Corporate Life

ADAM (TECH)

You know this thing?

LIZ (MANAGER)

Which thing?

ADAM

THE Thing.

LIZ

There are so many THE Things in my little life.

ADAM

My thing.

LIZ

Oh, your thing.

ADAM

Yes, the thing is ...

CONVERSATION ABOUT HOW TO ANNOUNCE THE EXISTENCE OF THING (USEFUL) WITHOUT DISCLOSING ITS NATURE (SCANDALOUS)

ADAM CONTINUES

... the thing is, nobody wants to pay for it.

Oooh fun

Photographer David Bergman has made a giant panoramic photo of the new US President being inaugurated.

The detail is stupendous. If you read down in the comments, there are people playing "Where's Wally", spotting everybody who is anybody, plus themselves. Politicians and TV stars, Aretha Franklin, Yo-Yo Ma taking a picture on his iPhone, the disembodied heads or legs where the pictures were stitched together, the sniper team, the reader and his Mom, and so on.

David Bergman's Inauguration Panorama

Hat tip Tangri-La

Functional Requirement

Every device worked by a remote control should have on it a button that, when pressed, causes the thingummy that works it to beep or buzz, softly, repeatedly, and frequently, till found.

Especially this blasted DVD player, which is all smooth-faced, with no buttons of its own. Completely inoperable. Where is it? Is it underneath the washing in the bottom of the basket? Has it gone down the back of the books? Slipped off the messy table into the wastepaper bin? Is it camouflaged in my stash of organically-produced undyed and naturally striped Welsh wool? Have I absentmindedly put it in the fridge? Where is the Widget?

Bhimpalasi Fast Tintal

While we're on music, I think this is awe-inspiring. It's a practice session, preparing for a competition.



Sitar: Andrew Mendelson. Tabla: Gulam Fareed. Story: A Cricket in the Court of Akbar.

The sitar is one of those instruments, like the bandoneón, that is a pocket orchestra in the hands of a master. I think this piece they're playing has a wonderful drive to it. Once I start watching, it's difficult to look away.

Joaquín Amenábar - post list

I've written a lot about Joaquín Amenábar's workshops on tango music for dancers, so here is a housekeeping post with a list of everything else. It's worth reading the comments on each, especially the first one.

[Update 4th April 09: you can now buy the book-DVD set here.]

Joaquín teaches Bandoneón at the University in Buenos Aires and another conservatoire, and he also dances in the milongas. His classes are very carefully designed for the nine out of ten dancers who have no music education at all.

Music for dancers
Why tango music is like it is
Modern Tango
[Update 04/04/09] Book available - and a note about it

But even if you do have some musical education (mine is not much, but more than most - I can sing my part in a madrigal, with practice) I'd still very much recommend them. They're fascinating.

What what these classes did for me was raise the problems of musical understanding from the level of the animal or child, and expose them to the firepower of adult human intellect. This is an effective way to get improvement quickly. It's like letting an elephant solve a problem with its trunk.

The three classes I took were also great fun, and so are the exercises in the book/DVD set (which should become available, eventually, from here). They are much fun as being three and doing Music and Movement, or sitting crosslegged on the floor and watching Playschool with Floella Benjamin, or Life On Earth. I love it.

The Bezzle

Not the angle of the edges of a stone - that's bevel - but this:

“To the economist embezzlement is the most interesting of crimes. Alone among the various forms of larceny it has a time parameter. Weeks, months, or years may elapse between the commission of the crime and its discovery. (This is a period, incidentally, when the embezzler has his gain and the man who has been embezzled, oddly enough, feels no loss. There is a net increase in psychic wealth.) At any given time there exists an inventory of undiscovered embezzlement in — or more precisely not in — the country's businesses and banks. This inventory — it should perhaps be called the bezzle — amounts at any moment to many millions of dollars. It also varies in size with the business cycle ...

... Just as the boom accelerated the rate of growth, so the crash enormously advanced the rate of discovery. ... Audits were ordered. Strained or preoccupied behaviour was noticed. Most important the collapse in stock values made irredeemable the position of the employee who had embezzled to play the market. He now confessed.”

John Kenneth Galbraith — the Great Crash 1929

Or, looking at it from another angle, a financial crisis makes a lot of people look very silly.

From the desk of B. Ramalinga Raju - Glad I'm not the auditors.
Santander Praised ‘Impeccable’ Madoff.

Hunt the Economist

The Financial Times is offering a free T-Shirt if you can be the first to spot Nouriel Roubini in London.

The Economist: Roubini Right, Kind of a Jerk.

I have no idea whether any of the rumours about the décor of his flat are true. Do Your Own Research.