Fire and Knowledge

Amazon MP3’s daily deal twitter is fantastic. It’s a great use of twitter. Customers get deals, and Amazon gets permission to put themselves in front of users every day.

(via Gruber)

Start your Monday off with a little Beatles:

I have sat through an Italian Opera, till, for sheer pain, and inexplicable anguish, I have rushed out into the noisiest places of the crowded streets, to solace myself with sounds, which I was not obliged to follow, and get rid of the distracting torment of endless, fruitless, barren attention!

–Charles Lamb (1775–1834), “A Chapter on Ears,” in The Art of the Personal Essay by Phillip Lopate (1994), p. 167

I have overcome a fiercely anti-Catholic upbringing in order to attend Mass simply and solely to escape Protestant guitars.

–Anne Dillard, “An Expedition to the Pole,” in Teaching a Stone to Talk: Expeditions and Encounters (1983), 30

If Steve Jobs wants DRM-free music (and we all do, I hope), why doesn’t the iTunes Store let musicians offer their music without DRM? That seems like a good first step.

Dear _________,

I see you’ve posted your latest played songs on your website. It’s interesting to know someone has found satisfaction in listening to David Hasselhoff and Bubba Sparxxx, but I could have lived not knowing it was you.

Your entire music history is at last.fm – every song you have listened to since you signed up. Neat. Unfortunately this makes it horribly tempting to make fun of you, seeing you’ve listened to “A Whole New World” from Aladdin 350 times this month. (Yes, you forgot to check the “private” option for that song. I see you’ve remedied that now.)

Why are you posting this to the world? Does it make you feel cool? Elite? Seriously, what’s the appeal? Why give this information to everyone? What’s the benefit? When you want to listen to something that isn’t cool, do you make those songs private? Or do you just not listen to them? Does it excite you to know that someone visiting your website knows the last five songs you listened to? Do you realize they don’t care?

If you want to recommend music to others, please do so. I’m sure you know some obscure indie math-rock emo-core band nobody but you knows about. (Probably because it consists of you, your mom and Garageband.) By all means, introduce us to cool new music to find our identities in. But we don’t need — don’t want — to know your entire music history or even your latest played songs.

Best,

Josh

Unless all ages and races of men have been deluded by the same mass hypnotist (who?), there seems to be such a thing as beauty, a grace wholly gratuitous.

–Annie Dillard, Pilgrim at Tinker Creek (1974), p. 7