In a unique attempt to appeal to new audiences, the Royal Opera House will perform a new opera in an undisclosed location via flashmob.

It's a great idea to get some publicity and get more people exposed to the genre. Hard to imagine how that would go over, for example, here in New York. I think most people would be pissed there was crap in their way. Still, bringing an opera via a new and hip method of meeting (the flashmob), seems like a promising idea, especially with a new piece that focuses on a contemporary story line.

I've been thinking a lot of the role of "high art" (for lack of a better term) and the role modern art plays in a commercial society. Peter Bagge's incredibly funny, and incredibly spot-on indictment of modern art and it's institutions has had me pondering a lot about the relationship of life - my life, I guess -- and some of the more esoteric and abstract aspects of contemporary art that I love. Having been outside that world for almost a decade now gives me a good bit of perspective. In the end, I feel, it's not the language of modern art that has failed (except, as Bagge points out, the end-in-and-of-itself of pure performance-arty shockvalue). On the contrary, the language of the modern (or, perhaps early/mid 20th century abstractionism, both in music and art) has a solid place in daily contemporary life -- but the medium itself has withered away at it's core: concert music, galleries, museums, record companies, and especially the supporting infrastructure of academia, blue-hair arrogance, non-funded non-profits, and the deification of old(er) commercial art and music (i.e. Gentrification-via-Marsalisification).

What the hell am I saying? I'm not sure exactly. But read Bagge's comic, it's funny and smart. And note that in all the publicity that this flashmob opera is getting, not a single one of the articles mentions who wrote this new opera -- neither music nor libretto.

From boingboing: word of a Hong-Kong company making a mobile game not unlike the tamagotchi, but instead a cute blob, you've got a virtual girlfriend. Her primary motivation? Getting you to spend money on her. No need for me to comment -- Xeni's got it covered.

Not sure what the interface is like, but the screens are of rich rendered images. They are awaiting the coming of 3G. The BBC has details. The press release about this product, following shortly on the heels of a earnings release devoid of earnings, is available on their site.

Stumbled across something fun at K-Mart. When I was probably ten or eleven I tried to build myself one of these, but thankfully they sell 'em now: a model rocket engine on a car. I took an all plastic toy truck -- the kind that sell for $2.99 now and that has a hard time keeping the wheels attached -- and taped on a model rocket engine. Left sufficiently unsupervised, I got the whole thing set up, and positioned in the garage and ready to go down the driveway, to land in the neighbors pile of leaves in their macadamia nut field.

Luckily, my own fear of fire stopped me from continuing to try lighting the thing, as it was always a pain to get the rockets lit properly, I know I burned out more igniters than I had engines. And, even then I think I knew that the force of the engine was too much for the little truck. So, I dismantled the rocket truck before anyone came home to yell at me about it.

The neighbors never knew how close they came to being under mini-car-bomb-rocket-attack.

From the San Jose Business Journal:

"Mobile gaming is catching fire, thanks to the explosion of color phones and the desire by carriers to charge for services other than voice. Although mobile gaming is more prevalent in Asia and Europe, several U.S. startups are making a serious play to become the Electronic Arts Inc. of the mobile world. And VCs want in."

Good news all around -- not just for the fact that companies like Jamdat and Digital Chocolate are going to have enough staying power to be a true force, and to hopefully forge into some innovative land (hopefully dragging the carriers and their antiquated distribution with them), but also the fact that the VCs see a valid business to be made of killing time on the phone.

Now, if only I could be happy enough with my stuff to finish up another game...

Here's a nice solution to aggregating photos and GPS data, which I found as a link at Elastic Space: Tokyo Picturesque, which maps images onto a satellite image of the city, and lets you browse through them.

Never quite figured out what to do with the gathered images from whereabouts over there -- but this does prove a simple and elegant interface can provide a compelling way to go. But I sure ain't there yet -- perhaps if I continue to pile up the pictures, I'll get enough source to want to dig back in.