Day: September 4, 2003

Pucker Up and Blow: How an ad flak revolutionized hip hop

At Waxy.org: Double Dee and Steinski’s “The Lesson.” Masterworks of sampling from the early 80s, done by Doug DeFranco (Double Dee, a sound engineer in a commercial studio) and Steinski (Steve Stein, a TV producer who worked for an ad agency). The article helpfully points not only to a Village Voice article from 1986 about the pair, but also MP3s of all three classic “Lessons,” which are notorious for being basically one sample from beginning to end and therefore having no chance of being released legally. The pair were so influential that there are Lessons 4, 5, and 6, recorded by DJ Shadow, Cut Chemist, and Jurassic 5.

I think I remember hearing Lesson 2 or Lesson 3 in middle school on the bus—they certainly punch some buttons in my memory. But mostly the lessons are just jaw droppingly amazing, including Lesson 3’s transition from Mae West’s injunction to “pucker up and blow” into the Human Beat Box. Go get ’em before they disappear…

No trouble like iPod trouble

I noticed this afternoon that my original 5GB iPod wasn’t charging in my car (I have a cigarette lighter to FireWire adapter, one of those insane gadgets that you think you’ll never need—until the right moment comes along and then it’s indispensable). I tried the adapter in another outlet: nothing. I finally jiggled the cord a little and the charging bars started moving. Huh, I thought. Time to plug it in overnight.

I brought it home and connected it to my PowerBook. As it started to sync with iTunes, I remembered I hadn’t set it up with iSync yet on this machine. I started iSync, scanned and found the iPod, double-clicked—and then iSync froze. And iTunes was frozen. I noticed the iPod looked like it was back to its menu screen, so I unplugged it. Bam. Kernel panic.

I rebooted the PowerBook and tried to get the iPod to connect. No joy. I can’t even force it into FireWire drive mode, though it passes all the diagnostics. I think the problem is the physical FireWire connector on the iPod. Anyone know how to open one up?

Is everyone gone now?

Funny couple of days with so much traffic coming from Dave’s link on Monday. Now that everyone is gone, I don’t know what to say, but I feel better.


Quiet here the last couple of days with Lisa on the east coast. She gets back tonight, fortunately. Quiet in the keiretsu, too; Esta has started her new part-time job at the seminary in advance of classes, Greg is just returning after a short battery charging hiatus, Craig appears to have gone dark after his whirlwind user acceptance testing tour, George has been busy in his woodshop, Adam is too busy with his new son to post, Tin Man has been rediscovering Lord of the Rings; and in Seattle, Beth has been at Bumbershoot AND Radiohead AND is quitting smoking and Tara has been posting some magnificent past life stories.