Posts Tagged: music

Mobile: What is the best / most beautiful / most innovative / most creative use of a mobile phone recently?

Posted by & filed under moleskine to mobile.

Eight years ago, I conducted a survey on the creative use of mobile devices by creative professionals, which became the research base for my Masters thesis: Moleskine to Mobile.

But that was 8 whole years ago, which in mobile or technology time was practically before the dawn of Mammals. In the last few years, it seems many people have settled into the mobile version of humdrum suburbia: iPhone photos uploaded to Instagram, sharing updates to Facebook, making a video of one’s favorite pet/child/drunkfriend and uploading it to YouTube, or just letting others do it while one watches, etc.

Much like any supposed boring suburbia, there has got to be something interesting going on behind the facade of your mobile’s casing…

People! What is the best and/or most interesting, innovative, beautiful, creative use of a mobile that you have done, seen, heard of, have a link to in the last few months or year? Even if what you think is not really that interesting, but you haven’t told anyone else you are doing it, let me know.

Yes, you, photographer, artist, DJ, musician, banker, teacher, couch potato, maker, creator, builder, I am talking to you. Don’t be shy. If it isn’t you, then tell me about your creative friend. If it is you, share what you have been up to with your mobile. Doesn’t matter if it is a smartphone, feature phone, or super basic phone…

2014 – Let me know. Post the link to your or someone you know of’s creative/innovative activity with there mobile phone. Comment here or tweet a link to me @msjen.

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Nokia Connects has a fun program / award called MVC – Most Valued Connector (which really should be Most Valued Creative), wherein a group of us nominate folks who are doing cool and amazing things with their Nokia Lumia mobile phones or helping folks connect in some way thereof.

On top of wanting to see what y’all have been up to with any mobile phones, if you or a friend is doing some cool, creative stuffs with their Nokia Lumia phone, please send me the link so that I can recommend them for a nomination.

Y’all rock!

RIP Amy

Posted by & filed under news + events.

Yesterday about 2pm, I was waiting on someone and decided to check my Twitter stream on my mobile, when I saw that singer Amy Winehouse had been found dead.
Russel Brand describes why best in ‘For Amy‘:

“When you love someone who suffers from the disease of addiction you await the phone call. There will be a phone call. The sincere hope is that the call will be from the addict themselves, telling you they’ve had enough, that they’re ready to stop, ready to try something new. Of course though, you fear the other call, the sad nocturnal chime from a friend or relative telling you it’s too late, she’s gone.
Frustratingly it’s not a call you can ever make it must be received. It is impossible to intervene.”

While I did not know Ms. Winehouse, I have had that phone call a few too many times. Over the years, more than a fair share of the highly talented artists, musicians, and writers I have know have fallen down the black hole of addiction.
Todd died. Jimmy shipwrecked his life on the siren singing razor rocks of heroin. Others woke up years later and we got the call that they were stopping. Years eaten by the locusts, not to be rewound, but now alive and trying to thrive.
I truly would have wished Ms. Winehouse had woken up one day and decided that she wanted to start on the long, hard road to recovery and sobriety rather than being found dead. But what is done is done.
Ms. Winehouse, thank you for all the heart and soul you put into your music and shared with us. I truly hope you have found peace, rather than just oblivion.

Goodbye Malcolm, and Thanks for All the Punk Rocks

Posted by & filed under ideas + opinions, news + events.

Signing of the Sex Pistols record deal in front of Buckingham Palace

Thurs 04.08.10 – Fare the well to Mr. Malcolm McLaren. Thank you, kind sir, for many years of hijinx, punk rocks, and making London new & sexy after the great 30 plust years of post-Empire & WWII hangover.
I first was exposed to the fruits of Malcolm’s mind & labors in 1981 when I was a wee 13 year old going through some tough family times. I spent most of the end of 1981 and all of 1982 lamenting that I was 5 years too young to have experienced the punk revolution in 1976 in London or Los Angeles myself. So, I did the next best thing, I jumped into OC/LA’s music scene in 1982 as a fresh, idealistic 14 year old.
As an adult, I can now appreciate the trickster, rebel, and calculated businessman that Mr. McLaren was. And I still have a fondness for red haired men in plaid…

Happy 10th Anniversary to Alex’s Bar!

Posted by & filed under fun stuff, news + events.



Video by Ms. Jen with a Nokia N97.

Thurs 01.28.10 – This weekend is Alex’s Bar’s 10th Anniversary weekend, in celebration Alex and I (Ms. Jen) did the above video to cover what the article in The District did not and for Alex to extend a big Thank You to all of the folks who have made 10 Years of Alex’s Bar possible.
Alex’s has a great line up of shows to say ‘Thank you, Long Beach, for a great decade of Alex’s Bar!’:
Fri, Jan 29, 2010 – Alex’s Bar 10 Year Anniversary Show – The Adolescents, Riverboat Gamblers, John Doe, Blockage – $15
Sat, Jan 30, 2010 – Alex’s Bar 10 Year Anniversary Show – Riverboat Gamblers, Throw Rag, Mike Watt and the Secondmen, Werewolf – $15
See you at Alex’s Bar’s this weekend!

The Oh So Frighteningly Suckage of the Quicksand of an Internet Blackhole

Posted by & filed under fun stuff.

Oh The Glorious or Infamous Internet Black Holes, we have all fallen down one. If you are lucky they only last for 15 – 30 minutes, if you are unlucky or lucky depending on the situation, one can get sucked in for HOURS.
The problem with the internet (or InnerToobz) is that one can start in one place, legitimately, and click on a link or get curious about something mentioned on the original page and then, and then, And Then, AND THEN…. One is many, many, many clicks away from the place you started.
One can see an internet black hole as a voyage of discovery, or surfing the waves of curiosity, or just plain fallen down a hole that not even Alice could have fallen down.
Now, I try to limit my internet black holes to the evening after I have finished work. And I love a good Internet Black Hole*******.
Tonight’s Black Hole started by my daily reading of my friends who are participating in NaBloPoMo or NaVloPoMo:

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