TED: Think big

This is amazing!  I can't believe this isn't helping the world already.


Michael Pritchard's water filter turns filthy water drinkable Video on TED.com


This is also amazing, but in a much different context. ;-)


http://blog.ted.com/2007/09/06/theo_jansen/

Shhhhh....don't tell anyone!

It’s my guilty indulgence.  As I pick out the latest edition and take it to the girl at the check-out counter, I’m kind of embarrassed by what she must think of me.  I can’t defend the writing.  I don’t think I’ve mentioned it to anyone I know…because I know they just won’t understand.  It’s a new habit, beginning only a couple of months ago during summer vacation. 

I’ve started reading Star Wars novels.

Now understand this: generally speaking, I hate this kind of stuff.  I like to consider myself a little bit of a purist in most of the things I enjoy.  Having seen them over the years on the shelves of bookstores, I always thought, “Jesus.  What a stupid , soap opera type thing to do.  Lemme guess, all the main characters get married to each other and have little Jedi babies that carry on the same adventures that the originals tackled.”  I saw no allure I that.  Just perpetuation of the brand.



Count Dooku

 But here’s the thing…I love Star Wars.  For my generation, it’s part of who I am.  I’ve watched the movies countless times.  I was stuck in a book rut and needed something light and thoughtless.  Then I realized, man…I wish there were more Star Wars movies.  I want more back story.  I want more details.  Who the hell is Count Dooku, anyway?

So first I researched it.  There are countless Star Wars books out there, presumably with some being much better then others.  The nice thing is they all have to go through Lucas before publishing, so he keeps the storylines straight and doesn’t let people tread wherever they want.  So I put together a timeline of books by the more recognized writers and started at it.  As we sit today, I’m onto my sixth Star Wars novel.  Oh dear.

Worse yet, I kind of like it!

I’m getting back story:  we’ve touched on why Yoda chose the Dagobah system to hide out on and what might have happened to him while there.  The slavery of Chewbacca’s species by the Empire and their ultimate liberation.  What the Emperor was up to after the Great Jedi Purge and he tried to take over the galaxy.  I love this stuff.

But then, we get to the reasons I would think a lot of my peers (and indeed, other normal people) stay away from these books.  Leia and Han are married, of course.  In fact right now, in the book I’m currently reading, Leia has just given birth to twins, Jaina and Jacen.  Yeah, you read that right:  Jacen.  Naturally, both of these little babies are strong in the Force and will carry on the novel series with a New Generation and all rehashed adventures in the future timeline of this “Expanded Universe”.  We also encounter characters long believed dead, but have either been hiding out after faking their demise, or have been cloned, which seems quite a prolific theme so far.  That kind of stuff I can ultimately do without. 

But I’m getting pulled right into this stuff.  I love hearing about the Jedi.  Their light sabers are so much more useful and versatile than they used to be in the original movies.  These guys are getting better and better all the time! 

I started with “Outbound Flight”.  This book was set before the clone wars and included characters like Obi Wan Kenobi and Anakin Skywalker.  The book introduced a character named Thrawn, who will be integral in the future storyline.  A bunch of Jedi died in that book.

Then, out of sequence and for a lark, I read one called “Betrayal”, which is the first in a set of books known as the Legacy series.  This will carry on with the next generation of Jedi.  This one that I read concentrates on Jacen Solo as a young Jedi Knight, having been trained by Uncle Grand Master Luke.  I’ll likely get back to that series of adventures after I’m done with my current focus.

Right now, and the reason I started with Outbound Flight, I’m reading the “Thrawn Trilogy”.  It’s pretty good!  Thrawn is an interesting character and as the last remaining Grand Admiral from the Imperials side, has taken over where Vader and the Emperor left off.  He take control of what remains from the Empire’s day and tries to put them back in power.  A very clever man, this Thrawn.  I’m in the third book of the trilogy now and after it’s completed, there’s another “Thrawn Duology” that I think I’ll tackle.  The hard part with this guilty pleasure is choosing the right path of books.

With so many to choose from such varied time periods and character focuses, I want to go through them deliberately and with some sort of chronological purpose.  The Battle of Yavin (when the first Death Star was destroyed in the original Star Wars movie) serves as the central chronological measuring meter.  In the same sense as we use “B.C.” and “A.D.” when putting things in historical time period reference, so does Star Wars with “BBY” (before the Battle of Yavin) and “ABY” (After the Battle of Yavin).  So whenever I’m perusing the timeline of novels, I start with looking at where I want to be; 15 years ABY or 20 years BBY.  Maybe even 10,00 years BBY!

Anyway, now you know my secret.  I’ll be sure to keep y’all updated with the latest happenings from the Expanded Universe!

The Friday Five

Star Turtle 1 – Harry Connick Jr., Star Turtle

This was considered a concept album by our modern day Sinatra.  In it’s entirety, the album tells a tale of a visiting alien being taken out for a night on the town by his earthling host, presumably in New Orleans, I would think.  This is actually one of my favorite albums of his.  This particular song is an intro to the story and as such is a little weird, musically speaking.  But once it gets jamming, this album is solid track-to-track.  Lots of guitars and more of a “rock” feel almost.  I saw harry live in Edmonton, maybe back around the year 2000 or so and still stands up as ne of the best shows I’ve been to.  Very personable guy.  For the show I saw, he actually had a cast of his hand for a broken finger (thumb?), but even that didn’t stop him from attacking the piano. 

Silver & Gold– The Detroit Cobras, Baby

Now, work with me here….Julie just brought this home last week, I put it on the iPod, but haven’t actually sat down and listened to it yet.  We have another one of their albums that I quite enjoy and upon this song popping up in the shuffle, it sounds good and very much like what I’m used to from this band.  They have a neat feel; kind of a 50’s doo-wop but set with a modern rockabilly, hot chick fervor.  I’ve heard songs from them that sound like they’re kind of reeling it in a bit for the sake of melody and cohesiveness, but I’ve also heard them let loose with more punky growls…and that’s the way I prefer them.

Rome – Phoenix, Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix

This is an average track of a pretty good album.  This is their latest release and the first tie I had heard of the band.  Julie has known about them for a bit and recommended I buy it.  But a funny thing happened on the way to my CD rack.  Phoenix got popular.  Don’t know if the gig on SNL or the popularity of Lisztomania, but all of the sudden everyone knows who they are.  That equates to hearing them everywhere and ultimately, not being so cool any  more.  Haha!  However, to be fair…this was my first taste of them and I didn’t mind it at all.

You Never Can Tell - Chuck Berry, Pulp Fiction Soundtrack

Ah, yes!  What I would consider one of the more iconic scenes from my cinematic generation.  Everybody knows this one.  And everyone also knows how a Quentin Tarantino movie can affect music.  On many more than one occasion, a Tarantino scene has come to define or re-define a song.  To the point that when you hear that song, all you can think about is that scene from the movie where you heard/ saw it.  I don’t even have to illustrate this point with Stuck In The Middle With You, do I?  Anyway, this is the dance competition scene where Mia Wallace and Vincent Vega strut their stuff with original moves I’m willing to bet you can still spot on your local dance floor.  And somehow, in some way…I like how Chuck Berry is just a little bit dirtier now for having his song associated so closely with blood and heroin. 

But I Feel Good - Groove Armada, Lovebox

With the heavy reggae voice and catchy horns, this is a memorable and good track from this dance album.  This is about the furthest my variant taste stretches…I generally hate pop music and all that crap the kids are listening to at the mall.  But these guys have been the club scene darlings for many years without very many people knowing who they were.  That changed about 10 years ago, I’d say, when everybody’s musical education and awareness somehow went up with the proliferation of the world wide weeeb.  Good album with catchy beats.  You’ll like it!

Austin continued

Getting up slowly on Saturday, this is the only day we did not secure tickets to the actual festival.  We only had Friday and Sunday tickets, so we figured a day about town in Austin would be a good thing.  We trotted down to Annie’s for the brunch that Bill had been selling us on the day before.  Delish!  Some mimosa’s to get us awake and off down the street we were!  Of course, this is now 2:30pm…heh, heh.

We wandered around the downtown core and sixth street, running in and out of all the little shops.  We considered a vacation tattoo as we did in N’awlins, but after checking out the portfolios in the plethora of tattoo shops we decided they were pretty much all scratchers.  There was some cool stuff to be seen, though.  About halfway into the trek, Julie felt the warm flow of bird shit creeping down her arm after becoming the victim of a pigeon’s target practice.  Haha!!  “Isn’t this supposed to be good luck or something?”  That’s my girl….

After walking up and down, we deked into a pub called the Jackalope.  We had read that this bar recently won the distinction of Austin’s best dive bar.  Just so happened to hit happy hour, so for my beer and Julie’s tequila/ soda it was only like, $4.00 or something ridiculous.  Needless to say we stayed for a couple.

We wandered around a bit more, then hit dinner in the hotel before walking to tonight’s aftershow.  The one we’ve been waiting for:  Sonic Youth in a bar!  It was about a half hour walk from our hotel.  This whole weekend so far I’ve seen people everywhere with their cameras, happily snapping  up pictures at events that called for the ban of cameras on the tickets.  So this time I decided to be brave and bring my along.  Of course (!!!) we get busted at the door…”you can’t bring that in here”.  I pleaded, begged, offered up the card…anything.  Nope.  This meant, a half hour before showtime, that I had to run back to the hotel in order to get rid of said camera.  Fak!  In the interest of moving fast I left Julie there and ran.  By the time I returned and gained entry, maybe 25 mins. had elapsed, Warpaint had just taken to the stage to open the show, Julie was on her second drink and I was dripping sweat all down my red, red face.  But at least I was there now!

Warpaint was killer…terrific band!  Sonic Youth was also amazing.  For the second time this weekend I bought into Thurston’s guitar and Kim’s rocking.  There were maybe 350 people in there or so.  They played three encores.  By the time we were crawling out of there, my feet were killing me!  Back to the hotel for bedtime….but not before yet another hot dog fiesta!

We wandered back down to the festival for Sunday and were amazed how many people were packed into the little TV lounge area there because the football game was on.  In the middle of a music festival, crowds in front of the stages were being lost to the football game on TV.  The season has barely even started..not like this was the Super Bowl or something.  Anyway, had a couple of beers to cool off and then tried some fried pickles (yum!).  Met some rad people that we chatted with for a while.

Saw Devendra Banhart, then got a good spot on the grass for Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros.  In the distance we could hear, I think, The Gayngs doing a cover version of the Beastie Boys, “Sabotage”.  Before Mr. Sharpe ended, we snuck out and hit up Martin Sexton and ran into those aforementioned rad people on their way to see him, too.  Julie bought all of us a beer and fast friends were made.

We then jetted off again to catch Band of Horses.  They sounded great and very much like their studio selves.  We stuck around for a few songs before Julie declared being “over them” and off we went in search of more beer and the stage for The National; another terrific live presence.  By the time they wrapped up, we were tipsy and only one show remained:  The Eagles.  In the eternal words of one Jeffery Lebowski, “I hate the fuckin’ Eagles, man!”  We decided to forego those festivities and head back out.  No aftershow tonight, so we headed to find our own fun.

Wandering down our now comfortable Sixth Street, we popped into a couple of places for one beer, then off.  Until we walked past a place and heard this guitar player from the street.  He was getting on the blues and sounded good so we went in.  He was awesome!  We sat there and listened the rest of the night…and this cat didn’t stop all night.  It was a style of Texas Blues, his name was Alan Haynes and truly, this guy was awesome.  Really enjoyed that.

We made it back to the hotel by midnight or so and since we skipped out on our now nightly hot dog, hit up the hotel lounge.  Julie continued her Texas meat attack by getting the croissant loaded with smoked turkey and applewood bacon!  She ate it like a pro.  Drunkenly, we stumbled back up to our room after that.

Monday was home day, so we just took a few touristy pictures downtown and got ourselves all ready for travelling.  All in all, had fantastic time and look forward to the next travelling adventure that Julie and I set ourselves up for.  Hhmmmmm…..what will it be? 

The Friday Five

Blues Before Sunrise – Eric Clapton, From The Cradle

Although Mr. Slowhand shows fantastic versatility as a guitarist, it’s his blues that I love the most.  And by the enthusiasm with which he bites into them I daresay it’s what he loves best as well.  No better example of it than on this song, or indeed this album.  For this particular track, he growls his best whiskey deteriorated voice and rasps in the way of a true Delta bluesman.  I could probably play it for a couple of friends (albeit, less knowledgeable ones) and they wouldn’t know it’s Eric, much less a Brit.  

Truckin’ – The Grateful Dead, American Beauty

One of their most recognized tracks from one of their most popular albums.  They may not have a ton of “hits” in the top ten during their time, but this is likely one of them.  Personally, there are a great many songs I prefer from this band over this one, but it’s a friendly foray into the mainstream.  And let’s face it…as cliché and cheesy as it may be, no road trip is compete without blasting a classic driving tune through the stereo while barreling down the highway.

Country Blues – Jimi Hendrix, Martin Scorsese Presents the Blues

Love it!  Being a guitar guy with a huge range of musical tastes, it seems sad even to me that I’ve admittedly never been a huge Hendrix fan.  I dunno what it is or why, just never really got all that into him.  But this, my friends…this is great stuff!  Having not been terribly exposed to him, of my own volition, I remember cruising around in a buddy’s car back in the 90’s when some killer blues came on.  When I asked her we were listening to and he told me Jimi, I was blown right away.  But then I didn’t know which of his albums to buy in order to get the stuff I liked, so I just forgot about it.  Then I ran into this “Martin Scorsese Presents…” thing and all my problems were solved!  Blues is all I want to hear Jimi play.  And Country Blues specifically, is a fantastic track!

God – Daniel Johnston, Yip/ Jump Music

The greatest songwriter you’ve never heard of.  I found out when a friend of mine lent me the documentary, The Devil In Daniel Johnston.  A lot of other people had already heard of him because Kurt Cobain had made the man a bit of a celebrity by often sporting one of his T-shirts.  The story of Mr. Johnston is a fascinating tale and I would recommend the movie as a starting point to anyone who’s curious to learn more about what he’s all about.  He’s bi-polar.  He’s batshit crazy.  But he’s a poetic genius.  Julie and I went to see him when he came through Edmonton last year and I considered that a treat.  It was like going into his basement, to watch him flipping back and forth through his song and lyric sheets between each song.  Such a homegrown, childlike feel to everything he does.  It’s charming.

The Difference Between Us – The Dead Weather, Sea of Cowards

This is the second and latest album by one of Jack White’s other bands.  Although it’s as easily described as Alison Mosshart’s other band.  Mosshart, of The Kills, is fast becoming my latest White-esque muse.  But let’s leave that for another song analysis, shall we?  Not even a lot of my well-rounded friends are all that into the The Dead Weather yet, but I love ‘em.  They bring back the edge that rock n’ roll is kinda supposed to be about.  In an era when everything in music is categorized to death into sub-genres, this band stands straight up as rock n’ roll…or at least, how rock has evolved over the years.  It’s not Led Zeppelin or the Rolling Stones, but it just may be who those bands would have been if they were launching their careers today. 

Austin - The Beginning

Well, that was fun! 

Austin turned out to be a pretty rad city, as we knew it would be.  Julie and I rolled into town Thursday night (Oct. 7^th) and immediately grabbed a shuttle to out hotel, The Omni.  This turned out to be a pretty nice class of place.  After a quick little freshening up, we headed right out to our first gig; First Aid Kit, who was playing at a place called Stubb’s, which turns out is walking distance from our home base.

It was a BBQ restaurant with a bar in the basement.  The room was holding maybe 200-250.  After a long day of flying, hardly any food and an excitement to get things rolling, we had jumped into drinking jack and sodas, so it didn’t take long before we had cheerful smiles on our faces.  Especially with the “Texas Long Pour”.  Anyway, band was great…We then took advantage of the nearest hot dog stand, where I blasted down a “Vienna” dog and Julie swallowed the veggie version.  Return walk to the hotel entailed a 2am stroll down 6^th Street, which is Austin’s version of Bourbon Street.  We took in the sights and goosed a couple of girls that walked by us in heels they could barely stand in.  Good times.

Next day after getting up a little late, we decide to walk down to Zilker Park for the festival.  We started out about 2:00pm or so and discovered Annie’s Café along the way, at which we stopped for a bite.  Our bartender, Bill, was a cool old fella…bright and cheery.  We eat a fantastic meal with a couple of beers to start the day.  As we’re about to continue on the walk, Julie decides we need a pick-me-up…so we ask Bill for a couple of shots of Jack.  This pleases Bill very much.  He thinks we be cool folk.  He pours us each a shot that had to be 2 and half ounces in each.  We slug ‘em back and head out.

The walk is hot as hell and longer than we’d anticipated.  But hey, we’re young!  So after this hour long walk in 30 plus heat, we make it onto the grounds of Austin City Limits and immediately race for the beer tent to cool off!  We sat down for some of the Black Keys set, but for some reason, the sound was horrible ad we could barely hear them.  That drove us back to the beer tent where we met some folks and hung out for a while.  We must’ve caught some else in the somewhere….hhhmmm.

At last the time came to get up for Sonic Youth.  We made it to their stage early and sat down nice and close to the stage.  They were awesome!  Great set, great show…Julie had to pee the whole time but didn’t want to leave, so she had one of those uncomfortable concert experiences where the band is unreal, but you pee s bad throughout the whole thing you can only half-enjoy it.  Having never seen them before, I was curious and open-minded.  Thurston Moore definitely delivered for me.  He’s an unreal guitar player and commanding stage presence.  Ms. Gordon, of course, was breathtaking.  The grand momma of noise, indeed!

As their set ends, we make a mad dash for the cans, lining up with everyone else for 20 minutes.  As this happens, The Strokes fire up right beside me and man, they are loud!  Sounded frickin’ on fire.  So after we finally get through that bathroom extravaganza, we make a run for Phish, at the other end of the park.  I’ve missed the opening couple of tunes, but hey…what’re you gonna do?  By the time we get within earshot and start wrangling through the crowd to find a spot, they’re into a sick jam on Wolfman’s Brother and I am in heaven!  From there on, Phish was tight!  Great set included Chalkdust Torture, You Enjoy Myself, Harry Hood and a screaming cover of the Talking Heads, “Cities”.  I am so happy to gotten o see Phish again after so many years.

After the festival ended, it was a walk back downtown for another aftershow.  This one was at a place called Emo’s for Those Darlins and the Black Lips.  On the way there, we went back to the same hot dog stand and by God if Julie didn’t eat meat!  I warned her!  But being drunk in Texas and 15 years without meat…she caved in!  She ate a hot dog right along with me!  Couldn’t believe it.  She was so happy about it, too!

Anyway, back to Emo’s…dive bar, kind of open air segment to it and get this:  outhouses for cans.  Nice.  The reason we bought tix for this show was more for the opener than the headliner, but I gotta say, I was all that thrilled with either.  I mean, whatever..they were okay and all.  But I was expecting something different out of both bands.  Anyway, we stayed for it all and partied with a bartender that Julie thought looked just like Curtis.  After the shows, it was onto our walk back to the hotel, with the obligatory slide through 6^th Street again.  But hey, before we get there, “I want another hot dog!!”  So back to our hot dog lady, where Julie and I share a good-night tube. ..Haha!!

Okay, that’s all you get for now….I’ll write about the rest of the trip in the next day or so.

On Our Way....

So, we’re on our way to Texas! 

Well, in the morning we will be, anyway.  The continued travels of Brian & Julie!  With the Austin City Limits festival now on our doorstep we’re just a little bit excited to get this trip under way.  So many fantastic bands will be there, it’s got me salivating.  Julie’s nether regions are getting all slippery with the thought of catching Sonic Youth twice while we’re there.  Phish for me. 

But it got me thinking; Julie and I have now been together for about a year and half or so.  Still relatively new.  But during this year and half, we’ve managed to travel a reasonable amount.  Especially considering the obligation juggling that’s involved when you’re parenting a five-year-old.  Anyway, so far we’ve hit:

New Orleans for the Jazz Festival

Dominican Republic for a winter getaway

The Gorge Amphitheatre in Washington for DMB

Her family’s cabin on Vancouver island…twice!

Banff (at the Fairmont Banff Springs)     

Jasper (Pocahontas cabins)

All over southern Alberta and a bit of BC for last summer’s camping trip with Ruby

That’s not too shabby.  Also during the time I’ve been dating Julie, I’ve managed to slip in a trip to Toronto (Habs vs. Leafs game) and a few days in Boston where I caught the Bruins playing the Philadelphia Flyers, plus a New England Patriots game at Gillette stadium.   

And now to Austin, Texas.  Why is it that I seem to be travelling so much these days?  Maybe we’ve been making more of a point to “just do it”, as it were.  Julie and I have a pretty good record together when it comes to travelling, aside from the Gorge trip.  A little bit of sensory stimulation and adventure can be good for a couple’s soul, methinks. 

I had an idea for a song that came out of that premise.  Now, don’t take this too literally people…it’s just a little creative license that seemed to lend itself well to the boundaries of alt-country.  Don’t want to give off the wrong impression.  Anyway, something about how, “we have to go away to get along…we’re uneasy when we’re comfortable…we’re uncomfortable when we’re safe…take us somewhere new to become one out of two”.    

Oh, and by the way….this trip gives a chop to this week’s Friday Five.  I’m sure you’ll all get over it.      

Cheers!