Saturday, June 10, 2006

Conversational Highlight, Mashuptasticness

INT. SWANKY BAR - EVENING

Tabby Rabbit, LC, M. and I are having a valedictory drink (non-alcoholic mojitos, mmm) to see TR on her way to Boston, Mass., where she'll be setting up the US division of our company.

Tabby Rabbit: ...and there's just so much going on over there, technology-wise, and there's MIT, and there's Harvard, and our new office is actually on Harvard Square, so we'll be right in the middle of it...

Me: Our new office is on Harvard Square? Wow, that's cool.

LC: You're a company director! How can you not know these things?

Me: Mainly because I live in a complete fantasy world.

[Pause]

Me: Things not to say to the staff: 'I live in a complete fantasy world and have no idea what's going on'.

[Pause]

LC: Did you just call me 'the staff'?

Me: Things not to say...


This conversational highlight was partly brought to you by Luke Enlow*'s tip-top 'now with hands-in-the-air breakdown section' version of Apeboy's Smack My Bitch Up/Orinoco Flow mashup, which is *just* the thing to be listening to indoors with the blinds down on the hottest day of the year when you're trying to write 5,000 words about the death of the culture industry while everyone else is waiting for the football to start:

Apeboy - Enya vs. Prodigy (Lenlow Edit) (mp3) - thanks to James for that one.

(MASH)UPDATE**: This J-Lo/Nirvana/Stevie Wonder one is also outstanding***, and I command you to play it at all your summer barbecues:

Lenlow - J-Lo vs K-Co vs S-Wo (mp3)


* Who, as it turns out, also hails from Boston, Mass. This isn't the first time that's happened, either. Spooky musico-geographical coincidences abound on this blog. Sinister!

** Sorry.

*** [About 87 listens later...] Where by 'outstanding' I mean possibly the GREATEST TUNE EVER, with the GREATEST INTRO EVER. Ahem.


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17 comments:

James Henry said...

When I worked in a factory, the big fat Brummie owner openly referred to us Cornish employees as 'the cabbages'. I'd like to say we got revenge by pooing in his car, but sadly we were so monged out by fumes, this kind of thing never occured to us. So perhaps he had a point.

evenstar said...

Apeboy's Smack My Bitch Up/Orinoco Flow mashup,

Love it! Thank YOU patroclus!

I used to have an employer who'd introduce me with "... he's a good unit." As in unit of production... I gave up employers not long after that.

patroclus said...

Oppressed Cornish Proletariat Ignite Violent Bloody Revolution In Pot-Pourri Factory!

"I love the smell of dried rose petals in the morning" - Friedrich Engels.

patroclus said...

Also, hello evenstar. It's great, isn't it? Plenty more where that came from - on the Lenlow site there. Hurrah for top-quality mashups, etc.

Billy said...

Ooh that mashup is well good!

Instead of staff what about minions?

James Henry said...

Ah now, that was a different factory - this was the electronics factory where I spent two years making recording tapeheads for the Turkish Underground (the public transportation system, not a political movement). Great days.

patroclus said...

I think I heard the Turkish Underground's remix of the Postal Service's remix of Baudrillard's cover of 'Bastard Pop Will Eat Itself' by the Postmodern Lovers.

Gosh, it's hot today.

patroclus said...

I think 'minions' is probably my favourite overall, although I'm intrigued by Interpreter P's suggestion of 'Siobhan'. I could start calling LC 'Siobhan' and see how it worked out. Quite confusingly, I should imagine, as we already have a colleague called Siobhain.

And that second one is indeed ace. Who'd have thought that Nirvana and Stevie Wonder would go together quite so brilliantly? That Lenlow chappie is a genius.

ScroobiousScrivener said...

You have a company that's launching a US division, with an office on Harvard Square, and instead of impressed "ooh" noises the comments are full of (admittedly very good) synonyms for "minions". This blog is just too darn English.

Luckily, being a loud Saffer, I feel no such compunction and can make "oooh!" noises on behalf of the rest.

Ooooooh!

patroclus said...

Ahh, thank you! It's actually all quite exciting. However, being British (if not exactly English), I shall refrain from hugging anyone, punching the air or going on about it. In any case, I'm the one that gets to stay and hold the fort in London, while Tabby Rabbit is really the 'oooh'-worthy one.

Wyndham said...

Excellent mashups, indeed.

Why does it just feel so wrong when I write the word mashups.

patroclus said...

Because it's the kind of word that only people under the age of 19 should be allowed to use?

ScroobiousScrivener said...

Oops. Rude "British" vs "English" faux pas there. Let's hope this is one of those things that can be excused via one or a combination of the "she's only a bloody forruner, she doesn't know any better" and "she's only an online acquaintance, she doesn't know [me] any better" defences. Yes? ;)

Still going "oooh!", btw. Deeply envious and admiring. Puts my little knitting site into perspective, rather.

patroclus said...

No worries at all, Scroob - technically I'm sort of half Scottish, half English, but I don't actually feel like I'm either. 'British' works for me!

patroclus said...

IP: A mashup in music terms is when someone takes parts (e.g. the vocals) of one song and digitally superimposes them on other parts (e.g. the bassline) of other songs. Sometimes they sound clunky and awful, and sometimes they're so well done that they make better songs than any of the originals involved.

Mashup is also a software term that means taking bits of something one software application does, and mixing it up with bits of things another software application does, to make a third, terribly trendy application.

It probably means lots of other things too.

Moominmama said...

thank you for expanding my musical education. personally i'm rather partial to the enya one!

and well done on the new branch office! Hahvahd Squayah zip codes are some highly sought-after real estate. (I used to work there myslef, back in the day.)

Moominmama said...

ps. "peons." my personal fave.