Mall on the Las Vegas Strip and there is a Dive! restaurant there. It is a submarine theme restaurant created by Steven Spielburg. As a I recall reading somewhere, Thomas Dolby had some involvement in the music of the restaurant or something. So of course, I had to go in. Well, no sign of TMDR's music, Bob Marley was playing over the system. I used the restroom there (dirty dirty dirty ) and looked for the "gift shop" (there was a door on the outside to "dive gear"). The "dive gear" consisted of a very small display case with a couple of t-shirts. I was hoping for a CD or something :) Anyway - I left a bit disappointed, hoping to find a rare TMDR treasure or something. Anyone know the details of the TMDR / Dive! connection? Forward to Friday (13th ) night... I'm at a party at the loft of a former KickStart.com co-worker. She Blinded Me With Science started to play on the stereo. At that moment, the person I was talking to said "hey, did you know tomorrow is Karl's birthday?" Karl was the guy who was hosting the party. I said "I said that's funny, it is also the birthday of the guy who did this song." The person I was talking to looked at me a bit puzzled. "How did you know that?" I tried to explain being on Alloy, but got kind of a strange look. Funny timing of their question though. There you are Robin - tales of the outside with TMDR content. Get well soon, - -Keith Stansell Denver - -----Original Message----- From: Robin Thurlow To: alloy@smoe.org Date: Monday, October 16, 2000 10:35 PM Subject: Alloy: weekend fun! > >I've just been informed I have viral pneumonia... and I'm so bored. I >really wish someone would post. How has everyone been? (never mind >about ot!) You could amuse me with tales of getting to leave the house, >if any of you would be so kind. ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 17 Oct 2000 08:32:27 -0700 (PDT) From: Brian Clayton Subject: Re: Alloy: weekend fun! On Tue, 17 Oct 2000, Keith Stansell wrote: > I walked along the front of the a Mall on the Las Vegas Strip and there is a > Dive! restaurant there. It is a submarine theme restaurant created by > Steven Spielburg. As a I recall reading somewhere, Thomas Dolby had some > involvement in the music of the restaurant or something. So of course, I > had to go in. > > Well, no sign of TMDR's music, Bob Marley was playing over the system. I > used the restroom there (dirty dirty dirty ) and looked for the "gift shop" > (there was a door on the outside to "dive gear"). The "dive gear" consisted > of a very small display case with a couple of t-shirts. I was hoping for a > CD or something :) > > Anyway - I left a bit disappointed, hoping to find a rare TMDR treasure or > something. > > Anyone know the details of the TMDR / Dive! connection? He did the sound mix for the various nautical/underwater sound effects, if I'm not mistaken. The one time I went to The Dive in LA, it was nearly drowned out by the stereo, too. I listened for any sounds from "One Of Our Submarines" but couldn't make out the FX over the music very well. Perhaps someday Thomas will whip up a Beatnik version of his audio tapestry for The Dive and put it on the web for all of us to hear. BC ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 17 Oct 2000 23:04:17 +0100 From: Slarvibarglhee Subject: Re: Alloy: weekend fun! Robin Thurlow wrote: > I've just been informed I have viral pneumonia... and I'm so bored. I > really wish someone would post. How has everyone been? (never mind > about ot!) You could amuse me with tales of getting to leave the house, > if any of you would be so kind. > > > Any posts would be lovely. How has everyone been? > > Robin T ::Cough, cough:: Robin, I really hope you only have a mild attack of the virals. You don't sound as though it's causing you too many problems atm, which is a blessing. Let's hope it stays that way. No, let's hope it gets better instead. I think it's the time of year for dusting off your ailments and allowing them free reign. As it happens, both of my staff were off sick last Friday and my boss was flying to Madrid for a week's holiday (i.e. Flying South, not Flying North), so I was alone at the helm on the 21st floor, with my finger in the dyke (if you'll pardon the expression). As Captain Hogthrob was want to say, 'Oh, the loneliness of command.' Anyway, getting back to ailments, one of my staff who is pregnant is suffering from sciatica atm, so she's been off for a couple of weeks, and my sandwich student (that's a student whose year of work experience is sandwiched between two years of University study, not a student of sandwiches), was sent home on Thursday with flu-like symptoms, and as I no longer have any other staff in my command, I was all alone to keep the IT fires burning. As it happened, I was begining to think that *I* might be coming down with a cold as well, but instead it developed into this rather unattractive cough over the week end. However, I'm not feeling ill with it, though the coughing is now giving me some pain in the centre of my back, kind of between my lungs, so the novelty has worn off already. At least my head doesn't bang when I cough now, so that's a minor improvement. My week end was spent doing as little as possible, apart from on Sunday when I felt strong enough to strip the wallpaper off the stair wall. It was very strange paper, in fact the only paper in the house that was patterned. All the other paper is either embossed (Anaglypta, if that means anything to you) or woodchip (ditto) and painted white, except for the back living room which is magnolia. The stair wallpaper was the first thing my wife and I noticed when we first came to view this house in June this year. It was a black background, with tree branches on which were sitting a variety of birds. I was the kind of paper that wouldn't be out of place in a Chinese restaurant, but seemed really strange in this house. Anyway, it's all gone now, and just waiting for me to put up Anaglypta which matches the rest of the hall paper, then the whole lot can be painted. (For those of you who remember Slravi's Living Room Triple Painting Disaster of a couple of years ago, I'm hoping to paint it the correct colour first time, this time.) Apart from that, I didn't do a lot. You may know it's been raining pretty much continuously over here in the UK for the last couple of weeks, so it's not been weather for doing any gardening or venturing very far from home. Just getting back to my new sandwich student for a moment; this year, for reasons I won't bore you with, I wasn't involved with student interviews, so I had no say in who I got. We actually employ two students in Manchester, one at each of our sites, and Michelle is the one I ended up with. She's full of enthusiasm, nice to the our customers on the phone, and willing to do any task, no matter how big or small. But .... she's a little slow on the uptake sometimes. The penny drops at something like 24 ft per sec/per sec, rather than the 32 ft per sec/per sec that applies to most of the rest of us. Don't get me wrong, she's not stupid, but sometimes she says things without really thinking about it first. Let me give you an example. We have a member of staff called Julie Dawber. Michelle answered the phone one afternoon, then told my boss that she had a call for her from Mrs Doorbell!! While my boss attempted to field the call, I and my two outgoing students attempted not to disrupt the call with our hysterical laughter. In fact *I* had to leave the room. I have started a 'Michelle-isms' file to record all these little quotes and at the end of the year we'll be able to look back and laugh about them together ..... I hope. Our first inkling that we might have a 'live one' was when Michelle had been delegated the task of checking an incoming order of printer toner. She opened the carton, examined the delivery note and checked each item in the box against it. Then she looked perplexed. 'There's something missing from this order,' she said. 'It says on the bottom of the sheet "Free Next Day Carriage" but it's not in the box.' OK, I think that's enough for now. Definitely OT, but mildly amusing. In places. I hope. Slarv This missive powered by some rather strange throat singing by an eleven year old girl on the BBC's Radio 3 'Late Junction' program, followed by 'Gethsemane' from Peter Gabriel's 'Passion' sound track CD. ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 18 Oct 2000 00:59:01 EDT From: Spencer2424@aol.com Subject: Re: Alloy: weekend fun! Robin, Sorry to hear that you're not feeling well. Perhaps it's just an election year bug (in which case it may raise your temperature, but it will be completely ineffectual when it tries actually affect your immune system). Me, I've been OK. Frustrated on many levels, but that's nothing new for me. We Scorpios seem to make our own troubles in life... Anyway, good health to you! Happy dreams! - - Craig ------------------------------ End of alloy-digest V5 #252 ***************************