Nascar 3D: Soundtrack

The Nascar IMAX film is an impressive, immersive look at the stock car racing phenomenon, with much factual coverage, and a script by Sports Illustrated correspondent Mark Bechtel.

The soundtrack CD is a nice fit to the film - if only it were SACD for the true 3D experience. It sounds mighty fine, however, in Dolby ProLogic II.

The selection of songs ranges from the hard-firing "Boom" by P.O.D. to a clear-pitched "Star Spangled Banner" by LeAnn Rimes.

The first song, "Boom" is a true-blue, Southern Rock number, dealing with the challenges, and opportunities in the Nascar experience, although nominally about 'rock(ing) the masses, from madrid to calabasas'.

"Firing Line" comes from the 2003 Allman Brothers Band album, "Hitting The Note" with hard riffs from guitarist W.arren Haynes and smooth slides from Derek Trucks. "Changing your life's direction/getting off the firing line"

A great version of Lynryd Skynryd's "Sweet Home Alabama", another southern classic, almost made for the Nascar mood, although somewhat contrary in sentiment. The song is played at NASCAR races at Talladega Speedway, Alabama, and is a fine rejoinder to racist perceptions of the fans. "I hope Neil Young will remember a southern man don't need him around anyhow." Much subtext here.

Sheryl Crow's "Steve McQueen" is a song about "all American rebels" and "fast machines" - key themes of NASCAR

LeAnn Rimes provides "I Got It Bad" from her new album "This Woman" - an apt theme song for NASCAR, with lyrics like "I'm addicted to the fast life/I cut my teeth on concrete dreams/The rush of no control gets me high/You know what I think/too much of a bad thing/
Is exactly what I need". Frenetic, intelligent chords underlay LeAnn's awesome voice to create a great song.

One of the nice things about soundtracks and compilations is the introduction to one of new singers. Sounding like a Chris Rea number, then taking off into fast-paced rock, this is a neat song by Filipino (via Dallas) songwriter Wes Cunningham. Originally a ZZ Top number, Wes blends multiple styles 'bout 'that shack outside la grange'.

Robert Belfour's instrumental "Hill Stomp" is a String Cheese Incident-style jam reminiscent of classic Hill Country blues

Eric Colvin is the composer for the film, and provides a gentle piece titled "Earnhardt Remembered/...". The film never shows the actual, tragic crash, but images surrounding it, transcending the event itself.

Collective Soul contributes "Counting The Days" as a bonus track to the CD. It captures the inner tensions of a Nascar driver's heart, perhaps, "batten the hatches down", and asking if you 'dig it what you are searching for'?

Smash Mouth lead singer Steve Harwell provides "You'll Never Catch Me". He's a race fanatic, and has done concerts at places like the Indy Motor Speedway. An extremely fast-paced song, capturing the danger and passion of the races. The Nascar interview with Steve captures some of his motivations behind the song, which also appears on the "Cursed" soundtrack.

"Hot Wired" is by The Shams Brothers, an Ohio 60's garage-rock style band. It is a hard rock number, with a powerful bass.

LeAnn Rimes' rendition of The Star Spangled Banner is voice only, very fine indeed.

Dave Robideaux's easily recognizable Thunder scene was the official NASCAR theme for the 2004 season. Combining majestic notes with a fast guitar theme, it effectively brings home NASCAR pomp and circumstance.

In all, an uneven composition, as most soundtracks are, but good listening to set the mood.

Jean Harlow - The Original Blonde Bombshell

Jean Harlow

The original blonde bombshell.

Gwen Stefani portrays her in "The Aviator" - Gwen has modeled herself on various sex symbols, ergo herself a symbol for them.

Proto-blogger, Gone

Hunter S Thompson lived a full life, touching many, and creating a writing style that lives on in every blog.



His inspirational writing and life is engendering many eulogies, some at blogcritics, here and another emotive post. Round up at the occasional rant.

Why bother with newspapers, if this is all they offer? Agnew was right. The press is a gang of cruel faggots. Journalism is not a profession or a trade. It is a cheap catch-all for fuckoffs and misfits - a false doorway to the backside of life, a filthy piss-ridden little hole nailed off by the building inspector, but just deep enough for a wino to curl up from the sidewalk and masturbate like a chimp in a zoo-cage.
Source: Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas

Mahalo

The New York Times briefly eulogizes him, with an apt defintion of gonzo, and blogging

style of first-person reporting that came to be known as "gonzo" in the 1960's, where the usually-anonymous reporter becomes a central character in the story, a conduit of subjectivity.

"Nobody really knows what it means, but it sounds like an epithet," he said in an interview that, for him, journalism "can be an effective political tool."

The Guardian has a slightly longer piece, having been awake while we were sleeping

The approach won him praise among the masses as well as critical acclaim. Writing in the New York Times in 1973, Christopher Lehmann-Haupt worried Thompson might someday "lapse into good taste".

"That would be a shame, for while he doesn't see America as Grandma Moses depicted it, or the way they painted it for us in civics class, he does in his own mad way betray a profound democratic concern for the polity," he wrote. "And in its own mad way, it's damned refreshing."

Some recent writings

Queerly Beloved

The Simpsons take a small step for cartoonkind and a giant leap for TV-dom when the town of Springfield legalizes gay marriage, perhaps for the dollars.("Them gay guys got lots of disposable income")

Hordes of like-bodied folks flock to Springfield, and are opposed only by the local Reverend, who refuses to hear the voice of reason, creating a business opportunity, taken advantage of by Homer.

One of the characters comes out of the closet, potentially gets corralled into something he/she didn't expect, but it all works out in the end. Homer gets ordained by a website-based operation that provides printable dogcollars, and gets a brainwave for a reality show which he pitches to Fox in a brilliant self-referential (same network) send-off.

If you have a idea about a show that is a ripoff of another network's reality show, press 2

The gay marriage issue, and other ideas are parodied well, if too briefly. The creators have promised to deal with these themes frankly going forward. In the next, bonus episode, Marge confronts Homer about his trove of erotic magazines, to humorous effect.

Listener Supported Radio Paradise

Since I set up my nifty Hauppage MediaMVP, a digital media router that connects my computer/Internet with my home theater/television, I have been quite satisfied. One of the nice things about this device is that it supports Internet Radio, and adds features like DivX support through firmware updates, which has meant much scouring of websites like Shoutcast to find good stations.

Pretty much any radio station with a static web URL can be added to the list of bookmarks. KCRW.com is a favorite, as is Radio Paradise - a phenomenal radio station run by Bill and Rebecca Goldsmith.

The website for Radio Paradise is a lesson in good, holistic web design. The constantly updated playlist shows songs played over the last 6 hours, in sets of 5 or 6, related thematically or musically, most of them deep, deep cuts. Each song info page has a host of neat links, including tour schedules, comments, ratings, and what I really like - a tie-in with iTunes that pops open the music store to let you buy the song if you choose. There is also an Amazon store link for the CD itself.

The recent playlist, for example:

11:50 am - Al Stewart - On the Border (live)
11:46 am - Richard Thompson - Sibella
11:43 am - Laurie Anderson - Excellent Birds (w/ Peter Gabriel)
11:39 am - Berlin - Lost My Mind
11:36 am - Moe - New York City
11:32 am - The Smiths - The Boy With the Thorn in His Side (Live)
11:29 am - Mazzy Star - Blue Flower
11:24 am - David Bowie - Panic In Detroit
11:16 am - James McMurtry - Choctaw Bingo
11:09 am - Bob Schneider - Oklahoma
11:05 am - John Hammond - Jockey Full of Bourbon
11:02 am - Cake - Wheels
10:54 am - The Starseeds - Parallel Life
10:50 am - Kate Bush - The Sensual World
10:47 am - Jump Little Children - All Those Days Are Gone
10:44 am - Mary McCaslin - Things We Said Today
10:40 am - Jefferson Airplane - Martha
10:36 am - Hem - The Fire Thief
10:32 am - Procol Harum - Conquistador (live)
10:26 am - Morcheeba - The Sea
10:22 am - Patty Griffin - One Big Love
10:19 am - Sam Phillips - Fighting With Fire
10:15 am - Flunk - Blue Monday
10:12 am - Euphoria - Sweet Rain
10:07 am - Jimi Hendrix - 1983.. (A Merman I Should Turn To Be)
10:02 am - Pearl Jam - Yellow Ledbetter
9:58 am - Jeff Beck - A Day In The Life
9:54 am - Beatles - All You Need Is Love
9:50 am - Michael Penn - No Myth
9:47 am - Eels - Grace Kelly Blues
9:43 am - Pogues - Summer in Siam
9:38 am - Asian Dub Foundation - 1000 Mirrors (w/ Sinead O Connor)
9:33 am - Tykwer/Klimek/Heil - Running One
9:28 am - Freddy Jones Band - In A Daydream
9:23 am - Lyle Lovett - Private Converstions (Acoustic)
9:20 am - Rufus Wainwright - One Man Guy
9:17 am - REM - We Walk
9:14 am - Cry Cry Cry - Fall On Me
9:10 am - Indigo Girls - Land Of Canaan
9:07 am - Vyktoria Pratt Keating - NY 10-11-91

Listeners can upload songs for the radio DJs to pick and add to the playlist. You can even request a song from their repertoire and it will be added to the playlist sometime soon.

Bill Goldsmith is credited with starting the first full-time Internet Radio broadcast at KPIG in 1995. Rebecca is the music reviewer and business manager for the excellent operation.

The Wall Street Journal recently had an article(DRM-free copy available at mercora.com, referenced in the piece) on the convenience and value of this form of music distribution as an alternative to under-the-radar music sharing, and how the labels are watching, and supporting such operations with interest.

Now(Sunday, 12:44 PM EST) - an interesting mash-up of Green Day vs. Oasis vs. Travis called "Boulevard Of Broken Songs" by Party Ben rocks the house.

   

Review: Lou Barlow's Emoh

Lou Barlow is a prodigious songwriter, and has had many previous successful albums. Emoh is his first 'real' solo album. He blends indie-rock/folk-pop with a melodious voice and gentle acoustic guitar-work to create a comfortable album - not necessarily one to rock the charts, but quite capable of doing so.

The lyrics are not particularly insightful, or cynical, yet are reminiscent of early Simon & Garfunkel. The college-rock crowd should be quite enthused, and find resonance with the themes expressed. His twenty-year career has won him many admirers, from rock to pop fans. His frankness makes one almost believe this is a very personal album, like the Fleetwood Mac ones.

The album title itself, while evidently a reversal of 'Home' is more accurately a pun on the musical genre known colloquially as 'emo'. Practioners abound, none more skilled than Lou Barlow. Lou finds it ironic that this album was released in the US on the same day as the new Bright Eyes' albums. He considers Conor Oberst "the new poster boy of emo, let's say. He is so popular it drives my wife crazy."

"Holding Back The Year" blends a fear of old age, 'Kitten grown to cat and no more fight/How'd we ever stay together love...' to a wish that one could hold back time 'The year before the poison took its toll/Made you paper thin, me wrinkled old'. The guitar is delicate, with a few unexpected, pleasantly differently pitched chords.

"Home" is at one level about the uncertainty and indecision of young love, wondering if "I'm not strong/You don't believe/I may be wrong/That I can never bring you home". At another level, it reminds one of the conflict between pure love and sexual desire, as the John Boyle O'Reilly poem "The White Rose" has it,

The red rose whispers of passion,
And the white rose breathes of love;
Oh, the red rose is a falcon,
And the white rose is a dove.

But I send you a cream-white rose-bud
With a flush on its petal tips;
For the love that is purest and sweetest
Has a kiss of desire on its lips

Lou's song alludes to similar emotions, "Yes I did and yes I want to/But nothing good can come to/Someone pretending he is alone"

"Caterpillar Girl" is a rock-rich track, about coaxing his love out of her cocoon, "And then you break through/and drive before my eyes/Take me with you/Where you hide tonight". Very generic, and trite.

"Legendary" is perhaps the most introspective, emo-oriented song on the album. "I re-enact your legendary tragedy/And do to me what has been done to you/Is that the only point to all this misery?/Is there any reason I should cry?" The poignancy of true love, loss, and betrayal, and the wistful question, "Did you Love me?" make this a compelling track. The unanswered question reminds one of the fragment from Roland Barthes' "A Lover's Discourse", Like desire, the love letter waits for an answer; it implicitly enjoins the other to reply, for without a reply the other's image changes, becomes other

Other interesting pieces on this album include a cover of Ratt's "Round-and-Round" - slowed down, paced, balladry, and the clever "Mary", which subverts the virginal tale.

"Immaculate Conception/Yeah right/Crazy Mary/Good That you lied

A test tube baby/Seed Of the Lord/Breaking the Law/With the man next door

Blame it on an angel/They'll believe/Joseph, who wandered/But you know he won't leave

They all love you/I still do/Magic in the air/Swirling all around you

Mary, Mary under the veiled stars/You changed the world/And broke my heart/Thank you, Mary/You saved me too/

They'd stone us both if they ever knew/You sold out the manger, all right/Mystery baby-got a supernova spotlight/
....
Mary kissed me/We lost control/The oldest story never told/Crazy Mary/You're forever divine/They'll never know/The baby's mine/...

The final song, "The Ballad of Daykitty" is evidently inspired by Lou's personal feline adventures, about an amorous kitty, and a neighbor's cat, and a twist that is, shall we say, more Will than Grace.

An entertaining album, worth many listens. The production is an interesting mix of studio-produced, and home-recorded ditties. The singer's website has more neat, cool stuff, including kitty doodles.

    
  

Michael Moore: The Waffle Truth

The Onion, America's lowbrow answer to Punch, announces in their recent issue that Ben & Jerry's have named a flavor after Michael Moore - The Waffle Truth.

Various options were considered, including Stupid White Chocolate, Green Tea Nation, and Dude, Where's My Coconut? (As an aside, it is interesting to note that even The Onion prefers the serial comma)

More name options were tossed around in the halls of marketing, such as Cherryheit 9-11 (dropped because they already feature "Cherry Garcia"), Fahreinheit 31.1 (the right temperature to store icecream), and Hefty Lefty

The Onion quotes the creators, saying,

"Michael Moore's David-and-Goliath commentaries cut conservative bigwigs down to size. He follows the beat of his own drummer and works in his own unique way to improve the average American's life. Our choice was a natural - just like our ice cream: We use only fresh milk and cream bought from farmers that have pledged never to use recombinant Bovine Growth Hormone"

According to The Onion, America's source for fair and balanced satire,

The Waffle Truth rollout will include a nationwide tour by the company's promotional ice-cream wagon. The tour will begin its journey in Flint, MI and continue south to distribute free pints of ice-cream in 14 Rust Belt cities suffering from post-industrial decline.

Also, as per The Onion, Sean Hannity calls The Waffle Truth "candy-coated, liberal fluff", which should help sales.

   

Best British Rock Albums

Kerrang! the Brit rock mag - the largest-selling rock music weekly has announced the results of its poll for the best British rock albums ever. They also host the Download music festival, which this year, incorporates Ozzfest in June at Donington Park, Uk

Black Sabbath - Black Sabbath tops the list, with Ozzy garnering 6 albums - the most - out of the 100 item list. This was a reader-voted poll.

The Top 25:

1 Black Sabbath - Black Sabbath

2 Iron Maiden - Number Of The Beast

3 Sex Pistols - Never Mind the Bollocks

4 Led Zeppelin - IV

5 Black Sabbath - Paranoid

6 Muse - Absolution

7 The Clash - London Calling

8 Queen - Sheer Heart Attack

9 Iron Maiden - Iron Maiden

10 Manic Street Preachers - The Holy Bible

11 Led Zeppelin - Physical Graffiti

12 Judas Priest - British Steel

13 Def Leppard - Hysteria

14 Black Sabbath - Volume 4

15 The Darkness - Permission to Land

16 Ozzy Osbourne - Blizzard of Ozz

17 The Wildhearts - Earth vs The Wildhearts

18 Lostprophets - Start Something

19 Queen - A Night at the Opera

20 Muse - Origin of Symmetry

21 Ash - Free All Angels

22 Motorhead - Ace of Spades

23 Stereophonics - Performance and Cocktails

24 Manic Street Preachers - Everything Must Go

25 Feeder - Echo Park.

Brit Rock has contributed much goodness to rock. One would have liked to see some Jethro Tull in the top 25.

A masterful list of lists of best albums is at Acclaimed Music

Looking For Alice, Finding Carroll

A Wasp In A Wig is a blog drawing on various themes of Lewis Carroll, and other 19th century English writers. The Annotated Alice has long been one of the best books around. Carroll's allusions, mathematical puzzles, social commentary and creative humor make him a valuable resource in a fragmented age. His apparent pedophilia are reviled, while his literary works appreciated. This dichotomy is brought out in an entry on this blog celebrating his 173rd anniversary

Clearly we love the works of Lewis Carroll here. Personally I find his life an inspiration and a guiding light.

That said the hardest thing for me to deal with and accept was that Dodgson was a pedophile. The signs are everywhere but in my youth I chose to ignore them and believe that this man operated on a higher plane where love could exist purely for it's own sake.

That accepted it most be noted that Dodgson died as a virgin. While he spent many nights wrestling with what he called his demons there is no indication that he ever harmed a child or entered into any inappropriate relationship.

He controlled his impulses and tried to force his love into the higher plane I imagined.

This self control adds to his pleasant legend.
..........
There was much to love and ponder over the man.

Some interesting entries from "A Wasp In A Wig" include an exhibition of Alice Art in London and a new book on Lewis Carroll, annotating his bank account - well described by the author in the Times Literary Supplement

The account also shows conclusively that at least one major aspect of Dodgson’s famous image is absolutely wrong. His reputation has always been that of an obsessive, picking at detail in a way which could drive others frantic. As Isa Bowman recalled, before a railway journey Dodgson would “exactly calculate the amount of money that must be spent, and, in different partitions of the two purses that he carried, arrange the various sums that would be necessary for cabs, porters, newspapers, refreshments and the other expenses of a journey . . .”. Then there was his correspondence with Macmillan’s, beginning in 1875, after he had analysed the Alice accounts. “On every thousand copies sold”, he complained, “your profit is £20.16s 8d, mine is £56.5s 0d, and the bookseller’s £70.16s.8d. This seems . . . altogether unfair . . .” After bombarding Macmillan
with letters, Dodgson began fixing the sale prices of his books himself in order to secure a larger profit, earning himself the enmity of booksellers and enhancing his reputation for financial sharpness.

Behind the scenes at Parsons Thomson’s, though, it was a different story. When he did not have an elaborate and interesting plan involving railway journeys, or a David and Goliath battle to fight, Dodgson obviously couldn’t be bothered to notice how much was in his account from month to month. He began running into overdraft almost from the start. By the eighth transaction, his account was in the red, and he subsequently slid in and out of solvency in a careless way which was certainly not the rule among Parsons Thomson’s other distinguished customers. Using a rough rule of thumb of £50 (modern) to £1 (Victorian), Dodgson’s £148 overdraft in June 1863 was the approximate equivalent of £7,500 now, and that was fairly typical. For many years, these overdrafts were sufficiently low to be paid off as soon as he received his half-yearly salary from Christ Church. After Alice and his other books began producing income, the annual revenues, which quickly reached several hundred pounds a year, also helped his solvency.

The Looking Glass Company is currently enacting the world premiere of "Lookingglass Alice", a musical, in Chicago.

Lookingglass Alice

Adapted from Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass by Ensemble Member and Artistic Director David Catlin

Directed by David Catlin

Alice falls, floats, flies, and defies gravity and the rules of logic on her wonderland journey through the looking glass to become a queen.

With a juggling Mad Hatter, a precariously balancing Egg, and a bumbling Knight who invents his way into Alice’s heart, Lookingglass Alice revisits the stories that inspired the founding of Lookingglass Theatre Company.

Muscular, acrobatic, percussive and dizzyingly playful, Lookingglass Alice is a show for all ages: adults who think they’re all grown up, kids who wish they were, and everyone who likes to pretend they never have to.

Le Carré, Asimov-style

Cory Doctorow's new short story, "I, Robot" starts off as a single-parent angst-resolution tale, draws in Asimovian pseudo-science and Orwellian social constructs, then ends up deep in John Le Carré territory.

In a lesser writer, this would be merely derivative. In Cory's case, it is inspired. Current social and technophilic fears such as the criminalization of innovation, the decline of pax Americana, and the possibility of Festung Americana, are all explored with verve and insight.

As in Le Carré, the protagonist, Arturo, is a conflicted, disillusioned - although he would not admit it - apparatchik of the State. His conflicts arise, in part from his discomfort with the social system, and fundamentally from his betrayal by his wife, who has 'gone over'. He must come in from the cold, as it were, to recognize his incompleteness and the flawed State he serves. This realization is insufficient, as when it might have worked, he is confronted with his insecurity, and rejection - a robot, a mere robot, seems to have taken his place, and his wife may not be the woman he once loved.

One robot put its arms around Natalie's shoulders and gave her a squeeze. The three of them, robot, wife and daughter, looked like a family for a moment.
....................
Arturo put one foot in front of the other, not sure if the ground was actually spongy or if that was jetlag. Around him, the alien smells of Beijing and the robots that were a million times smarter than he. To his right, his wife, one of 3,422 versions of her.

To his left, his daughter, who would inherit this world.

He reached into his pocket and took out the tin soldiers there. They were old and their glaze was cracked like an oil painting, but they were little people that a real human had made, little people in human image, and they were older than robots. How long had humans been making people, striving to bring them to life? He looked at Ada — a little person he'd brought to life.

He gave her the tin soldiers.

Humans, currently at the top of the heap, have a perennial fear of displacement. This is a tale as old as the hills - from golems to the semi-sentient information sphere permeating our lives. We, the inheritors, may well yield our pre-eminence to, as Ray Bradbury put it, a Robot Pope.

Soundtrack while reading this story:
> Some Kind Of Monster
> Stairway To Heaven
> Motherless Child
> Mr Roboto

Media Survival

From Forrester Research's magazine, News Corp President Peter Chernin lists ten rules for media survival - pithy and interesting. Open for debate. My personal opinion is that digital communication and consumer choice are fundamentally changing traditional media. Not necessarily for the better, though.

1. Consumers are not driven by technology
- This seems odd - the tech-savvy consumer should be the norm by now.

2. The wired home changes nothing
- I would beg to differ. Digital media convergence in my home has changed my media consumption to a blend of web, film and television.

3. Media companies and advertisers must redefine their relationship
- Indeed. Transparency in advertising. Eyeballs moving to new media sources

4. Consumers reject complacency, not advertising

5. Contact is still king, but financing the kingdom is complicated

6. If content is king, then marketing is the crown prince
- Then there was the royal scam

7. Get noticed

8. It's a small world after all

9. Nothing compares to live

10. All other rules are meaningless if our content is not protected from digital thievery
- Strong choice of words there.

Review: Engelbert Humperdinck Live DVD/CD

Growing up, and before I developed my own musical tastes, which are more rock-oriented, I derived much listening pleasure from artists like Engelbert Humperdinck, seen as one of India's own, because of his birth there. The sizeable Anglo-Indian community, and general Anglo-philia meant that English songs such as his, Tony Bennett, et al were staples at weddings, on the radio, and school concerts.

I have retained an admiration for his honeyed voice, emotive lyrics and stage presence. His varied life has been an illustration of the highs and lows in 'la condition humaine'. The collection "Engelbert Live" is a good starting point for an introduction to the ouevre of this music legend.

It is packaged as a DVD/CD combination, at a low low price, (rereleased recently with the bonus CD) recorded from a 1998 show at the Forum Theater in Los Angeles. The DVD comes with Dolby Digital as well as DTS sound, and features him doing a few of his own songs, as well as some interesting cover versions. A couple of guest stars appear, including Michelina. His trademark, self-deprecating humor and easy airs are much in evidence.

The selection includes, "Portofino", "Love Is A Many Splendoured Thing", "Release Me" and "Quando Quando Quando". Cover versions of "Sittin' On The Dock Of The Bay", "When I Fall In Love" and "Unchained Melody" are well done, and personalized to the typical Engelbert style. I particularly liked the rock'n'roll "Nothin' A Little Love Won't Cure", his interpretation of "Sittin' On..." and "Such A Night". His love for Spanish songs comes out in "Yours" and "Per El Amor De Uma Mujer"(also in English)

Engelbert's sensuality and charisma have ensured him both chart-topping success as well as a legion of ardent admirers, not all of them lounge lizards and cruiseship divas. His early single "Release Me" put pause to the Beatles "Penny Lane/Strawberry Fields", and more recent hits like "After The Lovin'" (also on this collection) have given him brand-name recognition with at least two generations, across five decades. He has even stepped away from his traditional ouevre to provide naughty songs like "Lesbian Seagull" for "Beavis and Butthead Do America"

The orchestral arrangements of the Love Unchained Orchestra are superlative, occasionally even overshadowing the master performer. Michelina provides excellent counterpoint on songs like "Malaguena" and "When I Fall In Love". Schubert's "Ave Maria" is rendered well by Engelbert and Michelina, with admirable range, to close out the set.

His autobiography was released recently - and I look forward to a tale of a life richly lived.

The video is limited in camera angles, but the acoustic timbre is very good, especially on the DTS track. The sound literally comes from all directions, and creates an immersive effect.The CD features almost all the songs on the DVD, except "Malaguena","When I Fall In Love" and "Smoke Gets In Your Eyes", possibly due to length constraints. Good audio quality on the CD too. The DVD has a personal Engelbert-led discussion in his home, covering much ground, from his wife's garden to his charitable interests and musical influences.

Slide the CD in, dim the lights, snuggle up with a loved one, and ease your troubles away.

Fiorina Out: HP

Carly Fiorina is stepping down as chairman and CEO of Hewlett-Packard after three years. She led the company through the challenging merger with Compaq, which has not gone quite as swimmingly as hoped for.

Carly Fiorina was named Fortune Magazine's most powerful woman in businees for six years in a row until 2004, when eBay's Meg Whitman supplanted her.

The proximate causes are 'operational and performance differences with the HP Board'. The HP bio page for Carly was off the web - now it's back with the epithet 'former' added

Robert Wyman, the CFO of HP will be the interim CEO. Patricia Dunn, a director will be the non-executive chairman of the board.

In her statement, Carly alleges she was fired

Was she good, or bad for Hewlett-Packard?

The market welcomed the news, but felt that this action alone was not enough to address the strategic problems faced by HP in their core markets. Has HP lost its way?

THe Economist actually asked this question "Has HP Lost it's way?" in 2004 - excellent article.

Her problem ever since has been to justify the beast she thereby created. HP's shares are worth less today than on the day before the merger was announced or on the day it closed. A consensus has emerged in the industry that the new HP, the tech industry's most sprawling conglomerate, has lost its focus and is being squeezed between two formidable rivals with much clearer business models, Dell and IBM. Where Dell stands for cheap, simple boxes in an industry that is commoditising, and IBM stands for patching together lots of fiddly subsystems in an industry that remains ridiculously complex, HP seems a lukewarm compromise.
.........................
Her problem, in a nutshell, is that HP is trying to be all things to all kinds of customers, and is leaving more and more of them plain confused.
........................
It is unlikely that Ms Fiorina, who in her previous career oversaw the spin-off of Lucent from AT&T, is a stranger to the theory of corporate clarity. Could it be that years of conflict in testosterone-filled rooms have left her afflicted with that psychology so common among bosses of the other gender: the compulsion to rule the roost?

Homogenic Bjork

Music by Bjork is anything but homogenic. Her talents lead her to challenge accepted musical structures, while still creating memorable aural images. Her own life has had similar challenges, from a mail bomb to graphic breakups.

Her third album, "Homogenic", captures many of these conflicted emotions in a form that has few parallels. (I went back and listened to this album in preparation for her most recent "Medulla", a vocal symphony)

The first song, "Hunter" utilizes a soundscape of stretched violin notes, and dissonant beats to describe a primitive and post-modern soul on a mission, a hunt, an explorer of spaces of the heart.If travel is searching/And home has been found/I'm not stopping/I'm going hunting/I'm the hunter. She comments, interestingly, "I thought I could organize freedom/How Scandinavian of me"

"Joga" perhaps addresses Bjork's inability to fathom "emotional landscapes" in the general sense. It is an appeal for the Self to be understood by the Other, decrying the "State of Emergency" which exists when 'The riddle is solved". The sounds of Icelandic volcanoes provide a haunting backdrop to the scene.

"Unravel" is a humorous song that treats the lover's heart like a ball of yarn unravelled by the devil when separated from the other, and the need to 'make new love' to restore it. This song does not quite work for me, despite Bjork's emotion-dripping voice, layered vocals and images.

This song nicely sets off the next - "Bachelorette" is a compelling song, one of her best. Interestingly, it is quite in line with pop song structures, musically and lyrically. The lyrics flow together well, the violins and beats do not intrude or wander off into strange alleyways. "I'm a fountain of blood/In the shape of a girl/You're the bird on the brim/Hypnotised by the Whirl/
Drink me, make me feel real/Wet your beak in the stream/Game we're playing is life/Love is a two way dream". At its heart, the song is a woman's cautionary tale - the lover is naught without her sustaining force. He must forever cherish her, else he 'will go astray/Like a killer whale/Trapped in a bay', quite an Icelandic image.

"All Neon Like" would be good soundtrack for a Halo film, if ever there was one. A psycedelic song, it describes a protective cocoon, and a nourishing luminous beam. Electronic distortion is liberally applied, along with a pulsating beat."Not 'til you halo all over me/I'll come over/Not 'til it shimmers 'round your skull/I'll be yours/I weave for you/The marvellous web/Glow in the dark threads/All neon like"

"5 Years" is a powerful warning song to lovers who neglect to recognize the value of the love they possess. Bjork dares the craven cowards to take her on, to show their pulse. Scratchy, menacing tones permeate the song. "I'm so bored of cowards/That say they want/Then they can't handle"

"Immature" is a plaintive, semi-Icelandic elegy to the loss of love, and the understanding that follows - the ability of the Self to exist independent of the Other. "How could I be so immature?/To think he could replace,/The missing elements in me,/How extremely lazy of me."

"Alarm Call" is an electronica, new wave hymn on how you "can't say no to happiness". She expresses her desire to "go on a mountain-top/With a radio and good batteries/And play a joyous tune and/Free the human race
From suffering" She goes on to insist that "I'm no fucking buddhist/But this is enlightenment/The less room you give me/The more space I've got"

"Pluto" is another electronic-heavy, cryptic tone more suited for a psychedlic head-trip than easy listening on a summer evening. Her voice reaches levels one did not imagine possible in this song, vocalizing her inner depths.

This album of heartbreak and anguish ends on a hopeful note with "All Is Full Of Love", reassuring one that love is all around and will be given, "Maybe not from the sources/You have poured yours/Maybe not from the directionsYou are staring at"

Bjork demostrates her ability to transform common pop into unusual, mystical notes. I see her music as Cubist in inspiration and conviction, reconstructing the world as we see it from a perspective on a different plane.

Science Fact and Fiction

Science Fiction bleeding over into fact is nothing new to aficionados of the craft. From Jules Verne to prophetic stories about the Atom Bomb in Astounding (Cleve Cartmill's Deadline), science has picked up on memes propagated in fiction. An instance of this came recently when Cory Doctorow's short story from last year, Anda's Game(my review), found resurgence in the news with reports on courtroom fallout of events similar to those in the short story.

What happens in Norrath doesn't always stay in Norrath, however. Virtual goods now appear for sale in the real world, on eBay. Exchange rates for game currency and U.S. dollars are posted on sites like IGE. An island in one virtual world recently sold for $30,000!

That kind of money attracts attention. Digital sweatshops, businesses where Third World laborers play online games 24/7 in order to create virtual goods that can be sold for cash, are also on the rise. One such business, Blacksnow Interactive, actually sued a virtual world's creator in 2002 for attempting to crack down on the practice. The first of its kind to center on virtual goods, the case was eventually dropped.

The $30,000 virtual island was in Project Entropia, btw.

Project Entropia is a massive virtual universe with a real cash economy.

Together with people from all over the globe you experience adventure, you form societies, and you are a part in the creation of a brand new world.

While on the planet Calypso you use the PED currency to invest in your personal development. The assets you acquire can be exchanged back into real world funds.

Project Entropia is available around the clock for decades to come. The virtual universe has been developed since 1995 and every month new exciting content is added.

You can also deposit real money into the PED currency. Something like a virtual bank - wonder if they have the legal right for this.

/. discussion underway - some highlights:

....
I honestly think it's sickening to imagine people willing to spend this much money on something that isn't real. That's just my opinion though.

Sorry? The value of the money spent isn't real, either.

People treating imaginary stuff as if it were "real" is a normal thing. Actually, our entire society is based on the fact that people do that.

# Consider these simple examples just to get you started: Laws
# Borders
# The concept of "owning" things

I can very well imagine a number of reasons why it can be considered sickening to trade everquest characters for that much money. For example you might argue that it is decadent. But the fact that everquest characters are not "real" is nothing special.
.......................................
You honestly don't know what the fuck you're talking about, do you?

These guys pay people in korea and china in sweatshop conditions to do nothing but 'farm' money and items from online games. This wouldn't be so bad if it wasn't for the fact that while they are doing this to make a profit they are:

A) Ruining the in-game economies for the players who play for fun.

B) Selling intellectual property that does not belong to them.

C) Hogging resources and areas and depriving real customers of what they paid for.

Most MMO's these days are coming with EULAs that state that it is against the terms of service to sell any ingame items or accounts. I neither buy accounts or ingame goods/money, I believe that these people are breaking the TOS of these games. Accounts should be transferrable, in my opinion, because they're what you pay for when you buy the game. Having said that, when you play the games, you agreed to the terms and conditions expressed by the owners of the games.

The sweatshop farmers work 8-10 hours doing nothing but killing mosters to collect their gold. While others in comments might say they're getting paid to play the game, they most certainly are not. If you want to see what these guys can do to a game, go and look at Lineage 2. Sweatshop farmers ruined that game. And they will ruin any other game where this type of behavior is not combatted pro-actively.

And as to how they ruin a game it goes something like this:

1. Sweat shops farm the gold, stopping players from legitimately adventuring in the areas they occupy.

2. They sell humongous amounts of gold on eBay and websites like IGN.

3. All the gold that is being farmed and not put back into gold sinks starts inflating the cost of items.

4. Something that once cost 1 gold, now sells for 100 because people have too much money.

5. New players can not afford the items they need, forcing them out of the game.

These poor little koreans who need to earn their 3 dollars a week are ruining games people PAY TO PLAY. I find it unacceptable. And so do the other players of MMOs. Whether some third world pissants get paid where they otherwise wouldn't is immaterial.
.................................

Firefox Extensions

One of the nicest things about using the Firefox browser, apart from it's sheer elegance in design, is the ability to add new plug-ins or extensions in a hassle-free manner. While plug-ins are also available for Internet Explorer, the variety of extensions for Firefox, IMHO, far outstrips those for IE.

Extensions can be found at the Mozilla updates site. You can also write your own relatively easily. A good tutorial on creating Firefox extensions is at roachfiend.com

Some useful extensions:

1. Super DragAndGo: One of my favorites, and recently updated for Firefox 1.0, this extension allows you to drag any link on a webpage to clearspace and open the link as a new tab. Once you get used to this mode of working, and not having to deal with tabbing between multiple new windows, you won't be comfortable without it.. Even better, if you select a phrase/word and drag/drop it anywhere, it will submit the phrase to your installed search engines a open the results in a new tab. Dragging an image and throwing it anywhere results in the image being downloaded.

2. ieview: This extension adds a "View page in Internet Explorer" to the context menu. This is useful in viewing certain pages that do not display just right in Firefox. Alternatively, Firefox View lets you open a page in Firefox from Internet Explorer.

3. Blogging Extensions: A variety of extensions for convenient blogging of web pages you visit are available, including 'BlogThis' for Blogger.com

4. Down Them All: This extension allows you to download all/some of the links on a page in a single-click.

5. FoxyTunes: This allows you to control just about every popular music player like WMA, iTunes, WinAmp from within the browser.

6. Adblock: Allows you to filter/block web advertisements and other irritants

7. Foxylicious: This extension integrates your del.icio.us bookmarks into your browser bookmarks.

The online community is vibrant, constantly contributing new, cooler extensions. This means the browser constantly evolves, something larger products find difficult, with their emphasis on release cycles.

Digital Convergence

Jon Udell of Infoworld has some interesting and innovative thoughts in his recent column on timeshifting and telepresence

At the end of the day, it struck me that time-shifted content and space-folding telepresence are becoming complementary. For example, it wasn't strictly necessary for me to drive to that meeting. I could have made a phone call. Because it was a first meeting that may turn into a professional relationship, however, face-to-face was preferable. In the past that reasoning would have entailed a trade-off. Now, though, when I'm not folding space I can shift time. Given that I needed to listen to those recordings anyway, listening to them in the car -- away from interruptions and distractions -- was the most productive way to do it.
...
Shifting time, folding space, juggling atoms and bits -- is this how we want to live and work? Yes!

These ideas were inspired in part by Martin Geddes of telepocalypse.net, where he asks important questions of the nature that "We’ve no idea how the world of bit-shifting interacts with the world of atom-arranging. How do telecom and transport substitute or complement one another? Using economic analysis, he concludes,

The separation of the “tele” from the “com” suggests we should be looking separately at the layers of the architecture. That means considering the information services separately from the bit haulage. What’s the price cross-elasticity of going to NASCAR races with car-racing TV shows and video games? And will that have the same effect on connectivity demand? I suspect the answer is we know even less at this level of detail than we do at the aggregate level.

In the future, IPv10, perhaps, everyone will be an IP address. Number and place were seen as interchangeable a long time ago, in every mathematical abstraction.

I recently took another step forward in digital convergence within the home. Ever since I was first haunted by the ghost in the machine many years ago, I have long held a fascination for technology. This has in recent times translated into an appreciation for social implications of technology.

My home setup until recently featured an integrated model with my XBox(which also doubles as my DVD player) hooking up with my home theater system, DVR and television. This afforded me the convenience of combining gaming, film and timeshifted television. My other source of media was my computer. hitherto an independent device, straining at the seams with information and media.

I recently installed a digital media hub - the Hauppage Media MVP 1000. The MVP stands for Music, Video, Pictures, but could very well be "Most Valuable Player". The Media MVP is a router-sized device that hooks into the home network on one end, and the home theater on the other. Since my home theater also switches video signal inputs for my television, this means I can, on demand, play movies, music or view pictures on my television that are stored elsewhere on my network.

Even better, the Media MVP is a Linux-based device that uses a service running on my Windows-based PC. The service is constantly updated - new features include DivX support, Internet Radio, and many more. A thriving community exists online, including software skins, et al. All this for a sub-$100 price.

This kind of digital convergence within the home is liberating intellectually, while stultifying in some ways. Sedentary in one sense, it amplifies the utilization of devices, creating a sort of cyber-sphere permeating the home. Couple this concept with pervasive Internet access, and we move further towards a hyperreal society, at least for those of us on the right side of the digital divide.

The digital divide, however, can potentially be bridged by such low cost technologies. In India, for example, the government has set up vast education television-based networks to educate rural masses. The generic, canned television programming can be replaced with dynamic, web-routed content, delivering the world to the village at a low cost.

Devices like the Simputer, a cheap Linux-based handheld, (retail product: The Amida Simputer)are changing the lives of farmers, enabling them to have access to retail price information, demand fluctuations and stocking levels. This enables them, albeit not sufficiently yet, to compete against the agribusiness conglomerates.

Amazon Prime

Amazon.com has long had a free ground shipping option at the $25 mark for most regular-sized products. This has entailed much wriggling and tweaking to cross the mark and get the free shipping - who likes to pay for shipping any way?

Amazon has now introduced a new program - Amazon Prime - that provides free second-day shipping ("All You Can Eat" Express Shipping) on most items without any minimum shopping requirements or bundling needs (combining items into lesser shipments). This is available at a price of $79 a year. Overnight shipping under this plan will be $3.99 - which is again much less than normal.

Current shipping models and rates will continue outside this program - for now.

The implications of this program are enormous. Firstly, evidently Amazon is able to better leverage pricing with the shippers - allowing them greater flexibility in the order fulfilment process. Look for Amazon to acquire/embrace a shipping company - this would mean near-complete vertical integration, and even greater cost efficiency.

Secondly, for frequent shoppers (like me), this can work out to pretty good savings. (I am currently working out an Excel on break-even purchasing)

Amazon Prime at work

It also further extends Amazon's utilization of their single-click patent - If signed in and using the Single-Click option, you see additional buttons for Prime purchases, although you can add to the shopping cart and apply the Prime option later too.

Finally, it should drive up sales for Amazon - people will be more inclined to buy if they can pick up the odd book or two without having to jump through hoops to get it shipped fast and free.

The signup price is steep - and adoption rates may be low initially, until the value is perceived.

Update: I worked out some numbers that would make this palatable. Using the Amazon shipping rates for 2-day shipments, not taking into account the per-shipment charges, and assuming purchases of books, music and CDs, it would take a purchase volume of 25 books, 15 CDs and 2 electronic items(approx 6 lbs per item) to cover the cost of approx $76. Alternatively, it would take about 4 shipments in the (slower) super saver shipping scheme. So if this works for you, give it a shot.



Updates: Slashdot has had an entertaining discussion on this issue. I especially like this bit:

Amazon Prime? (Score:5, Funny)
by techsoldaten (309296) * Alter Relationship on Wednesday February 02, @03:25PM (#11555015)
(http://www.trellon.com/ | Last Journal: Monday November 08, @04:54PM)
Does Amazon Prime compete with Optimus for leadership of the Autobots?

Perhaps he is the UPS truck to Optimus's tractor trailer?

M
[ Reply to This ]

Dunno... (Score:0)
by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 02, @03:34PM (#11555106)
...you can ask Optimus [wkyc.com] yourself.
[ Reply to This | Parent ]
Re:Amazon Prime? (Score:0)
by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 02, @03:43PM (#11555214)
Yeah they do compete. Remember from family
Peter: Optimus Prime? He's Jewish!
[ Reply to This | Parent ]
Re:Amazon Prime? (Score:1)
by dabigpaybackski (772131) Alter Relationship on Wednesday February 02, @03:47PM (#11555282)
(http://www.antiwar.com/)
Does Amazon Prime compete with Optimus for leadership of the Autobots?

Don't be silly. Optimus' authority is beyond dispute, and Autobots never fight Autobots.

I am offended by your Decepticon-ish post. Did Starscream put you up to this?
--
"OH SHIT, THERE'S A HORSE IN THE HOSPITAL!"
[ Reply to This | Parent ]

Boingboing picks up on it - thinks it is a good idea. I'm tempted, too. In fact, everytime I buy a product, I'm going to be doing the math - this might actually complicate my buying decision - never a good thing in retailing.

What really irks me is this should be free anyway - I know of excellent sites like zipzoomfly that regularly give free 2-day shipping to everyone. Amazon is asking you to pay upfront for it. Furthermore, the only ones who will really benefit will be big shoppers, who should be coddled according to CRM, not bound hand and foot.

The Battle For Taliesin

There was a great battle Saturday morning
From when the sun rose until it grew dark.
The fourfold hosts of Fflamddwyn invaded,
Goddau and Rheged gathered in arms,
Summoned from Argoed as far as Arfynydd
They might not delay by as much as a day

(The Battle of Argoed Llwyfain from Llyfr Taliesin)

A view of Taliesin I

Frank Lloyd Wright's enduring creations are a testament to creative excellence and architectural skill. His personal creations like "Falling Water" and "Taliesin" are well known, with many visitors and students. Taliesin was his sprawling home and studio in Spring Green, WI. Wright contributed the "Prairie" and "Usonian" styles home design to American residential architecture. Elements of his designs can be found in a large proportion of homes built today.

A rare collection of photographs detailing the design and construction of the house, circa 1911-'12, was put up for auction on eBay recently by Helen Conwell, who had lived next to Taliesin for many years.

A frenetic bidding battle ensued, but a vigilant retired employee of the Wisconsin Historical Society energized a campaign to preserve the rare material in the hands of the Society. He collected pledges right up to the end
of the auction. Many other dealers grappled with the Society. The final sale price: $22,100 More details at the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

Tailesin (Wisconsin Historical Society)

The 3-by-5 images offer a remarkable glimpse of Taliesin I, as it is known, in its infancy: One shows its cantilevered roof, stuccoed walls and jutting balcony, with workmen in the foreground. Another shows the garden courtyard enclosed by the ground-hugging building. Still others show the light-filled drafting room, with its pitched roof; the spacious living room, with its big stone chimney and oak built-ins; and the house on its hillside perch.

The pictures give no hint of the turbulent history the house would get caught up in. Taliesin I was built after Wright had left his wife and family in Oak Park, Ill., to take up residence in Spring Green, the valley of his Lloyd-Jones forebears, with Mamah Borthwick, the wife of a former client. In 1914, a servant set the house on fire, destroying it and killing Borthwick, her two children and four employees.

Wright built a second Taliesin on the foundations of the first; much of it was lost to another fire, in 1925, caused by faulty wiring. The architect was continually rebuilding and modifying the house until his death in 1959.

Very few photographs exist of the original building, which makes the eBay find so exciting to historians.

Recently, the Conan Doyle collection was on auction - a treasure trove of material from the creator of Sherlock Holmes. This involved a macabre twist - the garroting of a noted Sherlockian scholar with a shoelace. They were finally sold to an unknown buyer for a million pounds.

Dubyaman And The Common Man

I've been meaning to share a interesting cartoon that began appearing in the Times Of India a few years ago. Conceived by the humorist/author Jug Suraiya, of whom I have blogged, it features a thinly-disguised George W Bush, as Mr Incredible-like Dubyaman, protector of democracy, freedom, and purveyor of Bushisms. The comics are drawn by Neelabh Banerjee.

Jug Suraiya has received bouquets and brickbats - the gallery of Dubyaman cartoons at the Times of India website seems to be currently down - I shall post links later. For now, one selection:

Today's cartoon - very topical, in more ways than one

These cartoons do not reach the exalted status of nonagerian R K Laxman from India, whose Common Man cartoons have counterpoised Indian history from Independence, and are still going strong. He was awarded India's highest civil honors this year at the Republic Day celebrations. He was earlier awarded Asia's top journalism award, The Ramon Magsaysay Award.

Rs 15 crores loss here? Excellent.
I thought everything put together our
village did not have more than Rs 50!

He described his immortal creation, the Common Man as, "I had to create this mythical individual in a striped coat, with a bushy moustache, a bald head with a white wisp of hair at the back, a bulbous nose on which perched a pair of glasses, and thick black eyebrows permanently raised, expressing bewilderment. He voyages through life with quiet amusement, at no time uttering a word, looking at the ironies, paradoxes and contradictions in the human situation."

Himalayan Blunder

The King of Nepal, Gyanendra, who came to power after the royal massacre three years ago, has sacked his hand-picked government, stifled the nascent democracy in the Himalayan kingdom and cut off access to Nepal. Oh, and he has assumed absolute power for three years.

The Royal Nepal Army has laid siege to the television stations, radio stations and shut down air traffic, stranding hundreds. Phone lines are dead and Internet connectivity snapped, with web sites blacked out. The Army has taken up position on the border at Birganj, checking all vehicles entering the kingdom.

Nepal has been grappling with a Maoist insurgency for many years, with a few districts under the suzerainty of the Maoist guerrillas. The King's statement expresses the opinion that the government has failed to achieve breakthroughs with the Maoists.

The monarch, in a televised address to the nation, accused the government of failing to restore peace and not taking steps for the conduct of parliamentary elections.

"I have decided to dissolve the government because it has failed to make necessary arrangements to hold elections by April and protect democracy, the sovereignty of the people and life and property," the king said.

"I have exercised the rights given to the crown under the present constitution and dissolved the government for the larger interests of the people, country and protection of sovereignty," he said.

Accusing political parties of 'indulging in factional fighting', the monarch said, "In fact, all the democratic forces and political leaders should have united to protect the country's democracy, national sovereignty, people's life and property and also protect the country's economic infrastructure.

"Innocent children were found massacred and the government could not achieve any important and effective results. The crown traditionally is held responsible for the protection of national sovereignty, democracy and also people's right to live peacefully.

"It is the duty of the crown to protect all these segments of society," he said.

Interesting thought - authoritarianism in the defence of democracy

The UN, the United States and big brother India have all expressed concern and displeasure over these developments. Nepal has long had strong authoritarian tendencies. I blogged briefly about this last year.

Long perceived as a crucial buffer state between the elephant and the dragon, the Hindu kingdom of Nepal has acutely felt the pressures. Pre-independence, the British did not push too hard for annexation of the kingdom, preferring to retain a resident for economic and political purposes. The capital, Kathmandu, became a nexus in the Great Game between the colonial powers. Just post-independence, India encouraged a long-suppressed desire by the King of Nepal to escape from the de facto rule of the Ranas, providing a safe haven and transit to King Tribhuvan, until the Ranas capitulated and ceded governing authority to the titular monarch. In more recent times, India has been more interested in preserving access to Nepalese trade and maintaining the status quo against the Maoist rebels, who have been propped up by China. The massacre of most of the Nepalese royal family in 2001 is still shrouded in mystery, and allegations of collusion by everyone from the CIA to India, and China.

King Gyanendra is perhaps the only king in history to have reigned twice - separated by a span of fifty years. When King Tribhuvan escaped to India, the young child Gyanendra was crowned in his stead.

More details on events in Nepal here

Most links on this page to *.np sites do not work currently.

How Many Lives?

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

Never Odd Or Even

Kyle Hollingsworth, keyboardist/pianist for the String Cheese Incident, has released a solo album , "Never Odd Or Even". The album is a masterful collection of acid jazz groove tunes, with significant influences from various sources like Chick Corea, Brian Eno, Little Feat, the Grateful Dead and more.

The band, with their interminable On The Road series of CDs, had their last studio album in 2003, "Untying The Not", a moody, jazz-rock set. The abilities of Kyle were possibly masked by the skilful cohesion of the band. The solo album gives him free rein to showcase his ivory-tapping skills. A back-to-the roots for the Boulder, CO native, it features a variety of guest talent, including members of SCI.

Kyle Hollingsworth

This album is more consistent tonally than "Untying The Not", which combined, rock, blues, bluegrass and jazz. The brief prelude sets the theme. Titled "Prevolution", it features some Indian classical vocals, a musical form that is remarkably like jazz in its use of improvisation and structure to evoke emotion.

This song blends into the next, as do most songs in the album. This is not an album to be listened to on the shuffle - the mood changes are subtle, yet significant between songs, and the album as a whole, forms a kind of palindrome, tonally, like it's title.

"The Crusade" is a jaunty number, with a catchy beat and a saxophone chorus. The keyboard is quite muted, until at one point, where it takes over and the composition shifts into high gear. Hearkening back to early jazz/funk, it samples some of the same in the middle section of the song.

"Seventh Step" begins with a slow-paced, staccato rhythm. It retains this style, even as the tempo builds up and the steel guitar takes over. This song is a staple on the String Cheese Incident road shows.

"The Bridge" is a gospel-laced, easy-going number. It has some excellent pedal steel guitar work by Robert Randolph, pedal-steel virtuoso. It recreates the fervor of classic blues tracks, almost as if we were in a little shanty church somewhere in the South, swaying to the beat.

"The Preacher" goes even deeper into deep south, Gospel revival territory, with a fast-paced beat, a rousing radio preacher vocalizing lustily, and demanding we 'satisfy the sense of seeing and feeling before we are convinced'. By far one of the best jazz songs ever, IMHO, it holds together competing tonal moods, not letting the listener forget 'the forces of the universe' - a true rendition of faith, as it were. Kyle mentions this song was inspired directly by Brian Eno's "My Life in the Bush of Ghosts". This song features Michael Kang from the String Cheese Incident lending a hand on the electric mandolin.

"Gigawatt" uses literally gigawatts of musical energy, holding the mood created by the previous song, "Preacher". Hard driving chords, layered sound, make this almost a hard rock song, with changes in tempo and new themes introduced abruptly that turn out to be guitar-based solos, ably supported by the earlier themes.

"The Arc" picks up on the final notes of "Gigawatt", speeding up the pace, with a frenetic substrate, that is overlaid with flickers of musical energy, almost like electric charges leaping around a capacitor. This song, too, features Michael Kang on the electric mandolin.

The next song, "Ohms", completes the internal electric trilogy in the album. An unusual piece, it samples children chattering at a museum, a sparse keyboard and changes the tonal mood to effectively set the stage for the next, significantly vocal song.

"Don't Say" utlizes light percussion as a base, and an evocative lyric touching on transient feelings, loneliness, and what 'she don't say, she don't know'. This is a song by someone who's spent a lot of time on the road, missing family ties, giving everything he's had, and now 'tired of being alone, tired of being sad'.

"Not Yet" is stylistically evocative of Latin melodies, a near-bossa-nova beat and another mood changer.

"Boo Boo's pik-a-nik" is an unusual piece, featuring guest vocals from cows, Vince Guaraldi-styled playing, and almost puts you into a '57 two-door Chevy on the way to the pik-a-nik, with a basket of goodies. Yogi Bear watch out!

"¡Bam!" is a Hancock-type fast groove that had me rockin'! The quaver in the middle of the track is Joshua Redman on the sax, a fine fusion on this long piece. This song deserves to be on a best-of playlist in every jazz bar around. This is another SCI fave, done differently, and in a stronger, faster mood.

"Revolution wraps up the set, turning the wheel around to the beginning. The fusion of Indian melody of the Hindustani variety (as opposed to the Carnatic) and steady-paced jazz-rock beats is uplifitng, a fine way to end a memorable album.

The copy I reviewed had no liner notes, choosing perhaps to let the music speak for itself, as it does.