Surfing highlights: Tuesday, 27 Nov 2007

I have more links than I can post, so here are two vintage links. The first one is from yesterday while the other is about a week old.

Plugging In to Make a Joyful Noise Unto the Lord by Ben Ratliff. New York Times writes about how church bands are now one major way Americans hear live music. So we now have bands that "carefully calibrate [their] sound toward the pop culture disposition of [their] target age group" and "scavenge some of their musical style from the radio and television". I understand and even appreciate the drive to sound relevant, but on the back of yesterday's seeker service confessed flaws I wonder how good it is to pander to our 'consumers' taste too much.

Dusting off the great books by Matt Kaufman. While this talks primarily about the resurgence of interest in the great Western classics among African-American and minority students in America, it also touches on how Western classical literature contains truths about "great and transcendent themes like the relationship between God and man, man and man (and woman), man and the state."

Today's links are more light-hearted. I rarely notice, let alone click on advertisements, but this sidebar pic for ModCloth finally made enough of an impression (it's been up for a while) on me. The retro-looking plaid dress from the advertisement rocks, but what I really covet now is the dress Flowers at dusk.

MDA Senior Management Rap Watch the Singapore Media Development Authority top dogs rap about their jobs and vision for Singapore media! Who says that market trends, KPIs, adding value to the economy and service-orientated architecture can't be cool?

Aside hearing them attempt to stay in time with the beat, other highlights include the Chief Information Officer mixing a black superman-like suit with internal systems integration and the very-Singaporean bit about how easy it is for customers and licensees to pay their fees and fines.

Well, I think that it's a commendable effort by middle-aged/senior managers to connect with their young consumers' idea of hipness. But only in Singapore can you get (middle-aged/senior) managers compliant enough to attempt such a thing.