Amazing falling letters!

One of my favorite human beings, Elizabeth Walpole, has an ol’ Fiona Apple¹ quote on her Facebook page: “Hail the pages turning.” Lizzy likes books. Books are great and all, but lately words have been more fun for me. Letters even. Hail the letters falling. And I wish I could be more poetic, but really I’m just enamored with two word games.

Bookworm… I mean, I could play for days on end. If I never restarted my computer, I’d keep it going and going. Bookworm is a very well-developed game and has a tendency to give you letters you can work with. It also has bonus tiles that I never remember the meaning of– I just go “Ooh a gold one,” or “Ooh a green one,” or the rare and coveted, “Wooow. A shiny blue-ish white one.” Then you also get the dreaded red tiles, which burn away letters if you don’t get rid of them, then set your library on fire when they hit the bottom. There’s a story about a worm librarian or something. It’s less important than the activity, but it’s cute². I turn to Bookworm so I spread my word wings wide, because the one on my phone is the free version of Bitwords, where you can only have 5-letter words, tops.

Bitwords has ruined my brain. Have you ever played Tetris so much that when you close your eyes you see shapes fitting into place? Bitwords has done that to me. When I go to sleep I see letters falling and I try to link them together to make new words. A benefit of Bitwords is that it allows two-letter words, which comes in handy when you’re in a jam. Less generous (and I imagine less intentional) is the dispensing of vowels–I’ve lost many rounds because I just don’t have any vowels near my red letters. In Bitwords, your red tiles don’t burn, they count down. You have 7 or 8 chances to get rid of them and if you don’t, you lose. These are smart games, but I’m completely serious when I say that they’re addicting. It’s not crack or anything, so we could do a lot worse, right?

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1. Yes, ol’ Fiona Apple. Poor lady’s been missing and missed. She can be found on the new ahem Margaret Cho album with some other amazing musicians. The music is fantastic– the subjects and songwriting… ehh. Anyway– Fiona apple’s on “Hey Big Dog.” [↩]
2. His voice is horribly annoying, though [↩]

A short story sort of song – “Leather Jacket”

Not only is “Leather Jacket” short, but it’s also missing a certain depth of character background, though it’s lush with depth of those unknown characters. We have the narrator expressing deep regret and giving explicit details of events, but nothing gets much deeper– specific names, places, or happenings. Clearly two people are not making it together, but by the end, perhaps because of the simple symphony of sounds and expression in vocal delivery, “Things like that don’t happen / Things like that don’t slip away / But sometimes they do,” sends shivers because it feels like a direct warning just to you, the listener– beware of fast, blinding love. Like a well-crafted song, it’s personal and detailed, but also universal in themes–regret, acceptance, sadness. Don’t miss the bells and the humming harmony, and don’t let the symbol of the leather jacket fall on deaf ears. It’s a beautiful piece by Ben Folds Five.

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Ben Folds Five – Leather Jacket

I just heard this (again) last night and thought about that. Oh, it sounds like Folds is bringing back the scratchy bass that Robert Sledge signed most BFF hits with on the new album Lonely Avenue, written by Nick Hornby.

REPLY or REPLY ALL

If I had the time right now, I would put this plan into action. I would build a small Flash-based game where the player would read a brief email sent to a group of people and then a summary response. The object of the game would be to decide if he/she should select REPLY or REPLY ALL. In an ideal world, users would lose one week of email privileges or one finger per wrong answer.

To: Albert, Thadius; Hope, Bob; McGurk, John; Downer, Debbie
From: Phillips, Pete
Subject: Free Cupcakes
Message:
Hey guys– you know I have lots of free time, so I decided to make Eiffel Tower cupcakes. Each one is a miniature model of the Eiffel Tower, built to scale. They’re available in the break room, if anyone’s interested.
Thanks,
Pete

Response1:

Pete,
Your cupcakes gave me horrible diarrhea and made my children hate French people. They killed our little schnauzer because he was named Jean Luc. Please stop baking.
Thanks,
Thad

Reply… or Reply All?

Response 2 (Bonus round):

Thanks!

Reply… or Reply All?

Response 3 (Sudden digit death):

I went to get a cupcake and they’re all gone. Thanks anyway, Pete!
John

Reply… or Reply All?

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Dance, douchebag, dance

So much music feels disposable these days. We collect thousands of songs on our computers or iPods and never listen to them all. Then one day you’re going around with your collection on random and you hear a song that you forgot existed, but you remember every note immediately–like seeing someone you used to admire at lunch in fifth grade. It comes back at you, but you enjoy it for what it is– easy, intense, and fleeting. You should make this one of those songs.

You may like Le Le‘s “Douchebag Status”  enough to play it all the time, but it does grow tiresome after three in a row. It’s enjoyable for its simplicity and truth, because we all know a douchebag (or fifty) and they have the attributes of the song’s hero. So dedicate this tune to your favorite douchebag, and add it to your collection for one of those random surprises. If you like Le Le for the absurdity, you’ll probably want to check out “Breakfast” (video) too.

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Le_Le – Douchebag_Status_(original_mix)

Menomena’s Mines rocks my brains

I’d be hard-pressed to find a Menomena song I don’t like. Friend and Foe came out in 2007 and we had to wait three years for Mines, but it was well worth it. I wanted a new record once I hit the end of Friend and Foe. It reminds me of how I used to feel about CAKE until they just started to fall off the mark ¹.

Menomena’s latest album doesn’t have songs on it– they’re movements and compositions. It’s fantastic. Even the bonus track, “Insulation,” doesn’t feel like it’s a leftover, with more of the moody drums and dreamy guitar that make you feel like you’re coming down from some drug-addled state. And that’s what I like about Menomena– when the music is done and any cryptic lyrics are decoded, you find out that you’ve never left reality. It’s also like good poetry in musical form. A scene that gets so elaborate, deep, and substantive, but all the while, it’s just a tree or a deer (or a deer by a tree). I was comforted when I obtained their latest double 7″, which did have a dud on it. It reminded me that they’re not gods, which was quite a relief after getting lost in Mines so much lately.

Missed Mines & Menomena altogether? Try this:

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Menomena – Oh Pretty Boy, You’re Such a Big Boy
Not even my favorite, but really an evocative, lumbering piece.

1. though their latest email says the new CAKE album is self-produced, which could be good, though i think personnel changes are at fault [↩]