Matt Cahill's blog
I should note that I’ve contributed a few pieces of work to an innovative website, called Ryeberg. The conceit of the site is user-contributed curated YouTube videos, narrated by personal essays on a variety of topics. I am in revision-mode currently, but when my stuff gets posted, I’ll let you know. In the meantime, feel free to visit.
My friend, Charles Spearin, has released an innovative CD he calls “The Happiness Project“. The gist of it is that he began to interview his neighbours and recorded their conversations. Attuned to the tonality of how people expressed themselves he got the idea to replace the voices of his interviewee’s with musical instruments which mimicked each person’s voice pattern. The result is a unique (and very approachable) experiment which weaves voice, instrumentation, and environmental background sounds (birds, etc..). You may know Charles’ other projects, namely Broken Social Scene or Do Make Say Think. If you’re interested, please check out the site for “The Happiness Project” and see what he’s up to.
—–
UPDATE: Thanks to everyone for their feedback on this. It’s a contentious issue and I’ll probably shelve it until further notice. I appreciate your points of view.
—–
When I first envisioned this blog, I had it in my mind that it would be a potpourri of thoughts and feelings, curated with an eye to people of reasonable intelligence and cultural curiosity – with photographs too.
While it hasn’t veered off-course too much, I’ve found that ‘imaginary magnitude’ has become popular for the book reviews, which, owing to evolution, it seems have been the most prodigious type of posting. (As for the photographs, I’m still trying to get some quality scanning time – my scanner broke a while ago, leaving only my wife’s, and it’s hooked up to her computer, and I tripped over first base after my dog ate my shoelaces, blah blah blah).
So, lately, I’ve been wondering whether I should – with all aesthetic considerations taken into account – consider ads on the blog. Those Amazon-y things you see on other sites whenever they mention a book. Yes? No? Ambivalence? Do you find them invasive? Would you be offended by an ad in the margins or click-throughs that would enable people to purchase the books I’m reviewing directly?
I’m torn. I’m torn because I generally prefer to buy books locally at independent booksellers. That said, not everyone visiting my site lives in a major metropolitan area that allows for the cultivation of said booksellers. And hey, I can make a couple of bucks on the side for my time.
Let me know what you think – I’ll start a poll in the margin as well, in case you’re unable to type.
