There's one thing that could be synergistically as impressive as thousands of people singing (as Estonians did 20 years ago to regain freedom) -- and that's the sound of thousands of eestimaalased thinking together, which will happen on May 1.
Last year the Teeme Ära project was devoted to a one-day trash cleanup that produced visible, dramatic results. This year the project, recast as Minu Eesti (My Estonia) is casting its net a bit wider. The idea is to have 400 "thought chambers" across the country -- in schools, community centres -- that will brainstorm on 18 big themes.
I don't often sound the recruitment horn, and being a natural sceptic, I did initially think it might be a unwieldy format. Even knowing how successful last year's trash cleanup action was, I feared May 2 could dawn with a 20,000-page document that will be referred to reverently as "the minutes" or an acronym like "MEAK". After all, isn't criticism often levelled at the fact that there are too many plans and development plans of all sorts in Estonia?
But there is a methodology for making sure that these meetings all work the same way, so that people don't just talk past each other. And I suspect another idea here is just to get people to meet -- and people to keep on meeting.
It certainly should be the case for the English-language-speaking community. I don't really go out to pubs anymore, for example, so I miss out on a big slice of the socium. I'm not sure what the size of the expat community is, but there are a fair number of "foreigners" who have bought farms, for example, often they have settled here with Estonian families. I know a guy down in Veriora that I'm not sure many other English-speaking expats know -- he doesn't mix that much, preferring to do the authentic thing. These people often have liberal arts degrees, business experience -- and they know how to renovate a sauna. Would be great to have them on board.
In any case, I think English is simply a great language for getting work done in, and for brainstorming in. I will be taking part in one English-language group in Tallinn (as long as it doesn't coincide with the annual Lake Viljandi 12K race).
If you want to participate you should write liina.parve@minueesti.ee.
Tuesday, March 31, 2009
Saturday, March 28, 2009
Spotify
What better way to start this blog by telling about what I have been doing for the past three hours, at no cost?
Spotify is a streaming music service that has an intuitive interface and has been technically flawless in three hours of listening so far. In short, it makes it seem as if I own a couple million songs on my hard drive. No, let's be honest, Spotify's search is faster than running Spotlight in Finder on my clogged hard drive.
A couple big artists are missing (in the Beatles' case I wasn't bothered because the range of covers and karaoke tracks was so horrifyingly big and entertaining). But almost everything else is there in some form. (And you would think if Their Satanic Majesties Request by the Rolling Stones is up there, as it is, that the Beatles will shortly release Sgt. Pepper?!) It was a little hard to find Estonian artists, but that is to be expected. The newer ones are represented and many classic pop stars will have a track or two from a compilation or anthology.
It's free possibly because it's in a limited-country invitation-only (thanks Andres!) pilot phase. Or at least I would imagine it's a huge loss leader and when Spotify makes its appearance in US, it will end up costing something. Or are the record companies folding and selling as long as they can get anything at all? There are advertising messages on Spotify, but it is definitely on the unobtrusive side -- I'm so used to clicking the close box on irrelevant popups that I don't even know if I register anything anymore. Which is of course is probably not what advertisers who keep the web free want to hear.
Still, it seems like the pendulum is swinging back in the right direction -- artists and audience -- and even iTunes may have a David on their hands.
On a side note, I chose "Rikk's Picks" as my username on the same day that Spotify announced it had added most of the Dick's Picks line of remastered Grateful Dead shows. I'm not that big a Deadhead, but that was my nickname back at a job I had during the Napster era where we would take turns DJ-ing the office's music selection and cluttering up the hard drive with SHN files. (I had also misunderstood Spotify to be primarily a playlist sharing feature -- I would not have believed it could stream just about anything.)
The interesting thing about Dick's Picks was that, despite the band's policy of allowing the public to tape shows, legal issues forced any soundboard tapes of concerts that were selected by Dick Latvala to be removed from servers for legal reasons. That was frustrating, but now it's a moot point with Spotify, at least for me.
Spotify is a streaming music service that has an intuitive interface and has been technically flawless in three hours of listening so far. In short, it makes it seem as if I own a couple million songs on my hard drive. No, let's be honest, Spotify's search is faster than running Spotlight in Finder on my clogged hard drive.
A couple big artists are missing (in the Beatles' case I wasn't bothered because the range of covers and karaoke tracks was so horrifyingly big and entertaining). But almost everything else is there in some form. (And you would think if Their Satanic Majesties Request by the Rolling Stones is up there, as it is, that the Beatles will shortly release Sgt. Pepper?!) It was a little hard to find Estonian artists, but that is to be expected. The newer ones are represented and many classic pop stars will have a track or two from a compilation or anthology.
It's free possibly because it's in a limited-country invitation-only (thanks Andres!) pilot phase. Or at least I would imagine it's a huge loss leader and when Spotify makes its appearance in US, it will end up costing something. Or are the record companies folding and selling as long as they can get anything at all? There are advertising messages on Spotify, but it is definitely on the unobtrusive side -- I'm so used to clicking the close box on irrelevant popups that I don't even know if I register anything anymore. Which is of course is probably not what advertisers who keep the web free want to hear.
Still, it seems like the pendulum is swinging back in the right direction -- artists and audience -- and even iTunes may have a David on their hands.
On a side note, I chose "Rikk's Picks" as my username on the same day that Spotify announced it had added most of the Dick's Picks line of remastered Grateful Dead shows. I'm not that big a Deadhead, but that was my nickname back at a job I had during the Napster era where we would take turns DJ-ing the office's music selection and cluttering up the hard drive with SHN files. (I had also misunderstood Spotify to be primarily a playlist sharing feature -- I would not have believed it could stream just about anything.)
The interesting thing about Dick's Picks was that, despite the band's policy of allowing the public to tape shows, legal issues forced any soundboard tapes of concerts that were selected by Dick Latvala to be removed from servers for legal reasons. That was frustrating, but now it's a moot point with Spotify, at least for me.
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