the iconmaster

“Todd Levin was born 33 years ago in Detroit. Currently he lives in New York City and works at Sotheby’s.”

This liner note, from the Deutsche Grammophon’s 1995 release of De Luxe, is the last clue we have as to the whereabouts of the composer Todd Levin. After that, the composer seems to have dropped out of music entirely. Over a decade later, the internet barely acknowledges his existence. I had to resort to scanning my liner notes just to get an obscured photo of the guy.

A website for (apparently) a Stanford radio station is one of the few places to find a review of Levin’s music: “this New York (by way of Detroit) composer’s latest album will be reviled by most fans of classical music (modern and traditional alike) as well as by [Deutsche Grammophon’s] presumed intended target audience of young hipsters. That leaves those who appreciate irony, camp, and audacity, not to mention orchestral music with a backbeat.”

If you know anything about me, you have already plugged me into that last sentence.

I am generally suspicious of folks who claim deep connections to particular pieces of music. The teen in his bedroom who’s convinced Coldplay’s latest single is the theme of his tumultuous suburban life; the couple who note when “their song” comes on the radio. Music is written by real people in historical contexts; claiming a work you enjoy as completely your own seems to me an attempt to strip the thing of much of what makes it worthwhile in the first place.

But in Todd Levin’s compositions I sense an artist aiming at something bigger. He wants to tap into the larger context of modern human life. (I should say “postmodern” here, but that sounds too pretentious.) Like modern life, his music is frenetic, disjointed and often confusing. It reflects a hodgepodge of cultural influences, and draws on them haphazardly. It is at turns beautiful and violent, and it’s always being driven forward by the tyranny of the mechanical clock (or metronome).

It is, in a word, brilliant.

Help me bring this talented composer out of hiding. You can sample his music, or get in touch with me if you’d like to hear the complete works (this isn’t stuff you can buy on iTunes or at your local record store). You can also become a fan of the Todd Levin Facebook page.

It’s no secret that, on the scale of deserving its continued existence, I rank Sony BMG somewhere between mosquitoes and Crystal Pepsi. But as the record labels are only slowly getting the message that in the world of internet-enabled, producer-to-consumer direct relations they are no longer strictly necessarily, we are going to have to put up with their death throes for a while longer.

This week Sony’s increasingly random flailings in the digital music realm have snagged it a partnership with Nokia, wherein users of Nokia phones will receive free music for a whole year on, presumably, someone’s dime other than their own. (Though I’d be not at all shocked to see Nokia up its prices to cover the cost — a Sony BMG tax, if you will.)

If I were feeling particularly mean, I’d suggest that this is actually an attempt by Sony to offload some “excess inventory” — really, is anyone still buying Britney Spears at this point? The Dixie Chicks? Ricky Martin? But as fate would have it, I’m only feeling slightly mean — mean enough to revisit Sony’s storied history of failure in the realm of digital music.

Sony was once the king of personal music devices. Its Walkman cassette players dominated the industry for roughly twenty years — an unthinkable run for a consumer electronics product these days. And the Discman CD players that followed did just fine too. But Sony was utterly unprepared for the digital music revolution. Sony took two years after the iPod’s debut to intro its Network Walkman digital music player — and then made the fatal decision of ditching MP3 support in order to emphasize its own ATRAC music format.

Today, the iPod defines portable digital music. Sony’s efforts barely constitute a footnote.

Of course, the devices are just one part of the equation. You also need a music distribution mechanism, and Apple’s is iTunes. Sony tried to fill this gap for its own players with the Sony Connect music store — an endeavor so successful that in five days from this posting Sony is shuttering it completely.

Sony seems to have finally decided that the best it can do is to give its music away. But don’t think for a second that the Masters of Rootkit have seen the light about giving consumers control over their music. (If you were thinking that, allow me a chortle at your expense.) This “free” music being provided to Nokia’s customers will be DRMed out the wazoo: “The ‘Comes with music’ library will be transferable to PCs and to a new Nokia handheld; however, users won’t be able to transfer it to certain non-compatible devices, such as iPods.” There’s one way to enforce those kinds of limitations, and it’s not through the honor system.

What’s really insidiously ingenious about this plan is that casual use of the singular: “a new Nokia handheld.” Not, notably, new Nokia handhelds you might purchase in the future. So what happens after you’ve spent a year downloading your “free” Sony BMG songs and decide you’d like a spiffy new Nokia device? Does the “Comes with music” library come with you? Nobody’s saying… and silence in the realm of DRM restrictions is almost never a good thing.

On the surface, Sony BMG and Nokia are promising a lot of free music — and who can say no to that? But “never a free lunch” is a cliché for good reason. Sony intends to get its payday here somehow, and they’ve already proven they really don’t care what they have to do to get it.

The rules of speed docking vary by region; but the Ackerman canon is generally considered acceptable for tournament purposes — with the following caveat: when these were written, “docking” still involved loading large mainframes off the backs of freight trucks. While we have to recognize the great speed docking heroes like Jack “Big Iron” Chickering who competed during this era, the sport is such that it is tied to advances in technology. Thus, some of the rules have necessarily been modified since Ackerman’s time.

Here are the most important, along with a bit of commentary for the newcomer.

1) Equipment and Objectives

The goal is to a) remove a laptop and its power supply from a carrying case, b) connect the power along with an external monitor and keyboard, and c) power on the laptop in the least amount of time. The goal is complete when the laptop is ready to accept input.

2) Expected Obstacles

The laptop and power supply should be secured behind suitable fasteners — usually zippers or velcro flaps. The laptop should be in a standby or sleep state (not powered down, which would make boot time too large a factor). Power supply cabling should be tidy and secure.

Note — maintenance of the laptop is still important as you want the wake-from-sleep time to be as short as possible. It’s no coincidence that the last seven speed docking world champions were all Mac users.

3) Rule of Ordinary Workspace

The work area used in the attempt should not be excessively optimized for speed docking — “as you left it” is generally the rule here. Loose cables may be left on the desk surface; desk chair should be positioned under the desk.

Note — always be on the lookout for seeming innocuous protrusions in your workspace that can suddenly turn deadly in the heat of a docking attempt. Don’t forget the Richard Dunlevy incident of ‘82 — poor guy still eats through a straw.

Regarding the timekeeping device: Obviously regulation speed docking timers are available at many sporting goods retailers, but for the docker just getting into the pursuit a standard stopwatch or mobile phone stopwatch feature will suffice.

Hopefully these rules will help you to safely and legitimately set some great speed docking times.