Meet Hatsune Miku. The First Crowdsourced Pop Idol.

She has released over 100,000 songs and movies, driven tens of millions of YouTube hits, and plays sold-out live concerts.

She also isn't real.

She's Hatsune Miku, and she's a collective creation of a remarkably lifelike voice-synthesizing software by Yamaha called VOCALOID and thousands of fans around the world.

The software allows fans to write songs for Hatsune Miku, which she sings. Free software is also available to animate the songs.

 This video explains the movement that has grown up around this virtual idol.

 There's a fascinating article about the phenomenon at this link.

One of her songs from a concert in Tokyo attended by 160,000 fans.
I find this weird, hilarious, and sort of terrifying on a lot of levels all at once.

As the article explains,

Whatever your feelings about the artistry or technology of the MikuPa concert, the cultural importance of Hatsune Miku’s success shouldn’t be ignored. I can’t think of another virtual character that has enjoyed such a bizarre form of persistent stardom. The crowd-sourced aspect of her performances are key to understanding her long term impact. Virtual characters are available to consumers in a way that human pop stars will never be. You can own Hatsune Miku. You can put her in your home and make her sing. You can dedicate hours to creating a perfect song for her and share it with the world, becoming famous along the way and maybe making some money as well. She may be the next generation of media. Just as video killed the radio star, virtuality could kill the pop star. I’m really not sure at this point if characters like Hatsune Miku will claim a small sliver of the music world and stay on the fringe or if they’ll explode to conquer the globe.

I'm fascinated by the whole phenomenon of crowdsourcing. It's a revelation of the true power of the internet to make possible collective collaboration on a scale and at a depth completely impossible before now.

It is truly changing our world in ways that are utterly unprecedented, for good and for ill.

I'm currently working on a crowdsourced project of my own that I'll be revealing in the next few weeks. I hope that you'll join me in that experiment when it's ready to go.

P.

It's A Living.

From Wikipedia:
Cymothoa exigua, or the tongue-eating louse, is a parasitic crustacean of the family Cymothoidae. It tends to be 3 to 4 centimetres (1.2 to 1.6 in) long. This parasite enters through the gills, and then attaches itself at the base of the spotted rose snapper's (Lutjanus guttatus) tongue. It extracts blood through the claws on its front, causing the tongue to atrophy from lack of blood. The parasite then replaces the fish's tongue by attaching its own body to the muscles of the tongue stub. The fish is able to use the parasite just like a normal tongue. It appears that the parasite does not cause any other damage to the host fish.^[1] Once C. exigua replaces the tongue, some feed on the host's blood and many others feed on fish mucus. This is the only known case of a parasite functionally replacing a host organ.^[1]

 ^{Sometimes finding gainful employment requires thinking out of the box.}

^P.

The Joy of Poop.

So O. decided to turn the tables on Luciya.

O: Luciya, I think I'm going to call my poops Luciya!

Luciya: (running from the room) Mommy! Mommy!

Emily: What, Luciya?

L: (jumping up and down with excitement) Gwams is going to call her poops Luciya!

P.

Uh, Oh! This Explains A Lot, Too.

Pop-up ad on Salon.com today.















P.

Explains A Lot.

P.

Sixfinger!

Now back to the funny stuff.



P.

Too Late?

The times that I grew up in were, like all times, filled with inequities and injustices. The rich have always lived in a world of their own, insulated from and mostly indifferent to the economic necessities that loom so large for the other 99% of us. But it does seem that these days even the pretense that we're all in this together has fallen out of fashion among our owners, replaced with the Randian idea that everyone who isn't rich is a greedy parasite leeching off our betters.

This change in attitude is the subject of an article by one of the country's leading economists, Joseph Stiglitz, in Vanity Fair. I recommend the entire article, but here are some of the main points:

America’s inequality distorts our society in every conceivable way. There is, for one thing, a well-documented lifestyle effect—people outside the top 1 percent increasingly live beyond their means. Trickle-down economics may be a chimera, but trickle-down behaviorism is very real. Inequality massively distorts our foreign policy. The top 1 percent rarely serve in the military—the reality is that the “all-volunteer” army does not pay enough to attract their sons and daughters, and patriotism goes only so far. Plus, the wealthiest class feels no pinch from higher taxes when the nation goes to war: borrowed money will pay for all that. Foreign policy, by definition, is about the balancing of national interests and national resources. With the top 1 percent in charge, and paying no price, the notion of balance and restraint goes out the window. There is no limit to the adventures we can undertake; corporations and contractors stand only to gain.

America has long prided itself on being a fair society, where everyone has an equal chance of getting ahead, but the statistics suggest otherwise: the chances of a poor citizen, or even a middle-class citizen, making it to the top in America are smaller than in many countries of Europe. The cards are stacked against them.

Alexis de Tocqueville once described what he saw as a chief part of the peculiar genius of American society—something he called “self-interest properly understood.” The last two words were the key. Everyone possesses self-interest in a narrow sense: I want what’s good for me right now! Self-interest “properly understood” is different. It means appreciating that paying attention to everyone else’s self-interest—in other words, the common welfare—is in fact a precondition for one’s own ultimate well-being. Tocqueville was not suggesting that there was anything noble or idealistic about this outlook—in fact, he was suggesting the opposite. It was a mark of American pragmatism. Those canny Americans understood a basic fact: looking out for the other guy isn’t just good for the soul—it’s good for business. The top 1 percent have the best houses, the best educations, the best doctors, and the best lifestyles, but there is one thing that money doesn’t seem to have bought: an understanding that their fate is bound up with how the other 99 percent live. Throughout history, this is something that the top 1 percent eventually do learn. Too late.

I don't believe that it is too late, not yet. But it's going to take real leadership from politicians committed to something other than raising money from the rich and corporate interests to ensure their own re-election. And that only happens when people stand up and decided they've had enough.

P.

Our Three New Granddaughters Have Arrived!

 John is building a chicken coop in back of his house and its denizens have 

already made their appearance. Meet Shybone, Pokey, and Heena, 

our newest granddaughters.

P.

Everything Moves A Little Slower Here.

We're so used to spring appearing in mid-January and taking just a few weeks to reach full bloom, that Idaho is discombobulating our sense of time. Here it is mid-April and things are finally beginning to actually blossom. It's taken almost a month for the buds to open, and still many trees are still as bare as they were in January. It's a much more leisurely unfolding than we'd expected. We're definitely ready for it.

P.

It's Joe Albertson's Supermarket.

And it's just a block from our apartment.

It turns out that the memorable campaign referenced above 

was the idea of a Boise ad agency. Who knew?

P.

Growling Halibuts, Stomach Snakes, And Poops Named "Gwams.".

It's rare that we watch Luciya and Mirabel without being treated to some new expression of L's wild imagination. Last night, she decided that her sister was a "growling halibut." Later, she told me that I had to read her book louder because she couldn't hear very well. Why couldn't she hear? "Because I have a long black snake in my tummy." It's apparently a serious problem, because she later told us she was having trouble walking because there was a pink and purple snake in her tummy.

And she still hasn't forgotten that she wants to call her poops "Gwams." But this time she was clearer with her granny about why: "Because I love my poops, and I love you."

Sometimes life's just that simple and lovely.

P.

Back To Vietnam.

Part of getting new phones is letting go of the old phones. That's not usually difficult to do, but mine had been with me in Vietnam and had all my Vietnamese phone numbers in it. Not to mention several photos that I had never been able to transfer to my Mac. My old Sony phone came with PC-based sync software, and although I had managed to transfer a few photos initially, after that first time it didn't work. As a result, I had several irreplaceable photos on the phone that I despaired of ever being able to access. So when I switched phones, I asked the sales people if they could transfer the photos to my new phone. Of course they could, but nothing they tried seemed to work. At last one wise old tech-head was able to use Bluetooth to effect the transfer.

This is the only shot I have of the bottled water delivery man.
It was amazing how many bottles these guys could carry.

A particularly lovely dragon crowning the lintel above
the main entrance to a temple several blocks from our house.

The only shot I have of one of my favorite temples on busy Kim Ma street.

An especially creepy pair of maimed child mannequins
in front of a store on dear old Doi Can.

A man and his ladder. I actually have no idea why I took this shot.

We saw this old man squatting in his doorway almost every day.
He was toothless and clearly not all there, and I didn't want
to embarrass him (or myself) by obviously taking his picture,
but I managed one shot surreptitiously.
Not great quality, but a vivid memory of our old neighborhood.

We were out of town during Tet, so we missed all the celebrations,
but before we left I managed to get this shot.
These kumquat trees (and many other ornamental trees) are considered
good luck for the new year, so for a few weeks,
they're as ubiquitous as Christmas trees at Christmas in the U.S.
In fact, a really old tree can rent for up to $10,000
because of the luck it's supposed to bring.
Every business has some kind of tree, as well as most homes.
I used this shot as the wallpaper on my old phone.
I'll miss it.

P.

Getting Smart.

We finally did it. We took the next step into the 21st century and bought smartphones. We are giant Mac fans, but the price/performance of the Android platform was too compelling to pass up. Half the price of the latest iPhone and more capable, and 40% less a month for service than our old phones, the new phones will pay for themselves in just a few months. In the meantime, we'll be holed up playing with our new toys.

The Android of our eye.

P.

Chupacabra From La Habra.

I am in the process of reclaiming my creativity. It started with this blog, then started to include my photos, which I'm about to start marketing. I'm also about two-thirds of the way finished with a book about our time in Vietnam. I'm going to publish this on Kindle and also as an iBook that includes photos and the original blog. And I have a lot of other projects in various stages of completion.

I've been a little scared of doing all this, because what if it doesn't work. But screw that; I love doing it, so I'm going to do it. As I realized the other day, really, looking back at my career, what I've been able to earn from my creative work over the years makes me a very successful writer already.

As part of this process I'm trying to get my writing out there as much as possible--increasing the number of blog posts, etc. So when I saw a contest for a piece of spooky, kooky microfiction (500 words or less), I entered. I didn't win, but I had fun putting together this little story. I hope you enjoy it.

Chupacabra From La Habra

We really fucked up, mi carnal Danny and me.

It started with that pinche corpse apple pie abuelita Rose made for mi hermana Josie who was having female spells. Abuelita believes that old-time bruja shit. I didn’t used to.

A corpse apple pie is made with apples from a tree growing in a graveyard. But finding an apple tree in a cemetery ain’t easy. Not in La Habra, CA.

One day this old guy brought Abuelita a sack of apples. He looked about 400—a couple yellow teeth, droopy bloodshot eyes, mustache singed brown from smoking these sick-smelling hand-rolleds, sub-kmart plaid shirt and cowboy hat—“puro indio,” whispered Danny sarcastically.

Danny was imitating this guy’s geezer walk, and we’re laughing so hard we never saw him come out of the house. “Pinches changitos,” he muttered as he walked by.

Danny got pissed. “Vete a la chingada, you old fuck!”

The old guy waved his stick at us, spewing words and spit, and gimped off.

Later, a delicious burnt sugar, brown butter, and cinnamon smell lured us. Abuelita warned us off. “This pie is just for Jovita. Hands off.”

But we were hungry, and anything that was just for Josie just had to be fucked with. So when Abuelita watched her telenovelas, we grabbed the pie and ran.

That night I dreamed of being chased by a man, an indio, who was naked except for a cape of human skin with a man’s face attached. My face.

The next day, it was like my insides were drying up and rotting. I felt hollowed out and squishy, like a Halloween pumpkin that’s been sitting out on the porch for months. Danny did, too.

Abuelita shook her head. “It’s a maldicíon. You offended Señor Alucardo. And when a brujo gets offended, híjole! I can save your life, but now you belong to him.”

“And Danny?”

“There’s got to be a goat, a scapegoat. And, mijo, you have to do it. As a chupacabra.”

“I can’t suck Danny’s life.”

“He dies anyway. And so will you if you don’t.”

So I did, eventually. What took the longest was the embarrassment of asking Abuelita how to do it. It felt like asking her to explain how to jerk off or something.

I stood over Danny as he slept. My stomach jerked, and I vomited a thin transparent tube that plunged into his chest. I gulped chunks of liver, shreds of heart and lung and gallons of thick, delicious blood, and I was crying and laughing with remorse and relief and the joy of being fully alive for the first time.

Afterwards, Abuelita wanted me to go to México with Señor Alucardo, but I said no. I don’t speak Spanish, and I don’t want a bunch of indios laughing at me like I’m some pinche gringo—la chupacabra de La Habra.

Maybe when Abuelita goes, I’ll go, but until then I’ll just hang.

I really got to try me some cabrito one of these days.

Support Your Local Wildlife.

One thing about Idaho is that you feel closer to nature here. Even in the center of the city. This morning. traffic stopped downtown to allow a gaggle of geese to waddle across the street. The birds weren't in a hurry, either.

But that's just the beginning. Idaho may be slashing pay for teachers and cutting off support for low-income people, but it seems that there's no shortage of support for the local wildlife.

Apparently the state's runaway meth problem is now affecting
its vulnerable ruminant population. But not to worry,
there's a support group for them!

Human unemployment may be high, but ursine citizens
can still find ways to make a buck selling RVs seized from
terrorized tourists. Good prices, though, if you're
willing to overlook the clawed-up interiors.

Even man's best friend can find a place to drown his sorrows
when the toilet seat is down.

Even exotic species have spots where they can congregate.
Boise sometimes surprises me with its broadmindedness.

P.