by David Burn | May 19, 2004 | Art, Place
One of my favorite things about living in the Midwest (and being a Midwesterner) is the nativist idea I like to harbor about my ability to discern and enjoy true American gems like Saugatuck and Douglas, MI, for instance. One might add Okoboji, Mineral Point, Door County, or the Sandhills to this quick list—all places where the east coast intelligentsia and west coast hipster tribe dare to tread. These communities are that much finer for that fact.
Big Red by James Brandess, a local artist and gallery owner.
by David Burn | May 14, 2004 | Literature, Politics
“A democracy which makes or even effectively prepares for modern, scientific war must necessarily cease to be democratic. No country can be really well prepared for modern war unless it is governed by a tyrant, at the head of a highly trained and perfectly obedient bureaucracy.” -Aldous Huxley
by David Burn | May 13, 2004 | Digital culture
I like to give credit where credit is due. There are a lot of cheats and incompetents doing business out there. And there are also decent, fair, smart people in business. As Whizhost disintegrated, an enterprising hosting company mined their customer list and also managed to get the Whizhost domain name servers forwarding to their own DNS—I assume they paid the defunct firm for that right. Anyway, the people at SB Hosting have been helpful and their robust offerings, new control panel (including Fantastico), and consistent uptime are impressive. With Whizhost my sites were down at least once a day, sometimes for a minute or two, sometimes for much longer. You get what you pay for, and Whizhost was a bargain basement buy. In fact, they did business with no physical address—only a private postal box in Miami and no working phone number. Can anyone say class action lawsuit?
My personal bottom line…It feels good to finally join the real world of Web hosting.
by David Burn | May 11, 2004 | Digital culture
Burnin’ ~ A Blog went down about ten days ago, along with 13 Web sites I host for clients, family, and friends. Whizhost, my former hosting provider pulled the plug on their servers and no data has been recovered, by me or by any of their thousands of outraged former customers. Since I hard code my sites, I’ve been able to rebuild almost everything from scratch. Sadly, this is not the case with my blog, where the content management software resides on the server. I do have about 90% of my entries backed up in a Word doc, but all the formatting (hyperlinks, time stamps, categories, etc.) is gone, as are my most recent entires that I had yet to back up. Naturally, I’m pissed about the situation, but it’s a lesson learned. Lesson one: choose your suppliers wisely. Lesson two: always have a current backup of everything on hand.
by David Burn | Apr 16, 2004 | Music
Baaba Maal
Old Town School of Folk Music on Lincoln is housed in an old public library building. Above the stage there is a mural depicting American folk life. This Friday night in Chicago the Old Town gave us real life African folk life, depicted live on stage. Baaba Maal and his band from Senegal in West Africa rendered music largely crafted with drums and acoustic guitars, accompanied by the beautiful and powerful voice of Baaba Maal. One thing I enjoyed seeing throughout the evening was African women from the audience running up on stage to offer the musicians cash money and then a dance. By the time the show was over three white men also paid their respects in such fashion. It was participative and I love that kind of thing. Even though we understood no words, we got the music, and felt well nourished by the experience.
by David Burn | Apr 13, 2004 | Advertising, Art, Chicago
While riding the CTA Brown Line to work the other day I saw a Sun Times “We Are Brighter” print ad defaced by a culture-busting media activist. The activist placed a printed message constructed of black type on white computer paper over the paid piece. It said, “More Art. Less Ads.” How can one blame this concerned person for the suggestion? There ought to be more art inside the gray tube. Art to comfort the cattle, I mean people, being carted daily to their sordid and sometimes noble destinies throughout the city.
by David Burn | Apr 13, 2004 | Chicago
When ordering a Chicago-style dog, there are certain rules that come with the territory and define the transaction. Ketchup is exclusively for fries is one such rule. Another rule is the dog will be served on a poppy seed bun from Gonnella. Sadly, it seems few vendors follow this poppy seed rule. I’m sure there are cost considerations, but I can’t help but feel cheated when I get a seedless bun, no matter how good the rest of the fixings. For the record, I am willing to pay extra for poppy seeds.
by David Burn | Apr 10, 2004 | Music
Ekoostik Hookah + Leftover Salmon
Madison is a great little city, a capitol city with a great domed structure at its heart, plus a large well-considered university as another achoring institution. The area boasts two fresh water lakes, great indie coffee houses and Frank Lloyd Wright public structures. Darby and I enjoyed antipasto and local beer at Cafe Montmarte in the downtown square area, then found our way to the Barrymore Theatre for the show. The Barrymore had Sierra Nevada on tap so we grabbed a few and headed for two seats relatively near the stage. The Hookah, a jamband from Columbus, OH for some reason rubbed us the wrong way on this particular night. Coming from a Grateful Dead headspace, they deliver some nice licks and tight compositions, but there was a pretentiousness in the air, and a hollow sound. Thankfully, all that was put behind us as Leftover graced the stage and picked up the Saturday night energy of the crowd. There were several brilliant moments in this Salmon show, one that stands out is Vince’s rendition of “Ina Goda Da Vida,” by Iron Butterfly, out of which he sang some kind of Germanic marching anthem, with which I was not familiar, although I was deeply captivated.
by David Burn | Apr 3, 2004 | Music
Tab Benoit, a bluesman from the swamps of Louisiana, takes the stage by storm, as he did on this Saturday night in Chicago. One thing you notice right away is how polished this guy is, in his dress and in his playing. Like most of my musical heroes, Tab writes the songs he plays and sings so well. This was my first birthday bash in Chicago and it was perfect. We (Darby, Megan, and I) arrived at Fitzgerald’s on Roosevelt in Berwyn to find a free off-street parking place at the venue’s doorstep. We paid the $10 cover charge, got our hand stamped then headed next door to Fitzgerald’s Sidebar for jambalaya and a mahi mahi poorboy. During the show, our vantage point near the stage gave us a great feel for Tab and his music. In this cordial room for the blues, a modern master paid homage to the idiom and it was a real treat to witness.
by David Burn | Mar 19, 2004 | Politics
“I’m the commander–see, I don’t need to explain–I don’t need to explain why I say things. That’s the interesting thing about being the President. Maybe somebody needs to explain to me why they say something, but I don’t feel like I owe anybody an explanation.” – George W. Bush, Washington Post, 11-19-02
“Why is this man in the White House? The majority of Americans did not vote for him. Why is he there? And I tell you this morning that he’s in the White House because God put him there for a time such as this.” – Lt. General William G. Boykin, Deputy Undersecretary of Defense, The New York Times, 10-17-03
