Disquiet

• Why is the Dyson Ball vacuum cleaner not called the Dyson Sphere: Missed opportunity? Copyright issue? In-joke? #
• Watched 3 Days of the Condor last night for the first time. Seriously reconsidering my lack of attention to Dave Gruisin. #
• Listening from living room to early-morning traffic; wondering what would be the loudest sound in the house if I got a quieter fridge. #
• Yow, another fight on my MUNI bus route — a drunk passenger beating up on the driver before running off. #
• Happiness is a People Under the Stairs instrumental slowed in the Sonorasaurus app with echo decay and delay on at the highest level. #
• Glenn Branca, former noise hero; now, based on this NYT piece, oddly uninformed curmudgeon: http://bit.ly/6d6oE7 via @jdkun & @jesshopp #
• Morning sounds: internal HVAC, passing airplanes, and nearby motorcycles — together in perfect harmony. #
• Just drove 25 straight blocks on Geary Blvd (in San Francisco) with green lights the whole way, a first. Bonus: not a single honk. #
• Very much appreciating the recent addition of favicons to Google Reader. #
• RIP, Don Voegeli (b. 1920), composer of one of the most-recorded melodies: All Things Considered theme http://is.gd/52FbJ http://is.gd/52FcA #
• There's nothing like coming home to a box full of books from MIT Press. #
• Now I understand what the SoundCloud DropBox is for. Mine's at http://soundcloud.com/disquiet — thanks for the explanation, @mrbiggsdotcom #
• There's something distinctly civilized about page proofs, even in the age of the emailed PDF attachment. #
• Enough helicopters overhead to form a small chamber ensemble. #
• Vinyl LP sales up: "$57 million in sales in 2008, … double the previous year and the best for the format since 1990": http://is.gd/51UKy #
• Saw movie '(Untitled)' w/ Adam Goldberg as avant-sound composer. Great David Lang score. Funny in-jokes. Not sure it has a point of view. #
• The passing helicopter is a rock band. The humble office is a speaker with a rattling tweeter. (Pun acknowledged but unintended.) #
• Pitch control is nice, but I wish my Buddha Machines had a switch to simulate the effect of near-dead batteries. #
• Just remembered that last night I dreamed I found the complete tab for all of Billy Childish in a bookstore & intended then to buy a guitar. #
• RIP, Jeanne-Claude (b. 1935), flame-haired partner and wife of immersive installation artist Christo. #
• Tristan Perich's forthcoming gadget-in-a-CD-jewel-box maybe not the wisest thing to pull out of your bag on a plane: http://is.gd/50vqf #

By Marc Weidenbaum