Chris Cuttriss {dot com}

A letter I just sent through iTunes to Apple, pleading for a credit to re-download the 100 Greatest Classics playlist:

I recently downloaded an installed TuneUp, an iTunes add-on application that does a fairly admirable job at correctly re-tagging music that has been manually imported, yet automatically mislabed, into iTunes.

Unfortunately when I ran TuneUp I neglected to pay close attention to what tracks it was retagging and noticed too late that it had renamed most of the tracks in this playlist to Japanese names.

This travesty must not be permitted to stand.

Being as though I am an American, like the rest of my internationally ignorant countrymen, the only language I can speak and read fluently is English. TuneUp, in it’s infinite and traitorous wisdom, has delivered my music directly to the hands of America’s former authoritarian enemies!

Now, I have read Apple’s policy regarding the re-downloading of music that have been purchased and completely accept that music is only licensed to be downloaded a single time. Any further downloads come with purchasing the product a second time (ad infinitude). In this particular case, I am hoping against all hope that Apple will come through for the Good ‘Ol Boys of the South Pacfic and liberate these poor tracks from the tyrannical hands of their current masters.

If at all possible, being fully aware of my own stupidity that caused this situation to occur, I would entirely appreciate the chance to re-download this particular playlist and resume enjoying the work of these classical European masters in the most American of ways: claiming them as my own without any reverence to their true historical or cultural value.

With much regard,
Christopher Cuttriss

Just received my response from Apple!  As much as corporate policy allows, I hope he got the joke!

Dear Christopher,

I’m sorry to hear about your recent mishap. However, not to worry my friend! I am more than happy to assist.

I have posted the “100 Best Classics” to your account.

So I haven’t been around since June 24th!  I’ve fallen off the horse a bit (again), haven’t made the time to run and been consumed with work, both at CalArts and my personal projects.  With that in mind, however, a quick recap of the last couple weeks:

Fight From Above played at the Viper Room late last month to mark the release of their first music video (which is awesome).  They were kind enough to ask me to come out and shoot it, so I borrowed my good friend Chris Charles‘ 5D Mark II and had a blast.

The Section Quartet played at Largo (finally!!!!) and I was ecstatic to see my friends rock their own interpretation of what a classical string quartet should sound like.  They were at Largo at the Coronet (since apparently the ‘old’ Largo has since shutdown (?), the same place I recently saw Eddie Izzard perform.  I was shooting up in the sound booth and committed the ultimate sin, however, as my phone fell from my pocket and make a horrible crash — it’s never happened before and I cannot express my level of embarrassment.  Unfortunately however, the gentleman in the sound booth was a complete jerk and thus I won’t be shooting there again.  My favorite shot of the night is below, Jon Brion in between stanzas.

My good friend Shana Nys Dambrot from Flavorpill asked me to shoot the Electric Daisy Carnival this year at the Los Angeles Coliseum.  There were something like 120,000 people there, which was incredibly intense.  Raves often get a bad name given the knee-jerk reactionary impression that people get when they hear the word — but events like this are really quite amazing when you take a moment to take it all in.  It was a great experience (although I nearly lost my keys there, which would have been absolutely horrid!).  I even got to shoot on stage while Kaskade was performing!

I shaved my head again the other day.  Once the temperature crossed the triple-figures mark I knew it was only a matter of time.  Southern California is a much more friendly place when you have no hair — 10-20 degrees are instantly taken away and even the hottest day doesn’t feel so oppressive!

Tonight is the 4th, the night America tries to destroy itself but never quite gets it right.  We’ll see how she does this year!