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“Arpeggi,”is a new Radiohead song, premiered on March 27, as reported by at ease.

“Arpeggi” is the Italian plural for the term “arpeggio.” “Arpeggio” is defined by the OED as the “employment of the notes of a chord in rapid succession instead of simultaneously; a chord thus played or sung.” “Arpeggi” is not listed in the OED as an English plural.

The term “arpeggio” derives from “arpeggiare” meaning to play upon the harp, a term deriving from “arpa” meaning harp. The first appearance of “arpeggio” in English dates to 1742 with Nathan Bailey’s An universal etymological English dictionary.

At Ease reports Jonny Greenwood will debut “Superhet Popcorn Receiver” this April with the BBC Concert Orchestra. There is a schematic here for a 40 Meter Popcorn Superhet Receiver. “Superhet” is short for “superheterodyne.” Superheterodyne receivers are described more generally here.

As reported before by at ease, vapourbrothers.com has two TMGLMOAT blps. Today there appears to be three new (previously unreleased?) Kid A/Amnesiac era blips. They are madness, ghost bear, and condiment.

The book’s cover:

I will be lecturing on Radiohead at Oregon State University, Corvallis, OR on April 6 as part of the Craft of Writing Series. The lecture will be held in the Memorial Union’s Joyce Powell Leadership Center from 5-6:30PM. An abstract:

“Into Radiohead, or How to Disappear Completely in Music, Art and Politics”

This multimedia lecture is part of an on-going investigation of the music and art of Radiohead, a five-member English music group. The presentation outlines the project’s beginning and explores how one thread was followed through the labyrinth of influences and allusions in the band’s songs, cover art, videos and web sites. Together, these influences and allusions are read as an elaborate response to and critique of the twenty-first century’s commercial and political pressures. During the lecture, we will lose ourselves several places in the maze Radiohead has constructed—high places, low places including but not limited to: New Orleans funeral-march jazz, Cy Twombly’s art, Shakespeare’s Pericles, Jenny Holzer’s sloganeering, early and late twentieth-century electronic music (from the ondes martenot to Brian Eno), Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey, Dante’s hell, urban myths, Greek mythology, George Orwell’s 1984, current American politics, The Smiths, Anselm Kiefer’s charred landscapes, Giovanni Battista Piranesi’s etchings, and the BBC Shipping Forecast.

AND NOW THE SHIPPING FORECAST ISSUED BY THE MET OFFICE, ON BEHALF OF THE MARITIME AND COASTGUARD AGENCY, AT 0505 ON WEDNESDAY 09 MARCH 2005

THE GENERAL SYNOPSIS AT MIDNIGHT HIGH 50 MILES WEST OF ROCKALL 1041 EXPECTED SOUTHWEST ROCKALL 1038 BY MIDNIGHT TONIGHT

THE AREA FORECASTS FOR THE NEXT 24 HOURS

…

LUNDY FASTNET NORTH OR NORTHEAST 3 OR 4. MAINLY FAIR. GOOD

IRISH SEA NORTH BACKING NORTHWEST 3 OR 4, OCCASIONALLY 5 LATER. MAINLY FAIR. GOOD

This file is updated 4 times a day at or after approximately 0015, 0505, 1130 and 1725. It is read out on Radio 4 at 0048, 0536, 1201 and 1754 (local time). All broadcasts are on LW on 1515m (198 kHz) and some transmissions are on VHF.

Three episodes of Radiohead.tv are now available.

The image below appears in Radiohead.com‘s Scrapbook section.

It reads (approximate):

le chien-loup
Dog-wolf

–the hair of the dog
when you can’t recognize
a Dog of wolf

This early print of “Le Chien-Loup” is by Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon (1707-1788). There is a book entitled Le chien-loup by Jean Ferniot. There is also an extensive web site on the breed, one with an interesting history: “In the year 1955 a biological experiment took place in the CSSR of that time, namely, the crossing of a German Shepherd Dog with a Carpathian Wolf.” Reader andres bisserier suggests the phrase “when you can’t recognize / a Dog or wolf” may mean “something like ‘when you can’t tell if it’s a threat.'”

The inestimable Mel from W.A.S.T.E. has provided web sites with a link to Ether Festival Information regarding an upcoming performance by Jonny Greenwood and Thom Yorke: “Following on from sold out concerts for the last two Ether Festivals, the London Sinfonietta returns for two evenings of cross-genre juxtaposition with contributions from Radiohead’s Jonny Greenwood and Thom Yorke. The concerts will include the classical Arabic song, Enta Omri (music by Abdel-Wahab, lyrics Ahmed Shfq Kamel, sung originally by Oum Kalthom) and the pioneering sounds of composers Penderecki and Messiaen. Radiohead television will also be screened throughout the night featuring video, animations and music from the band’s Hail To The Thief album as well as unreleased tracks. Plus live sonic generated visuals.”

General information on the Ether Festival is available here. Ether is “a colorless volatile highly inflammable liquid formerly used as an inhalation anesthetic.” It was also thought to be “the fifth and highest element after air and earth and fire and water … the substance composing all heavenly bodies.” The word “festival,” according to the OED is from the Old French “festival” from the Latin “festivus.”

The Ether Festival information mentions “the pioneering sounds of composers Penderecki and Messiaen.” Information on Krzysztof Penderecki is here and here. Olivier Messiaen has an extensive web site devoted to his life and work. Rebecca Rischin has published the book For the End of Time: The Story of the Messiaen Quartet on the the composition and first performance of Messiaen’s “Quartet for the End of Time” in a German POW camp in 1941.

An RSS (Really Simple Syndication or RDF Site Summary) feed is available for Pulk-Pull* here. RSS can also stand for Radar Signal Simulator, Radial Shaft Seal, and Radio Security Service (UK).