This is ostensibly a computer post, but hang in there. Yes, the topic has come up before. Forgive me.
I’ve just been listening to Internet radio with an indispensible Mac app called RadioShift. It’s by the fine folks at Rogue Amoeba, and with a name like that, it has to be good or people will break you. Well, it’s good. What this thing does is whip up an interface for locating and playing thousands of radio stations. In our house, my iMac with the M-Audio Av-45 powered speakers (which I should be pimping in the Amazon links, they are so good) is the residential sound system. We certainly don’t need anything else. Add radio stations from all over the world, and, well, wow…
In the last 90 minutes we’ve been listening to Chinese classical music from Beijing in honor of the Chinese New Year, Arab music from Algiers, punk rock from Germany, and a cajun station from Lord knows where. It is simply a kick in the head to be sitting behind adobe walls at 7,000 feet in Taos, New Mexico–seven THOUSAND feet, chilluns, high enough to fall a long way down–on the first day of the Year of the Tiger, listening to extremely weird music from the capital of China, on the air right now in Beijing if not Internet-only. That just blows me away.
The way this happened was, just before dinner, my wife said, “It’s the Chinese New Year, find some Chinese music!” This took all of 30 seconds, and for the next hour we were in another world. Nice.
I would rather be here with the wood stove and my honey, immersed in the sounds of some exotic culture, than go out in the freezing dark on filthy muddy roads to find a real live performing human musician. That either means I’m over the hill or just real used to being married.
And now, quiet. She works a crossworld puzzle after dinner and is content.
I hope you are, too.
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{ 3 comments… read them below or add one }
1. Aussie pedant here – I think you meant “ostensibly” rather than “ostemsibly” in your opening sentence.
2. Was in my local city market on Saturday, eating fried kuay teow in the Asian food hall. The Chinese New Year dragons arrived, making much noise and scaring young children, scaring them to tears.
I got my mobile (cell phone) out and rang my daughter so she could hear the sounds. Amusing thing that she is, she sent an SMS response, writing, “Hurrah for Pretty Dragons and annoying drums at the market!!”.
3. Muey tranquillo, gracias.
MZ
That’s not pedantic, it’s absolutely correct!
Thank you.
This is way cool. Thanks John!