Embrace the change
Feb. 20th, 2009 12:05 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
peterbirksSpotify is great fun. It's a streaming music service that saves you the hassle of actually doing any work when it comes to listening to stuff. You can either boot up stuff you have, or fly around in weird experimentation.
E.G., I was playing a collection of "Embrace" songs. Most of these, unsurprisingly, feature the band Embrace. But other groups poke their noses in. And I think that, as a result of this, I can confidently state that the word "Embrace" is beloved by deathmetalheadheavygeezers. I can, you might like to know "Embrace The Eternal", get into "The Serpent's Embrace", play with "Dusk And Her Embrace" (from the, brilliantly named "Cradle of Filth") and, of course, "Embrace The Gutter".
Buit then up popped "The Sweetest Embrace" from Barry Adamson. Funny, I thought, but he sounds just like Nick Cave. Well, that's because it WAS Nick Cave. Fuck me, I've spent more than half a century on this earth without knowing that, after leaving Magazine and Visage, Barry Adamson spent some time in The Bad Seeds.
It was almost enough to make me order the Barry Adamson canon directly from Amazonia, but instead I just searched for him on Spotify and I can play through the rest of his solo stuff, and pick which albums I like best.
Great.
+++++++++
Closed out the short FTSE position this morning at 3913, bringing profit to £550 since I first went short. Plan to get back in in the 3990s.
Not that this makes my financial spreadsheet look any better,. Any gain from shorting is more than three times knocked-out by my actual stockholdings. Easy to say "Ahh, but I'm holding on to these" and, in the long run, perhaps that will work. But intrinsically the short positions remain a hedge. I wish I had the guts to make them not a hedge, but I don't really have the guts to flow in at a fiver a point in a volatile FTSE.
___________________
E.G., I was playing a collection of "Embrace" songs. Most of these, unsurprisingly, feature the band Embrace. But other groups poke their noses in. And I think that, as a result of this, I can confidently state that the word "Embrace" is beloved by deathmetalheadheavygeezers. I can, you might like to know "Embrace The Eternal", get into "The Serpent's Embrace", play with "Dusk And Her Embrace" (from the, brilliantly named "Cradle of Filth") and, of course, "Embrace The Gutter".
Buit then up popped "The Sweetest Embrace" from Barry Adamson. Funny, I thought, but he sounds just like Nick Cave. Well, that's because it WAS Nick Cave. Fuck me, I've spent more than half a century on this earth without knowing that, after leaving Magazine and Visage, Barry Adamson spent some time in The Bad Seeds.
It was almost enough to make me order the Barry Adamson canon directly from Amazonia, but instead I just searched for him on Spotify and I can play through the rest of his solo stuff, and pick which albums I like best.
Great.
+++++++++
Closed out the short FTSE position this morning at 3913, bringing profit to £550 since I first went short. Plan to get back in in the 3990s.
Not that this makes my financial spreadsheet look any better,. Any gain from shorting is more than three times knocked-out by my actual stockholdings. Easy to say "Ahh, but I'm holding on to these" and, in the long run, perhaps that will work. But intrinsically the short positions remain a hedge. I wish I had the guts to make them not a hedge, but I don't really have the guts to flow in at a fiver a point in a volatile FTSE.
___________________
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Fackin A
Date: 2009-02-22 08:33 pm (UTC)Spotify is pure genius. Did I mention that the GUI is exceptional? No ... Well, I must be a pure-D, Sun-certified geek, then.
This thing blows spots, stripes, and everything else off the competition. In order, I've gone through Don McLean (sorry -- stains of youth), Palestrina, the Grateful Dead ("One More Saturday Night"), Transformer -- not, alas, available -- Waits' Blue Valentine, just because, and "I Will Survive" by Cake. I heard this on Alex Bennett's morning radio show in the North Bay, where he had the whole bunch in from Sacramento: it's a five-piece band with bass, rhythm guitar, drums, singer (possibly with piano) and trumpet. It's Gloria(ous). The trumpet comes in only at the end.
I miss those days.
And I've just found Miaskovsky's Symphony #27 in C Minor, courtesy of Evgeny Svetlanov and (I assume -- the title bars don't help much) the Moscow Symphony Orchestra. This is the definitive recording of the final orchestral statement by a drunken Russian maniac who'd gone through the Stalinist mill, performed by a band who knew what it meant.
Jesus Christ.
After my father died, I used to drive around with this at full volume in the Audi. It made me feed better. I've missed it for twenty years. When my mother died, I bought the only version available on CD -- and it was shit. I checked it with a friend. It was shit. I broke the damn CD in half.
This, on the other hand, is wonderful.
I'd have to assume that there's much more out there.
Buy Now.
Thanks, Birks.
Re: Fackin A
Date: 2009-02-22 08:57 pm (UTC)I'm going to be in trouble here, aren't I?
Re: Fackin A
Date: 2009-02-22 10:26 pm (UTC)The freaking thing is still playing Myaskovsky -- slighlty more drunken, and slightly sillier, but where else would I get this?
OK. I'm going to befuddle the damn thing. I'm going to try for Grieg's Butterfly Suite (the background music to The Magic Garden when I was around eight or so) ... Damn, they only seem to have number 1. I need number three.
I'm in serious trouble here.
Re: Fackin A
Date: 2009-02-23 10:21 pm (UTC)Must try this Myaskovsky dude.
PJ