MIDI Users' Group performance

MIDI Users' Group performs at an electronic music event, Oscillate:Pittsburgh 2017 [YouTube]

Travis Hallenbeck tweeted: "my set in Pittsburgh was described by the organizer as like being stuck in an office"

On the other hand, it was kind of refreshing not seeing an Apple laptop or a rack of modular gear. These not-quite-ancient MIDI devices have their own unique sound and seem to have their own mind. Hallenbeck treats them like a flock of erratic sheep, letting them go where they will and savoring their little bleeps and hums as events in themselves. The caretaker approach to (dis)organized sound.

Found art of the day

godzillaFW

Here's a homemade clip of the end credits of Godzilla: Final Wars.
This could be Jean-Luc Godard doing Leni Riefenstahl, as interpreted by Junior in his mom's basement, using a phone to film a laptop. As the camera shakes and struggles to stay centered (difficult when filming widescreen in "extreme portrait" mode), Mom can be heard off camera yelling at Junior to pay attention to her.
The credits are a series of "money shot" clips of monsters flying, fighting, and screaming in rage, close-ups of anxious human faces (that you saw earlier in the movie), people fighting in space suits, and choreographed explosions.
This exciting montage (rolled over by credit-text) is accompanied by a rather haunting symphonic synthesizer score by prog rock titan Keith Emerson. (He said in an interview that only a portion of the music he wrote for the film was used, but this is intact, apparently.) The scale-climbing classical crescendos, in an earlier era, might be written with the same intensity by a composer such as Tchaikovsky to commemorate a major battle. The sound quality on Junior's phone is good enough to pick up most of the musical bravado while the action mayhem is being savored.

Godzilla: Final Wars (2004) is an almost note-perfect continuation of the '60s Japanese monster tradition of Destroy All Monsters. There's almost nothing in it to tell you it wasn't made in 1968.

Seamless Connectivity (OptiDisc version)

Rene Abythe made a video, reposted here (6 MB .mp4), depicting the OptiDisc gif as a portal to time and space, which you can have on the dashboard of your car, along with your connections to Twitter and Facebook. In states where it's illegal to text while driving, you can journey into a wormhole to other universes. At least, your mind can, as your body flies through the windshield and your car mows down innocent pedestrians. No different than what would happen, really, if you were checking your friends' statuses at 60 per.