My Photos: Hallowe'en

My Photos - Mobile Uploads: And so it begins ...

The myth of Samhain

The myth of Samhain: Celtic God of the Dead: "W.J, Bethancourt III has an online essay which traces the God Samhain myth back to the year 1770 when Col. Charles Vallency wrote a 6 volume set of books which attempted to prove that the Irish people once came from Armenia. 'With modern research, archaeology and the study of the Indo-European migrations, these conclusions can be seen as the complete errors they were...'

Later, he writes: ' 'Samhain' is the name of the holiday. There is no evidence of any god or demon named 'Samhain,' 'Samain,' 'Sam Hane,' or however you want to vary the spelling.'"

Today was a beautiful end of summer, a great day to be outdoors for a walk or sitting on the deck, or raking leaves, or scooting about dressed as demons and witches extracting good-fortune tithes from the neighbours ;)

Mothra 3

A behind the scenes look at the filming of the Japanese monster film Mothra 3 (Rebirth of Mothra 3)

A 3-Minute Fairy Tale of Mixed Emoticons

A 3-Minute Fairy Tale of Mixed Emoticons: "Storyteller and poet Rives tells a typographical fairy tale that's short and bittersweet. On stage, his poems burst in many directions, too, exposing multiple layers and unexpected treats: childhood memories, grown-up humor, notions of love and lust, of what is lost forever and of what's still out there waiting to unfold."

R/C Mechagodzilla Robot

This awesome new remote controlled robot is faithful to the classic 1974 Mechagodzilla. From Bandai Japan.

Ready for the Fun!!

LittleBoots writes: "are you ready for the FUN?!? here is cover of hot chip's ready for the floor, its not exactly perfect but best i can do on the amazing tenorion!!!"

"The truly MODERN composers," I said, "program the presets into personal music devices. Real-time creative 'interactive' music is the future of composition." Todd was giving the keynote, said he had to go.

Rundgren talked up his new 'interactive' project, a jukebox CD of premixes, all the same song. At Q&A, a young man asked, "But Todd, when will I get to JAM with you?"

Once Upon a School

Once Upon a School: The essence of the program is that it's like school, but it's not school. 826 National is a nonprofit tutoring, writing, and publishing organization with locations in seven cities across the country. Our goal is to assist students ages six to eighteen with their writing skills, and to help teachers get their classes excited about writing. Our work is based on the understanding that great leaps in learning can happen with one-on-one attention, and that strong writing skills are fundamental to future success.

Once Upon a School is challenging adults to support their local public schools. Their goal is to collect 1,000 stories told by those who participate.

African chimps decline 'alarming'

BBC Science & Environment: "The population of the endangered West African chimpanzees in Ivory Coast has fallen by about 90% in less than 20 years, a study has suggested.

Researchers found 90% fewer nests than a similar audit carried out in 1990, which suggested the chimp population had crashed from 12,000 to about 1,200."

I mentioned this at breakfast, and the kids calmly shot back with some school-fed bio-jargon that meant, basically, "yeah, well, it's ok, there's still some in zoos and private collections" ... as if that's good enough.

Is this the manifest danger of Reductionist dogma taught for science? So obsessed with DNA, they miss the whole-system FUNCTION of the creature?

Bottled water not so pure

Greenspace - Los Angeles Times: "Bottled water isn't necessarily any purer than the water you get from your tap, it's just more expensive, according to a report released Wednesday by a Washington, D.C., nonprofit research group.

The Environmental Working Group sent samples of 10 major bottled-water brands to the University of Iowa Hygienic Laboratory. The results: 38 low-level contaminants turned up in the water, with each brand containing an average of eight chemicals. Disinfection products, caffeine, Tylenol, nitrate, industrial chemicals, arsenic and bacteria were detected.

Two brands contained disinfection products at levels that exceeded California's bottled-water standards"

and that doesn't even get into how bad the bottle itself can be! I think word is getting around, though, as I see at our beach-side no-pipeline resort-area grocers the bottled water is selling for record low-prices and still sits stacked up on skids in the ailes.

Googling is Good for the Brain

News for a Synergic Earth: "For middle aged and older people at least, using the internet helps boost brain power, research suggests.

A University of California Los Angeles team found searching the web stimulates centres in the brain that control decision-making and complex reasoning. The researchers say this might even help to counter-act the age-related physiological changes that cause the brain to slow down. The study features in the American Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry.

Lead researcher Professor Gary Small said: 'The study results are encouraging, that emerging computerized technologies may have physiological effects and potential benefits for middle-aged and older adults. Internet searching engages complicated brain activity, which may help exercise and improve brain function.'"

And why should this be? I think it is because most internet apps, google included, are so hopelessly broken that to do even the simplest task is a constant challenge of "What do you suppose the programmer intended here?" and other opaque black-box puzzles that make the New York Times Crossword seem like a walk in the park!

21+ Acre Park-like Paradise For Sale

Florida Real Estate For Sale: "21+ acre park-like paradise, lush landscaping consisting of many ponds, lakes, hundreds of palm trees, various fruit and flowering trees, many large old, oak trees, two bridges and a large deck cantilevered over a lake.

Ten buildings; hurricane resistant, fire resistant, termite resistant, concrete and steel buildings, 5 are domes, 3 homes, 1 office, 2 equipped shops, very large spa, 4 wells, 3 septic tanks.

A Perfect Country Get Away..."

For those who may be inspired by the film "Zeitgeist: Addendum", here's the one-year-later The Venus Project futureworld research facilities, all yours for less than the price of your average Sauble beach-biz location! Ideal location for reinventing human existence, would also make an ideal lair for an evil genius.

RadioDirectX

RadioDirectX.com: David Valdez writes "So far it seems like (Canadian arts promoters) Radio DirectX has been a very good investment for me. As independent Jazz artists how else are we going to get international radio airplay? I've heard plenty of horror stories from Jazz musicians who hired PR agents for $1500 per week and only got a couple of CD revues in obscure Jazz rags.

We need to get our CDs out of the boxes stacked in our garages and out into the world for people to hear. We also need press quotes that rave about our masterpiece recordings, and it's nice if those quotes are from a radio stations in Australia, France or Poland (or even Belarus) rather than from a CD review in your local Jazz society newsletter."

one of the disappointing aspects of most all the mp3 hosting sites is how poorly they market submissions to people who matter; Valdez thinks he may have found a workable alternative for the independent seeking global exposure, and while expensive to play, their clients include Billboard, the Junos, EMI, and Sony/BMG, so the potential for payoff appears to be worth the investment risk.

Caldonia!

Sugar Chile Robinson appeared with Count Basie on television, performed with Lionel Hampton and played for President Harry S. Truman at the White House. In 1946 he appeared in the Hollywood movie No Leave, No Love with Van Johnson and Keenan Wynn. Robinson continued to tour Europe and America until the mid-1950s when he opted to pursue an academic career. He earned a Ph.D. in psychology from the University of Michigan.

How old do you need to be to play piano? This clip is the oldest footage of Frank "Sugar Chile" Robinson, at the time, 5 years old.

Muxtape remembers teledyn

Muxtape remembers teledyn: "Unity itself and the idea of Unity are already two"

well this is sweet. or bitter-sweet anyway: in his last act of defiance after being shutdown for evil piracy, muxtape has frozen that last moment and left you all with a nice reminder of the playlist for the incidental music played during our wedding ceremony!

Forensics casts doubt on Bach

Forensics casts doubt on music of Bach: Australian forensic anthropologist Martin Jarvis of Charles Darwin University "'My forensic work reveals that our current understanding of Anna Magdalena's role in the life and musical output of Johann Sebastian Bach cannot be correct,' Jarvis told Cosmos Online.

'I believe there is evidence that shows that Anna Magdalena was at the very least a composition student of Bach, and more probably his assistant composer,' he said."

Status: Infected by Space

Gary is listening to 'infected', podcast of Sun Ra covers

The Colors of the Moon

The Colors of the Moon: Russel Croman writes "Is the moon really this colorful? In a way, yes. The lunar surface actually does have quite a bit of color, although in reality it is very subtle. In this photograph, the color saturation has been enhanced to bring out the differences in the colors of the various areas of the surface. The hues are correct, just much more vivid than we usually see them."

Colonel Bleep - 1957

Colonel Bleep was the first color cartoon ever made for television. It was created by Robert D. Buchanan, and was filmed by Soundac of Miami. The show was originally syndicated in 1957; 104 five-minute episodes were produced, less than half are known to survive today.

Colonel Bleep, an extraterrestrial lifeform from the planet Futura, protected Earth with the help of his deputies, Squeek (a mute cowboy puppet boy) and Scratch (a caveman of great physical strength who was awakened from a sleep of several thousand years by an atomic explosion).

"... and trouble ANYWHERE in space is the concern of the Futura Interplanetary High Command ..."

just so you know I come by my nuclear-proliferation opinions honestly, I would linger at home that extra fifteen minutes at lunchtime to catch the Colonel on the cross-border TV before heading back to school. Who better than a selfless Futuran to teach the dangers of atomic power?

Clazz Orchestra plays Sun Ra

part 4 of 6: Saturn: "Sun Ra's Saturn revisited Registration of the Clazz Orchestra concert at the ZXZW Sun Ra Festival, sep 19th, 2008. Tilburg, the Netherlands.

Music Video Code by JazzyClips.com

The Clazz Orchestra played music by Sun Ra, and worked with the resident Sun Ra Arkestra, now lead by Marshall Allen.

Personel; Evelien de Vries, clarinet Stephanie Francke, soprano/alto sax Donald Simoen, alto sax Floor van Duijsen, bassoon Irir Oltheten, french horn Bob van Rutte, trumpet/flugelhorn Daan Morris, trombone Yannick Hiwat, violin Walter de Kok, violin Marije de Jong, cello Niels Broos, piano/synthesizers Lennart van Dijk, bass David Sommen, drums Andreas van Zoelen, conductor/bari sax

Musical training enhances integration of the senses

Neurophilosophy : "piano training involving playing musical sequences leads to more reorganizational changes in the brain than does training involving listening alone. They also demonstrate that just 2 weeks of cross-modal musical training enhances connectivity between the sensorimotor and auditory regions of the brain. Their findings are published in the current issue of the Journal of Neuroscience."

More evidence that OHIP should be paying for music lessons. To be fair, though, they also found it was neuroplastically ok to just LISTEN to music, provided you DANCE while you do.

Status: Here Comes The Sun

Gary is watching the sunshine advance through the trees.
What IS the opposite of "shadows recede"? Encroaching illumination?
Need to know: Penrose calc says our Sun may be sentient, "Orch OR with large E."

Penrose observed that interiors of neutron stars may have huge quantum superpositions which would reach OR with very large E, brief t and high intensity. By Orch OR criteria such events would indeed be conscious. But because the conditions are presumably random, such conscious moments would lack cognitive information processing: OR without Orch. Similarly, OR conscious moments without cognition may be occurring in various crystal-like, large scale quantum materials throughout the universe.

My Photos - End of the Rainbow

My Photos - Mobile Uploads: This is it! The End of the Rainbow! We found it in Owen Sound at the marina, and yes, apparently it ends on a small sailing craft ...

Under Your Skin

YouTube - underyourskindvd's Channel: "In many ways Under Your Skin is the first exploration on the cultural diversity of music. The 350-400 page book gives a valuable insight on artists from around the globe - from Popular Music to Jazz, Hip Hop, Reggae, Avantgarde, Metal, Electronic, DJ-ing/Turntablism, Folk, Classical and more."

Interviews with :
Anthony Braxton, Ornette Coleman, Cindy Blackman, Taj Mahal, Yusef Lateef , Matt Waugh, Bob James, Skip Mcdonald, Erika Stucky, Living Colour, Terri Lyne Carrington, Andrea Parkins, Dj Rob Swift, Marilyn Crispell, Dick Griffin, Billy Bang, Kahil El Zabaar, Michael Ricci - All About Jazz, Val-Inc , Chico Freeman, Bobby Watson, Eddie Henderson, Dinosaur Jr, Lydia Lunch, Jack Dejohnette, Yves Weyh - Zakarya, Fred Frith, Elliot Sharp, Public Enemy, Blixa Bargeld ( Einstuerzende Neubauten ), Mouse on Mars, Bev Getz , Isaku Kageyama, Roy Ayres, Helma Schleif - FMP music, Billy Cobham, The Captain , Enzo Rocco, Vijay Iyer , Sam Rivers, Kronos Quartet, Miroslav Musicant, King Britt, Ernst Bier, Napoleon Solo , Gary Lucas, Foday Musa Suso, Jalal Nurrin, Doug Hammond, Immamddin Khan - The Ustad Arba Music Group, Linda Clifford, Dj Mitsu, Jos?? Francisco Tapiz - Tomajazz, Yogini , Kenji Siratori , Melanie Scholtz , Ann Marie Almedal, Les Nubians, Maria Joao, Hilde Hefte, DJ Krust, Gail Anderson (ex Rolling stones mag ), Rebekah Jordan, Dawn Silva (Brides Of Funkenstein ), Turntabalist Disk, Jamaaladeen Tacuma, Monday Michiru, Kutmasta Kurt, Ebony Strings, Hank Roberts, Omar Sosa, Bela Fleck, Foetus, Kikuko, Evi Vine, Dj Logic, Sameh "SAZ" Zakout, Bryn, Ophelia of the Spirits, Mekon, Morcheeba, Omar, Joe Sample and many others .