Wednesday

Interesting survey on religion.

Ten Things I Have Learned by Milton Glaser

Interesting car idea: Volvo designed a composite blend of carbon fibers and polymer resin that can serve as a car’s body panels while also functioning as a battery. What happens when it crashes?

Rockaway Taco – Shot by The Selby on location in Rockaway Queens on August 31st, 2010 (Vimeo)

Iran’s flying boats – not so different from the old Soviet flying boats in Zero History.

Men of the Cloth – a documentary on Italian master tailors.

51 year old came in fifth in the World Time Trial Championships in Australia. Longo has won the Tour de France Féminin three times, competed in seven Olympics, and may compete in London in 2012.

Tuesday

Beautiful Morning. Finished re-reading Pattern Recognition last night, which was perhaps even better the second time, and started reading Going, Going, Gone by Jack Womack, who William Gibson mentioned many times, and who is thanked in Pattern Recognition. I like what I read so far!

Today we have a three hour rehearsal, followed by a three hour recording session with the percussionist, who will play on the new version of The Santa Fe Sessions. Tomorrow, we will keep the same schedule.

A few quick words on my statement yesterday that culture leads politics and not the other way around. What created the changes in the Sixties and Seventies? Politicians or the cultural ground swell. What do you suppose has done more for the acceptance of gays and lesbians and their rights, politicians, or TV shows that showed them to be like all other people, with similar dreams, similar hopes, and so on. And again, what do you suppose will do more to change our rotten educational system, a few politicians, or the new movie Waiting for Superman – assuming that it will receive a wide release and people get to see it and discuss it. The conclusion, for me, is that money would be better spent supporting cultural causes, rather then individual politicians or their parties. Something to think about. Please add examples that come to your mind, either agreeing with or contradicting this idea that culture drives change, not politicians.

Monday

When I left the house on Saturday Morning the temperatur was 58ºF, or 14ºC, under a clear blue sky. The moon, fat and bright this week, seemed to follow me every way I turned Friday night, and was still hanging in the sky as I started walking.


marijose left this comment and in it a link to the Rules of T.O.M.. Thanks!

Nature is the horizon of culture.
– William Irwin Thompson

Bill Thompson also said: Cultural and spiritual transformation is larger than political transformation.

Here is a recent article by Bill Thompson – reprinted in the Upaya newsletter.

Here are a couple of insights I had last week…

Insight #1:
Change is powered by culture, not by politicians. We might say that politicians are merely part of a cultural wave. Change the culture and the politics will follow, like a dog on a leash. Investing in a politician, or a pack of them, is less effective than investing in cultural change.

Insight #2:
Politicians are usually on a one-way street: they can make things worse, but they can’t make things better. Maybe it takes a lot more energy to run uphill to improve matters? That is either inherent to the system design, or just a bad turn of events stacked upon events, turtles all the way down.

Link Drop:
I was wondering when ping-pong was going to become cool again.

That looks like it was fun!! Foodies Flock to Second Coming of Le Fooding at P.S. 1

Shinkansen Brail

Nice interview with Bill Bryson:

Bill Bryson: ‘Have faith, science can solve our problems’ – Telegraph
There never was a less chauvinist author than this gentle, genial American who, with his folksy humour, has charmed the nation, men and women in equal measure. The bestselling author of Notes from a Small Island, that quirky love letter to all things British, now lives in a large rectory in Norfolk, where he devotes a lot of time to his garden. I meet him outside a library in Norwich, and he could be one of the natives, with his unprepossessing manner and his comfy, lived-in clothes.

Here is something else I find curious:

I think the term NSFW is hilarious. Why should an employee look at websites while at work in the first place? If a person wants to be able to surf the interwebs while working, they should open their own shop, and then they won’t need the NSFW warning, would they!

Saturday Repeat

This is a repeat from a year ago:

This is one of the two Lava tracks I worked on last week, Snake Loop Tk5. You can download the high quality mp3 here. The title of the track comes from the percussion loop that appears when the Flamenco guitar solos. It’s from 1993’s Snakecharmer version on the album The Hours Between Night + Day. This track was recorded in 1995 and I am not sure how we achieved this. I did not have ProTools yet. Maybe we put the big 2-inch multi-track tape on the analog recorder – I think I was using a Revox 24-track machine in 1995 and the Sony 24-track arrived the following year – and simply made a mix of just the percussion, recorded that onto a DAT and transferred that to the 2-inch reel we recorded Lava on… Maybe Jon remembers.

Friday Surprise

When I noticed this comment I wondered what was going on:

Received interesting email from CF Foundation about cancelation. Personally, I don’t care about the reason that the concert was canceled….only that I won’t get to hear you in person – again (second time that local concert was canceled in ABQ area) :0(

I wrote to Jackie and asked her to forward the email from CFF to me. When I didn’t hear from her, I contacted Linda, who forwarded me the copy she received, and here it is:

Hello,

Thank you so much for supporting the CF Foundation. Unfortunately our star artist has decided to cancel our benefit concert. Ticket sales have been sluggish and we were afraid that we weren’t going to be able to cover the costs associated with the event.

We are truly sad.

We hope that if this event is rescheduled that you will join us in the future.

Thank you again for supporting us in our cause of finding a control or cure for cf.

Amanda Bergamo

This, my friends, is called covering one’s ass in my business. The person who wrote this, messed up and now she is trying to blame me. Maybe she didn’t think I would find out about the email. I could tell you what’s going to happen now, but let’s serialize this, and say… for the continuation, please tune in on Monday.

Oh, and I think that’s it for benefits for a while.

TBC

And now for the regular Friday post:

First, care.

iPad Wine Lists (NYT)

Macrobinoculars for the iPhone

Opium for the masses:

Yes, It’s True – The Internet Makes You Happier – NYTimes.com
There are those who believe that too much time spent on the Internet makes people less social and causes them to lose touch with the real world, but a new British study released today found that access to the Internet and the web, and especially to social networks such as Facebook, can improve people’s levels of happiness. The study found that Internet access improves the overall well-being of lower-income users, those with less education and women — particularly those in developing countries — by giving them a sense of freedom and control over their lives.

Of course, the Brits also had a study in the Seventies that claimed that British women were the most beautiful in all of Europe…

‘Waiting for ‘Superman” Director Davis Guggenheim ‘Goes Deep’ Into Our Nation’s Education System Woes (WSJ Blog)

Cut back, use less, leave a smaller footprint.