Friday, February 10, 2012
Fagen on Friday: Counter Moon & Teahouse on the Tracks
Donald Fagen performs "Counter Moon" and "Teahouse on the Tracks" from his solo album Kamakyriad, 1993 Steely Dan Tour, Nashville, TN
Tuesday, February 7, 2012
On The Road Again
Ofer is a traveling man. He describes himself as “a Nomadic Entrepreneur who was born and raised in Germany, lived in the US for over a decade, moved to Israel four years ago, and who succumbed yet again to his overriding urge to experience new places, people and adventures.” Currently in Penang, an island in Malaysia, he was in George Town, the capital the other day, when he was walking down the street and he happened to see a fellow traveler, from New York as it so happens, who was cruising along in a local form of transport, a rickshaw.
Although his camera battery was nearly empty, “running on fumes” as we say, and his subject was in motion, Ofer managed to snap this great photo of his fellow traveler doing what he does best, being Anthony Bourdain. Although DITHOB's efforts to photoshop it into greater clarity were not successful, you can see Mr. Bourdain doing his thing, like Ofer, on the road again.
Thanks for sharing the photo, Ofer.
You can visit Ofer’s site, “Marco Polo East My Dust” here
--Anthony Napoli for Deep in the Heart of Brooklyn
Although his camera battery was nearly empty, “running on fumes” as we say, and his subject was in motion, Ofer managed to snap this great photo of his fellow traveler doing what he does best, being Anthony Bourdain. Although DITHOB's efforts to photoshop it into greater clarity were not successful, you can see Mr. Bourdain doing his thing, like Ofer, on the road again.
Photo by Ofer Mog (c) 2012
Thanks for sharing the photo, Ofer.
You can visit Ofer’s site, “Marco Polo East My Dust” here
--Anthony Napoli for Deep in the Heart of Brooklyn
Monday, February 6, 2012
Poetry as Survival: Gregory Orr at the New School
Poet Gregory Orr will be discussing "Poetry as Survival" in a conversation presented by Arts in Mind at the New School on Wednesday, February 8, at 8 PM.
“Poetry is a way of surviving the emotional chaos, spiritual confusions and traumatic events that come with being alive." - Gregory Orr
Gregory Orr is the author of 10 collections of poetry, a Guggenheim and NEA fellow and a longtime professor of creative writing at the University of Virginia. Arts in Mind at the New School is hosting this presentation and conversation with Dr. Donald Rosen, medical director/CEO of the Austen Riggs Center.
Informed by tragedies of his own childhood, Mr. Orr came to battle his way from meaningless to meaning through creative work. He is the author of 10 collections of poetry, a Guggenheim and NEA fellow, and a longtime professor of creative writing at the University of Virginia. “I wrote a poem one day,” he writes in his book Poetry as Survival, ”and it changed my life. I had a sudden sense that the language in poetry was ‘magical’ … it could create or transform reality rather than simply describe it.”
This event, which is free and open to the public, will be held at The New School, Arnold Hall, 55 West 13th Street, 2nd floor.
More information on Arts in Mind and future presentations in this series on the arts and mental health here
A Poem by Mr. Orr here and another here; lyrical and mysterious.
“Poetry is a way of surviving the emotional chaos, spiritual confusions and traumatic events that come with being alive." - Gregory Orr
Gregory Orr is the author of 10 collections of poetry, a Guggenheim and NEA fellow and a longtime professor of creative writing at the University of Virginia. Arts in Mind at the New School is hosting this presentation and conversation with Dr. Donald Rosen, medical director/CEO of the Austen Riggs Center.
Informed by tragedies of his own childhood, Mr. Orr came to battle his way from meaningless to meaning through creative work. He is the author of 10 collections of poetry, a Guggenheim and NEA fellow, and a longtime professor of creative writing at the University of Virginia. “I wrote a poem one day,” he writes in his book Poetry as Survival, ”and it changed my life. I had a sudden sense that the language in poetry was ‘magical’ … it could create or transform reality rather than simply describe it.”
This event, which is free and open to the public, will be held at The New School, Arnold Hall, 55 West 13th Street, 2nd floor.
More information on Arts in Mind and future presentations in this series on the arts and mental health here
A Poem by Mr. Orr here and another here; lyrical and mysterious.
Always in Vogue: Madonna at the Super Bowl
Great Half Time photos of Madonna, Niki Minaj, MIA, Cee-Lo-Green, and LMFAO, plus dancers, acrobats, and endless pomp and glitz. And, oh yeah, the New York Giants defeated the New England Patriots, 21-17.
Article and Photos here
Photo - (c) NBC
Article and Photos here
Friday, February 3, 2012
"Super" Alternatives: FusonArts
Art by Shalom Neuman
For anyone not lured by the prospects of hot wings and taco chips in front of the HD, as the New York Giants and New Engand Patriots battle it out on the gridiron under the generalship of QB's Eli Manning and Tom Brady, and entertained by Madonna and those multi-million dollar TV commercials, there are more creative, countercultural alternatives:FusionArts will be presenting a Super Bowl Be-In - "An afternoon of action art for the sports-culture challenged!" on "Super Bowl" Sunday, February 5, 2012, 3- 6 PM, Hosted by Lambert Fine Arts, at FusionArts, 57 Stanton Street,
NYC 10002. Back with another fun-filled afternoon of action art, FusionArts and Lambert Fine Arts invites you to "Rebel against the sports culture establishment and join us for a good old fashioned Super Bowl Be-In."
Featured are FusionFriends: The Unbearables, Carrie Beehan, Peter Grzybowski, Brett Zweiman, Kika von Klück and Shawn Butler.
Gallery Artwork by SHALOM NEUMAN (with soundtracks by musician/composer Brett Zweiman) and TERRENCEO
Exhibition dates January 20 - February 12, 2012
For more information contact: 212-353-2787 or http://www.lambertfinearts.com/
Thursday, February 2, 2012
Dreamers, Hackers and the Securities and Exchange Commission
David Choe, the Skeptical Grafitti Artist Who Gambled on Facebook and Stands to Win Big here
The Official Mark Zuckerberg Facebook biography indicates that he considers himself an atheist and a computer hacker here :
Excerpt here: "In 2010, Stephen Levy, who authored the 1984 book Hackers: Heroes of the Computer Revolution, wrote that Zuckerberg "clearly thinks of himself as a hacker."[16] Zuckerberg said that "it's OK to break things" "to make them better."[16][17] Facebook instituted "hackathons" held every six to eight weeks where participants would have one night to conceive of and complete a project.[16] The company provided music, food, and beer at the hackathons, and many Facebook staff members, including Zuckerberg, regularly attended.[17] "The idea is that you can build something really good in a night,” Zuckerberg told Levy. "And that’s part of the personality of Facebook now ... It’s definitely very core to my personality."[16]
Again, all mindful of the visionary book by Sol Yurick, Behold Metatron: The Recording Angel, who wrote "...the old philosopher's stone could convert base metals into gold. now humans, real estate, social relations are converted into electronic signs carried in an electronic plasma. the dream of magical controll has never been exorcised. perhaps, after all, modern capitalism is a great factory for the production of angels."
...which this site discussed previously here . Published by Autonomedia (Foreign Agents Press) here
Wednesday, February 1, 2012
Don Cornelius: Creator of 'Soul Train' Dead at 75
The Soul Train Line dances to September by Earth, Wind and Fire
Don Cornelius, creator of Soul Train, the show that revitalized music on TV beginning in the 1970s is dead from an apparent self-inflicted gunshot would in Los Angeles at age 75. More here
Don Cornelius
David Bowie on Soul Train performing Golden Years
Tuesday, January 31, 2012
On Reading Paradise Lost
Gustav Dore's Depiction of the Main Character
of John Milton's epic Paradise Lost
In the early early morning, every work day, after a cup of coffee at home and a scan of the NY Times, before I walk to the subway and another day at the office, I have been reading -- or attempting to read, or reading very slowly, or perusing -- a couple of pages of John Milton's Paradise Lost. It's one of those texts that I have skimmed over the years with a goal of actually reading in full.
And,although I am reading it slowly, it is marvelous, fantastic, provocative, so much so that after reading a few lines, it is such a dense text, filled with historical and biblical references and allusions and images, that my mind soars, with a blissed out distraction, both a desire to read more and to stop everything and hop into my own writing, that I see it may take a Miltonian aeon to make itthrough this work. Not at all a slog, it is a delight to read, but so stimulating that my little patches of time each morning simply are not enough time and space to achieve this goal. But still I will remain in pursuit. Every day, every morning, a couple of pages, and then another reference or allusion and I see it is once again time to say goodbye - to my family, to Milton and the dreams of the unfettered creative life --and make my way to work. Once again, Paradise Lost...
--Anthony Napoli
See for yourself here
Monday, January 30, 2012
CODA: Doing the Italian-Jewish Thang: From Louis Prima to the Flatbush Waltz
Flatbush Waltz: Andy Statman (mandolin) Jim Whitney (bass) and Larry Eagle (drums and percussion) celebrating David Grisman's birthday with a performance of Andy's "Flatbush Waltz" at Yoshi's in San Francisco, 23 March 2009.
As a follow up to last week's Louis Prima post-- It was our younger daughters' 17th birthday(s) this weekend and we celebrated,. as always, with a family dinner at home, including my mom (87) and our older daughter's fiance and our son who will be 21 in a few short weeks. At the request of the celebrees, and in view of various bouts with colds, etc., we decided to Go Easy by picking up some luscious take out pizza and pastas from L & B Spumoni Gardens, followed by a humungous cake shaped like a Cheeseburger from Rimini Pastry on Bay Parkway.
Photo by Tony Napoli
Dinner, and a glass or two of a very nice Nero d'Avola, was accompanied by our ritual listening of MOB HITs (lol), among other Italian-American classics, followed, as a definitive statement of who we are as an Italian-Jewish family, by In the Fiddler's House by Itzhak Perlman and various Klezmer artists. All in all, a lovely birthday celebration and another warm get together. I loved hearing Flatbush Waltz again and now can't quite get it all out of my head. Ahh, Brooklyn. Ahh, Flatbush, right here in the Brave Old/Brave New World. -Anthony Napoli
Youtube uploading info here
Wednesday, January 25, 2012
CODA: Wednesday Morning: Waitin' on the Robert E. Lee by Louis Prima
A clip from the 1999 documentary, Louis Prima: The Wildest. Director Don McGlynn was the creator of the 2011 documentary on African-American and Gospel Music, "Rejoice and Shout"
Interestingly, the song was written by L. Wolfe Gilbert, born in Odessa Russia, and who moved to the United States as a young man and eventually established himself as one of the leading songwriters on Tin Pan Alley.
Gilbert began his career touring with John L. Sullivan and singing in a quartet at small Coney Island café, originally known as "Whiting's Cabaret" on Surf Avenue, later changed to "College Inn", where he was discovered by English producer Albert Decourville. Decourville brought him to London as part of The Ragtime Octet. Gilbert's first songwriting success came in 1912 when F. A. Mills Music Publishers published his song Waiting For the Robert E. Lee (melody by composer Lewis F. Muir). More here
Friday, January 20, 2012
Singer Etta James Dies, Age 73
Etta James, whose assertive, earthy voice lit up such hits as "The Wallflower," "Something's Got a Hold on Me" and the wedding favorite "At Last," has died, according to her longtime friend and manager, Lupe De Leon. She was 73.
She died from complications from leukemia with her husband, Artis Mills, and her sons by her side, De Leon said.
She was diagnosed with leukemia in 2010, and also suffered from dementia and hepatitis C. James died at a hospital in Riverside, California. She would have turned 74 Wednesday
Obit at CNN here
Wednesday, January 18, 2012
Are We Approaching Web 3.0 ? A Day Without Wikipedia Is A Day...
Well, it's not a pretty thing seeing Google with a black armband, much less our beloved Wikipedia (or, as generations of science fiction writers and readers probably anticipated it as-- the Global Library) gone cold for 24 hoursto protest the legilsation, but there is a buzz in the land regarding SOPA (Stop Anti-Piracy Act) and PIPA (Protect IP--Internet Privacy- Act)..On first glance, it's a bit of a convoluted issue, and the question of good guys and bad guys may not be as clear as either side wishes to view it, but it potentially can be one of the big issues of the near future if the traditional entertainment industry, in an effort to combat piracy, is able to effectively lobby Washington lawmakers into introducing restrictions on the internet, or more specifically, the operation of internet companies such as Wikipedia, Google, etc.
As a reader of Jaron Lanier's book on the potential negative impact of anonymity, anti-individualism, and the fallacy of the "Information Wants to Be Free" on the world wide web, I didnt come down with an immediate clear view on the issue and I was concerned that my initial wariness of the efforts of Google, et al, against SOPA and PIPA may have been counter-intuitive, since I love the Gedanken Sind Frei spirit of the net, always have...but I am in agreement with NY TImes Media columnist David Carr's recent article that suggests that while new legislative protections may be warranted given the expansion of the web and the success of search engines such as Google that make less money through traditional advertising then in bundling and reselling internet users' information to other advertisers and corporate clients. However, as Carr suggests, since the traditional media have been proven wrong in their original, somewhat heavy-handed original approach to stifling music and video on the web, they may not be the best group to shape this legislation. Perhaps these issues require further study let-the-chips-fall-where-they-may debate over this legislation, instead of Wikipedia and other sites pulling the plug (which inadvertently are intended as protest but may give argument toward their potential for monopolistic control over the internet):
NY Times David Carr column here
NY Times OP ed on security and journalists here
CBS news spin on this here
And, in "La Unemployment,"Silicon Valley Visionary Jaron Lanier in a recent video post on why the internet is already broken here
Webs 1.0, 2.0 and 3.0 explained here
As a reader of Jaron Lanier's book on the potential negative impact of anonymity, anti-individualism, and the fallacy of the "Information Wants to Be Free" on the world wide web, I didnt come down with an immediate clear view on the issue and I was concerned that my initial wariness of the efforts of Google, et al, against SOPA and PIPA may have been counter-intuitive, since I love the Gedanken Sind Frei spirit of the net, always have...but I am in agreement with NY TImes Media columnist David Carr's recent article that suggests that while new legislative protections may be warranted given the expansion of the web and the success of search engines such as Google that make less money through traditional advertising then in bundling and reselling internet users' information to other advertisers and corporate clients. However, as Carr suggests, since the traditional media have been proven wrong in their original, somewhat heavy-handed original approach to stifling music and video on the web, they may not be the best group to shape this legislation. Perhaps these issues require further study let-the-chips-fall-where-they-may debate over this legislation, instead of Wikipedia and other sites pulling the plug (which inadvertently are intended as protest but may give argument toward their potential for monopolistic control over the internet):
NY Times David Carr column here
NY Times OP ed on security and journalists here
CBS news spin on this here
And, in "La Unemployment,"Silicon Valley Visionary Jaron Lanier in a recent video post on why the internet is already broken here
Webs 1.0, 2.0 and 3.0 explained here
Friday, January 13, 2012
Friday-Go-Round: Let's Twist Again
Chubby Checker, you the man here
A Glitzier Version
The above was prompted by a colleague's announcement that Chubby Checker will be performing at a community she will be visiting in Florida next month and she was hoping to get tickets and has been practicing a mean Twist...btw, yes, in Florida, in The Villages, a retirement community...
The $35 Computer: UK's Raspberry Pi Goes Into Production
"The Raspberry Pi is a Linux-based, 700Mhz ARM-powered computer with up to 256MB of flash memory and an HDMI output. Users have to provide their own keyboard, mouse, and monitor.
Development on the Raspberry Pi started three years ago. There is currently a waiting list of more than 10,000 people for the two models, one that will cost $25 and a higher-spec model for $35 (which has more memory and an Ethernet connection).
The less expensive ($25) educational version will go on sale later in the year. They are currently working on a case to protect the board while still allowing schools to modify the device as they wish."
More on the Raspberry Pi Foundation, an organization in the UK dedicated to encouraging the study of computer science, especially at the school level, here and here (official site)
Friday, January 6, 2012
The Day The World Changed: December 25, 1991
Over the holidays, I caught, on After Word on Book TV on C-Span-2, an interview with the author, Conor O’Clery, an Irish journalist who was posted in Moscow during the fall of the USSR. I got his recent book, Moscow: December 25, 1991: The Last Day of the Soviet Union and it is a wonderfully literate and entertaining read – basically a day in the life of Moscow and the main players on the day the USSR fell..the portraits of Yeltsin and Gorbachev are fascinating…– to me, one of those books I don’t want to end, so well written and fact filled, from history to biography to the telling anecdote...
For example -- “Yeltsin was a provincial from the hardscrabble region of the Urals and his preferred method of driving his comrades to distraction was playing “Kalinka” with the wooden spoons, sometimes bouncing them playfully off the heads of aides, who learned to move away prudently when the spoons came out.”
There are some excerpts from the book posted on the GlobalPost website, for which the author writes, here
Also, excerpt from the Book TV interview here
--Anthony Napoli - Deep in the Heart of Brooklyn
For example -- “Yeltsin was a provincial from the hardscrabble region of the Urals and his preferred method of driving his comrades to distraction was playing “Kalinka” with the wooden spoons, sometimes bouncing them playfully off the heads of aides, who learned to move away prudently when the spoons came out.”
Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev (right) looks at Russian
President Boris Yeltsin during the press conference following
the signing ceremony on Oct. 18, 1991 in recognition of the
Union Treaty with eight Soviet republics in Moscow.
(Alain-Pierre Hovasse/AFP/Getty Images
There are some excerpts from the book posted on the GlobalPost website, for which the author writes, here
Also, excerpt from the Book TV interview here
--Anthony Napoli - Deep in the Heart of Brooklyn
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