Sometimes subtle, sometimes sneaky.
Autumn moods, sonic gags, inelasticity and rambles.
Greetings!
I chanced upon an odd story. I chanced upon wise words. I found more shareables that I might share next week. For now, its this week.
A Beep For The Beatles.: An amusing intersection of technology, legal & music.
Friday Find: Autumn subtlety & luxury.
Inelasticity: On the dangers of being unyielding.
A Ramble on Joy: I feel like society is obsessed with it.
With: Earthships, Spotify’s grownups, missing metaverse leaders.
1. A Beep for The Beatles.
Back in the 70s, The Beatles had a record label called Apple Records, owned by their holding company Apple Corps (yes ok, ‘apple core’, ha ha). In 1978, Apple Corps filed a lawsuit against Apple Computer (now Apple Inc) for trademark infringement. They settled in 1981 (for the then-undisclosed princely amount of US$80,000). As a condition, Apple (Computer) agreed not to enter the music business, and Apple (Corps) agreed not to enter the computer business.
Fair’s fair, because The Beatles and their corporate chums were never going to become tech overlords. But Apple? Well, we all know how that went with their forays into all creative fields, including of course music. In 1986, they added ‘MIDI’ (Musical Instrument Digital Interface)) and audio-recording capabilities to its computers. Agreement broken, Apple (Corp) duly sued Apple (Computer) again for violating the settlement.
The sound of a little f**k you
Jim Reekes was a tech-music-tinkerer who dropped out of college while trying to connect musical instruments to computers and learning to code. He found his way to Apple where, in the late eighties, he worked as an engineer on the OS (System 7). He was tasked with creating the various sounds it would use. One of them was a simple chime he called, well, ‘Chime’. That ensured he got a call from the- you guessed it- lawyers, who felt they couldn’t use any terminology referencing music, given the Beatles lawsuit they were right in the middle of.
Reekes shrugged his shoulders, contemplated the hilarious option of calling it ‘Let It Be(ep)’, then sent another name to the legal team, and informed them it was a Japanese word with no musical connections. The word?
Sosumi.
So. Sue. Me.
A made up name, as a cheeky little punch. And thus was the tone named which you can still find in your audio preferences. This little inside joke stayed so for many years; Reekes himself spoke of it only about 10 years later, though he wonders if the lawyers just ran with the gag, or missed it entirely.
Ding-click.
He is, though, also responsible (and likely better known) for other sonic contributions that have been part of our consciousness. Most famously, the Mac ‘startup sound’ which he sneaked in to the machine to replace the previous sound he though was awful. It worked. “I knew I was in for something great when I heard it turn on”, a 1991 review said. This led to many years of those sonorous startup sounds signalling to all that a Mac had been booted. Another inside joke of his? The tone was inspired by the final chord in The Beatles ‘A Day In The Life’!
He is also behind the camera shutter sound we hear in Mac screenshots and the iPhone- he recorded/adapted that from his old Canon camera, and we now hear it all the time.
The ‘man behind the mac sounds’ and the story of Sosumi has followed Reekes, though he left Apple about 25 years ago. And no, he has never made any royalties from all these sounds. “Yeah, well- you wanna see a man cry?”
~ · ~
Watch this clip from a panel where Reekes recounts the story. Its at the premiere of a documentary called Welcome To Macintosh. Unfortunately, his bit about Sosumi got cut out from the film and dumped in to the ‘Extras’.
A new chime replaced the original with a different sample, circa 2020. It was called ‘Sonumi’ (So New Me?). Oddly, the system file is still called Sosumi.aiff. Go figure.
The Mac startup sound was ‘retired’ circa 2016, likely because the computers just booted/woke up too fast to need the audio cue.
If you feel like, here’s a track made of Apple sounds over the years.
2. Friday Find: charm the weather.
I like when mood leads the way.
This can’t happen always, for all brands or messages, but when it can and does, it has the chance to make a deeper mark, leave a ‘feeling’, if you will.
‘Its Always Burberry Weather’ comes to us with some very autumnal vignettes for an outdoor line, from a luxury brand that here eschews loud luxury for warm, moody and gently quirky pieces. These are filmed around London and the British countryside with a diverse set of (celebrity) ambassadors- actors, musicians and footballers, all treated with a sort of familiar idiosyncrasy.
I also appreciate how, on their website, these videos drop the Burberry logo and line at the end entirely. Little things!
Each piece is quite distinctly its own and worth looking at, but here’s ‘The Quilt with Olivia’. Why? Because Olivia Coleman.
A nod also to ‘The Duffle with Cole’ (Palmer, footballer), which is a 9min long static single shot. Why not, I suppose?
Others feature Barry Keoghan fumbling some lines (my second favourite), Zhang Jingyi and rain, Cara Delevingne in a parking interaction, Eberechi Eze and a snorkeler, Little Simz in a train.
Here’s a playlist with all. Directed by duo rubberband.
“Our outerwear campaign celebrates the coats and jackets synonymous with Burberry and British style – an inimitable duo… capture our long-standing commitment to providing protection against the elements.”
3. Inelasticity
A thought-provoking extract from Roxane Gay’s keynote at the Festival of Dangerous Ideas. I have not come a cross her work before, nor is the keynote available online, but this little bit is so on point in much of our world (and not just US/Anglo-centric). She speaks of how we are inhabiting a world of inelasticity. “Either we are entirely aligned or we have nothing in common”.
Does this not sound familiar to most of our experiences (especially but not exclusively, online experiences?).
Also, a moment to doff my hat to the absolutely splendidly named ‘Festival of Dangerous Ideas’!
4. Ramble: on society’s obsession with joy
While humans have pontificated on happiness since always, there seems to be a big push to be joyful- in our discourse, our advertising, our music, and much more. Is this relatively recent, I wonder- the elevation of joy to an almost holy imperative?
Its ok to not always be happy, it is ok to have rough weeks, it is ok to have days with little or no moments of happiness. Is it not?
(I acknowledge the distinction between joy and happiness- just go with me here).
This seemingly widespread advocacy for joy sometimes seems linked to our age of instant and transient gratification- so I must be happy now, and then again, and again. And look, there is a proliferation of ‘successful’ people who define happiness and the steps to achieve it, they will show me the way. And look again- jobs, activities, content and people that will ‘make us happy’, all laid out for me.
I don’t always want to be made happy. I want to be moved, made thoughtful, have my heart beat faster, made to laugh loudly, weep, eat, dream, tremble, shrug my shoulders, even.
Some of these will lead to feelings of happiness. Others won’t. Few might actually shape a happier existence. Not all will, and that is ok. Happiness is something that comes with time, and with a depth that can be everlasting while not ever present.
We are asked to live in the moment. I love that idea, but not every moment is joyful. Yet, every moment can be acknowledged, felt, sometimes savoured, sometimes tossed away. All these moments wash over us and add to a well of happiness. Next to that well is another, shallower well that might house melancholy, or despair, or silliness, or just ennui.
I don’t want to spend all my waking moments exclusively in the first well; nor in efforts destroying the second, because the reality is that the first also feeds off the second. And sometimes, without it, it might get larger but stay shallow.
5. Masala Peanuts
(where I share stories or tidbits I find interesting)
Read. “You can’t spend a lot of time hiring grown-ups and then treat them like children”. Spotify is happy to continue with their ‘work from anywhere’ approach, despite recent moves from others to revert to the old world.
Know. The homes made from waste materials. Earthships were invented almost 40 years ago. Net-zero, sustainably designed homes built mostly from both natural and waste materials, such as old tyres, empty wine bottles and wood and mud.
Question. Where Have All the Chief Metaverse Officers Gone? “Brands leapt at the opportunity to sell a whole new category of virtual goods and experiences, tantalized by the notion that consumers were lining up to attend VR concerts and buy NFT sneakers.” The captains to pilot us through new virtual worlds are mostly going by a new name.
Do share comments & ideas, I look forward to them. Thanks, off for my brew!