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A friend of mine introduced me to Last.fm last year. As if Facebook was redone by Pandora, it is a social networking site based on music.

But oh, it is so much more.

Last.fm's coolest feature is called "scrobbling." Their free plugin tracks the music you play on your computer and, if you choose, the music you play on an MP3 player that you sync with your computer. Tag or love the songs you scrobble. The data, neatly tracked and charted, matches you up with "neighbors" who have similar taste in music--a good place to find new music.

The site offers personal radio stations according to artist or song, à la Pandora.com. Look up concerts, neatly organized by region and date--and record that you're attending for extra cool points. Search artists on the site, and you'll get not only a profile, but lots come up with full tracks that you can listen to--some with free downloads of their music. Make playlists, and send messages to other members. The Last.fm brain also offers your profile free downloads of music it thinks you might like, according to what you already listen to. And yes, you get to post a profile picture.

My profile name is Teganomen. Look me up.

The Middle East, Rap Music, and Movies

A few weeks ago, I was reading about J. K. Rowling in Time magazine. Speaking on how global Harry Potter has become, the author reported that a teacher in Pakistan asked their students to look at the books politically. The students called Pervez Musharraf Voldemort, and labeled Benazir Bhutto as Bellatrix Lestrange. Bellatrix Lestrange is evil, which didn't fit with what the press was saying about Bhutto after her death (the photo is from the Academy of Achievement).

William Dalrymple was the exception--and solved the Lestrange-martyr mystery. In Time (Jan. 14, 2008), he writes things like: "Amnesty International accused [Bhutto's] gouvernment of having one of the world's worst records of custodial deaths, abductions, killings, and torture."

I went to a Sundance film yesterday. Slingshot Hip Hop. It was a documentary about Palestinian rappers in occupied Israel. And after the showing--woah, five of the rappers were there. They were sitting right behind us, and went up and fielded questions and did a little free-style.

It was an interesting way to look at the conflict--how rappers from the different groups can't all get together for a concert because visas to leave the occupied territory are so hard to come by--and because the issue and honoring of visas is so arbitrary. Where some of them live, it takes eight hours to travel fourteen miles, because of all the checkpoints set up.

That surprised me. They can't move around. They don't have mail and electricity gets cut off. They aren't free. The rappers more than once in the film called rap their reason to live.

I think, though, an equally sympathetic story could have been told from the Israeli side. During the Q&A, someone asked what they could do to help the occupied Palestinian cause, and one of the rappers essentially said, "don't support Israel." Both sides of the conflict are unyielding--it is all black and white, so no one can win.

I saw Juno this weekend. It was the best movie I've seen in a long time. I liked it even better than the fancy Sundance flick. Fox Searchlight owns the image.

Melancholy Songs for Christmas

Last Wednesday, with three more days until I could go home for Christmas, I listened to "I'll Be Home for Christmas" over and over on Hype Machine--by Frank Sinatra, by Mindy Smith, by Bing Crosby (my favorite is Banu Gibson and the New Orleans Hot Jazz). "I'll be home for Christmas...if only in my dreams." Lines like that are more poignant than singing about bells and Rudolph. And they are more real. Melancholy Christmas songs are wonderful, I have decided. Here are some I've been listening to.

John Lennon: Happy Christmas (War is Over)

"So this is Christmas--and what have you done? Another year over, a new one just begun..."
I panicked just a little when I heard this over the radio: wait, what have I done? But then I stopped and thought about it, and I am satisfied with the past year. Some of the I did...

got a penny whistle started a blog made new friends

ate melon for the first time saw the Eiffel Tower sculpted

road-tripped to Nebraska roasted two turkeys wrote a research

paper listened to music silk-screened died my hair

Diana Krall: Departure Bay

The house was bare of Christmas lights

It came down hard that year

Outside in our overcoats

Drinking down to the bitter end

Trying to make things right

Like my mother did.

I'm Dreaming of Home

I watched the movie Joyeux Noël last night, about the Christmas Truce between German and British forces--about how they came out of the trenches and sang; exchanged drinks, chocolate, cigarettes; buried the dead. A story about a miracle.

Scottish forces are depicted in the film, crouched in their trench around a meal. Someone has bagpipes, and someone asks to hear "I'm Dreaming of Home." They start singing:

This is no foreign sky

I see no foreign light

But far away am I

In some peaceful land, I'm longing to stand...

I'm dreaming of home, I feel so alone

I'm dreaming of home.

Stop Motion

I'm thinking the video won't look so choppy if you view it here. CLICK!

Only Time (alt. title: The Worst Video Quality That Could Possibly Exist)

My friend Natalie and "Only Time" by Magnetic Fields

This looked a whole lot better in iMovie than it does here. But I spent such a ridiculous amount of time on it that I am posting it. It looks awful. Take it as visible evidence of my technological incompetence.

Harry and the Potters...again...

Watch a video of the Harry and the Potters concert at www.fourbysix.net. It's like being there. Well, five minutes of being there rather than two hours of being there.

Harry and the Potters

I went to a concert Saturday with my friend Jessica. We went to the Salt Lake City library to see Harry and the Potters perform--opened by Draco and the Malfoys. Draco and the Malfoys sang songs like “My dad is rich, your dad is dead” and “99 death eaters go by.”

Harry and the Potters, after singing about topics including saving Ginny Weasley from the basilisk, the enchanted ceiling, and Fluffy the three-headed dog, closed with “The Weapon We Have is Love.” The weapon against the forces of evil is love.

I know it is cheesy, but I left inspired.

Visit their HP Alliance page to be uplifted. And to have a listen.

http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendid=41713428

Photos, continued