Sidelights

Chile’s ‘Miracle 33’ miners to start souvenir brand

SANTIAGO: The 33 Chilean miners famously rescued from underground nearly two years ago will create a line of memorabilia branded “The Miracle 33” to be sold in the country’s airports, a report said yesterday. “We’ll make all kinds of products like mugs, sweatshirts, t-shirts and medals, so that tourists remember us,” the first miner to write a message confirming his team was alive in the reservoir, Jose Ojeda, told Chilean newspaper El Mercurio. The miners said they registered their trademark after catchphrases used by them had been appropriated by other parties. Aug. 5 will mark the second anniversary of when the walls caved-in and left the miners trapped at their work site in San Jose, in the Atacama Desert. The 33 remained around 700 meters (2,300 feet) below ground for 69 days. The fanfare around their plight and eventual rescue — which was televised internationally — dissipated in the months after they were brought to safety. “We had to return to reality,” said one of the rescued workers, Pablo Rojas. Of the 33, some have started new businesses and give motivational talks, while others have returned to mining.

Pop music has become louder, less original: Study

PARIS: Your mother was right: Pop music has become louder and less original over the years. At least, this is the conclusion of a computer analysis of nearly half-a-million songs recorded between 1955 and 2010 and reported in Nature Scientific Reports Thursday. “We have been able to show how the global loudness level of music recordings has consistently increased over the years,” study author Joan Serra of the Spanish National Research Council said in an e-mail exchange. Similarly, the team found the diversity of chords and melodies has “consistently diminished in the last 50 years.” “This yields a clear recipe for contemporising old songs: using more common chord changes, changing the song’s instrumentation, and record it louder,” said Serra. The study spanned a variety of genres, including rock, pop, hip hop, metal and electronic. It mentioned no songs by name, simply analyzing the music in algorithms of numbers and symbols in search of patterns. “Much of the gathered evidence points toward an important degree of conventionalism, in the sense of blockage or no-evolution, in the creation and production of contemporary Western popular music,” said the study.

Man charged for refusing to leave jail cell
WENTWORTH, N.C.: A man who’d just been released from jail in northern North Carolina was arrested again for refusing to leave the jail after authorities wouldn’t give him a ride to a motel. The News & Record of Greensboro reports (http://bit.ly/OZm7NK) that 37-year-old Rodney Dwayne Valentine was charged with trespassing. Valentine was released from the Rockingham County jail Saturday morning after being behind bars since May 22. The sheriff’s office says he asked them to drive him to a local motel and they refused. Deputies charged Valentine with second-degree trespassing when he had refused to leave the jail by Saturday afternoon. He’s being held on $500 bond and is scheduled to appear in court Aug. 9. It was not clear if he has a lawyer.

Japan ukulele ensemble crowned world’s largest
YOKOHAMA, Japan: More than 2,000 musicians strummed ukuleles in a Japanese port city Saturday to set a new world record for the largest ever ensemble of the Hawaiian guitar. Their effort was recognized by Guinness World Records officials who listened to them play “Aloha Mahalo A Hui Ho,” a song written by Hawaiian-born former sumo wrestler Konishiki, in Yokohama, southwest of Tokyo. The ensemble consisted of 2,134 people, eclipsing the previous largest ensemble in Sweden in August last year, which was made up of 1,547 players. The Japanese performance was part of Ukulele Picnic Week which also featured hula dancing.

- Compiled from agencies