Tim Finn opens Unnerved: The New Zealand Project at GoMA. He really rocked the house. Vid.

This is a 10-minute edit. Was going to work on it but too exhausted so it's a whole 5 minutes long with some art works from the Unnerved show thrown in. It's worth sticking around for the end when they really rock out. Sorry but Flip Cameras obviously aren't great with audio - and the acoustics in the gallery are not good. But how long has it been since you've heard Dirty Creature or I See Red?

 

 

 

Peter Gabriel covers Paul Simon's Boy In The Bubble. Love it.

 
 
 
 

 
 
"Staccato signals of constant information...." Paul Simon wrote The Boy In The Bubble in 1986. 
"The way we look to a distant constellation that's dying in the corner of the sky ... "

What's mm-fff?

So often it feels like the universe is way too big for an ignoramus to fathom. 
But then the universe speaks out of the blue when your back's turned? 
And what's the interface? 
Existence itself. 
All the things, the people, the breaks, the lack of breaks, songs, everything in existence.
One hell of a game isn't it?
Wouldn't you just love to see the server that pumps all this out? 
Lemonade, The Who, Saturn and mm-fff!
 
When you see the letters mph you know what it means because that little abbreviation is an interface we've learned to use. 
But to a child  - who lives in a country which runs on km/h - mph doesn't compute. She sounds it out. 
What's mm-ff? 
That just confuses me. I look at the computer screen.
She points to the letters mph. 
We laugh so hard we fall off our chairs because it's so simple in the end.
Now you know what mm-fff is - but you knew all along didn't you?
 
Do you know why we put so much emphasis on paying attention? 
Because we exist to cooperate to make sense of the world.
If I miss something then I'm depending on someone else paying attention...
It's easy to let someone else do the thinking for you ... you don't have to pay attention any more.
What did one ignoramus say to the other ignoramus?
I know but I'm not gonna tell you!
Is this what you call a two-edged sword? 
I'm thinking these thoughts in the context of "global village" and "social media" control.
 
"A loose affiliation of millionaires and billionaires .... the way the camera follows us in slow-mo..."
 

Read the lyrics:

It was a slow day 
And the sun was beating 
On the soldiers by the side of the road 
There was a bright light 
A shattering of shop windows 
The bomb in the baby carriage 
Was wired to the radio 
These are the days of miracle and wonder 
This is the long distance call 
The way the camera follows us in slo-mo 
The way we look to us all 
The way we look to a distant constellation 
That's dying in a corner of the sky 
These are the days of miracle and wonder 
And don't cry baby, don't cry 
Don't cry 

It was a dry wind 
And it swept across the desert 
And it curled into the circle of birth 
And the dead sand 
Falling on the children 
The mothers and the fathers 
And the automatic earth 
These are the days of miracle and wonder 
This is the long distance call 
The way the camera follows us in slo-mo 
The way we look to us all 
The way we look to a distant constellation 
That's dying in a corner of the sky 
These are the days of miracle and wonder 
And don't cry baby, don't cry 
Don't cry 

It's a turn-around jump shot 
It's everybody jump start 
It's every generation throws a hero up the pop charts 
Medicine is magical and magical is art 
The boy in the bubble 
And the baby with the baboon heart 

And I believe 
These are the days of lasers in the jungle 
Lasers in the jungle somewhere 
Staccato signals of constant information 
A loose affiliation of millionaires 
And billionaires and baby 
These are the days of miracle and wonder 
This is the long distance call 
The way the camera follows us in slo-mo 
The way we look to us all 
The way we look to a distant constellation 
That's dying in a corner of the sky 
These are the days of miracle and wonder 
And don't cry baby, don't cry 
Don't cry