From: owner-alloy-digest@smoe.org (alloy-digest) To: alloy-digest@smoe.org Subject: alloy-digest V6 #2 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 Thursday, January 4 2001 Volume 06 : Number 002 Today's Subjects: ----------------- Alloy: La Boum - DVDs - How to read an Egyptian Heiroglyph ! ["Tim Hudso] Re: Alloy: DVDs - How to read an Egyptian Heiroglyph ! [Robin Thurlow ] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 03 Jan 2001 09:38:13 +0000 From: "Tim Hudson" Subject: Alloy: La Boum - DVDs - How to read an Egyptian Heiroglyph ! Hi everyone. Happy new year. It looks like I should have titled the last message Fever Pitch amazing Fiction........rather than Fact......... During the new year holiday I asked Marie what was 'La Boum' and she told me it was 'A Party' something like a Disco but especially a big noisey party of the type you have when you are in your teens...... So I lay there in bed a worried bloke...........thinking 'Merde' - this doesn't sound right at all......I've never seen 'Fever Pitch' but I have heard its about a gambler....... Then I get the message from BC this morning [Cheers for that]....to say that this sophie morceau has ben in two Boums and that TMDRs got nothing to do with it....... oops... So Appologies all round......my Morroccan friend's reaction was so instant and so strong that I was sure she was absolutely certain. Straight away she said "I know this music". This leaves us the following intriguing question: Which came first and just how similar is the music? Could there be samples from one used in the other ? [ Im trying desperately hard here to recover some credibility and make a link but I can see I am failing miserably ] ! Best wishes to everyone and thanks to BC for putting me straight on that one ! It would be an interesting exercise one lasy summer day to get both films out and compare sound tracks.... On the subject of films....I was a bit dissapointed with the Film 'American Beauty' even though I could see it was well made for such a young Director. The soundtrack was quite atmospheric though. Dont ask me why I was dissapointed by it.......I'm not sure I could say exactly why.......but I dont like being told on the box how brilliant the film is.........people dont do this with records do they .....do they ?. Its strange that ......when you stop and think about it. Its only because people rent videos rather than buy them....although I've noticed over here how many people are buying DVDs....My supermarket has an entire wall of DVDs in different lanuguages and formats and people are buying these things......incidentally I note that the American DVD format is different to the European format. People rent VHS but Buy DVD.......Odd. Wonder how this impacts on Music royalties? Happy new year once again. TimH. Oh P.s. Completely Off message but I'm reading a book on how to read Hieroglyphics at the moment and its fascinating. Did you know some Hieroglyphs are meant to be read left to right whilst others are meant to be read right to left? and that the way you know which way to read them is to look at the direction the live animal heiroglyphs are facing? So if you have an owl facing to the right your read from right to left and if you have a Cat facing left you read your Heiroglyphs from left to right! And that all Hieroglyphs that are vertical in columns are normally read from bottom to top! Sorry - I just had to share this arcane knowlege with someone.....Incidentally wasnt TMDRs father an archaeologist - or was that just publicity Hype? pps. no I havent spell checked Hieroglyph but you know waht I mean.... - -- Tim Hudson tim_hudson@zdnetonebox.com - email ___________________________________________________________________ To get your own FREE ZDNet Onebox - FREE voicemail, email, and fax, all in one place - sign up today at http://www.zdnetonebox.com ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 03 Jan 2001 10:32:20 -0500 From: Robin Thurlow Subject: Re: Alloy: DVDs - How to read an Egyptian Heiroglyph ! Tim Hudson wrote: > On the subject of films....I was a bit dissapointed with the Film 'American > Beauty' even though I could see it was well made for such a young Director. > The soundtrack was quite atmospheric though. > > Dont ask me why I was dissapointed by it.......I'm not sure I could say > exactly why.......but I dont like being told on the box how brilliant > the film is.........people dont do this with records do they .....do > they ?. I find that usually when a film is hyped by lots of critics as being 'Best Film of the Year' I almost never like it that much. For instance 'Shakespeare In Love' - it won an Academy Award for Best Picture of the Year and yet, while it was a nice little film, it wasn't a Best Picture of the Year by any stretch. The type of storyline it presented has been done hundreds of times over (and better) by fantasy writers such as the brilliant Neil Gaiman, Caitlin R. Kiernan, Jamie Delano (I could go on..!) All I can think is that if the public at large really enjoyed "Shakespeare in Love", they would probably also enjoy reading comic books and fantasy literature too! (though most fans of the film would probably be appalled at this notion :) > Did you know some Hieroglyphs are meant to be read left to right whilst > others are meant to be read right to left? and that the way you know > which way to read them is to look at the direction the live animal heiroglyphs > are facing? So if you have an owl facing to the right your read from > right to left and if you have a Cat facing left you read your Heiroglyphs > from left to right! This is really fascinating, i didn't know this! I've never studied anything about heiroglyphics - I'm terrible at languages - but I've done a lot of reading about ancient Egypt, especially the books of Dr Bob Brier, and heiroglyphics come into play in a lot of the archaeological/anthropological 'detective' work they've done, such as the true state of things surrounding Tutankhamen's death and that of his children. So... is there any significant change in the actual meaning of a phrase, if the writing goes from right to left rather than let to right for instance? Robin T ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 03 Jan 2001 23:39:21 +0000 From: Slarvibarglhee Subject: Re: Alloy: Hype - was 'La Boum - DVDs' etc. Tim Hudson wrote: > Hi everyone. > On the subject of films....I was a bit dissapointed with the Film 'American > Beauty' even though I could see it was well made for such a young Director. > The soundtrack was quite atmospheric though. > > Dont ask me why I was dissapointed by it.......I'm not sure I could say > exactly why.......but I dont like being told on the box how brilliant > the film is.........people dont do this with records do they .....do > they ?. > This is often the kiss of death for me. I was very disappointed with 'The Full Monty" when I finally saw it, after all the media hype. I think they missed an opportunity to make something on a par with 'Three Weddings .." and "Notting Hill." But I also think sometimes folk DO hype music or artists too much. I remember very well upsetting some of my friends at school when I told them I couldn't stand Bob Dylan, after having been told he was a genius. There's very little of his work that interests me. Other artists seem to blow hot and cold. I used to be a big 'Yes' fan, but each album was bought with trepidation, as they varied from the sublime to the ridiculous. I also found this happened, to a lesser degree, with Jethro Tull. (I'm showing my age, but never mind.) On the whole I prefer to 'discover' artists for myself, hearing them by chance for the first time on radio or possibly featured on one of the cable music channels like 'Talk Music.' The most recent discovery was probably Pat Metheny's 'Imaginary Day.' A couple of months before we moved house my next door neighbour had a couple of friends round one night and they were sitting in the back yard having a beer. His stereo was cranked up so they could hear it outside, and I was thinking about asking him to turn it down a bit, as it was after 11pm. Then I began to listen to what was playing and decided to wait for it to finish before asking him to lower the volume. I think I ended up listening to over half the album, and then called over the wall to ask him what it was instead of turning it down. He lent me a couple of Metheny's albums, but the 'other one' was entirely different and didn't really appeal to me. I ordered 'Imaginary Day' a couple of days later and it became my favourite album of 1999 (even though it was actually released several years earlier). Right now I find that the best place to discover new music is BBC Radio 3's 'Late Junction' which is on four nights each week. I believe it may be available in the US and throughout the rest of Eurpope. If so, it's really worth a listen. They play just about anything from Gregorian chants to modern jazz, but no pop, rap, hip-hop or dance. It's been a real revelation and I've heard some superb music that I'd probably never have heard anywhere else. There's some great music coming out of Scandinavia which will probably become more popular if it gets more air play, though some of it is hard to get hold of in the UK. ( They also play some pretty weird minimalist stuff that I just can't get into [mainly Steve Reich] but I can forgive them that). Sorry, I seem to have gone off at a tangent again. Slarv ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 03 Jan 2001 23:10:09 +0000 From: Slarvibarglhee Subject: Re: Alloy: (OT) garden stuff (was: Where Are They Now?) Robin wrote: > > Slarv, this sounds like a great project. I've always thought if I ever have > my own back garden I'll do all kinds of fun things with it! Some of the > things I've thought up are making a maze to walk on (even a little one, out > of mosaic tiles or stones), making a little meditative flower patch/sitting > area, or making a tree house or other type of little escape place to draw or > write letters in. No matter which we went with, a hammock would definitely > have to be involved - Dave has always wanted one :) What sorts of ideas do > you have for your garden? First, sorry for the delay in replying to this for nearly a week. In all that time my PC hasn't been switched on once, so no one's had any mail from me for a while. Now, what am I going to do with this garden? I have a lot of ideas, but I don't want to be too ambitious as I'm very much a beginner. Gardening, which has always been popular in England, has become even more so in the last few years, largely due to more gardening programs on TV. The most popular (in my household anyway) is Ground Force. It's a simple format. The owner of the garden is known to want to have a garden make-over, or may have been working on a make-over for some time, but not making the progress they wanted. They are then whisked away for two days on some pretext or other, a week end holiday, a visit to relations, etc. which is usually arranged for them by their spouse/partner or other family member or friend. While they're away a team consisting of two of professional gardeners, one of whom specialises in 'water features' (ponds, streams, fountains, etc.), a builder who specialises in landscaping, and his assistant, transform the garden for them. The whole thing is filmed, including the return of the owner and their reaction to their new garden. What's nice about this is that over they years they've transformed tiny gardens, large gardens, city and country gardens, flat and hilly gardens, all types in fact, and have produced all kinds of interesting and unusual results, but always in keeping with the owners' desires. All I have at the moment are a straggly and neglected 20 foot fir tree in the back left corner (like a big Christmas tree really), a bush which attracts hundreds of bees in the summer and which is currently covered in red berries, a couple of shrubs, and what I am told is a 'mock orange' bush. These are all along the fence to the left of the garden and the rest is grass. As you can probably tell, I don't know what any of these things are called, botany never having been a great interest of mine in my younger days, but I suppose now's the time learn. What I probably need is something that's low maintenance to begin with, though if the bug really gets me it may become my main pass time. And Lyn will have an equal say in what we do with it, so we need to get our heads together fairly soon. I can't be more specific than that right now, but nothing is ruled out. There could be a water feature of some sort, an arbor or pergola, bird table/bath and/or sun dial. Whatever it turns out to be, it'll take time, not least because we'll be on a tight budget having sunk most of our budget in the house move and refurbishment. > Right now I'm > > enjoying watching the squirrels going about their business, collecting > > the peanuts we throw out for them, as well as all the birds which are > > visiting the newly installed feeders. > > When I had a birdfeeder, we got lots of sparrows & they were such savages! > They battled over the food sounce and ended up completely destroying the > feeder in a matter of weeks. Your squirrels, are they the little red ones, > or the big grey ones? > They're grey, but they're not very big and there are only two of them. Reds are still fairly rare in England, though I believe they're making a come-back. As to birds, we get sparrows, blue-tits, some finches (I think, but I haven't identify what type yet), pigeons, a couple of collared doves, a few magpies, starlings and the odd blackbird. Slarvibarglhee ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 03 Jan 2001 21:35:58 -0500 From: Robin Thurlow Subject: Alloy: Re: birthdays, calendar, photos CJ Mark wrote: > Oh yes... I think you have my birthday already.. June 27. If my records are correct, this means you and Andy J have the same birthday! I've gotten my password & am putting the calendar together for January. As usual, there are complications i didn't forsee so I'm off into cyberspace to search for information. I apologize for the delay yet again (though at least we aren't missing anyone's birthday this week while I fuss around with this... it'll go much more smoothly in subsequent months thanks to all the problems I'm finding now) And now that I have my password again, I can do my long-awaited updates for the entire Alloy site, including the photo gallery. Speaking of photos (and this pertains to my site)... if anyone should care to see some violins in various stages of completion, my viola da gamba in progress, and how to make a book, I'll be putting up some new images which will show me with my little creations. The reason? I got Dave a digital camera for Christmas, and last night he spent the evening figuring out how it works, so now we're both going to go PHOTO MAD. I'm going to try to get some of my paintings up (I'm rumored to be an artist of some kind) Brace yourselves!! :) Robin T ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 04 Jan 2001 00:18:41 -0500 From: Robin Thurlow Subject: Alloy: January Calendar! Okay, it's finally here... http://www.robinthurlow.addr.com/AlloyCalendarJan2001.htm I'm trying out some new calendar-making software, and if everyone likes it I'll go ahead and make arrangements to use it in the future. I've left this one pretty simple (crackers' cool artwork carries it completely!) but in the future I can even insert images on each of the days - maybe *your* portrait when it's your birthday, etc! If there are any complications with getting this to open, or if anyone has any more special dates to add, please let me know. xxx Robin T ------------------------------ End of alloy-digest V6 #2 *************************