Archive for November, 2006
Roma di Luna
Roma di Luna is an acoustic duo whose music recalls early 20th century folk and country set to modern times. As husband and wife, Alexei and Channy Casselle co-write songs that are plaintive, sometimes dark yet “hauntingly soothing†noted for “simple instrumentation along with piercing, emotively beautiful vocals.†The songs are presented in a stark manner, keeping them true to the influence of Americana roots. Lyrics soaked with confessions and hard truths pay homage to the storytellers and spiritual revelations of the folk and gospel tradition. Alexei Moon Casselle is better known in the underground hip-hop scene as an MC under the alias Crescent Moon as a former member of Oddjobs, and current member of Kill the Vultures, occasionally touring with Atmosphere as Slug’s hype-man. Channy Moon Casselle is a classically trained violinist who has played with various bluegrass groups and has already blossomed into a talented singer/songwriter. Roma di Luna first emerged on the scene through weekly busking performances at the downtown Minneapolis farmer’s market beginning in 2004. They played traditional numbers from Alan Lomax songbooks on a corner next to meat vendors and vegetable farmers, eventually working more of their original songs into their spirited sets. Their first visit to the recording studio in Spring 2006 resulted in the track “These Tears Ain’t Mine†which was featured on the Twin Town High 2006 compilation CD and has gone on to garner a local buzz and regular airplay on local radio.
They’re playing tomorrow night with The Pines.
9:30 sharp at the 400 Bar.
meanwhile, listen to me blather on about this little stretch of the Mississippi where we live and the music coming out of it…this return to the roots is beautiful.
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the Pines
A and i met David Huckfelt [right] almost immediately upon moving to Mini where he works during the day at the Wedge and were instantly drawn to what he told us about his band, the Pines.
David Huckfelt and Benson Ramsey of the folk and blues duo The Pines have been keeping very busy. Freshly transplanted to Minneapolis in 2003, The Pines released an impressive first record, and shared stages with such diverse acts as The Arcade Fire, Jolie Holland, Kelly Joe Phelps, Haley Bonar, Split Lip Rayfield and Spider John Koerner.
As a duo, or with the addition of talented rhythm sections as a full band, The Pines have steadily gained attention for their edgy mix of original songwriting, inventive arrangement, and raw blues-groove. Radio stations in the Twin Cities have picked up on the sound, and The Pines received favorable reviews in the Minneapolis Star Tribune, City Pages, Pulse, and The Onion, and have begun to headline clubs in the area. With a new EP, “Seven Folk Songs” and a solo record, “Light Under the Door” from Benson Ramsey on the way, The Pines are a young force in American roots music.
Their latest record is just being finished and will be released next
year. check www.redhouserecords.com for more info if you likey.
They’re headlining the 400 Bar with Roma di Luna, who also have a sound all their own and who played at my office a few weeks back. They are one of the moodiest bands i’ve ever heard.
Show starts around 9:30.
Will we be there? You bet. This is bound to be one of those winter-blown nights of the gods when we come inside to moody grooves and warm, soothing toddies.
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Lifetime Dog
“A lot of people tell me I’m living their fantasy life,” Katz said. “There are a lot of frustrated, alienated people who just aren’t doing what they want. I think that’s sad.”
Katz has done what many frazzled urbanites can only dream of doing: He chucked a spirit-sapping life in suburban New Jersey, bought a picturesque farm and an assortment of amiable animals and started a new life where the air is sweet and the stars shine bright far from the city lights.
Most people need a catalyst to provoke such dramatic change. For some, it’s a divorce. For others, a brush with life-threatening illness. For Katz, it was a maniacal dog named Orson.
In his new book, “A Good Dog: The Story of Orson,” Katz chronicles the life and death of the lovable but troubled border collie that transformed his life. It continues the story begun in Katz’s last book, “A Dog Year,” now being made into a movie starring Jeff Bridges as Katz.
Katz refers to Orson as his “lifetime dog.” It’s a term that many dog-lovers understand.
“Lifetime dogs intersect with our lives with particular impact; they’re dogs we love in especially powerful, sometimes inexplicable, ways,” he writes in “A Good Dog.”
you can read the rest of the article here.
We love you Jon and thanks for writing a story worth the weight of its words.
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Ultraman’s 40th Birthday today
dunno if many other people grew up watching this show in the 70′s and 80′s or not but it was a staple in my early TV diet.
my friends and i played Ultraman in snow, rain and shine. we lived it, actually, and each of us had our respective Beta Capsules so as to be prepared when it was our turn to be Hayata.
it was a cathartic game, after which we all felt restored and empowered. especially after those run-ins with bullies who [more than anything] hurt our self-confidence.
Happy Birthday to an icon that inspired me while providing hours of imaginative playtime with pals.
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Shrine of Saint Tourista
the latest musical invention from yours truly,
featuring upright and electric basses, four-string guitar, lapsteel, piano, steel drum, shaker, drumkit, harmonica and this time loops and effects as it was all recorded on an old, rebuilt 500Mhz Powerbook G4 lappie [except Insider] , mixed using Audacity and dumped out here for your discerning judgement.
shrine of saint tourista came out of creating music for the short film Whistle. thus, keep that in mind as the mood of trademark jumps all over the map. the music is all original tunes except for an instrumental cover of the White Stripes song “Offend in Every Way” and a tribute to an old pal, Justin Lund.
You can listen to “stroll” here.
download the album in its entirety right here.
hope you likey.
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Growing up with Newsweek
Newsweek loves to feature articles about Autism.
People love to buy Newsweek and read articles about Autism.
If the following cliche’ is true [about Autism] then most of the world is Autistic only they don’t know it yet:
Work is play and play is work
Sound like anyone in YOUR neighborhood?
When was the last time you didn’t schedule something? when was the last time you did something “spontaneously” and it was fun? when was the last time you played, really played without having to work at it?
if we’re not careful about our obsession with time management and commitment to “careers” we may all be in for more and more future generations of Rain Men and Rain Women who are engineered to think fun is being at the office until sunrise and work is going to the park [ugh] again.
how weird is this “are you a workaholic” quiz on Forbes.com?
WHAT IF [humor me here for a moment] it’s unhealthy lifestyles like ours that generation after generation give rise to abominations such as Autism?
Did you know that Autism does not exist in Native cultures, such as Native American, Native Alaskan, Aboriginal, etc? Not a single trace exists in these cultures. Well, maybe if they continue to participate in our culture long enough they will, too!
WHAT IF, collectively, we are killing off our collective consciousness [ie imagination] by exercising mostly only those “muscles” that work and watch tv or some such other unimaginative recreation? at what age does imaginative play stop? what was it 20 years ago? 50?
PLEASE. DON’T JUST SIT THERE READING NEWSWEEK.
THINK ABOUT IT.
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![thinfilms monkeysuncle ILL be a monkeys uncle [part II]](http://waxieus.net/wp-content/img/monkeysuncle.jpg)
iPhone on the way???
There’s no hard evidence Apple will release [or is even building] the iPhone, though for such a secretive company, which almost never comments on future products, that’s no surprise.
Tons of rumour sites point to the following evidence as proof the iPhone’s release is imminent: the company’s application for the iPhone trademark; the iphone.org URL redirecting users to Apple’s home page; references to GPS and mobile phone technology in Apple software code; various Apple patent filings for touch-screen media devices; and a job posting on the company’s website advertising a role for a mobile marketing manager.
Good thing, too, because i’m tired of having to carry a celly AND a music player around. or look like this guy every time i feel the celly shaking in my pocket.
someone should be able to engineer a gadget that consolidates all this technological clutter into a single device. i know, i know, then the licensing wars can really begin…
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Halfmoon’s full sound
when i last knew Mr Lund he was a bass savant with the potential to be anything he so chose. well, he obviously still is, only now, evolved, he and Nico blend an assortment of instruments, she on keys, he on [gasp] guitar and effects, into this most original sound = HALFMOON.
am i surprised? not in the least.
will you like it? undoubtedly!
what does it sound like? refreshingly original and fun. they are a match made by the gods. i think Nico sounds remarkably Bjork-ish only more raw. the music has elements of the Pixies [come on pilgrim] and John Spencer Blues Explosion [orange]. arguably, two of the best albums recorded in my lifetime. how’s that for you?
check them out for yourselves!
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Give yourself a present [PART II]
![thinfilms agent dale cooper Give yourself a present [PART II]](http://waxieus.net/wp-content/img/agent_dale_cooper.jpg)
Harry, I’m gonna let you in on a little secret. Every day, once a day, give yourself a present. Don’t plan it, don’t wait for it, just…let it happen. Could be a new shirt at the men’s store, a catnap in your office chair, or two cups of good, hot, black coffee.
Give yourself a present [PART I]
![thinfilms joseph campbell Give yourself a present [PART I]](http://waxieus.net/wp-content/img/joseph_campbell.jpg)
We must be willing to get rid of the life we’ve planned, so as to have the life that is waiting for us.
Joseph Campbell
i’ll be a monkey’s uncle
To a teacher of languages there comes a time when the world is but a place of many words and man appears a mere talking animal not much more wonderful than a parrot.
- Joseph Conrad
One of the reasons it is unclear whether or not animals may properly be said to be conscious is that the term has no universal definition as applied to humans. Is consciousness equivalent to awareness? To attention? Cognition? Perception? Memory? Imagination? All of these? Much more? To attempt to apply a vaguely-defined term to non-human species merely compounds the confusion and makes it a virtual certainty that any attempt to answer such a question is a waste of time. The topic has become virtually taboo in serious science, with most investigators polarised into opposing camps of “definitely so” and “no way!” Believers in one group vehemently reject the results of the other, and no one seems able to mount a convincing case; but that is not to say that scientists (and others) have stopped making the effort. Few topics today are as divisive as the role non-human animals play in ideas about religion, society, law, morals, research and even in the home.
chadwick is not dead yet
funny that there is a death rock band in the Bay Area who shares the same name.
dunno what you compare death rock bands to in order to measure their merit.
guess if it’s heavy, loud and talks about death, suffering and disease it holds its mustard, aye?
you can judge for yourself.
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Good news for air guitarists
It’s called the WIS – the Wearable Instrument Shirt – and it is tipped to make the air guitar as obsolete as the horse and cart.
Scientists at the CSIRO’s Textile and Fibre Technology division in Geelong have woven electronic sensors into a T-shirt so that it can be played liked a real guitar.
Movements by the wearer’s arms are mapped and beamed by radio to a computer which interprets them and turns them into musical notes.
The wearer only has to act out playing the instrument to make sounds.
“The left arm chooses a note and the right arm plays it,” said Richard Helmer, a CSIRO chemical engineer who led the project. The arrangement can be reversed for left-handed musicians.
Hey, this might be totally retarded but at least lefties don’t have to buy a more expensive version like everything else.
; )
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INLAND EMPIRE will debut in US in December
When asked about Inland Empire, Lynch responds that it is “about a woman in trouble, and it’s a mystery, and that’s all I want to say about it.”
Most of the film’s details have been kept under wraps. It’s set in the Riverside/San Bernadino, California area just east of Los Angeles, which is also known as the Inland Empire.
In a 2005 interview, Lynch spoke about the filming process, saying that, “I’ve never worked on a project in this way before. I don’t know exactly how this thing will finally unfold… This film is very different because I don’t have a script. I write the thing scene by scene and much of it is shot and I don’t have much of a clue where it will end. It’s a risk, but I have this feeling that because all things are unified, this idea over here in that room will somehow relate to that idea over there in the pink room.”
Much of the film was shot in Ã…Âódź, Poland. Some filming was also done in Los Angeles, and in 2006 Lynch returned from Poland to complete filming. It is unknown how much of the film was actually even shot in the Inland Empire cities, as Lynch never obtained the necessary filming permits which are required for both indoor and outdoor filming in the area.
Lynch would hand each actor several pages of just-written dialogue each morning as they arrived on the set each day.
The film differs from any other Lynch film in that it’s the first to be completely shot in digital video. He has stated that he will no longer use film to make motion pictures.
Inland Empire also continues Lynch’s tradition of naming the project after the location where it is set, with the location actually having little to nothing to do with the film itself.
Lynch spoke of distributing the film independently, saying that with the entire industry changing, he thought he would attempt a new form of distribution as well. More recently, Lynch has worked out a deal with Studio Canal in an arrangement that will allow him to distribute the film himself, through digital and traditional means.
It debuts in the US on December 15th.
wahooOOO!!!
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no more dishpan hands
Stanford scientists plan to make a robot capable of performing everyday tasks, such as unloading the dishwasher. By programming the robot with “intelligent” software that enables it to pick up objects it has never seen before, the scientists are one step closer to creating a real life Rosie, the robot maid from The Jetsons cartoon show.
“Within a decade we hope to develop the technology that will make it useful to put a robot in every home and office,” said Andrew Ng, an assistant professor of computer science who is leading the wireless Stanford Artificial Intelligence Robot (STAIR) project.
“Imagine you are having a dinner party at home and having your robot come in and tidy up your living room, finding the cups that your guests left behind your couch, picking up and putting away your trash and loading the dishwasher,” Ng said.
SPAM on the rise…
Researchers and IT managers are confirming security vendors’ claims that spam levels have spiked in the past month – some say by as much as 80 % — and show no signs of decreasing.
“There are enormous amounts of spam; it’s shot up like crazy since the beginning of October,†says John Levine, president of consulting firm Taughannock Networks and co-chair of the Internet Research Task Force’s Anti-Spam Research Group, who operates a number of e-mail addresses that aren’t filtered for spam. “Earlier this year I was seeing about 50,000 spam messages a day, now I’m seeing 100,000.â€Â
Malachi Ritscher’s suicide
On Saturday the Sun-Times ran a small item about a man who had set himself on fire during rush hour Friday morning near the Ohio Street exit on the Kennedy. His identity has still not been officially determined, but members of the local jazz and improvised music community say they are certain it was Malachi Ritscher, a longtime supporter of the scene. Bruno Johnson, who owns the free-jazz label Okka Disk, received a package yesterday from Ritscher that included a will, keys to his home, and instructions about what should be done with his belongings. Johnson, a former Chicagoan who now lives in Milwaukee, began making calls. Police are still awaiting the results of dental tests, but Johnson says an officer told one of Ritscher’s sisters that all evidence pointed to the body being his; his car was found nearby and he hadn’t shown up for work since Thursday.
Tideland
If you’re not angry, they say, you’re not paying attention. Mad hatter Terry Gilliam has been accused of a lot of things–directorial self-indulgence (The Adventures of Baron Munchausen), professional self-sabotage (Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas), creative accounting (Brazil). But one could never blame the Monty Python alum and native Minnesotan for failing to reckon with the cruel world. The cinematic equivalent of a well-timed hissy fit, Gilliam’s new movie Tideland hurls every size and shape of living nightmare at its preteen heroine (Jodelle Ferland), who’s left alone in the middle of nowhere (Minnesota?) following the ugly overdoses of her junkie parents. Still, like Gilliam after getting cut up by Bob and Harvey Scissorhands (The Brothers Grimm), the kid stays in the picture. Attentive as always, Gilliam says he’s “not interested in opinions of people [who] don’t pay to see the film.” But he gamely e-mailed answers to City Pages questions anyway.
HVR-A1U
My old Canon ZR-40 has just about given up the ghost. the DV mechanism squeaks and so i am always having to use an external mic to capture audio, not to mention it doesn’t always turn on when i want it to, rather has a mind of its own as to whether or not the record button will work and so when A said go for it i set out to find juuuust the right new video camera for my needs. This is somewhere between the hobbyist and professional filmmaker, otherwise known as the “prosumer” category.
Thus, after reading most everything i could find about different makes, models and technologies, i decided and purchased the Sony HVR-A1U [below] which as far as i can tell is the biggest pro camera in the smallest, most affordable package.
It wasn’t an easy choice, as i am and have been a fan of Canon digis for years, however, the XL2 is so HUGE, HEAVY and lacks many of the features of the A1U, not to mention, sounds like quite the power hog.
The HVR-A1U, on the other hand, is a fiesty lil jobby that is not only compact and thus easily maneuvered but also uses juice efficiently, largely in part to CMOS technology which replaces the 3 CCD setup the XL2 uses.
CMOS imagers were originally developed by NASA for the Hubble telescope (all consumer electronics trickle down from the space program, don’t they?). CMOS has been used successfully in digital still cameras for awhile now and has evolved into being practical and affordable for use in prosumer video cameras. It uses very little power compared to CCD chips, is cheaper to manufacture, and does not exhibit vertical smear of highlights like CCD chips do. The only down side of CMOS chips is reduced low-light sensitivity. This camera has a 2.97 megapixel CMOS sensor and in addition to video you can shoot still images and store them on Memory Stick at a resolution of 1920×1440. While recording video the resolution of still images is limited to 1440×810 but sheesh big deal, i’m not using it for that anyways.
Oh, and my lil friend here can shoot in both HD and DV formats, has dual XLR audio inputs and weighs in at a pound and a half.
SOLD!
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Is it true???
It’s not exactly official just yet, but the latest word from “people familiar with the companies” being printed up by The Wall Street Journal is sensational enough to run even if we overheard a couple of bums whispering about it on the street. Apparently Microsoft has reached an agreement with Novell, wherein Microsoft will provide sales support to Novell’s SUSE Linux operating system. We kid you not. The two lovebirds have also agreed to develop technologies to make dual-boot systems easier to operate, and Microsoft has promised not to assert patent rights over software technology that might show up in SUSE. Quite an interesting development, given Microsoft’s heretofore complete disgust for anything Linux related, and made even more miraculous in light of the specifically bad blood between these two companies — remember that $536 million antitrust settlement a couple years back? Either Microsoft is starting to feel the Linux heat, or they decided “stop asserting their patent rights” to get themselves out of any more antitrust trouble. Or maybe, just maybe, Microsoft and Novell just want to get along for the kids. Steve Ballmer is expected to make the official announcement of this hell-freezing agreement in San Francisco this afternoon.
Wow.
Tesla Motors
[thanks to Dr. Rick for this]
When you build a car that’s electric, you start with one built-in advantage: Electric cars just don’t have to be as complex mechanically as the car you’re probably driving now. Sophisticated electronics and software take the place of the pounds and pounds of machinery required to introduce a spark and ignite the fuel that powers an internal combustion engine.
For example, the typical four-cylinder engine of a conventional car comprises over a hundred moving parts. By comparison, the motor of the Tesla Roadster has just one: the rotor. So there’s less weight to drive around and fewer parts that could break or wear down over time.
But the comparison doesn’t end with the counting of moving parts. The engine and transmission of a conventional car also need lubricating oils, filters, coolant, clutches, spark plugs and wires, a PCV valve, oxygen sensors, a timing belt, a fan belt, a water pump and hoses, a catalytic converter, and a muffler  all items requiring service, and all items that aren’t needed in an electric car.
[wanna read more about an electric car that does 0-60 in 4 seconds?]
