| Monday, January 26, 2004 |  |
| Controlling the Outcome | 0 comments |
| 26 Jan 2004 @ 19:00 Letecia sent me this beautiful quote. January 26: Controlling the Outcome I live with the illusion that if I try hard enough, think hard enough, work hard enough and plan well enough, I will be able to control the outcome of a given situation. Soul tells me to take the action and let go of the results. When I feel that I can control the outcome, I live in the result rather than the process. "Life is what happens when you are making other plans." Trying to control results dams up the waters within me. My energy is spent on managing rather than living. When I feel that I am somehow responsible for the outcome of a situation, I get tangled up in a tedious maze of micro-management. I try to determine other people's feelings, perceptions and actions in an attempt to anticipate all the possibilities, so that I can better manage them. Living in the outcome is a way to avoid the present; consequently, it becomes living away from soul. |
| Musicians Unveil Digital 'Manifesto' | 2 comments |
 26 Jan 2004 @ 18:57Musicians Unveil Digital 'Manifesto' AP, 01/26/2004 4:07 PM) By Angela Doland Rock veterans Peter Gabriel and Brian Eno are launching a provocative new musicians' alliance that would cut against the industry grain by letting artists sell their music online instead of only through record labels. With the Internet transforming how people buy and listen to songs, musicians need to act now to claim digital music's future, Gabriel and Eno argued Monday as they handed out a slim red manifesto at a huge dealmaking music conference known as Midem. They call the plan the "Magnificent Union of Digitally Downloading Artists" — or MUDDA, which has a less lofty ring to it. "Unless artists quickly grasp the possibilities that are available to them, then the rules will get written, and they'll get written without much input from artists," said Eno, who has a long history of experimenting with technology. By removing record labels from the equation, artists can set their own prices and set their own agendas, said the two independent musicians, who hope to launch the online alliance within a month. Their pamphlet lists ideas for artists to explore once they're freed from the confines of the CD format. One might decide to release a minute of music every day for a month. Another could post several recorded variations of the same song and ask fans what they like best. Gabriel, who has his own label, Real World Records, said he isn't trying to shut down the record companies — he just wants to give artists more options. "There are some artists who already tried to do everything on their own," he said, adding that those musicians often found out they didn't like marketing or accounting. "We believe there will be all sorts of models for this." A representative with the venture said other musicians had expressed interest in participating in the alliance, but did not provide names. One band that has found its niche online is the jam band Phish, which sells downloads of its concerts at www.livephish.com. The band's relationship with its devoted fans is often compared to that of the Grateful Dead, and the site is another chance for close contact. But it also generates plenty of money: more than $2.25 million in sales since 2002. What's driving the movement is the success of legitimate download sites such as Apple's Internet music store, iTunes, which sells songs for 99 cents a pop in the United States. Both Gabriel and Eno started their careers in the 1960s and remain immensely influential. As a means to help unsigned artists, their effort "is certainly going to be a valuable and interesting thing to do," said Josh Bernoff, principal analyst with Forrester Research in Cambridge, Mass. "But for anyone (already) signed it's almost certainly a violation of their contract," said Bernoff, who addressed the conference over the weekend. "It's not in a record company's best interest to have large pieces of music out there that they don't have control of." Gabriel co-founded a European company, On Demand Distribution, which runs legal download sites in 11 European countries. The company would provide the technology for MUDDA, though Gabriel and Eno are looking for online partners. Europe's sites haven't yet caught up to the success of the U.S. portals. Apple's iTunes, for example, is planning a European launch this year, which is expected to build interest in legal downloading in a market where many people don't realize there's even such a thing. Because both legal and illegal sites offer tunes a la carte, many in the industry believe they'll make albums less important by putting the focus on catchy singles. Eno and Gabriel both suggested they'd welcome a chance to make songs that stand alone. "I'm an artist who works incredibly slowly," Gabriel said. "If some of those (songs) could be made available, you don't have to be so trapped into this old way of being confined only by the album cycle." The former Genesis singer and World Music promoter is interested in putting multiple versions of the same song online. He's also looking forward to being able to hear unfinished music from other artists. "We tend at the moment ... to try to find a moment when a song is right. You stick the pin in the butterfly and put it in the box and you sell the box," he said. "Music is actually a living thing that evolves." More > |
| ARCH ENEMY | 1 comment |
 26 Jan 2004 @ 11:04ARCH ENEMY By MEGAN LEHMANN January 22, 2004 LAST February, Morgan Spurlock decided to become a gastronomical guinea pig. His mission: To eat three meals a day for 30 days at McDonald's and document the impact on his health. Scores of cheeseburgers, hundreds of fries and dozens of chocolate shakes later, the formerly strapping 6-foot-2 New Yorker - who started out at a healthy 185 pounds - had packed on 25 pounds. But his supersized shape was the least of his problems. Within a few days of beginning his drive-through diet, Spurlock, 33, was vomiting out the window of his car, and doctors who examined him were shocked at how rapidly Spurlock's entire body deteriorated. "It was really crazy - my body basically fell apart over the course of 30 days," Spurlock told The Post. His liver became toxic, his cholesterol shot up from a low 165 to 230, his libido flagged and he suffered headaches and depression. Spurlock charted his journey from fit to flab in a tongue-in-cheek documentary, which he has taken to the Sundance Film Festival with the hopes of getting a distribution deal. "Super Size Me" explores the obesity epidemic that plagues America today - a sort of "Bowling for Columbine" for fast food. As well as documenting his own burger-fueled bulk-up, Spurlock travels to 20 cities across America, interviewing people on the street, health experts and a lobbyist for the fast-food industry. Despite making dozens of phone calls, Spurlock fails to get anyone from McDonald's to agree to an on-camera interview. A spokeswoman for McDonald's told The Post yesterday that no representatives from the corporation had seen "Super Size Me." "Consumers can achieve balance in their daily dining decisions by choosing from our array of quality offerings and range of portion sizes to meet their taste and nutrition goals," McDonald's said in a statement. Over the course of the film, Spurlock is regularly examined by a gastroenterologist, a cardiologist and SoHo-based general practitioner Dr. Daryl Isaacs. "He was an extremely healthy person who got very sick eating this McDonald's diet," Dr. Isaacs told The Post. "None of us imagined he could deteriorate this badly - he looked terrible. The liver test was the most shocking thing - it became very, very abnormal." Spurlock has since returned to normal health. "The treatment was to just stop doing what he was doing," Dr. Isaacs says. Spurlock, who says he ate at McDonald's only sporadically before his total immersion in the Mickey D's menu, says he even began craving fat and sugar fixes between meals. "I got desperately ill," he says. "My face was splotchy and I had this huge gut, which I've never had in my life. "My knees started to hurt from the extra weight coming on so quickly. It was amazing - and really frightening." Spurlock's girlfriend, Alex Jamieson, was horrified - she's a vegan chef. "She was completely disgusted by me, not happy at all," he says. "But she realized what my goals were in trying to educate people." Spurlock, a film producer who grew up in West Virginia and studied ballet for eight years, was spurred to make his first feature film while watching TV on Thanksgiving Day, 2002. "I was feeling like a typical American on Thanksgiving - very bloated and happy on the couch - and at some point on the news they were talking about two women who were suing McDonald's. "People from the food industry were saying, 'You can't link kids being fat to our food - our food is nutritious.' "I said, 'How nutritious is it really? Let's find out." Not surprisingly, Spurlock has steered clear of the Golden Arches since filming wrapped. "I have not had McDonald's for seven months, but yesterday, during an interview, I had a bite of a Big Mac," he says. "I chewed it up, swallowed it and I said, 'You know what, I'm pretty much done after that bite.' " More > |