New Adventures in Hi-Fi

This week I bought me 2 new audio toys. Okay, one secondhand.
First a brandnew AKG K 701 headphone: after some reading this appears to be true value-for-money, so I should own one. Here’s a stereophile 2006 review: AKG Acoustics K 701 headphones.
I intended the AKG for the main system, but it really sounds good so I will use it with the computer system and stow away the cherished Grado (SR 60i).
Plus this saturday a second (see my April 14 post) Denon DVD-3910, colored ‘Champagne’ this time and again in a mint condition. Weigth a 9.3 kg (or 20.5 lbs) each, that’s about 20 kg pure CD/SACD/DVD high quality playing. So I’m all set and Bob’s your uncle: no streaming audio on the main system.

So, err, what’s happening, hey? Any interesting new flicks?

Well, I’ve noticed ‘Wuthering Heights‘ is playing in Rotterdam. This being the latest Andrea ‘Fish Tank‘ Arnold movie, with the unkown actor James Howson playing Heathcliff and beautiful Kaya Scodelario as Catherine Earnshaw.
Scodelario, Scodelario? Yes, Kaya Scodelario, best known for her Effy Stonem character in the British tv serie ‘Skins‘.
Quite popular on Tumblr that Effy personality: there are a lot (a LOT) of animated gifs showing dark Effy smoking, crying, yelling “fuck”, smoking, kissing and cutting her wrists. All gifs created and re-posted by all the other sixteen year old girls of this world.

What do I know? It is like this ‘Virgin Suicides’ quote:
Doctor: What are you doing here, honey? You’re not even old enough to know how bad life gets.
Cecilia: Obviously, Doctor, you’ve never been a 13-year-old girl.

Lana Del Rey – My Favourite Sweater

To be honest: when people tell me something ‘s really HOT … I run the opposite direction. Usually, that is. So Elizabeth ‘Lizzy’ Woolridge Grant is really HOT, people tell me. I did some catching up and looked and listened to Video Games, Born To Die and Blue Jeans. The phrase “you fit me better than my favourite sweater” caught me.

Curious I bought ‘BORN TO DIE‘ and I cannot stop listening to the opening quartet:
The title track ‘Born To Die‘ sets the mood. She sounds like Amanda Lear suffering with severe PMS. These are the Fifties and the Sixties. A bit pompous, a bit pathetic / melodramatic, somewhat plastic fantastic. Said again: I cannot stop listening.
In ‘Off to the races‘ Lana quotes Nabokov: “Light of my life, fire of my loins“. Certainly yes, “Swimming pool glimmering darling / White bikini off with my red nail polish / Watch me in the swimming pool bright blue ripples you”, that is Lolita for you!
‘Blue Jeans‘ sounds familiar, echoing Wicked Game, which is always a good thing. Don’t mind the lyrics too much (“You were sorta punk rock, I grew up on hip hop” … what???), but remember the “favourite sweater”.
Next song is ‘Video Games‘. This is perfect, perfect.

The rest is not that Yabadabadoo: you will hear a bit “Bitter Sweet Symphony‘ in ‘National Anthem’, ‘Radio’ – boring as it may be – makes me want to sing along, and among the 3 Deluxe Bonus Tracks you will encounter this song named ‘Lolita’: “Could be kissing my fruit punch lips in the bright sunshine”. Yeah yeah, could that be?

I wanna hop in my car and drive to Spain, with this Dizzy Miss Lizzy / Dazzling Dolores purring on repeat.

Alison Krauss – Paper Airplane

Last week I bought myself a mint condition Denon DVD-3910 (a $1,499 Universal Player from 2005). Every new good sounding device is celebrated by searching an evenly good sounding new recording.
After reading this Sound On Sound article on Recording Alison Krauss’ Paper Airplane I remembered her performing (the 2008 Raising Sand Tour with Robert Plant) in the Amsterdam Heineken Music Hall.
Chicken Skin Music, that’s what this is … and Alison’s voice really is ‘Not Of This Earth’ … .
Well, this is not the kind of music to listen-to-all-day: it aint no Rock And Roll, a bit to honourable and well-behaved. But really really wonderful sounding.

Reminds me of this memorable Levon Helm ‘Last Waltz’ quote:
LH: Bluegrass and country music … if it comes down into that area and if it mixes there with the rhythm and if it dances, then you’ve got a combination of all that music …
SCORSESE: What’s it called?
LH: Rock and roll.

Photo’s courtesy of Rounder Records

World Literature Opening Phrases Ipsum

In the previous post I referred to Google delicately choosing a paragraph from Franz Kafka’s ‘Die Verwandlung’ as a font showcase bla-bla text.
There is nothing wrong with using the standard Lorem Ipsum text, mind you. Who does not want to use/show the industry’s standard dummy text ever since the 1500s.
(Does make you (look) erudite, scholarly and well-educated: haughtily sprinkling some ‘de Finibus Bonorum et Malorum’ by Cicero … and you are the Man/Woman!)

There are some Lorem Ipsum alternatives. Most of them do not make me happy or smile, to put it mildly, except for the notorious Samuel L. Ipsum Lorem Ipsum Generator (motherfucking placeholder text motherfucker!). You know the guy:

The path of the righteous man is beset on all sides by the iniquities of the selfish and the tyranny of evil men.

Wouldn’t it be great to have a Lorum Ipsum Generator, offering a glorious recapitulation of the World Literature Opening Phrases?

What would I include?
Here are some of my mental bookmarks, all – randomly chosen – sanctifying my soul:

From: Vladimir Nabokov, Lolita, 1955 (first edition) *

Lolita, light of my life, fire of my loins. My sin, my soul. Lo-lee-ta: the tip of the tongue taking a trip of three steps down the palate to tap, at three, on the teeth. Lo. Lee. Ta.

*) This is not a random choice: ‘Lolita’ may not be the finest or most compelling story I have ever read, but Nabokov is a true magician and the above is certainly one of the most beautiful (opening) paragraphs ever written!

Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, exhibit number one is what the seraphs, the misinformed, simple, noble-winged seraphs, envied. Look at this tangle of thorns.

From: Gabriel García Márquez, Cien años de soledad, 1967

Muchos años después, frente al pelotón de fusilamiento, el coronel Aureliano Buendía había de recordar aquella tarde remota en que su padre lo llevó a conocer el hielo.

From: Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Crime and Punishment, 1866 **

On an exceptionally hot evening early in July a young man came out of the garret in which he lodged in S. Place and walked slowly, as though in hesitation, towards K. bridge.

**) Unfortunately I cannot read, write or understand the Russian language.

From: Multatuli (Eduard Douwes Dekker), Max Havelaar, 1859/1860 ***

Ik ben makelaar in koffie, en woon op de Lauriergracht No. 37.

***) Yes, the source of my Site Title.

I especially want to phrase F. Scott Fitzgerald’s ‘Tender is the night’, 1934,

In the spring of 1917, when Doctor Richard Diver first arrived in Zurich, he was twenty-six years old, a fine age for a man, indeed the very acme of bachelorhood.

as well as the complete ‘Der Zauberberg’ (Thomas Mann, 1913-1924), but time and space won’t allow that, I am afraid.

A Wealthy Type Case

Next to all this ‘responsiveness’ there is much – almost feverish – excitement about using non-standard (that’ll be ‘Not Web Safe’, then) Web Fonts. Again, as on the subject of media queries, there are many sound sounding articles written on the subject. (Okay okay, I will never mention that again!)
Curiously I looked at both Typekit and Google Web Fonts.
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