Going to try to include article-enhancing back-ground music more often. It's an appropriate soundtrack to some thought provoking ideas I try to bring to light.
Sufjan Stevens & Gift of Gab - " The Dress Looks Nice on You / Make You Feel That Way"
Listening? Good. Now. What the heck is this?
This is the Rosetta Disk: 13,500 pages of data - in 1,500 languages - etched on a 3" disc. To see each page individually you will need a 500x microscope. What is the point of this? Good question.
The smart folks over at The Long Now Foundation concern themselves with archiving relevant information and they take their charge very seriously indeed. The Rosetta Project has predicted that "fifty to ninety percent of the world's languages will disappear in the next century, many with little or no significant documentation." So, they took it upon themselves to preserve a record of these languages and the fruits of those efforts are now glimmering into your eyeballs right now.
The data is, furthermore, mounted beneath a glamorous glass hemisphere. When you open the case and lift out the disk, there is a space underneath which holds a strip of stainless and a stylus to allow each generation who owns that Rosetta disk to mark down their ownership.
Anyways. Do you find yourself liking the mash-up?
The music comes from Montreal-based producer Tor, who has mashed up Sufjan Stevens and various RAP artists on an album entitled "Illinoize." It's available as a free download HERE. Everyday I wake up and pray to the Universe that Sufjan will go into studio and release a full-length album, state-themed or otherwise. But this mash-up is beautiful and will hold me over a little while longer.
Have a listen to this next mash-up which has got one of my favorite lyricists Aesop Rock. It's eerie how perfectly Aesop Rock's rhythmic word-craft flows with Sufjan's virtuoso orchestration.
Sufjan Stevens & Aesop Rock - "Star of Wonder / None Shall Pass"
Catch ya' later, mon ami.
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