Archive for 02008-08

SFN: A slow food preamble | Gristmill: The environmental news blog | Grist
Poet, essayist, novelist and “local-ist” Wendell Berry kicked off the final panel of the Slow Food Nation “Food for Thought” series on Saturday by reading a short statement describing the current food crisis.

For too long, humans have been spared, mainly by the cheapness of the fossil fuels, from the universal necessity of local adaptation.

It is ultimately an inescapable biological imperative that human land use economies should correspond as closely as possible to the ecological mosaic. To this, we no longer have even the illusion of a second choice.

The increasing cost of energy and the vulnerability of long distance transportation in an age of violence show the importance of local food and forest communities and the reasonable extent of local economic self-sufficiency everywhere.

Local… is the first layer, everything has to start there. Nowhere to run, nowhere to hide.

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We played in Wheat Ridge near Denver yesterday evening. I used these in-ear monitors for the first time (they worked very well) we had a new FOH engineer filling in for Alan (he was excellent) and we played with Souhail Kaspar for the first time (smiles all around!)…

Now I am excited to let you know that we will come to California for three shows in September with a new quintet: OL, Jon Gagan, Stephen Duros plus Souhail Kaspar and Robby Rothschild on percussion.

The Losses That Come From Virtualizing
Using computers to model the physical world has become increasingly common; products as diverse as cars and planes, pharmaceuticals and cellphones are almost entirely conceived, specified and designed on a computer screen. Typically, only when these creations are nearly ready for mass manufacturing are prototypes made — and often not by the people who designed them.

However, some engineers and designers are realizing that there are losses that come from virtualizing.

There have long been stories of students who design things on CAD that are impossible to manufacture, or that are 10 or 100 times too large, because virtualizing the design process divorces it from actual things.

As one designer I know put it, learning to draw teaches common sense; doing things on a computer doesn’t.
(Via Beyond the Beyond)

Under the influence of music, our defence of self protective callousness is lowered, the reason weakens, the feelings are aroused and our actions become instinctive. At such moments impressions of truth are deep indeed. We see things for the first time or rather, things are carried alive into the heart through the eye, quite unawares. The face of a common flower, at the sound of the evening bell, and the “thusness”, of things, their coming into existence and passing out of existence at a single point of time, in a word, their “non existence’ is perceived without a thought of it.
- Blyth

Thanks Y.

Echoes Top 25 For August: Ottmar Liebert Leads and Electronica Returns
Ottmar Liebert’s The Scent of Light, our August CD of the Month tops the Echoes Top 25 for August, but electronica and ambient music make a comeback after a few months off.

This is so Sci-Fi… :)

Ricco bust aided by drug maker: WADA – Cycling – Yahoo! Sports
CANBERRA, Australia (AP)—Riccardo Ricco’s blood doping case on the Tour de France was uncovered because of a molecule planted in the banned substance by the drug manufacturer, World Anti-Doping Agency chief John Fahey said Wednesday.

Ricco, 24, won two stages before he was expelled from the Tour last week when his positive test for the blood-booster EPO was confirmed by the French anti-doping agency.

Fahey said Roche Pharmaceuticals placed a molecule in its product CERA— Continuous Erythropietin Receptor Activator—when developing the drug to help anti-doping authorities detect illegal use.

“I can’t tell you the details of how he was detected,” Fahey told Australian Broadcasting Corp. radio. “I can indicate the particular substance is called CERA … which is a perfectly legitimate substance to deal with anemia.

How to get thrown into a Chinese prison | Politics and Law – CNET News
How to get thrown into a Chinese prison

Related link to slideshow of non-destructive graffiti and tagging

To Our Leaders:  Free Us. | We Can Solve It
$427 million. That’s what the oil and coal industries spent during the first half of 2008 on lobbying and advertising. They’re protecting their interests – and hurting ours.

This ad is running on TV right now, but we need millions more to see it. The special interests will outspend us, but we can compete head-to-head with them when we find ways to share these messages for free.

PingMag – Audium: See With Your Ears
Now imagine yourself seated in a pitch-dark room being flooded with multiple layers of soundscapes wrapping around your body… and 174 speakers guide you into a heaven of noise, composed by Mr. Shaff himself.

Funny, had to find out about this sound theater in San Francisco from a Japanese magazine… to be visited (I think I am playing a couple of solo shows in San Fran next May)

Link to Audium website.

Op-Ed Columnist – A Biblical Seven Years – Op-Ed – NYTimes.com
After attending the spectacular closing ceremony at the Beijing Olympics and feeling the vibrations from hundreds of Chinese drummers pulsating in my own chest, I was tempted to conclude two things: “Holy mackerel, the energy coming out of this country is unrivaled.” And, two: “We are so cooked. Start teaching your kids Mandarin.”

Start here.

I love that title!

Here is another example of the theme I keep circling back on – balancing body and mind… no, let me re-phrase that: Balancing Body and Brain – for I believe that Mind happens somewhere at the juncture of Body and Brain. Where body and brain meet, mind happens. That would make a fine bumper sticker. Check out this story:

‘What I Talk About When I Talk About Running’ by Haruki Murakami – Los Angeles Times
The Japanese novelist Haruki Murakami has run nearly every day for the last 23 years and participates in at least one marathon a year. In his slim memoir, “What I Talk About When I Talk About Running” — the title is a nod to Raymond Carver, one of the many American writers that Murakami has translated — he narrates his origin story as a novelist and as a runner. In his 20s, he owned and operated a jazz club. While watching a baseball game, he decided, “out of the blue,” that he could write a novel. “Something flew down from the sky at that instant, and whatever it was, I accepted it.” After writing two books, he sold the club to devote himself to fiction — his first novel to be translated into English, “A Wild Sheep Chase,” followed. As his writing career took off, his health began to decline — the result of all that sitting and smoking. Murakami decided to take up running.

And Murakami does not not just jog… he runs marathons, ultramarathons (62 miles) and triathlons…

Cool Hunting
In conjunction with Creative Time, Playing the Building is an installation by David Byrne that transformed a 9,000 square foot abandoned room in Lower Manhattan’s Battery Maritime Building into an instrument for the summer. An antique pump organ controls devices that create sounds using the building’s infrastructure, including heating pipes, metal beams and pillars.

I subscribed to Coolhunting.com’s vid podcast in iTunes. The quality is higher than the YouTube version and they have a lot of nice little vids. Click here to go to the web page or go to iTunes and search for the Coolhunting podcast.

A cool store in Copenhagen sells several lightweight cargo bikes.
Gotta love the John Player Special.
I want one!!
(Via Copenhagenize.com – The Copenhagen Bike Culture Blog)

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PS: in case you didn’t get it… check out this.

I turned one of my water bottles (a 40 oz. bottle I bought here) into my bulk olive oil carrier. I figured stainless steel can easily be cleaned and won’t break during transport. At home I fill up a glass bottle from this container. Could not be easier. Now that it is properly labelled all I have to do is re-fill it and pay for the oil. Zero waste and zero recycling.

I want to find similar stainless steel containers I can use for rice and other bulk items.

How about that moon last night! As I drove home around midnight, I would come around a bend thinking that the moon was a streetlight. It hung so low that I was afraid it might topple down onto Santa Fe.

Eco Cabs – Emissions and Fare Free Transportation
Imagine you’re drunk. Toasted. No way you’re driving home. Too far to walk. No cash in your pocket, and the ATM card’s back at home. Then you see it. This little green bug of a vehicle, pulling up to you, and someone says, “Need a lift? We don’t charge.”

“Who are these people and what do they want?” you think. Or did you say that out loud? They proceed to tell you that they’re from Eco Cabs, a company that is providing these emissions free cabs, for free, courtesy the sponsor enveloping their vehicle, 7UP in this case.

On the ride home, you learn that your driver who is pedaling you home is not, in fact, bionic, but has the assistance of an electric motor to make carrying your sack of a body home easier. Wait, did they just call you a sack?

Promoting Cycling in Style from Holland
Nine adverts promoting cycling from Holland.
(Via Copenhagenize.com – The Copenhagen Bike Culture Blog)

If you can make it through to the end – the last one is hilarious.

Canton and I brainstormed on a sweeping web site remodel. A lot of groovy ideas came up. It’s about time we shake the cobwebs out. Canton built our first web site 12 years ago… remember Pandora’s box?

August 29th’s concert near Denver will feature Souhail Kaspar on percussion instead of Davo Bryant.