Tall Cuppa Joe M Muussiinnggss oonn M Otthheerr M Miisshh--M Muussiicc aanndd O Maasshh TCJ 2.1

Jan 2K7

Three Kings Day Many of you already know that my grandmother is Puerto Rican (making me a “quarter-rican”). It has come up in holiday conversations how customs are different here in the US, as opposed to how it was in Puerto Rico. In many Hispanic cultures, Christmas is not a day of gift-giving and revelry. Christmas is spent at the church, and there is a special Mass. It is a solemn and sacred occasion. These cultures, however, are not without their own celebration of giving. January 6 is El Dia de los Reyes, the Day of the Kings, and commemorates the presentation of gifts by the Three Wise Men to the baby Jesus. In Puerto Rico, it is a tradition for children to put a box (or their shoes!) underneath their bed filled with grass or hay for the Kings’ camels, so that the Kings will be generous with their gifts. This is analogous to children leaving mince pies or cookies and milk out for Father Christmas in Western Europe and the US. If you grow up in a home of mixed cultural heritage, you often get the best of both worlds, and get gifts at Christmas AND on Three Kings Day. Err, I mean, you get to give gifts on both occasions… So if you’ve always thought you should give gifts once the stores are having their post-Christmas clearances, you’ve got a very legitimate alternative. You can take advantage of all the deals, and you get to extend the holiday season 5 days longer than most others. What’s not to like?

TOC Three Kings Day: More Presents!!! Recipe: Rosca de los Tres Reyes Op-Ed: The MPAA and RIAA want your firstborn child in exchange for media DRM-less MP3s from Record Labels? Venn Diagrams Editor’s Thoughts Serving Suggestion Off Site: Musical Discovery with Pandora and LAUNCHcast Quick Trick on XP

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Rosca de los Tres Reyes Three Kings Cake This traditional Mexican cake is served for the children's festivity of All Kings' Day. Traditionally a tiny infant clay doll was placed inside the cake to symbolize the coming of the baby Jesus. In this recipe we use an almond to symbolize the infant, but you can certainly use a doll. This cake is traditionally in a ring shape and coated with candied fruit and powdered sugar. Ingredients ½ cup warm 1% lowfat milk (105ºF - 115ºF) 1 Tbsp. active dry yeast ½ cup granulated sugar 2 cups flour 1 stick (½ cup) butter or margarine softened 1 Tbsp. freshly grated orange peel

1 tsp. freshly grated lemon peel ¼ tsp. salt 2 large eggs plus yolks from 3 large eggs, at room temperature 1/3 cup each dried currants, golden raisins, chopped mixed candied fruits and chopped candied cherries 1 whole unblanched almond

Frosting ¼ tsp. vanilla extract 1 ½ cups confectioners' sugar Decoration: chopped mixed candied fruit 2 ½ Tbsp. 1% lowfat milk

Directions: Grease a 10 cup bundt pan. Put milk in a small bowl or a 4-cup measuring bowl. Sprinkle yeast over milk and stir in 1 tsp. of the sugar. Whisk to dissolve yeast, then whisk in ½ cup of the flour until smooth. Cover with plastic wrap and let rise in a warm, draft-free place 15 minutes or until doubled in volume. Meanwhile, in a large bowl with mixer on high speed, beat butter, remaining sugar, citrus peels, vanilla and egg yolks beating until fluffy. On low speed, beat in yeast mixture and remaining 1 ½ cups flour until blended. Stir in fruits and the almond (or little doll). Scrape into prepared bundt pan, cover with plastic wrap and let rise in a warm, draft-free place 1¼ hours, or until doubled. Heat over to 375ºF. Bake 25 to 30 minutes until lightly browned and pick inserted near center of cake comes out clean. Cool in pan on a wire rack 10 minutes. Invert cake on rack, shaking pan sharply to release cake. Let cool completely. Icing: Whisk sugar, milk, and vanilla in a medium bowl until smooth. Place wire rack with cake on waxed paper. Spoon icing over cake, letting some run down sides. Transfer cake to serving plate, top with candied fruit.

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Op-Ed

Jerry Holkins of Penny-Arcade does more than just write the scripts for the comic strip. He also comments on any and all things relevant to the PA audience, namely gaming and technology. Again, PA isn’t for everyone, but they are the foremost gaming community on the interwebs and often offer timely, valuable, and, yes, humorous commentary and insight.

There was an article1 at the humor site BBSpot whose intensely satirical content was 2indistinguishable from real technology news. The piece suggested that the Motion Picture Association of America was pressing Congress for a bill that would regulate home theaters, requiring that fees be paid. There was some crap in there there about home theater equipment trying to "sense" how many people are watching a movie - some process using biometrics or motion sensors - that I simply considered some lurid boardroom fantasy. It is grotesque is how quickly I believed it, but I only did so because the scenario isn't that far fetched these days. I don't doubt that the desire is there, committed in floral script to some CEO diary. You know already about the CD-R Levy3 that operates in Canada, where writable media just costs more across the board because there exists in your black heart the desire to burn a mix CD. There was also a tax on mp3 players in general up there in the frigid north, until right thinking and decency obliterated it. The tax, that is, not "the north." I was just there, it seemed fine. Microsoft pays Universal whenever they sell a Zune. It's not a lot, but Universal made it a prerequisite for working with them. Squeezing even their "Three Days or Three Plays" out of these guys must have been like juicing granite. You've seen the quote from the Billboard article4, I'm assuming - the one about digital music players that goes like: "These devices are just repositories for stolen music, and they all know it," UMG chairman/CEO Doug Morris says. "So it's time to get paid for it." The other quote from them (that I'm having trouble finding, now) talks about how, since the Zune is based on "a foundation of music," they deserve to get pizaid. So you need to understand that these people are really and truly crazy. They imagine that their industry is not, as you might have thought previously, merely a conduit for a specific type of product. Rather, they believe that their industry is the avatar of music itself, and flush with this knowledge they gesture from their litter, seeking tribute. www.penny-arcade.com/2006/12/04#1165221360 1 www.bbspot.com/News/2006/11/home-theater-regulations.html 2 www.techdirt.com/articles/20061128/080742.shtml, 3 www.digitalhome.ca/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=913&Itemid=51, 4 billboard.com/bbcom/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003380831

Ain’t synchronicity great? I was sent the article below as I was tidying up the text above. Maybe the labels will understand that we don’t want their DRM, and that it only makes things worse. Here’s to hoping that’s the case. Major Labels to Offer Unrestricted MP3s (12/7/2006) apnews.myway.com//article/20061207/D8LRT7680.html By ALEX VEIGA After years of selling online music digitally wrapped with copy and playback restrictions designed to hinder piracy, major music labels are beginning to make some songs available in the unrestricted MP3 file format. The releases are part of an experiment to gauge demand for tracks that can be played on any digital music player capable of playing MP3s, one of the oldest music compression formats. Normally, copy-protected tracks are only playable on certain devices. By selling MP3s, recording companies can ensure they can be played on Apple Computer Inc.'s market-leading iPod players without going through Apple's iTunes Music Store. The latest such offering comes from singer Norah Jones and rock band Relient K, both signed to labels operated by Britain's EMI Music. Jones' "Thinking About You" and Relient K's "Must Have Done Something Right" - both from their forthcoming albums - went on sale for 99 cents each as MP3 downloads Tuesday via Yahoo Inc.'s online music service. Many artists, mostly with independent labels, have been selling music in the MP3 format for years. Dimensional Associates Inc.'s eMusic has sold nearly 100 million MP3 downloads to date. Still, major labels have been reluctant to follow suit. That is beginning to change, if slowly.

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Venn Diagrams are illustrations used in the branch of mathematics known as set theory. They show the mathematical or logical relationship between different groups of things (sets). A Venn diagram shows all the possible logical relations between the sets. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venn_diagram

We all learned about Venn Diagrams back in late elementary school or early junior high (excuse me, “middle school,” for the younger set). Basically, the concept was that you could have two distinct things that had shared characteristics. These shared characteristics were depicted by overlapping circles, with the overlap portion representing the shared characteristics (there are actually many creative ways to draw Venn diagrams, check the wiki for some examples). Back in January of last year, TCJ 1.2 included the mix Call and Answer: Couplets. The idea with that mix was to pair songs with many similarities, be it subject matter, style, etc. At the start of a new year of TCJ newsletters, I wanted to revisit this idea and am taking a similar, but different, approach to this mix. This time around, there are commonalities (titular or lyrical) between any song and each of the songs that immediately precede and follow it. However, these traits are common over only two songs at a time. Basically, what we’ve got here is a moving target of shared characteristics, kind of a relay race, as it were, or “twenty-one degrees of separation.” The Venn diagram for these songs, if drawn out, would look like a chain, more than anything else. I had a lot of fun assembling this mix. The music runs the gamut from rootsy (Tom Waits, John Hiatt, Tift Merritt) to flaky (No Doubt), and touches genres from jazz to alt country to 90’s alternative to power-pop to almost punk. Essentially, almost all the types of music you usually hear on my mixes will make an appearance on this mix, although often in unexpected ways. It might take a couple of listens to discern the correct connection between songs (then again, you’re a smart bunch of kids, so you might get them all the first time around).

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Don’t Speak − No Doubt

2.

What May Seem Like Love − Whiskeytown

3.

Walk Away − Dropkick Murphys

4.

The One I Love − R.E.M.

5.

You’re the Ocean − Teitur

6.

Walk on the Ocean − Toad the Wet Sprocket

7.

Walking in Memphis − Marc Cohn

8.

Memphis in the Meantime − John Hiatt

9.

In the Meantime − Spacehog

10. Just Like California − Old 97’s 11. Lullaby − Shawn Mullins 12. Golden Slumbers − The Beatles 13. Diamonds − Los Lonely Boys 14. Diamond Shoes − Tift Merritt 15. Blue Shoes − Katie Melua 16. Blue − The Jayhawks 17. Stay − Lisa Loeb 18. Wonderful − Adam Ant 19. Am I Wrong − Love Spit Love 20. Drive Away − All−American Rejects 21. Hot Rod Lincoln − George Thorogood 22. The Piano has been Drinking − Tom Waits “Squeaky Chalk Sound” font from www.anke-art.de

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Editor’s Thoughts Happy New Year! I hope the holiday season treated you well and was shared with family and friends. I am looking forward to 2K7 for a multitude of reasons, personally and professionally. Oh, and of course there will be new music to listen to and mix with. Speaking of mixes, I have a few more thoughts on some of the songs on this month’s mix. First of all, my apologies to subscriber LAB, who, I’m sure, cringed at the opening track of this mix. While I’m not a Gwen Stefani or No Doubt fan, I did enjoy this song in its heyday. Its message and sound spoke very directly to a situation in my own life. There are a lot of 90’s songs on this mix (and many of my other mixes, for that matter), reflecting the extra emotional currency that music holds for one in high school and college. For example, “Walking in Memphis” was the sleeper hit of the summer the year I got my driver’s license. Anything that was popular on the radio at that time in one’s life gains an extra bit of juice. I don’t think enough of you know about or appreciate Adam Ant. He is a brilliant, yet troubled artist. He hasn’t recorded anything for a number of years as he suffers from bipolar disorder. It’s quite a shame, because he’s done some really good work. Even if you don’t know “Wonderful,” the track on this collection, you’ve probably heard his “Goody Two Shoes,” an infectious bit of pop mastery from way back in 1982 (find it if you’ve never heard it before, I promise you’ll love it). Tom Waits is an American national treasure. I mentioned him last month when I suggested his 3-disc collection, Orphans, as a holiday gift for the discerning music fan in your life. “The Piano Has Been Drinking” is a wonderful piece of songwriting, surpassed only by Waits’ beautiful and evocative performance. If you can’t picture him sitting at a piano in a nearly empty, smoky bar, you just missed out when they were passing out imaginations. A great, great song. Another great American songwriter on this mix is John Hiatt. You’ve heard his songs before, but often by other artists (e.g. Bonnie Raitt’s cover of Hiatt’s “Thing Called Love”), including Bob Dylan, Paula Abdul, Willie Nelson, Three Dog Night, Jewel, and more. The combination of his rich, Americana voice and excellent songcraft has delighted music lovers for upwards of two decades. He was backed up by members of The North Mississippi Allstars on his latest album, 2005’s Master of Disaster. I recommend his Greatest Hits: The A&M Years ’87-’94 as a starting point. I also have a request. It has been suggested by many of you that I put together a mix of songs by people and bands that I know personally. While I know a few people who are/were in bands, I don’t know enough for an entire CD. I’ve been out of undergrad for almost 10 years, guys. There aren’t that many people my age that still dabble in garage bands. So, if you have a CD or some mp3s from a friend’s band, pick out some choice selections and shoot them my way. Together, hopefully we can get something together in the coming months. If you wouldn’t mind, please try to write up a brief paragraph about the artist(s) whose music you’re submitting. I think people will find the bios and stories interesting. So rustle up them songs, folks. Help out your musician friends and get their music to a new audience. Whilst enjoying your helping of Rosca de los Tres Reyes, I believe you’ll find café con leche (literally, coffee with milk) to be the prefect accompaniment. This espresso based beverage is 1 part Spanish coffee to 2 parts warm milk (although some use a 1:1 mixture), with a decent amount of sugar. It is strong, sweet, and hot. I grew up on this, so I try to make all my coffee into “Puerto Rican coffee.” We usually use Café Bustelo, but there are other brands. Be warned, you may never want to go back to regular coffee again. http://www.babalublog.com/archives/ThreeKings.jpg http://www.recipegal.com/mexican/library/recipes/blrr14.htm http://www.calendar-updates.com/Holidays/images/threek1.jpg

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Tools for Discovering Music You’ll Like I know that many of you listen to music online, and that many of you have turned to Pandora.com to provide this service. I’ll cut to an exerpt from an online Fortune1 article and catch up with you after the jump: In a few short years, Pandora has become the most efficient new-music discovery mechanism in history. That's not saying much, really. Consider the alternatives: scouring magazines for reviews, flipping through albums in the record store, listening to radio stations all play the same songs. At Pandora.com, you type in the name of a band or song and immediately begin hearing similar tunes that the site's recommender system - a.k.a. the Music Genome Project - has determined you'll enjoy. By rating songs and artists, you can refine the suggestions, allowing Pandora to create a truly personalized station. Unlike collaborative filtering engines, Pandora understands each song in its database. Forty-five analysts, many with music degrees, rank 15,000 songs a month on 400 characteristics to gain a detailed grasp of each. A former musician and film composer, founder Tim Westergren came up with the idea for Pandora while scoring movies for directors. "They weren't musicians, so no one was saying, 'I like minor harmonies and woodwinds,' " he says, leaning back in his chair at Pandora's Oakland headquarters.” So it was my job to figure out their musical taste. I developed a genome in my head, and would say, 'Okay, you like this song; do you like this one?'" Four million people now use Pandora the same way those directors used Westergren. To (make inferences from your likes and dislikes), the Music Genome Project combs through hundreds of thousands of songs and millions of pieces of user feedback. It's an impressive technological accomplishment. While I do not argue with many of the claims made in this article, I must take issue with the fact that the alternatives mentioned (magazines, radio, etc) don’t include Yahoo!Music’s LAUNCHcast service. I’ve been using LAUNCHcast since 2002. It works in similar fashion to Pandora, but with an even greater array of choices. For example, you can rate entire genres, as well as rate a song from 1 to 5 stars, rather than the stark thumbs-up or thumbs-down choices on Pandora. I’ve been giving Pandora a go for the past several weeks, and it does a pretty good job. However, it’s a bit of a stretch to say that it’s the only (much less, best) choice available for discovery of new music based on your likes and dislikes. I’ve got my LAUNCHcast station very well trained, so that it plays me a lot of songs that I’ve rated highly, as well as new songs and artists that I enjoy. I am impressed with the Musical Genome Project as a concept. And, perhaps, with time, I’ll find that Pandora does a better job than LAUNCHcast. One thing that it definitely does better is that it does not have commercials. There are ads on the webpage you use to interface with Pandora, but that is all. Yahoo! wants you to upgrade to LAUNCHcast Plus, offering higher fidelity, unlimited song skipping, and no commercials. I’m convinced that, to push you towards upgrading, they include the most annoying ads they can find. Everything from the maddening Vonage “whoo hoo” to their own inane set of ads is thrown at you, sometimes as often as every two songs. And speaking on skipping, LAUNCHcast limits the number of songs you can skip, as well as setting a total number of songs in a month you can hear before disabling the skip feature altogether. I’ve found no such limit with Pandora, so far. Pandora does have one very large perk. It seems that some smart kids have written some programs to automatically record the songs you hear on Pandora and convert them into mp3 files. You can even set this up as the default, with obvious implications for your digital music library. I discovered Pandora’s Jar, thanks to Lifehacker.com (which has clearly rocketed up the list of sites I visit frequently)2. They include the caveat that “We at Lifehacker do not condone or encourage music piracy. Pandora's Jar should be used only to determine if you like a song enough to buy it. If not, you should delete it.” So let me get this straight, if I like it, I should buy another copy. And if I don’t like it, I can keep it? Joking aside, thinking of it as a TiVo for your music might help ease your conscience. Or you can rationalize, as a friend and I did last year, that the music you download wasn’t stuff you were going to buy anyway, so no one lost any money… You can find my LAUNCHcast station via 360.yahoo.com/tallcuppajoe My Pandora station can be found at www.pandora.com/?sc=sh161714207431830804 1 2

money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune_archive/2006/11/27/8394347/index.htm www.lifehacker.com/software/pandora/download-of-the-day-pandoras-jar-windows-219114.php

Off Site

TTCCJJ 22..11 PPaaggee 66 Quick, what’s the fastest way to shut your PC down? If you’re running Windows XP, it’s surprisingly easy and quick. Using only three keystrokes, your PC will shut itself down (saving electricity and reducing your power bill, as well as your load on the petroleum-based energy supply). So, next time you want to shut down in a hurry, press á (“Windows,” or “start”), U, U, (no shift key, thank you) and, Yahtzee! your work is done. It’s a pretty nifty little trick that isn’t well known, even among IT professionals (I showed it to some of our computer guys at work and they hadn’t heard of it). As you’ve probably guessed, this tip came to my attention by lifehacker.com (although I can’t find the link just now), where they have these really fantastic “Productively Lazy” and “Geek to Live” shirts. Have I mentioned that my birthday is this month?...). http://shop.gawker.com/cgi-bin/shopper.cgi?preadd=action&key=lft02 http://shop.gawker.com/cgi-bin/shopper.cgi?preadd=action&key=lft01

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Header art was created by ravenloonatik and was found at http://my.opera.com/ravenloonatik/albums/showpic.dml?album=62499&picture=758761 Album art was found at http://www1.accsnet.ne.jp/~kentaro/origami/ringoforing.html

TallCuppaJoe Upper Holley, FL

32566-9753