Upon seeing this task, CrazyChild and I knew it had to be done - as much of our wonderful relationship started by sharing music. Why not share some of our own creations with others? So first, we spent an afternoon creating both the first half of this proof and the recording of the file itself, which is a process not-so-ominously titled:

The Creation Process

We played around with the idea of doing a spoken word version of a song, as with Shatner's infamous rendition of Elton John's Rocketman:




But what song to do this with, we couldn't decide. As we are a boy and a girl, respectively, we thought maybe a song with a two parts would be good, as in Stars' "One More Night" or The Postal Service's "Nothing Better". (If you havent heard of either of these songs, get back on the ball and go discover some awesome music!)

In the end, we decided on this song, but because it already is almost spoken-word in itself, we wrote out each of the lines and reversed them.



The end result were the lyrics contained in the text file below - or you could just listen to....
this, our first recording!



After checking the file was okay, and transferring it to crazy's stupid mac (Dashing has a completely justified contempt towards macs, however cool MacSaber may be) We opened the mp3 file in audacity and played with some of the levels. The first thing we did was add an echo effect, which gave the words an ethereal sound - that was awesome! Next, we searched for a way to add a new layer to the song in some way, without garbling the words too much or adding silly sound effects in the background, which we determined would kind of take away from the wispy, story-telling feeling of the lyrics.

Finally, we decided to add a song in the background. One that is mostly instrumental without words, and somewhat mellow in order to not detract from the lyrics themselves. Here's the song we chose:



Finally, CrazyChild the whiz-kid hammered it all together using some sort of magical indian intranet, on her mac (which i later plan to use as a doorstop anyway) and presto-chango!

EVEN MORE DETAILS OF CREATION, COURTESY OF CRAZYCHILD: Well, not quite presto-chango. It did take me a whole afternoon to edit this wonderfulness. Also, it has solidified my love for Audacity. It is an awesome, awesome program that I adore. I love macs. Macs rule (deal with it, Dashing :p). During this task, I also discovered that I actually enjoy editing, something I definitely didn't know before! So...what I did was I mixed both of our tracks together, making the spoken word fit the music. Then, I played around with some effects like wah-wahs and fade-outs, and generally had tons of fun. finally: HERE IS THE FINAL PRODUCT IN ALL ITS GLORY!


(I have been told that by clicking on the magical indian firetext above one will be able to hear our creation!)

When Dashing suggested the echo, I got the idea of making it sound like a conversation between two lovers in the past. Hence the repetition of "you" and "listen", which I thought made it sound slightly nostalgic and melancholy. Whether or not we actually succeeded is your opinion, I guess!

Now that we feel that the file is personal, philosophical, strange, and poetical - all of the above, really! - hold on to your hats, brave interweb folk, it's time for...

The Creation Process 2: The Finger-paintening!!

After the recording was done, all that remained was to burn it on CDs and create some kind of CD sleeves! (actually, it was quite a task). We decided that 30 would be a good number of CDs to make. Therefore, Dashing started the burning process while I attacked the task of making 30 CD sleeves.

On the CD itself we decided to include our lovely creation as well as the two original songs in order to encourage people to explore new musical areas. We decided to simply call the CD "Thoughts". So...on to the CD sleeves! I decided to craft them out of printer paper, which Dashing had in abundance. I simply folded the paper in half, cut off a chunk and stapled the sides together. Easy, really. The fun part came when I had to decorate them. I used sharpies and watercolours. Upon finding out that Dashing lost his paintbrush, I decided to regress to kindergarten and do some fingerpainting! So I fingerpainted madly for many hours, making each sleeve different. Then I labelled the CDs and popped them in!

(In Dashing's defense, he was working on a stupid comparison paper most of the night, and was unable to help.)
(To CC's credit, the sleeves are awesome!)




























Above, you see 30 different Cd Sleeves, followed by the final stack!

The Distibution Process

Note: after telling Killah Diamonds about the task we'd be completing that afternoon in class, she demanded to recieve one of our CDs! So alas, we now have a total of 29 for distribution. She greatly enjoyed it, however, she reports.

Our first idea for the distribution process was to head to the library and hide our Cds in a few significant books. So, that was where we started our distribution. We set off from Dashing's apartment with a bagful of supplies, including chalk, duct tape, post-it notes, a four-coloured pen and, of course, the Cds. Our original idea was to just slip them randomly in a few books, but in the field we decided to make it more interesting by adding post-it notes briefly informing the finder that the Cd was meant for them.

CC: Our first destination in the library was the Suzuki collection (which is filled with books on Eastern alternative religion and spirituality).


























We placed five of our total thirty Cds in books in the collection. My personal favourite was an illustrated book of Zen tales, which included a story I love called "The Three Questions". You should really look it up. It's pretty darn cool. I decided to quote the moral of the story on the post-it. Check out the pictures below to find out what it is!



















Rather: My favourite within the collection was a book called 'Mount Omei'. It was a collection of poems written on the scenic mountain itself, complete with the original kanji text and calligraphy maps drawn showing various locations on the mountain. It was absolutely wonderful, and what made it even cooler was that there was nothing on the spine of this loosely-bound work, ensuring that a library patron had to actually take it off the shelf and discover it for themselves to find it. I tried to reflect this in the note left in the text (pictures below!)





















After raiding the Suzuki collection, we headed towards the computers to look up other interesting works. We started by looking up the obvious, which was "thoughts". A few items came up, including one book simply called "Thoughts and Minor Works" which we thoughts was perfect. Next, we looked up Basel, which is the city in Switzerland where we both lived a few years ago. We also decided to find a book about San Francisco, as a kind of tribute, since much awesome taskin' goes on in those parts (Dashing wishes to go there someday to partake in the task-doing, so watch out San-Fran! We may be coming your way sometime in the future!). Also amusing was a book we found called "The Challenge of Being an Icelander". We found its poetry section strangely awesome and wonderful. All in all, we planted Cds in fifteen books in the library.

Finally, we disributed the remaining 14 CDs all over campus, in the outdoors. We planted them in a variety of locations, some out-of-the-way, and some in the middle of well-travelled areas. We drew attention to these CDs using our bucket of multicolour chalk leftover from switzerland (Galaktisch Gut!) and taped any of the ones we wanted on a vertical service using duct tape.

We planted one on the back of a sign, several on the sides of pillars near footpaths, one off in the bushes near a steam pipe outlet, one on the top of a gazebo, and two opposing each other next to some very political messages about the upcoming american election! (We wrote that each candidate approves of our CD for good measure, as well.) As Canadians, we pay little attention to this sort of thing anyway.

As we were wrapping up our adventure and placing our final two CDs, we were warned off by several university-types, (probably faculty or maintenance staff getting out for the day) that the university was cracking down on chalk-users. (Apparently they were upset about alot of the political stuff floating around and had to hire someone with a power washer to get off some of the more sheltered areas). We stealthily placed the remaining two CDs and hid our chalk in our bag, and headed home.

We were quite tired at this point, as we ended up spending more than three hours in the library without even realizing it! We had a blast with this one. Pictures below!

Update:
This email was sent this morning - the morning after our chalk adventures. Information has been edited out slightly.

Dear UNC Charlotte Students,
I hope you are having a successful Spring Semester.

During the past few weeks we have seen numerous chalk markings on buildings and brick sidewalks across campus. These markings have been about various student organizations, presidential candidates, and other events.

Please note that this type of graffiti has been costly to the campus to remove and is against University policies. The Code of Student Responsibilities indicates it is a violation to “Destroy or Damage the property of others or University property”.

Also the Student Organization handbook indicates groups are not allowed to use chalk on “Bricks, Buildings, or Benches”. Student groups will be charged for the cost of removal of any markings and students could be referred through the student conduct process.

I appeal to all students to refrain from this type of action. It defaces the campus and could lead to other types of negative signage. We encourage students and groups to contact the Conference, Reservations and Events Services Office at (###) ###-####, Room ### Cone Center, for the proper procedures to advertise events or programs.

Good luck in exams and contact my office if you have any questions.

Sincerely,

A. Chancellor

Update 2: The same day

After starting Don't Ever let Go at the start of our day, we grabbed some slushes from the gas station down the road, and went for a walk to see how many of our CDs were taken. (The ones that we distributed onto capus, that is; the CDs we distributed into the books we expect to be found much more slowly. We'll check for those in a few months.)

We found most of the CDs gone! The pictures following the tired-looking one of CC and I are all from today. The one we hid on the backside of a sign (right in front f a building, so it'll be awhile before someone notices it) was still there, along with the one we put up in the gazebo in the gardens. The Obama and Hilary ones were taken and the chalk taken off, we think because the school purposely cleaned everything political from the campus, because that whole area was clean where it wasnt yesterday.

One more interesting note: The CD we posted on the chemistry building was taken, but the sleeve was still taped to the wall!



More Pictures below, as always. =D