Semes

tobias c. van Veen's Hearing Difference: The Seme is now online. Good stuff from the space where culture and sound intertwine.

more too on the "vicious speed of the blogworld".

With the introduction of AOL, I think we're going to see... well: let's think. While maybe this will spurn the same online energy that propelled the "everybody should have a homepage era" (which led to such increased dot-com speculation, for one thing), I also think the speed at which the massive accumulation of blogs will slow down the whole operation will be increased. Thus the entire blog phenomenon will crash & burn much faster than even the dot-bomb. Which is too bad--because for years I've been toiling away on the Net without feeling much response anymore. Netnumbness. Mailing lists are still the best bet, but "online communities" like Rhizome.org have failed to create a cohesive connectability--in part because the digerati have been somewhat resistant to such attempts (perhaps the bitterness over previous online communal failures still rings to close). But blogging is reversing that trend. In only just under two weeks of getting my feet wet in the blogworld, the response has been exponential. I guess the responsibility now lies on me to keep up with the pace.

And yes its true the blogsphere does seem to reward the frequent posters (hence the success of the odious Instapundit). But quality gets rewarded far more. Like in music, "faster!, faster!" can only go so far before some slows it down and concentrates on making it good. One quality post a week should keep any blog alive.

As for AOL introducing blogs. Gets a shrug from me. Don't think it will change a thing. Its another isolated live journal world. Blogs will outlast most failed online communities because they don't try and be communities. All it takes is one person to make a blog. More then that though, blogs allow for a far greater degree of subtly and nuance to develop then say mailing lists or bulletin boards. That's why you don't see the rapid acceleration of disagreements into shouting matches that plagues email lists. Well its part of the reason.

and yeah, reading tobias' site has got me back to listening to electronic music for the first time in months. An old mix of his from 2000 fills my headphones right now, premium techno styles. [warning RealAudio].

Also in rotation, a downtempo mix from by an old friend dijon. The problem with many ambient mixes is they try really hard to sound like they were recorded on a train following the silk road. Dijon's mix actually was done on his laptop as he crossed China, a far better proposition.

Finally to make it three, Andy Weatherhall's Hypercity is quite possibly my favorite mix of all time. I usually not one for smooth, but this one I can taste in my mouth, sublime.