Igor Stravinsky wrote this ballet to be the soundtrack to a sacred pagen ritual in which a young girl dances herself to death. The piece is filled with intense rhythms and melodies. My favorite passage occurs about 4 minutes in. A driving, repeated rhythmic chord that can’t be explained in standard musical notation. An octatonic scale, of sorts. Whole and half steps stacked on top of each other pounded on the strings with an intoxicating rhythm. It is the most beautiful type of dissonance.

||: Bum, bum, bum, BUM, BUM bum, BUM, bum, bum, BUM, BUM, BUM, BUM, bum, bum, bum :||

Igor can explain it better than me, in his words …

“… there arose a picture of a sacred pagan ritual: the wise elders are seated in a circle and are observing the dance before death of the girl whom they are offering as a sacrifice to the god of Spring in order to gain his benevolence. This became the subject of The Rite of Spring.”

The premiere was in 1913 at the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées in Paris with original choreography by Vaslav Nijinsky. The Parisian audience was not used to such primitive rhythms and melodies. From the very beginning bassoon melody, there was loud talking, arguing and booing. Throughout the entire piece people were throwing chairs and fighting in the aisles. They attempted to regain orderin the house by flashing lights. The police came at intermission.

By then, it was all over. This was the first mosh pit. This was punk ballet. Paris in 1913 couldn’t handle it. Amplified music and the electric guitar was still a dream.  It was disruptive to conventional thinking. It was Beethoven breaking the form, Charlie Parker running laps on the alto, Chuck Berry on Johnny B. Goode, Miles Davis electrifying the trumpet, Jimi Hendrix’s Star Spangled Banner. The Rite of Spring changed how people write and listen to music. Conventional form had been broken before, but never this violently. Never with so much passion and controversy. It’s hard to write music for strings and winds that is this intense. Igor hit it out of the park.

Personally, I discovered this piece of music in the winter and spring of 2003. I was a senior at the UW finishing up my music and political science degree. At the time I was taking music history classes, atonal music theory and international relations classes. I found a copy of this on vinyl and started listening to it. A lot. That time in 2003 was depressing. I was quite upset about the unnecessary drive to war against Iraq. Listening to music was the only way to make sense of the world. My Music studies were lining up in my mind with my political science classes. The tension that Stravinsky (and others) created in the early 20th century felt like an appropriate soundtrack for the bullshit that was arising in our political world.

In case you were curious, there is a wikipedia page dedicated to classical music riots. Think about that next time you attend the symphony.

I believe in the Church of Baseball. I’ve tried all the major religions, and most of the minor ones. I’ve worshipped Buddha, Allah, Brahma, Vishnu, Siva, trees, mushrooms, and Isadora Duncan. I know things. For instance, there are 108 beads in a Catholic rosary and there are 108 stitches in a baseball. When I heard that, I gave Jesus a chance. But it just didn’t work out between us. The Lord laid too much guilt on me. I prefer metaphysics to theology. You see, there’s no guilt in baseball, and it’s never boring… which makes it like sex.  … … It’s a long season and you gotta trust. I’ve tried ‘em all, I really have, and the only church that truly feeds the soul, day in, day out, is the Church of Baseball. – Anne Savoy from the movie Bull Durham

It’s really fun and not terrifying (the second time). If you’re in Seattle, this place is great.

On the mind: college, hanging chad, hijacking, war, protest war, graduation, media bar, house, wedding, twitter, HOPE

Presidents: b. clinton, gore, bush, h. clinton, obama

Love: love, heartbreak, love, marriage, love, love

Jobs: barista, shift supervisor, corporate, hear music, now playing, twitter, twitter, facebook

Cats: franny, zooey

Music: miles, coltrane, phish, hyoka, wilco, flaming lips, mahler, bartok, stravinsky, mos def, the roots, dylan, radiohead, jayz, preons, phish {again}

Homes: Haggett Hall, Kenmore, 7th Ave NE, 11th Ave NE, 50th and Latona, Eastlake Ave, 27th and 68th, West Seattle

Bands: Husky Marching Band, UW Big Band, Wind Ensemble, Hyoka, The Preons

Phones: landline, nokia, samsung, motorola, nokia, palm, blackjack, iphone

Computers: iMac, iBook, powermac, hp tower, macbook, mac mini

Vehicle: toyota tercel, bicycle, ford ranger, suzuki sv650

1. Grizzly Bear – Veckatimest :: Gets better with every listen.
2. Mos Def – The Estatic :: Really glad he’s back, the last two have been phoned in. This one is solid.
3. Phish – Joy :: My favorite band is back together, and that makes me happy. They could have had 4′33″ on here and I would have listened intently.
4. Animal Collective – Merriweather Post Palivion :: I couldn’t stand this when I first listened. Saw them at Bonnaroo, thought they were still bad. After some encouragement from Lincoln, I listened again. It is actually really really good.
5. Passion Pit – Manners :: Fun.
6. The Avett Brothers – I and Love and You :: You can play this for every member of your family, and they’ll love it. Even Grandma.
7. Beirut – March of the Zapotec EP & Realpeople – Holland EP (the Holland EP is better) :: This kid makes me jealous of his talent. The ethnomusicologist in me loves the Oaxaca inspired EP. The ears like the Holland EP better.
8. Black Joe Lewis & The Honeybears – Tell ‘Em What Your Name is! :: Saw them at Bumbershoot. Sweet jesus, I was sold. Reminds me a lot of Buddy Miles.
9. Built to Spill – There is no Enemy :: Don’t believe they can make a bad album.
10. The Flaming Lips – Embryonic :: Different. Saw them at Marymoor this summer. Wayne started the show by climbing out of a … nevermind, don’t want to ruin it.
11. Wilco – (the album) :: Looking forward to getting old with Wilco.
12. The XX (self titled) :: What’s a VCR?
13. Lily Allen – It’s Not Me, It’s You :: She is genuinely funny, and can write a really good pop song. However, usually requires headphones.
14. Super Furry Animals – Dark Days/Light Years :: The Welsh version of the Flaming Lips are great. See them live if you can.
15. Jay – Z – The Blueprint 3 :: But really, only ‘Empire State of Mind’. The rest of the album is kind of dull.

My favorite list of the decade is coming.

These days, when things get busy at work, I have a hard time keeping up on tech news and I start purging people that I’m following to limit my reading needs on Twitter. I like to read my whole feed, it keeps the interactions more authentic.

What do you do keep up on feeds when you get busy. Do you ignore them, and hope to catch on? Ever worry that you’ll miss an important trend because of it?

There had been signs around campus and booths for about a month prior, so I was aware that the WTO was meeting in Seattle. I knew it was a big deal, President Clinton was making a rare stop to Seattle. I didn’t know what it all meant and I knew I was ignorant to why people had issues with the WTO. I was pretty sure that I would fall on the side of the protesters. Both my parents are in Unions, my grandpa and uncles are in unions and I’ve always been liberal. Holding signs and marching felt right.

Still, I wasn’t sure why it mattered. I wanted to find out.

We walked from the UW to the Seattle Center and then to Downtown; all along the way, walking down the middle of roads. There were hundreds of us maybe thousands by the time we got downtown, gathering more along the way. I remember seeing people on Eastlake waving to us from their balcony’s. It was surreal. We were chanting, some were holding signs. By the time we arrived at the Center, I was tired and nervous about missing my last chemistry lab that afternoon, so I separated from the group and wandered downtown by myself to jump on a bus back to school. I walked up 5th Avenue. Around Pacific Place I realized that this was the real deal. There was a feeling in the air that this was different. People were locking arms in the street to stop the flow of traffic. There were more people downtown than I’ve ever seen before. I wandered around for a while just taking it all in. It was a sight to be seen.

For maybe the first time in my life I saw a group of people who cared about things that were going on. That was empowering. It felt like a movement that wasn’t going to go away.

Because I was trying to be a good student (although I didn’t fair so well in Chemistry and became a music major the next quarter), I jumped on a bus to go back to school in order to not miss my chemistry lab. Afterwards I rushed across campus back to my dorm. Everyone in the lounge was watching the news. I had to go back. There was no way I was going to miss this. I dropped off some books and grabbed my water bottle, while keeping my chemistry goggles. I had a feeling they might be useful. I planned on heading back by myself, but about 10 others wanted to go too, so we all walked across campus to the bus.

When we arrived there were about twice as many people. The cops looked like storm troopers and there was much more destruction. People were still locking arms to shut down the talks. It was like nothing I’ve ever seen before, it felt like a movie. Slowly, one by one, my group of 10 grew smaller. Eventually it was just me and one or two other people. We made our way to the corner of Pike and 6th where there was a lot of activity, opposite NikeTown. A dumpster was in the middle of the intersection and people were playing hand drums. There may have been a small fire in the dumpster too, but I can’t remember exactly. We stood there for a little while, again just taking it in. It was quite the scene – really wish I had a camera with me. After some time, the stormtrooper cops start to move toward us down Pike. Once they got closer I heard a large bang. My first instinct was that it was a terrorist (this was pre-9/11). Then someone told me it was a concussion grenade, intended to make people scatter. Then they started releasing the tear gas. We took off and were able to cut down the alley way halfway down the block. The wind was blowing into the alley, so we were safe from the teargas. It was an amazing sight to see the clouds of gas floating down the city street through the city lights. My chemistry goggles were incredibly helpful at this point, the friends didn’t have the luxury and got the teargas much worse than I. They used some of my water to wash out their eyes. The police were on the offensive, and we decided that it was time to leave.

I left the protests feeling empowered.  Globalization wasn’t giving everyone the same opportunities and I took solace in the fact that people weren’t going to take that lying down. The excessive destruction was unnecessary, it was done by a very small minority of people. Unfortunately, very few people can make a lot of destruction in a situation like that.

It should have been the beginning of something bigger, an opportunity for world leaders to notice that maybe globalization wasn’t working out for everybody. Looking back it didn’t turn out that way. 9/11 happened two years later, and instead we were talking about anthrax and war. It’s really unfortunate. This was a movement that could have gone a long way to address the needs of those who were being left out.

That was the biggest tragedy of the 1999 WTO meeting in Seattle.

The muppets and rock ‘n roll will save us all.

This week I’ve been happily exploring the new retweet feature on Twitter.com. I can’t wait for this same functionality to spread to my favorite twitter clients. It’s accomplishing a better user experience for many reasons.

1. The integrity of the original tweet is saved (if you want to add comments, just send your own tweet)
2. You can easily measure how many times a tweet has been Retweeted
3. Measurement of overall influence on Twitter can be better calculated

So, why the change? What’s next?

One of the biggest reasons I’m excited for it is the ability to measure overall reach by bringing it back to old school marketing numbers. Number of impressions. Why is that good? For people like me who run a brand twitter account and you get questions like, “what were the numbers on twitter today.” I say things like this, “We had 430 Retweets, and our share of voice on Twitter spiked to .2% (from .05-.1%)”. This probably sounds like klingon to people who don’t use Twitter. Or I can say other things that mean less to me, but probably more to others, “We sent it to our 500,000 followers, I don’t know what they did with it.” With old school marketing numbers you can easily communicate more relevant data to your leadership team, and it makes it easier to validate the need for social media.

(side note: Yes, there are a lot of tools to calculate reach & engagement, but I have yet to find one where I can both fully trust the data and translate it to an normalized number, like impressions.)

It’s a small, but an important step in Twitter’s maturation.

The new Retweet feature is going to allow precise measurement of how people are consuming tweets and what they’re doing with it next.

Now, what is the number one reason Twitter is doing this?

Commercial accounts: Charge for information that isn’t available to anybody else. For example, this tweet went to 520,000 followers. The actual reach of that tweet was 3.73 million (just a guess) because it was Retweeted by these people.

Other reasons:

• Old school IP (not this, this)
• Cleanliness of the interface
• Standardization of a popular use case

Can’t wait to see what Twitter, Inc. has in store next.

They took a sample set of ‘connected customers’ who are often leading indicators of how people interact digitally. There are a lot of great snippets of data that are worth reading through. Highly recommend.

Buzz Canuck: The Blindsiding and Bubble of Social Media

Key quote:

But in a very few short years,  my prediction – the term will fade into irrelevance – all media will be social – no more need for the distinction.

Twitter Census: Publishing the First of Many Datasets

Infochimps has been scraping tweets for the last three years, and they have a dataset of information that is very hard to find. This is data that I would love to dig into. I’m positive that the amount of insights into every part of Starbucks (and digital society, really) would be astonishing. I’m sure we’ll see some interesting studies come out from this.

John Battelle’s Searchblog: Why Did Google Buy AdMob?

This post is to the point. Love it.