Author Archives: skierpage

About skierpage

As you might guess, my site is mine. My Schema.org info is at .

art: Serra “Band” broke me

Posted on 2024-04-23 by skierpage

I unexpectedly met Richard Serra’s Band again, at LACMA; surely one of his greatest. I was sad at the great man’s[*] death in 2024, but walking around and through its spaces one more time left me collapsed and sobbing. Museum … Continue reading →

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web: sometimes it’s not a typo

Posted on 2024-02-15 by skierpage

Anomie & Bonhomie is an underrated Scritti Politti album, the rapping and scratching and turntable noises put some fans off. “Umm” is a phenomenal everything-but-the-kitchen-sink track, and “Tinseltown to the Boogiedown” just oozes style. Don’t call me Shirley, Lee Both … Continue reading →

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web: spammers copying my pages

Posted on 2024-02-07 by skierpage

Someone found my post about my legendary Herman-Miller Levity standing desk and added a comment asking about operating manuals for it. When I searched (using DuckDuckGo) for manuals Herman-Miller “Levity standing desk”, it returned my post, but also found bogus … Continue reading →

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music: questions and comments for Michael Omartian and Rick Beato

Posted on 2024-02-07 by skierpage

Rick Beato has a great interview with Michael Omartian, a funny thoughtful guest who’s a fine producer, arranger, and keyboard player. At 50:00 Rick references “the SNL skit with Michael McDonald where he was singing on everything at that point.” … Continue reading →

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there aren’t civilizations more advanced than us nearby

Posted on 2024-01-10 by skierpage

The Fermi paradox is brutal and sad. Civilizations in the Milky Way more advanced than us us seem vanishingly unlikely. The Milky Way galaxy is only 90,000 light years across. So any civilization that managed to reach our level on … Continue reading →

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music: CHIC appreciation part 42

Posted on 2023-12-21 by skierpage

Great to see Jack Stratton acknowledging the Titans of funk R&B, Nile Rodgers and Bernard Edwards (RIP) of CHIC, in his Don’t Steal This Groove music production video. He recreates their chucking guitar sound and clear bass. But I’ve been … Continue reading →

Posted in music | 3 Comments

web: multimedia killed by far worse videos

Posted on 2023-12-09 by skierpage

Video now consumes most Internet bandwidth. But video is terrible for imparting information about… stuff on web pages, or for teaching me about music. Videos that scroll through web pages It is nuts that in order to read about, say … Continue reading →

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demise of the open web, yet again

Posted on 2023-12-09 by skierpage

More handwringing over how the web has gotten worse. There have always been lots of The Web is Dead articles – here’s one from 2010!, but Denny Vrandečić mentioned more recent ones in a great Facebook post, including Why the … Continue reading →

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eco: no recycling needed if you never buy

Posted on 2023-11-12 by skierpage

Hey cunning linguists, what’s the German word for “Fear of buying something new because that would still leave you with the old thing that kind of works as well and it’s not eco to just throw it out so you … Continue reading →

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music: “new” Beatles songs will never end

Posted on 2023-11-10 by skierpage

“Now and Then” is sweet and has a good backstory, but this is not the last Beatles song. 2024: Sean Lennon finds a tape of his dad whistling a fragmentary tune and muttering a few lines. The remaining Beatles and … Continue reading →

Posted in AI, music | 1 Comment