M Is FOR MASHUP - May 29th, 2019
Audioboots 80s Mashed 5 Arrives
By DJ Useo
At Audioboots Mashup Forum
( audioboots.com/frontpage.html ) , we like to do themed mashup compilations a few times a year. The overwhelming favorite theme once more was 1980's mashups. To be eligible for the comp, all you had to do was employ at least one 80s source of fodder. ( & you had to pass your track by the pre-release team ) The mixed offerings ( submissions, some call them ) flowed in, resulting in a collection that really "Pops". ( As the new generation says )
Co-owner Chocomang
( chocomang.org/Mashup2/ )
ably stepped up, & handled all aspects of this new 3 disc set, including producing, co-ordination, site-construction, & mixing a wonderful batch of mixes himself. The theme helped draw in an ideal group of home producers, including SMASH, rillen rudi, DJ MXR, DJ Rudec, Satis5d, & so very many more. Every contributor is an accomplished regular releaser of mashups, & worthy of following.
To give you an idea of the collected content, here's 2 videos from Xam of his included tracks:
01- "The Invisible Lion" ( Tight Fit vs Genesis )
( www.youtube.com/watch?v=MrDtIdAfong )
02 - "Here I Shout At The Centerfold Again" ( J. Geils Band vs Whitesnake vs Tears For Fears )
( www.youtube.com/watch?v=cDZh-_irbr4 )
More videos are expected. Look for links to them in the forum thread here
( audioboots.com/forum/index.php?p=/discussion/1973 )
The entire three disc set is available gratis from this page here
( audioboots.com/Albums/80sMashed5/ )
All past volumes are still available here
( audioboots.com/forum/index.php?p=/categories/compilations )
Here's a link to stream my NSFW preview mix,""Your Silent Monster" ( New Order vs Professor Green vs Camo & Krooked )
( sowndhaus.audio/track/12975/dj-useo-your-silent-monster-new-order-vs-professor-green-vs-camo-amp-krooked- )
The combos are inspired, & the tracks are mixed with proficiency. Look for pairings like Ultravox vs Bloc Party, The Pointer Sisters vs Reba McEntire, Thomas Dolby vs The Clash, Laura Branigan vs Bee Gees, & The Cure vs The Commodores, plus a substantial additional number of rewarding blends. This isn't even the last of the Audioboots new albums, as the all French mashups comp will appear in about a week. Don't fret, I'll clue you in regarding it in next week's column. Woot!
PS. Thanks to all contributors. Your contributions are highly appreciated.
Recommended Reading
from Bruce
Catherine Rampell: Trump's narrative is nonsense. So why is the media buying it? (Washington Post)
President Trump is steadily advancing a narrative that Democrats are unable to focus on a substantive policy agenda because they're too fixated on investigating, subpoenaing and, eventually, impeaching the president. Or, as our victim in chief tweeted on Monday: "The Dems are getting NOTHING done in Congress! They only want a Do-Over on Mueller!"
This sort of nonsense is something we've come to expect from Trump. But more troubling, perhaps, is that many of us in the media have also been amplifying his false narrative.
Lidija Haas: "Neil Gaiman: 'Good Omens feels more apt now than it did 30 years ago'" (The Guardian)
Before Terry Pratchett died, Gaiman told his friend he would adapt their novel about an angel and a devil stopping the apocalypse. As Good Omens starts on TV, he discusses fame, politics and honouring that promise.
Luke Holland: "Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker - what we learned from the Vanity Fair special" (The Guardian)
JJ Abrams and co have hinted the finale will involve less CGI, more new characters … and screen time for Carrie Fisher.
Ronald Bergan: Machiko Kyo obituary (The Guardian)
Actor who played the wife of a samurai warrior in Rashomon, one of the great classics of Japanese cinema.
Mark Brown: 'Short of imagination': Germaine Greer scorns Leonardo da Vinci's art (The Guardian)
While speaking at Hay festival, the prolific author says the Mona Lisa looks 'half-dead'.
Port Talbot Banksy mural move to local museum begins (The Guardian)
Artwork painted on side of garage to be carefully removed and then lifted onto a lorry.
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Presenting
Michael Egan
took the day off.
has returned to semi-retired status.
In memory.
Reader Suggestion
Michelle in AZ
David E Suggests
A Clean Home
David
Thanks, Dave!
from Bruce
Anecdotes
• Very early in his career, John McCormack made a record titled "Killarney" for The Gramophone Company. Later, when he was a very famous opera singer, Mr. McCormack would play the record for distinguished visitors, saying that the recording was of a singer who wanted his advice about whether he ought to pursue singing professionally. Mr. McCormack said, "Without exception, everyone of them, including such an excellent critic as my friend Dr. Walter Starke, said, 'Oh, Lord, John, don't advise that poor boy to study singing. It is too pathetic for words." Then Mr. McCormack would show the listeners his name on the record and laugh and laugh. One person who appreciated Mr. McCormack's voice was fellow tenor Enrico Caruso. Mr. McCormack used to greet Mr. Caruso, "And how is the greatest tenor in the world this morning?" Mr. Caruso would reply, "And since when, Mac, did you become a baritone?" By the way, one of Mr. McCormack's funniest reviews appeared in the Melbourne Australian after he gave his first-ever concert at Exhibition Hall: "If this Irish boy is not known in a very few years as one of the greatest tenors in the world, it will probably be because a careless builder dropped a warehouse or a terrace on him as he was passing."
• Italian tenor Enrico Caruso knew and liked Irish tenor John McCormack. Geraldine Farrar remembered that Mr. Caruso was kind to Mr. McCormack: "When McCormack was having a particularly bad attack of stage fright, before his cue to go on, Enrico would go up to him, as he stood nervously in the wings, and say something funny to him to cheer him up and make him forget his nervousness." According to Ms. Farrar, Mr. Caruso "was always doing things like that. He was nice to everybody - he never acted the great tenor." Mr. Caruso could be humble. In St. Petersburg, after he had sang the part of Rhadamès in Verdi's Aida, he was surrounded by the other members of the company, who kept praising him for his magnificent performance, but he said simply, "Don't praise me. Praise Verdi." One person who was resistant to Mr. Caruso's charm was Mr. McCormack's little son, who told Mr. Caruso, "You're only the greatest Italian tenor in the world, but my father is the greatest Irish tenor."
• When soprano Beverly Sills was pregnant with her second child, she received a telephone call from Sarah Caldwell asking her to play Rosalinda in a production of Die Fledermaus with conductor Arthur Fiedler. Ms. Sills was so excited by the offer that she immediately said yes. But when she hung up the telephone and told her husband, he asked her, "What are you planning to wear?" She replied, "Costumes," and then looked at her pregnant belly and realized that she would not be able to perform. She immediately telephoned Ms. Caldwell and told her, "Miss Caldwell, I'm terribly sorry but I can't do your Fledermaus because I'm pregnant." Ms. Caldwell paused and then asked, "Weren't you pregnant five minutes ago?" By the way, Ms. Sills got her nickname - Bubbles - because when she was born, she had a huge bubble of saliva on her mouth.
• Eileen Farrell was a favorite opera soprano of flutist Donald Peck, and he once performed with her. Afterward, he went backstage and complimented her on her singing. She was very nice and said that she was surprised by his big flute tone because his body was so slim. He replied, "But Miss Farrell, you have such a huge voice!" She joked, "Yes, but I am as wide as you are tall!" By the way, a young cellist with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra did not realize that opera singers will often not sing in full voice during rehearsal, and so he was unimpressed with Ms. Farrell during rehearsal and remarked, "So, what's so great about Eileen Farrell?" But during the actual performance, she did sing with her full voice, and the cellist was properly impressed and remarked, "I can't hear myself. Am I playing?" This was a charming way of admitting that he had been mistaken earlier.
• Soprano Rosa Ponselle sang for herself after retiring from singing for opera audiences. When Rosa was approaching her 80th birthday, Washington Post music critic Paul Hume dropped by her house and heard lovely singing and thought, Rosa's found a wonderful pupil. Actually, Rosa herself was singing. Of course, she was wonderful on the stage and could wonderfully express emotion with her voice. At one time, getting a divorce was very difficult, but a divorce would be granted if either the husband or the wife had committed adultery. After English music critic Ernest Newman heard Rosa sing her first Amore dei Tre Re (The Love of Three Kings), he said, "If as a divorce-court judge I had heard her one 'Ritorniam' breathed to her lover, I would have given her husband a divorce without hearing further evidence."
• Igor Stravinsky lived in the days before trifocals. According to opera soprano Marilyn Horne, he wore three pairs of eyeglasses: one on his nose, one on his forehead, and one on the top of his head. He would switch his eyeglasses so he could see whatever it was he wanted to look at. By the way, Ms. Horne attended lectures on music given by Aldous Huxley. She remembers that he loved the word "extraordinary." In one lecture, he used that word 50 times - his record. Also by the way, after one of her early auditions, an agent said about her, "Die kleine Dicke wird etwas sein," which means, "That little fat one is going places!"
• Opera is known for its divas. For example, soprano Kathleen Battle of the Metropolitan Opera of New York once rode in a limousine in which the air conditioning was set too high. She telephoned her manager to request that she telephone the chauffeur and order that the air conditioning be turned down.
• Throughout his career opera singer Hans Hotter stayed in character as Wotan, king of the gods, even when appearing before the curtain and accepting the audience's applause. A critic once wrote about him at such a time, "Hotter looks as though the audience was a nasty smell."
• "Opera is where a guy gets stabbed in the back, and instead of dying, he sings." - Robert Burns
***
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Bonus Links
Jeannie the Teed-Off Temp
Selected Readings
from that Mad Cat, JD
JD is on vacation.
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In The Chaos Household
Last Night
Sunny and nearly seasonal.
Comes Out Against Georgia's Anti-Abortion Law
Netflix
The third season of The Handmaid's Tale may be a month away, but it already feels like it's making headlines. More states have passed and signed legislation that makes it hard for women to get safe and legal abortions-including in Georgia, which has become a key state for the film industry. How are media companies like Disney, Warner Bros. and AMC handling this crisis? Largely, by not saying anything.
Netflix, one of a few outliers, released a statement to Variety today condemning Georgia's "heartbeat bill," which was signed into law by Governor Brian Kemp earlier this month. The law bans nearly all abortions after six weeks, including in the case of rape or incest, and is set to go into effect in 2020. This law would impact thousands of people in a state that's added a lot of jobs thanks to Hollywood's expansion.
Many studios quickly rallied against the state in 2016 for the anti-LGBT "religious freedom bill," which led to a governor's veto. But this time around, most of the studios are staying silent. Over the last few weeks, io9 reached out to AMC, Netflix, Disney, and Warner Bros. for comment. AMC (which films The Walking Dead in Georgia) and Warner Bros. never responded, and we're still waiting to hear from Disney. Netflix initially declined to comment, instead directing us to the Motion Picture Association of America's statement, which was provided to io9:
Other productions are continuing to film there but will be donating proceeds to fighting the anti-abortion law. This includes Ron Howard's Hillbilly Elegy, along with the J.J. Abrams and Jordan Peele HBO project Lovecraft Country, which combines the racism of 1950s Jim Crow America with Lovecraftian-style monsters. Several actors and industry leaders signed a petition (sent before the ban was enacted) promising they would no longer recommend Georgia for new projects, including Mark Hamill, Tessa Thompson, Don Cheadle, Brie Larson, and Mark Ruffalo.
Netflix
Activists Launch New Bid
Argentina
Lawmakers in Argentina launched a fresh bid to legalize abortion on Tuesday, presenting a new bill to Congress and resuming a battle that has divided the homeland of Pope Francis ahead of October's general election.
A vast crowd -- mostly young women dressed in green, the color that has come to symbolize their movement -- gathered outside the Congress building in central Buenos Aires since early evening to support the bill.
The new bill is being put forward by 15 lawmakers from a range of parties, including President Mauricio Macri's ruling center-right Cambiemos coalition and left-wing opposition parties.
In Argentina, abortion is only allowed in case of rape, a threat to the mother's life or if the fetus is deemed non-viable.
But many doctors and some provincial governments are reluctant to apply the law, recently forcing an 11-year-old rape victim to continue her pregnancy, debating the issue until the legal window for an abortion had passed.
Argentina
56 Percent Of Americans
Arabic Numerals
If you grew up in America, you've probably used Arabic numerals pretty much every day of your life in some way. Same if you're English, French, or from most other countries.
Even in China and Japan, where other numerals are used, Arabic numerals are still regularly employed. Unless you're reading this in ancient Rome, you probably use them too.
Nevertheless, a survey conducted by poll company Civic Science has found that 56 percent of Americans would like Arabic numerals (which are the numbers 0,1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8, and 9, used in every number right up until infinity) banned in schools. America, your prejudice is showing.
In the survey, 3,624 people were asked: "Should schools in America teach Arabic Numerals as part of their curriculum?" to which 2,020 people (56 percent) said "no", and just 29 percent actually said "yes".
The survey was designed to show the tribal impulses of people to answer a question without understanding it first, along their own biased lines.
Arabic Numerals
Fasting and Facebook
Ramadan
The Muslim holy month of Ramadan, with its long days of fasting and prayer meant to draw worshippers closer to God and away from worldly distractions, is being reshaped by technology.
People in the Middle East spend close to 58 million more hours on Facebook during Ramadan and watch more YouTube videos - everything from beauty tips and recipes to sports and TV dramas - than any other time of the year, making the holy month not only the most important one for Muslims, but also the prime time of the year for advertisers.
For Facebook, which also owns Instagram, and Google, which owns YouTube, Ramadan brings a welcome boost of business in the region.
People stay up a lot more at night during Ramadan and have more downtime - especially before iftar, the evening meal that breaks the daylong fast, and the "suhoor," when people gather to eat before another day of fasting. Many also work shorter hours during the day.
All that translates to 5% more time spent on Facebook's platforms, or what is nearly 58 million more hours, Shehadi said. Put another way, there are almost 2 million hours of additional time spent daily on Facebook in the Mideast during Ramadan.
Ramadan
The War Against
Climate Science
The Trump administration is launching a new attack against the US federal government's attempts to measure the impact of climate change, The New York Times reported Sunday.
Chief among the administration's targets is said to be the federal-government-funded National Climate Assessment, a report released about every four years.
Last year's report painted a stark picture of the potentially catastrophic effects of climate change, which stood in stark contrast to remarks made by President Donald Trump questioning the reality of human-caused climate change.
The report, which is produced by a consortium of 13 US government agencies, estimated that if left unchecked, climate change could cost the US economy hundreds of billions of dollars and threaten the health, safety, and quality of life of Americans.
According to The Times, the Trump administration plans to ensure that future reports omit "worst-case scenario" projections from scientists.
Climate Science
Surprising Melting Patterns
Ross Ice Shelf
The ROSETTA-Ice project, a three-year, multi-institutional data collection survey of Antarctic ice, has assembled an unprecedented view of the Ross Ice Shelf, its structure and how it has been changing over time. In a study published today in Nature Geoscience, the ROSETTA-Ice team members detail how they discovered an ancient geologic structure that restricts where ocean water flows. The discovery suggests that local ocean currents may play a critical role in the ice shelf's future retreat.
Ice shelves are massive expanses of floating ice that slow down the flow of Antarctic ice into the ocean. ROSETTA-Ice collected data from the massive Ross Ice Shelf, which helps slow the flow of about 20 percent of Antarctica's grounded ice into the ocean -- equivalent to 38 feet of global sea level rise. Antarctica's ice is already melting at an accelerating rate. Predicting how the ice shelf will change as the planet continues to warm requires understanding the complex ways in which the ice, ocean, atmosphere and geology interact with each other.
To gain a better understanding of these processes, the multidisciplinary ROSETTA-Ice team approached the Ross Ice Shelf much like explorers visiting a new planet for the first time. The team faced the key challenge of how to gather data from a region the size of Spain, and where ice that is frequently more than a thousand feet thick prevents more traditional ship-based surveys of the seabed. The solution was IcePod, a first-of-its kind system designed to collect high-resolution data across the polar regions. IcePod was developed at Columbia University's Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory and mounted on a cargo plane. Its instruments measure ice shelf height, thickness and internal structure, and the magnetic and gravity signal of the underlying rock.
Using the new map of the seabed under the ice shelf, the team ran a model of ocean circulation and its effect on ice shelf melting. Compared with the Amundsen Sea to the east, where warm water crosses the continental shelf to cause rapid melting of the ice shelves, little warm water reaches the Ross Ice Shelf. In the Ross Sea heat from the deep ocean is removed by the cold winter atmosphere in a region of open water, called the Ross Shelf Polynya, before flowing under the ice shelf. The model showed that this cold water melts deeper portions of east Antarctic glaciers, but it is steered away from the west Antarctic side by the depth change at the ancient tectonic boundary.
In a surprise twist, however, the team found that the polynya also contributes to a region of intense summertime melting along the ice shelf's leading edge. This melting was confirmed in the radar images of the ice shelf's internal structure. "We found that the ice loss from the Ross Ice Shelf and flow of the adjoining grounded ice are sensitive to changes in processes along the ice front, such as increased summer warming if sea ice or clouds decrease," said Laurie Padman, a co-author and senior scientist at Earth and Space Research.
Ross Ice Shelf
Gold-Mining Fungi
Fusarium Oxsporum
Shiny, pretty and useful in electronics, gold has been prized by humans for millennia, but we're not the only ones out there prospecting. Scientists from Australia's CSIRO have now found a fungus species that mines for gold, and even decorates itself with the precious particles. Following the fungus could be a new, environmentally-friendly way to find large underground gold deposits.
Fusarium oxsporum is a pretty common soil fungus, and like most fungi, this species is known to play a role in helping certain metals move around the world. That usually only applies to chemically active metals, which should logically rule out gold - but flaunting logic, fusarium oxsporium has now been found to adorn itself in gold.
"Fungi can oxidize tiny particles of gold and precipitate it on their strands - this cycling process may contribute to how gold and other elements are distributed around the Earth's surface," says Tsing Bohu, lead author of the study. "Fungi are well-known for playing an essential role in the degradation and recycling of organic material, such as leaves and bark, as well as for the cycling of other metals, including aluminum, iron, manganese and calcium. But gold is so chemically inactive that this interaction is both unusual and surprising - it had to be seen to be believed."
The scientists aren't exactly sure why the fungus is bothering to mine gold, but there does appear to be some biological advantage to it. Gold-coated fungi were found to grow larger and spread faster than others, and that in turn seems to help the rest of the soil community become more biodiverse.
The discovery, made by scientists at Australia's national science agency (CSIRO), the University of Western Australia, Murdoch University and Curtin University, could have several benefits. The fungi could be a useful tool for recovering gold from waste products, such as electronics or even sewage. Or looking for blinged-out fungi on the surface could indicate the presence of larger deposits underground.
Fusarium Oxsporum
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