I am more inclined to keep music player separate from other functions. I’ve been weighing the pros and cons of getting either a Creative Zen X-Fi or an iRiver Clix (anything but ipod!). But things turned out differently, and for one thing and another, I got landed with a brand new Nokia 5730 XpressMusic.

Not that I mind. It wasn’t a bad bargain. It came with a music voucher to free-download 100 songs, which was useless as I found no tracks appealed to me. Its quasi-business functions (email, nokia messaging, quickoffice, pdf-reader, plus additional applications running on S60v3.2) and the sliding QWERTY-keyboard are satisfying. And, I have a music player in Nokia 5730 XM with acceptable sound quality yet, as I’d expected………. sadly disappointing earphones.

In general, earphones and I don’t go well together. I have a box almost full of broken and wasted earphones. Once, I cared enough to get high quality ones. They lasted longer but still ended up in the pile. They did improve the sound quality, but were unable to endure my demands of mobility, the down-pouring rain, humidity, and my curiosity (as I tend to unscrew anything screwed), and the most importunate, the constant friction with the ears hurt. I wondered once just how the industry came up with such earphone designs because they just felt alien to me. Whose ears are these earphones based on? Is it simply because my ears are misshaped and anomalies? I sure do hope not.

Now, trying not to waste the 5730’s potential, I decided to get decent and durable earphones, a Sennheiser OMX 80 Sport II.

So, the 5730 and OMX 80 Sport II together went trough my standard test: whether they deliver satisfactory sound reproduction of Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli playing Ravel’s Concerto for Piano and Orchestra in G. The following bit of interview might explain better why I pick Michelangeli’s Ravel piano concerto to test music players and earphones.

[…]

Keith Jarrett (KJ): Classical players never pound, but they also never actually get soft, soft, soft, soft, to the point of risking that the note won’t play. Benedetti Michelangeli is an exception.

Ethan Iverson (IE): He’s so marvellous.

KJ: Yeah. He could do that in the middle of a Ravel concerto. “He almost didn’t get that one!”

EI: I read somewhere that Miles Davis and Bill Evans were listening to Benedetti Michelangeli’s Ravel concerto in advance of “Kind of Blue”.

KJ: That makes sense.

EI: That record coupled with Rachmaninoff fourth concerto.

KJ: Yeah, that’s the one I’m talking about.

[…]

From An Interview with Keith Jarrett

And I am now content.

Pertanyaan 1: Di manakah lokasi papan iklan berikut ini?

Tidak ada hadiah. Kecuali jika saya berubah pikiran, atau isi kantong bertambah.

Ayo... Siapa?

Papan iklan tersebut sudah beberapa kali berusaha saya abadikan. Takut masa beriklannya habis, papan ini turun tanpa ada yang perhatian. Namun tidak ada kamera yang siap sedia di tangan, malas berhenti merogoh isi tas yang penuh sesak untuk menggapai ponsel berkamera. Karenanya kesempatan berlalu begitu saja. Hingga akhirnya, saya benar-benar niatkan untuk memotretnya saat lari pagi.

Serbuan bahasa Inggris, terutama, yang masuk melalui bidang teknologi, ekonomi, dan politik, tampaknya membuat bahasa Indonesia makin terpinggir. Lihat saja TV yang menjadi pengisi waktu luang banyak orang. Nama acara TV menggunakan bahasa Inggris, liga olahraga negeri sendiri juga harus menggunakan bahasa Inggris, bahkan nama makanan lokal pada menu-menu restoran kini mulai menggunakan bahasa Inggris. Belum lagi di pusat-pusat perbelanjaan! Bahkan papan informasinya pun bukan dalam bahasa Indonesia. Untunglah, beberapa peralatan elektronik yang kubeli kini menyertakan panduan dalam bahasa Indonesia.

Lalu, beberapa pekan setelah penetapan anggota legislatif terpilih, sebuah suratkabar menyoroti kemampuan para anggota DPR baru yang terbatas dalam berbagai fungsi DPR, seperti menyusun anggaran dan undang-undang. Bagaimana nasib undang-undang kita jika para penyusunnya tidak mahir berbahasa Indonesia? Bisa salah tafsir di mana-mana. Atau justru itu yang dituju? Agar undang-undang dapat ditafsirkan bermacam-macam dan memberi celah?

Pertanyaan 2: Apa itu "petahana"? Sebuah kata yang mulai menggantikan istilah kesukaan sebelumnya, "berjalin kelindan".

Ternyata menyenangkan, merasakan bahwa koran-koran utama tampak turut memikul beban bahasa Indonesia. Ini membuat saya lebih sering membaca koran mencari padanan kata-kata asing dalam bahasa Indonesia. Dalam beberapa bulan terakhir, beberapa padanan kata untuk istilah-istilah tertentu mulai menempel dalam ingatan.

Jadi, mari kita jujur! Siapa berani hirau bahasa Indonesia? Jangan-jangan justru negeri tetangga kita yang mengangkat tangan, mengakuinya.

How’s that for a film title?!

I suppose commemoration of a year after the great fall of economy following Lehman Brothers bankruptcy last year, no doubt, brought it to the fore. But I found hearing it on the news or reading it in newspaper unbearable.

… sustainable…

I seemed to have developed a phobia for the word. When I skimmed the paper and read the word “sustainable recovery” (on a coverage of G20 Summit), my stomach ached. I wanted to throw up. Suddenly, I felt itchy on my limbs. I admit it was the first “sustainable” I read in weeks, which probably means I haven’t read much lately.

But I think I’ve had enough of that “s” word. It had infiltrated almost every aspect of my life. It dominated and coloured the economic-speak and politic-speak that characterised the year national calendar. Politicians, officials, and bureaucrats use the word to look and sound intelligent. It was scattered in interviews, public speeches, lectures, and articles. Even a banner in the road I passed today read, “Dengan semangat Idul Fitri, mari kita bangun kebersamaan yang sustainable (with the spirit of Idul Fitri, let’s build sustainable togetherness)” or something similar. I had to pull over because I couldn’t contain the laughter, and itch.

It reminded me of another fancy word, “millennium”, that ran amok at the beginning of the 2000s. And there lays hope that, like the “millennium” that then went out of fashion, it will pass eventually.