John Siracusa and Merlin Mann on a roll in episode 29 of Reconcilable Differences. Humans and the future: Putting a timeline (and endgame perspective) on current hopes for VR and biolgical advances.

Is the Internet Being Ruined? The latest episode of Freakonomics Radio. Ferguson, Facebook, and the open web.

And speaking of the open web, in my Twitter feed, the W3C browser DRM story continues. (Also Tim Berners Lee campaigns for European Net Neutrality and Kevin Marks takes notes from the Homebrew Website Club)

Open web, IndieWeb. Christian Heilmann voices reservations about the IndieWeb onboarding requirements in Marc Thiele’s Twumble podcast series. A nice (open air) interview with Eva-Lotta Lamm too. On drawing.

I thought I’d explore some new podcasts other than the regulars I listen to. A look through the Overcast ‘Most Recommended’ directory led me to Marc Maron’s WTF Podcast and this episode with Joanna Newsom.

Yesterday, thinking about Cage and Feldman’s particular talent for conversation, it also occured to me that it was after the ‘Radio Happenings’ that Feldman, with the exception of his substantial Crippled Symmetry essay (1981), no longer wrote about music (even making a statement to that effect), preferring rather to talk, at length, as a way of both sharing and exploring his thoughts. And talking about something for two hours in a somewhat public way is of course what we have today with podcasts. Feldman’s talks (performances really) were fortunately recorded and transcribed, making available the insights of those last two decades.

In my RSS this morning: This via this.

John Cage in conversation with Morton Feldman, July 9 1966.
I know these ‘Radio Happenings’ from 20 years ago when I was working on my Feldman dissertation. Still thinking about them. Listening to the first again this morning, it struck me how close their conversational style comes to today’s podcast world. That could almost be John Roderick having a chat with Merlin. (Almost.) A more relaxed tempo back then, but the topics almost the same.

Cage: It may be that we can be with people, but at the same time at a distance.

Followed up with the latest episode of Roderick on the Line today. John Roderick talking about feeling overwhelmed by the musicianship of others and finding the unique constellation of his creativity in the face of all that surrounds him. Makes me think of Pelle Gudmundsen Holmgreen wondering how he should continue after Bach. How do any of us overcome the inertia of creating something in the face of today’s overabundance?

Otherwise, in the process of working on a little article covering my speech-melody transcription techniques, and thinking approaches to transcribing the world, I’ve dug up this woodcut by Albrecht Dürer.

Today I caught a snatch of lyrics from a Leonard Cohen song playing in the backgound:

I hear that you’re building your little house
Deep in the desert
You’re living for nothing now
I hope you’re keeping some kind of record

From Famous Blue Raincoat it turns out. I’m not sure what the song is about, haven’t investigated either. What the lyrics triggered were thoughts about the pervasiveness of documentation in today’s culture (these words included) – even in the desert living for nothing. Experience has worth when documented. John and Merlin talk about this in a recent Roderick on the Line.