Mr Brown

My latest Pandora find is the thoroughly excellent 'Mr Brown', by Styles of Beyond.

This falls into the category both of the current musical corner solution, and also the metaphor of the day - in this case, a metaphor for getting shot between the eyes:

'[To] catch a 40-calibre case of glaucoma'

Classic!

This song also exemplifies the fact that the chord progression of 'Tonic, Sub-Dominant, Dominant, Sub-Dominant, Repeat' (e.g. C, F, G, F) is excellent and among the best four-chord riffs. It works really well in this song, it works well here, it works well here, it works well here, it pretty much works well everywhere.

An Instant Bookmark

My guess is that you will fall into one of two categories. You will find this to bring you an unexpected joy, like meeting an old friend in a foreign country where you didn't expect to find them.

Or, if you never read Calvin and Hobbes, you'll have absolutely no idea what I'm talking about.

To a lot of people, myself included, Calvin and Hobbes occupied a strangely deep attachment. Lots of the great comic strip writers I know and enjoy (Scott Adams immediately comes to mind) list it as one of their big influences. I think Adams described it as the best comic ever, and I'd agree.

I think the strength of the nostalgia associated with this comic (and the emotions that the current redoing provoked) is twofold. Firstly, it's a comic about childhood, but with the protagonist being a strange combination of childhood petulance and aims with adult jokes and insights. As a result, it captures an idealized image of childhood from the perspective of an adult - knowing what you know and enjoying what you do, but still partaking in the innocence of it.

But there's a second sense of it. For a lot of twenty-somethings or thirty-somethings, Calvin and Hobbes is also of their childhood. The time when the comics were still written was long ago, and Bill Watterson has shown a Seinfeld-esque level of timing, leaving on a high note and resisting all calls for an encore. Calvin and Hobbes is thus like a 1950's chevy - they just aren't making them any more.

I think this explained the strange outpouring of emotion this comic got on Reddit. There were some people who complained that it was ruining their image of the comic, but many more that seemed overjoyed at the prospect, however fleeting, of a new Calvin and Hobbes comic. It let them, just briefly, be reminded of that glorious time when you could open up the morning paper and find a new Calvin and Hobbes strip waiting for you.

Those were great times.

I had not heard of 'Pants are Overrated' before this, but they've earned my readership loyalty for quite some time to come.

Source Code and Terrorism

I recently saw the move 'Source Code'. It's not bad - overacted in places (including the head scientist guy, who was badly miscast), but overall it was interesting.

One thing I found hilarious though is how wedded Hollywood is to particular ideas about terrorism. Some minor plot spoilers below the jump...

"They"

One of the laziest rhetorical devices in song-writing is the use of the oppositional 'they'.

Usually this is done in relationship songs. For some reason, 'they' are always opposed to any given relationship. Don't ask me why. We live in a world were large impersonal forces are aligned to prevent couples who are always 'meant to be' from getting together. (The only exception that I can think of is 'the old folks', with their "C'est la vie ... it goes to show you never can tell" attitude.)

A good example of this is 'Check Yes Juliet', by 'We the Kings'. Catchy and boppy, but inane:

(If the Vevo clip doesn't work, you can also try here)

"Run baby run
Don't ever look back
They'll tear us apart if you give them the chance"

It is an immense but common conceit of juvenile relationships that the world, as personified by the mysterious 'they', has deep interests in making sure that you and your girlfriend don't stay together.

The world, of course, is very rarely troubled by such matters. Your relationships end because you found someone else, or because you weren't actually suited to each other, or any other number of mundane but important reasons. Rarely do they end because 'they' chose to 'tear you apart'.

To give 'We the Kings' credit, they at least get a little more specific about who is opposed, in this case (implicitly) the parents.

They can change the locks, don't let them change your mind

You can tell how serious the parents are, because the Dad in the film clip keeps looking on in a vaguely disapproving manner while never actually saying anything. He's probably thinking about the possibility of illegitimate red-headed grandchildren, which frankly would concern me too.

Forget the parents. The 'they' that the narrator should actually be worried about is some other smooth-talking guy at school who also wants to hook up with the cute chick in the film clip. But that doesn't work so well as a rhetorical device, because for this particular 'they' to succeed in 'tearing them apart', the girl would have to want to go along. Which makes the narrative a little more awkward.

(Other examples of the mysterious 'they' can be found here, or here, or here.)

You know who could honestly write this song without it being self-indulgent?

Eva Braun, maybe? Okay, so 'they' had less interest in ending the relationship specifically, and more in ending one party to the relationship, but still.

Edward VIII is about the only one that springs to mind. Yes, large impersonal forces really were opposed to that relationship.

And I'll give a pass to anyone living in areas where "honour" killings are practiced.

Other than that? Justify your relationship without pretending it's so important that an entire conspiracy is being organised against it.

Assorted Thoughts From Coachella

- If I were a musician, I would find it infuriating how crowds can't clap in time, but keep getting faster and faster. I find myself always clapping a tiny bit later than most people (on the beat, of course), vainly trying to maintain a rearguard action to stop the acceleration. It never works, of course, unless you get an audience of musicians. Which you never do.

- Concerts are a fast way to increase misanthropy, because there's always some tool there doing annoying things - talking really loudly while the song is playing, pushing past you to get to the front, stepping on your shoes, dancing into you, being really sweaty etc. And all forms of toolishness get more intense as you get closer to the stage, which is where you'd ideally like to be located.

-On that front, is there any concert behavior more obnoxious than starting an impromptu 'mosh pit' of just bashing into each other? There's always some bunch of imbeciles that think just want to bump into each other, with complete disregard for the fact that they're also bumping into the people at the edges of the spontaneously forming circle (as everyone tries to move away from the tools). The circle just reinforces the problem, as the turds run further out, guaranteeing that they keep bumping you. In a better world, it would be acceptable to punch anyone who ran into you.

-Coachella draws on an audience primarily of rich, young, reasonably socially adjusted white hipsters. And when you select on those things (the first three much more than the fourth), it's amazing how attractive the average person is. There were hardly any fat people there, and there not too many real weirdos. Demographics is attractiveness.

- There was a fair amount of pot being smoked at the concert. And you know what problems this created? Nothing. Absolutely nothing. Personally, I have zero interest in marijuana, and have never tried it. But it's hard to see these situations in action and not find yourself thinking 'Wait, why exactly are we sending people to prison for doing this? What exactly is the harm we're trying to prevent?'

-Musicians really are addicted to cheap crowd-pleasing lines. 'Hello Coachella' [WOOO!!!]. 'Is everyone having a good time? [WOO!! YEAH!!!]. And the really controversial -'It's great to be here in California!' [ALRIGHT! ROCK!]. Who can blame them though - it works!

- White people seem unable to listen to reggae that isn't made by someone with the surname 'Marley'. If I were a reggae artist, I'd change my name by deed poll to Shylock Marley, just for the extra record sales.

Hollywood has no idea where wealth comes from

The other day I saw a billboard ad for a movie called 'Arthur'. (You can watch the trailer here, but I wouldn't recommend it). It's a Russell Brand 'comedy' remake about this quirky guy who's the heir to a huge fortune, but has to live by the stuffy rules that his uptight family makes as conditions for his inheritance. Oh noz! omg! How dare they put strings on his billion dollar gift, those fascists!

The billboards for this read 'Meet the world's only lovable billionaire'.

Let's count the ways this is ridiculous.

Firstly, have you ever seen any movie featuring a rich character where the notion of 'adding value' is explored in a non-ironic fashion? Hollywood can't conceive of the idea that if you want to get a billion dollars, you need to add a billion dollars worth of value to people's lives. Actually, you'll need to add a lot more - this is assuming you're capturing the whole surplus.

No, in the world of Hollywood, the ways to get wealth are as follows;

-Inherit it

-Steal it

-Exploit lots of workers

'Arthur' is in the first category. In this world, rich people never work for their money. Or if they do, it's only ever in the context of portraying how they're neglecting their family by spending too long at the office. For an industry as ruthlessly capitalist as Hollywood, they sure do cling to some strange ideas about how societies got rich.

Now, I don't need to explain to readers of this illustrious periodical why this is an absurd picture of wealth. But in case you need to explain it to your idiot co-worker, consider the case of pre-historic man living in sub-Saharan Africa. No amount of inheriting, stealing, and exploiting other tribesmen is going to make me a space shuttle. Clearly something else big is involved.

Bill Gates created a product that powers my computer, creating untold billions of dollars of value for the world economy. And with all the wealth he amassed, he gave it away to charity, supporting the most cost effective causes he could find, and encouraged other wealthy people to do the same.

But what actually makes you lovable is to be some goofy clown who's never worked a day in his life, a free-loading clueless moocher on earlier generations effort and thrift. As long as you have the right attitudes against 'the man', conformity, crack jokes etc.

Harry, Albert, Sam and Jack Warner (all of whom were seriously impressive entrepreneurs) must be rolling in their graves to see what's produced under their names these days

Snoop Dogg Laying the Smack Down...

...at a Comedy Central roasting of Donald Trump.

What I love about this is that he's largely dispensing with the tradition of mainly heckling the person being roasted, and just instead decides to burn everyone in the room.

My favourite lines:

"But right now, things are popping for Whitney [Cummings], y'all. Everybody in Hollywood is talking about her, and they're all saying the same thing ... - I think that bitch gave me herpes."

Don't miss the great ripping on The Situation and a few good lines about Trump at the end.

Girl Talk - The Big Beat of Mashup DJs

I spent yesterday downloading the rest of the Girl Talk albums. (Incidentally, the illegal art store may be the single worst designed commercial website I've come across - it took some serious dedication to find where the hell the list of Girl Talk albums was)

It cemented something I've thought for a while - Girl Talk is like the Big Beat of Mashup DJs.

Big Beat is a style of techno made famous by groups like The Chemical Brothers, Fatboy Slim and The Prodigy. One of the ways in which it differed from earlier genres is that it featured way more samples - different drum beats, lots of random vocal and clicking samples that add a lot to the richness of the sound. You don't necessarily appreciate each one, but you notice the overall effect.

Back to mashup DJs - the typical mashup (some great examples here at the Bootie Blog) mixes two or maybe three songs. They tend to have naming conventions that reflect this. e.g.

DJ Lobsterdust – Knock Out Eileen (LL Cool J vs. Dexy's Midnight Runners)

Most of the effort and talent is finding songs that share a similar lyrical idea:

e.g. 'Paper Rump' by DJ Tripp, which mashes up Wrexx-n-effect 's "All I wanna do is stick my zoom zoom zoom in your boom boom' sample with MIA's 'All I wanna do is [bang] [bang] [bang] [bang] and [click] and [ching] and take your money' sample.

and/or musical styles that work well together, despite you not realising it:

e.g. 'House of Klezmer' by Faroff, which mashes up House of Pain's 'Jump Around' with this crazy pipe music I'd never heard of, but is awesome.

Girl Talk is very different. Every one of his songs uses tons of different samples. Because there's so many damn samples, he has to abandon the standard mashup naming conventions, and go with song titles that often reflect a single sample (e.g. 'Oh No', 'Let It Out' etc.)

Some people put together great graphical representations to show just how many samples Girl Talk uses:

-Here for the youtube version

-Here for the graphic summary

To see what I mean, click here and watch the clip for the first song, 'Oh No'. Count the number of songs that either appear for 10 seconds or less, or feature only a drum beat:

Used for drum beats only

'2-pac featuring KC and Jo-Jo - How do you want it'

'NWA - Express Yourself'

'Eminem featuring Dr Dre and 50 Cent - Crack a Bottle'

'J-Kwon - Tipsy '09'

'Slick Rich and Doug E. Fresh - La Di Da Di'

'Jay-Z and Alicia Keys - Empire State of Mind'

Used for less than 10 seconds

'Jay-Z - 99 problems'

'Jay-Z featuring MIA and Kanye West and Lil Wayne - Swagga Like Us'

'Trina featuring Killer Mike - Look Back at Me'

Bear in mind, these are the extra samples - they aren't even the main ones you hear! Most people probably wouldn't even be aware that any of these were actually in the song. But having that many extra drum beats and small shout-out samples gives a much more 'produced' sound that I think has been part of the huge success of All Day.

This must take an incredible amount of work. Hell, it took 5 minutes for me to listen to the song (and watch the video) and just write them all down! This guy thought of them all, and figured out how they'd add to the song.

Girl Talk, you are a cool dude.

Sting - Unoriginal Talentless Lyrics Thief (a.ka. Questions Google doesn't know the answer to)

Let's face it, there aren't many of these questions. But this is one.

Sting has a hit song, 'Englishman in New York'.

Wikipedia notes that the song was apparently written about Quentin Crisp. The song itself is okay, but it's the lyrics that are interesting. You can find a copy of them here.

So what's the problem?

The problem is that I'm quite certain that most of the lines (and in fact all the interesting lines) are taken from a poem of the same name, "An Englishman in New York". It's not credited anywhere, and I can't find it anywhere online. I can't even find any acknowledgement that it exists online. I don't remember who wrote it.

I remember seeing a poster of the original poem in the library in high school and thinking it was great. The poster was on a black background, and had a big green apple with a bite out of it behind the text, and a white silhouette of a man. I found the Sting song afterwards, recognised it as a blatant rip-off, and went searching for the original poem.

Except that now I can't find it. Most of the lyrics overlap, so the phrases tend to have a lot in common. The only phrase I know that's not directly in the song is

"If manners maketh man then I'm an alien, I'm a legal alien, an Englishman in New York".

Sting broke this up into two parts, thereby ruining the flow of the line. The best bit, and he couldn't get it right.

Seach ' "Englishman in New York" poem ' and you get the Sting stuff.

Search ' "Englishman in New York" poem -Sting ' and you get a bunch of stuff about Quentin Crisp instead. 

Search ' "Englishman in New York" poem -Sting -Crisp' and you get random peoples thoughts on stuff (lots of posts from people who like the idea of themselves being an Englishman in New York) with much higher pageranks than this poem, which apparently doesn't exist.

Search the precise phrase ' "If manners maketh man then I'm an alien" ' and you get nothing.

Search '"englishman in new york" sting lyrics rip-off stolen poem ' and you get stuff about lines he's ripped from William Blake, but nothing on this one.

So how do you know I'm not crazy, or making this up? How do you know the poster I remember wasn't just a transcription of the song?

I can offer only two bits of evidence. One, the aforementioned phrase that's not actually in the song, and I'm certain I didn't imagine - I would be very unusual to just put together two random lines in the song in my memory, given they're not even near each other in the song (and make much more sense together than apart).

Secondly, Sting himself offers a very sly allusion. The line in his song is:

"If manners maketh man as someone said"

He's acknowledging that at least part of this song isn't his own. Which isn't surprising. Do you think the guy who penned such inspiring lyrics as 'Every step you take, I'll be watching you'. 'Oh can't you see, you belong to me, how my poor heart aches, with every breath you take'? Puke. He wouldn't even know what a legal alien is if he hadn't ripped off the lyrics from someone else. He has to admit that 'maketh' isn't his own, because NOBODY would believe he came up with that.

Yes "someone said" it, you asshole! Someone you stole the lyrics from and who's now getting no credit!! Someone who doesn't exist even on the internet! How low do you have to get to not exist on the internet? I'm nobody, and I've got my own blog that's read by at least my Dad! This guy wrote an ass-kicking poem that got turned into a famous song, and he's a non-person, while that no-talent loser claims credit as a poetic genius.

You may have got away with this fraud so far Sting, but the internet never forgets.

I've never bothered editing Wikipedia yet, but if I find out what the original poem is, I'm going to make an account to call you a thief and a fraud.

The Disney Hipster Meme

I seem to be getting slack on keeping up with the latest memes the the cool kids are using.

But I did like these two:





As the man said - comedy gold!

(via Ace of Spades )

The worst metaphor in the history of song-writing

From the otherwise enjoyable Van Halen's song "Why can't this be love":

"Only time can tell if we'll stand the test of time."

Awful, awful stuff. Honestly, how can you write that and not cringe? How can you sing it year after year and not be embarrassed that you didn't spend an extra 5 minutes and come up with something less laughable?

Still, they made a lot of money off that song. I'm sure there's a lesson in that, and while I'm not sure exactly what it is, I'm sure it's depressing.

Why most bands suck by the time you've heard of them

Let me a describe a situation that long characterised my music listening, and see if it applies to you.

The bands I like always had one great album that was inevitably in the past. Occasionally you'd get to see them live and they'd play their old stuff, but they seemed a bit tired and past it - you never got to hear their good stuff while it was actually current.

I think I figured out a rough model of why this should be the case.

Suppose that each band has a underlying quality distribution - each time they write an album, it's an independent draw from their base quality distribution. Sometimes it's a good one (i.e. The Joshua Tree), sometimes it's a bad one (i.e. How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb). The distributions will vary across bands in both mean and variance.Some bands have a high mean (e.g. Radiohead), some have a low mean (e.g. Nickelback). Some have a high variance (e.g. Bob Dylan), some have a low variance (Red Hot Chilli Peppers)

Friends don't let friends listen to Nickelback

Now, suppose further that there's a fixed quality threshold required in order to achieve popular success. You've got to have at least one good album to become popular. Additionally, suppose that news about bands only diffuses slowly - not everyone finds out about a band at the same time.

So how will this play out? Well, let's take the set of all bands who cross the quality threshold for the first time. Some of them will be truly talented and have a high distribution mean. Being above the quality cutoff signals a long line of good future albums (e.g. Death Cab For Cutie).

A lot of the time, however, being above the quality cutoff signals the band just got lucky with that particular album. After that, you get reversion to the mean. Think Jason Mraz or Ryan Adams. They have a couple of awesome songs ('I'm yours' and 'Desire' respectively), and whole albums full of complete crap.

This sketch of a model generates a couple of predictions:

-The average band will have their best album as their first major commercial success. After that they'll never have another good album

-The bands that have their best album as one of their later albums (Death Cab for Cutie with 'Plans', The New Pornographers with 'Challengers') will be more likely to to release subsequent good albums. These are the high mean bands, not the bands that were lucky.

-Related to the above, if a band releases a second album that's better than their first breakout album, it's a very strong signal of band quality.

-The chances that you get to hear their good stuff depends on how connected you are. If you hear about new bands quickly, you'll get to see them at their prime. If you're late in the loop, you'll always find out about them too late.

The optimal strategy in this setup is to go to see bands as soon as you can after they become popular - that's the high point, and they'll rarely get any better.

Which is a sad conclusion, but certainly sounds like the world we live in, doesn't it? Dire Straits was probably the best band in the 1980s (bar maybe U2), and yet Mark Knopfler has never lived up to the early promise since.

How to Diss an Ex-Lover as a Rock Star

The current corner solution in my listening playlist is the song 'Gives You Hell' by the All American Rejects:

It's a classic of the 'You know how you didn't want to date me in high school? Well I'm a rock star now, bitch!' genre.

It's apparently quite a popular theme, with the other notable example being Cee-Lo Green's song 'Fuck You' . This reinforces my conclusion that a lot of famous rock stars were actually losers in high school. Not all of them, of course, but certainly the ones singing about all the girls that barred them. You know who doesn't have a song like that? Jon Bon Jovi. You know why? Because he was probably knee-deep in pussy, both in high school and ever since, and has barely given the question a moment's thought.

Cee Lo Green - Exhibit A

Tyson Ritter - Exhibit B

Jon Bon Jovi - One of these things is not like the other.

But as Roissy pointed out, it's very difficult to make this kind of point as a rock star without looking kind of pathetic. To wit, you're implicitly saying two things:

1. I was lame back in high school and girls didn't like me, and

2. I'm still so hung up on this fact that I need to compensate by flaunting my rock star status and talking up how much better I am than that guy who she was being boned by at the time.

Which brings me back to the All-American Rejects. The chorus is catchy

When you see my face,

hope it gives you hell,

hope it gives you hell.

When you walk my way,

hope it gives you hell,

hope it gives you hell.

But it's the bridge that's really well done. They make a very good attempt to deal with point 2.

Truth be told, I miss you.

And truth be told, I'm lying.

Very nice. They implicitly acknowledge the possibility that writing this song means he's still obsessing about the girl in question. Trying to deny this outright would not look credible, and would seem too desperate to appear over her. So he opens with what seems like an admission of this fact. Psychologically, it's him baiting the girl. He knows that if she is regretting her decision to ignore the guy, she will likely cling to the fact that she's still desirable in his eyes.

But knowing this is what she wants to think, he follows his admission with a clever quip (and some very nice word play) that implies the previous line was a joke. He might find her still attractive in some way. But he's not really bothered by the whole thing. In other words, the song is his idle and humourous reflection on high school, not a burning grudge he has to get off his chest. And that is the only way you can successfully deliver this kind of song.

Nice work, All American Rejects.

The Musical Undertaker

You know what the worst phone call is that you can receive from your manager if you're in the music business?

"We think you should do a duet with Santana".

Nah man, it'll really kick-start your career again!

It's the surest possible sign that your career peaked a couple of years ago, and the best you can hope for from here on out is playing 6 nights a week at an off-strip hotel in Vegas and drinking yourself to an early grave, with a possible appearance on 'Where Are They Now?'.

Check out these depressing odds for duets he did with artists that I've at least heard of:

Name	Known For	Duet Year	Done Anything Worthwhile Since?
Rob Thomas	Push, 3am (1996)	1999	Released lots of shitty songs, 'Lonely No More' peaked at 5 on US charts but was still awful
Everlast	What It's Like (1998)	1999	No singles made Billboard charts, career death in slow motion
Eric Clapton	Layla (1971), Tears in Heaven (1992), lots of other good stuff	1999	No, but he's still cool
Lauryn Hill	The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill (1998)	1999	Crashed and burned on second album, now hides from publicity
Wyclef Jean	Killing Me Softly (with the Fugees, 1996)	1999	Ran For President of Haiti and got universally mocked, filed for bankruptcy
Dave Matthews	Crash, 7x Platinum (1996)	1999	Yep, he's still got it. 2002's Busted Stuff was a great album
Michael Jackson	Billie Jean (1983), Bad (1987), Liberian Girl (1987), Black or White (1991), kicking ass	2001	Released some crap songs and then died, thereby making lots of people who'd called him a pedophile for the past decade pretend they'd liked him all along
Seal	Crazy (1992), Kiss From a Rose (1995)	2002	May as well not have
Chad Kroeger (of Nickelback)	How You Remind Me (2001)	2002	Album "All the Right Reasons" had commercial success. Got pelted with rocks during a heavy metal concert in Portugal in 2009, caused millions of LOLs as a result
Michelle Branch	All You Wanted (2002)	2005	Played 'All You Wanted' at concert, said 'Now here's something from my latest album..', whole crowd left (N.B. I have no specific evidence that this happened, but honestly, would you be willing to bet against me on this one?)
Steve Tyler (Aerosmith)	Walk This Way (1975), Don't want to miss a thing (1998)	2005	Continued to be despised by the other members of Aerosmith
Kirk Hammet (Metallica)	One (1989), Enter Sandman (1991), Nothing Else Matters (1992)	2005	Kept bitching that people were illegally downloaded his music, found that the strategy of suing your fans is not commercially viable

The second worst phone call is 'We'd like you to do a duet with Tom Jones'. I leave you to compile that list yourself.

Lady Gaga and the Evolution of English

The English language is extraordinarily flexible in terms of how it adapts over time. Pick up a copy of some Chaucer if you don't believe me. Not only do spellings change, but the words used to describe the same underlying concept change over time too.

Lady Gaga, a women not obviously conservative in most respects, is nonetheless fighting a culturally conservative battle in one arena - resisting the increasing disappearance of the word 'telephone', and its replacement with the abbreviated 'phone'.

'Telephone' had two main forms - as a noun, to describe the device itself, and as a verb, to describe the process of using the device to contact someone. The noun form is probably in 'endangered' territory. The verb form ('I telephoned John this morning') is almost 'extinct in the wild', having been thoroughly supplanted by its evolutionary successors, 'phoned' and 'called'. These have the obvious reproductive advantage of requiring only one syllable, rather than the clunky three, and in present tense form requiring 5 and 4 letters respectively, rather than 9. Thus does survival of the fittest operate in the language world.

Lady Gaga uses both forms in her song 'Telephone':

Call all you want but there's no one home

And you're not going to reach my telephone. 

...

Stop telephoning me...

Truth be told, it was probably a year since I'd heard the noun form in the wild, and perhaps a decade since I'd heard the verb form. And they sound odd and slightly jarring, in a way that you can't quite pin down. In fact, it was the Lady Gaga song itself that made me realise how long it had been since I'd heard the word used.

If you look at Google search results, 'phone' returns about 1.1 billion results. 'Telephone' returns about 211 million results. The top news result for telephone is from Pakistan:

 'Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM), Chief Altaf Hussain had a telephonic conversation with the Chief of Jamiat-i-Ulema Islam (JUI-F) Maulana Fazalur-Rehman on Tuesday.' 

The subcontinent sticks to old-world English long after the originators have given it up. I remember my uncle talking about reading a plaque in India saying that a particular king had 'no male issue' (i.e. had no sons). When did you last hear that from a native speaker?

I suspect that even the Lady Gaga rearguard action won't be enough to save 'telephone'. Most of the steps in the evolution of language happen too slowly for most people to notice. But this is one you can witness yourself. If you wondered how Chaucer became modern English, this is the answer.

Embarrassing Yet Catchy Song of the Day

'Stay the Night', by James Blunt.

The embarrassment belongs entirely to me of course, not Mr Blunt - he'll be laughing all the way to the bank.

Two things to note in passing:

1. It's hilarious how much Blunt doesn't fit into the film clip. They're a bunch of cool, tanned surfer dudes and chicks. He's a pasty white emo Brit rock guy. No matter how they try to insert him in, it just looks jarring. Even in his own film clip, he comes across looking like the tagalong guy that wasn't actually invited on the surfing trip held by the cool kids. Which, I imagine, is probably how it went for him as a wee lad. Just look at how beta he comes across in Back To Bedlam (song titles including 'You're Beautiful', 'Goodbye My Lover', 'Tears and Rain', and 'Cry' - need I say more?)

2. It can't be an accident that loads of official music videos begin with a decent period of silence and or extraneous noise. My guess is that it's due to the rise of websites like Keepvid that let you download youtube clips and software like WinFF than let you convert the video into MP3s. The record companies respond by forcing you to listen to several seconds of annoying silence each time it comes up. Consistent with their general level of sophistication, this is of course easily circumvented.

Corner Solutions and Johnny Cash

In economics, a corner solution is (roughly speaking) the solution to an optimization problem that involves being up against a binding constraint such that the quantity of one of the arguments is zero. Suppose I have a budget of $50 to spend on apples and pears. Apples are more expensive, but I like them more than pears. Then again, the more apples I eat, the less I enjoy each one. An interior solution (the opposite of a corner solution) is when I trade off my enjoyment for each, and buy some amount of apples and some amount of pears. A corner solution would be if I buy only apples. It implies that, if had some amount more money, I'd buy even more apples. Given my budget, all I want is apples.

What, you may be asking, has this got to do with Johnny Cash? Well, I recently downloaded the song above. When choosing which songs to play, my attention is like a budget constraint that operates sequentially - I can only play one song at a time. I get enjoyment from each song, but the enjoyment diminishes with each successive play.

When my music collection is in equilibrium, the interior solution is that songs will be played with certain probability according to how much I enjoy them. The songs I enjoy will be played on average more, the songs I enjoy less will be played less, and these probabilities reflect the relative enjoyment of each song. At the margin, my enjoyment of each song that gets played is the same. The songs I like more in general I hear more so that I'm more sick of them, and I enjoy them as much as the songs I like less in general but are fresh each time due to being played less.

But suppose I come across a wicked new song? The equilibrium is temporarily disrupted.

The interior solution to this problem is the following:

Prob(Play Johnny Cash's "Devil's Right Hand") = 1

Prob(Play Anything Else) = 0

So far we're up to 17 plays in a row!

He's Strong, Yet Vulnerable!

I think I've figured out part of the secret of Robbie William's success.

It's his carefully crafted persona that broadcasts "I'm an alpha male bad boy" but lyrics that frequently suggest "But I'm somewhat vulnerable and introspective too".

Chicks love it, because bad boys are always appealing, and the sensitive part builds rapport. Average schlub guys like it, because they think 'Hey, I'm somewhat vulnerable and introspective too! Maybe women will like me now!' (They won't).

Add in some catchy pop/rock instrumentation, and it's a winning formula. Clearly Robbie Williams understands vulnerability game. Which sounds about right, given he seems to have pretty good game in general.

Take the song 'Feel'. The chorus is standard wuss rock:

'I just wanna feel real love,

Feel the home that I live in.

'Cause I got too much life,

Running through my veins, going to waste'

But look how he contrasts this in the next verse with his implied status of a) having lots of women and b) treating them as he pleases :

'I don't wanna die,

But I ain't keen on living either.

Before I fall in love,

I'm preparing to leave her.'

Demonstration of High Value, with a hint of Romantic Vulnerability.

'Come Undone' features another motif of his - I'm alpha enough to engage in reckless behaviour, but this recklessness leaves me exposed emotionally to you:

'I'm contemplating thinking about thinking

It's overrated Just get another drink and

watch me come undone...

If I ever hurt you your revenge will be so sweet

Because I'm scum, and I'm your son,

I come undone.'

Perhaps the epitome of this is in 'Strong'.

Here he threads the needle entirely - his sensitivity and introspection is about his own bad boy lifestyle! The Mobius links back on itself!:

'Early morning when I wake up

I look like Kiss but without the make-up

And that's a good line to take me to the bridge.'

Yes,that is a great line actually - easily the best in the song.

The chorus is inane, but hammers home the same tried and true formula to a catchy tune:

'You think that I'm strong.

You're wrong. You're wrong.

I'll sing my song.

My song. My song'

etc. It's all the same shtick. Whoever he's paying to write this stuff has got it figured out.

Ah, Robbie Williams! He's so cool and tough, and yet sensitive too! How dreamy...

Rhyme Schemes for the 21st century

It's difficult to say anything original on the subject of love.

Still, the Gorillaz have one very nice line in the song 'To Binge'.

"My heart is in economy,

Due to this autonomy."

What a great way to express a feeling of unpleasant dejection, linking it to cheap air travel. Now that's an angle I'm sure nobody else has tackled before - it's only recognisable to a listener from about 1970 onwards.

I also like the second line though. I suspect (perhaps unfairly) that 'autonomy' was chosen mainly to rhyme with economy. Still, whether intended or not, it's a very good choice.Most love affairs don't break up because of impersonal circumstances. They break up for much more mundane and less romantic reasons - Tom got bored of being with Sue and cheated with Sue's friend, Sally felt that Tim had gotten clingy and pathetic, etc. But autonomy is exactly what it is - things fall apart mainly because at least one party wanted it.

You'd never get this sense listening to love songs. The theme of 'The Lovers vs. A Harsh Society Trying to Prevent Their Love' is one of the most overused (and lame) ideas in pop culture. Apparently 'Your Love Will Be Thwarted By External Circumstance' is much more likely in song-lyric land than 'Your Love Will Be Abandoned By Your Own Choice Because You Became Bored With It'.

Compare, for instance, 'Not Gonna Get Us' by tATu:

'They're not gonna get us,

Not now I love ya.'

Yeah, that's the problem - before you didn't love each other, and now you do, everything's fixed!

Dumbasses.

Ridiculous Application of Premises in Movies

In general, I'm a complete sucker for suspending my disbelief during movies. I'll go along with the vast majority of absurd premises, and don't frequently think ahead to what might happen next of what exactly that guy with the dossier was really doing, or whatever. I remember watching a Wile E. Coyote cartoon with a friend of my brother's, and being surprised that he would predict how every joke would end. It's not that I couldn't figure it out if I stopped to think - I just never did. So I generally just go along with whatever ridiculous premise is being stated..

But for some reason, one thing that always causes me to reinstate my disbelief is when movies take a particular technological premise, and apply it to absurdly limited ends.

A great example of this is in the new Star Trek movie. The U.S.S. Enterprise is in a tangle with the Romulans, and the Enterprise captain has been taken hostage after stupidly going aboard the Romulan ship. (Apparently, the prospect he would be detained didn't occur to him). The Romulans are firing on the Enterprise. They might be in trouble.

BUT

Thankfully the Enterprise has a weapon that can transport stuff inside the enemy ship! What a stroke of luck! 

Now, gentle reader, what weapon would you choose to send inside the ship?

a) Several nuclear bombs on 3 second detonation delays to multiple parts of the enemy ship

b) Two guys with guns

c) A fruit basket

As you probably guessed, they go with option b), but realistically you may as well have picked c). Moreover, it's not as if they decided that the chance of saving the captain is worth risking everyone else on the ship by attempting a rescue - apparently option b) doesn't appear to occur to anybody the ship.

And all these people are meant to be graduates from a military academy? That, alas, I cannot believe.

Anyway, I was thinking about this after watching The Prestige yesterday, as part of the project of going through all Christopher Nolan movies (Inception, Memento and The Dark Knight together put him in the category of 'presume I'll watch the movie even if I don't hear anything else about it other than his involvement', a post currently only occupied by the Coen Brothers).

The movie is great, but they also have a real lack of imagination on one particular premise (some plot spoilers below the jump)