El Arranque

Meanwhile, up here in the technologically 'advanced' lands, we shuffle jukebox cover tunes of 'hits', 3 minutes a pop, pipe through FM headset mics, Bose stacks and a $12K rack of audio enhancers, and half the tables have wallflowers.

"Ok kids, here's the deal, we'll play, and you dance. Got it?"

actually, some years ago I passed by a basement club in T.O. where an acoustic acid-jazz trio was doing just that, and y'know, the dancers packed shoulder to shoulder through the hall were all having a real good time. Come to think of it, that kinda describes the old-time fiddle-jam barndance we went to some aeons ago too ...

The worldwide web of belief and ritual

Wade Davis on the worldwide web of belief and ritual: "Anthropologist Wade Davis muses on the worldwide web of belief and ritual that makes us human. He shares breathtaking photos and stories of the Elder Brothers, a group of Sierra Nevada indians whose spiritual practice holds the world in balance."

a tour of the human heart, the reality of our nature, the high-technology of myth and ritual, and how you keep the earth from plunging into ugly darkness. when people wonder why we still play our music despite commercial indifference, I recommend this lecture.

The end of music (reprise)

8tracks - the end of music: "'Many people in our society now go around the streets and in the buses and so forth playing radios with earphones on and they don't hear the world around them. They hear only what they have chosen to hear. I can't understand why they cut themselves off from that rich experience which is free. I think this is the beginning of music, and I think that the end of music may very well be in those record collections.' - John Cage conversation with Ev Grimes (1984), in Kostelanetz 1988, 235"

Cage wasn't the first, of course, in fact, John Philip Sousa marched on Congress to protest "Those Infernal Machines" saying they would make us musically mute within a generation, but I can't help but note the irony that this quote is used as a teaser for yet another batch of tune-programs to tuck into those beans in your ears!

Furby Gurdy

Furby Gurdy version 2 (batch of 4): I really shouldn't be telling you about twisted evil gadgets like this. I really shouldn't. I should just let them be. Yes, for those who wonder, you turn the crank on a synchro bank of bent Furbies and yes, your band can have one too.

Here comes the Furby Gurdy man
and he's singing songs of love
Here comes the Furby Gurdy man
and he's singing songs of love