by David Burn | Jan 17, 2006 | Politics, The Environment
I found this bumper sticker in a store on Lexington Avenue in Asheville on Sunday. I like the attitude it brings and the question it begs. Hemp is not pot. It’s a plant that can revolutionize farming in America, as well as the textile and energy industries. There’s nothing to fear here. It’s a plant that has been in cultivation for the past 8000 years, yet it is outlawed in this nation today. We need to change that.
After purchasing this sticker, I crossed Lexington Ave. and entered Terra Diva, where I was lucky to find a great pair of hemp pants in my size (a miracle in its own right). The pants are from Of The Earth–headquartered in Bend, Oregon–which strives to be the premier resource for fine natural fiber apparel in the world.
by David Burn | Jan 17, 2006 | Food & Beverage, Place
There is a great mountain town less than five hours to the north and west of here.
Here’s how USA TODAY described Asheville, North Carolina in 2003:
This once down-on-its-heels city of 70,000 nestled in the Appalachian Mountains is morphing into one of the South’s hippest hangouts. Coffee bars, trendy eateries, music clubs and galleries have taken up residence in the glorious art deco buildings that fill the downtown. And artists and musicians are arriving in droves.
Santa Fe of the East, some call it.
I see more similarities with Boulder, CO, but I digress.
On Saturday night we dined at Zambra Tapas, by far the best tapas bar we’ve ever entered. We opened with a truly wonderful wine–Periquita Terras Do Sado from Portugal. Created by Jose Maria da Fonseca in 1850, Periquita is made primarily from the Castelao Frances grape, an indigenous variety that thrives in southern Portugal. Some of the tapas we enjoyed:
~ artichoke, poblano and queso dip with housemade flatbread
~ pan fried trout with hazelnuts, orange, and brown butter
~ grilled hanger steak with cilanto chimichurri, cana de cabre
After dinner, we walked to Barley’s Tap Room for an organic beer, then headed across the street to The Orange Peel for Donna The Buffalo.
In the morning we made our way to Everyday Gourmet, an espresso shop opened by a Seattle transplant. In other words, it was the real deal. Before we left today, we had a terrific lunch at Thai Basil. I could go on and on…the place has galleries galore, unique shops, natural beauty, charming neighborhoods and interesting people. Asheville is a great place to visit, and I imagine the locals love living there.
by David Burn | Jan 16, 2006 | Music
“Every piece is a part of the whole
No one piece more important than the rest” -Tara Nevins
We travelled to Asheville for the weekend, with Saturday night’s Donna The Buffalo show at The Orange Peel being one of the motivating factors. It was only our second time seeing the band, but we’re already hooked.
DTB is a quintet. Jeb Puryear and Tara Nevins are the two original members and the songwriting tour de forces behind the group’s success. They also share lead vocalist duties, alternating songs throughout the performance. Jeb plays electric guitar, while Tara plays fiddle, washboard, accordian and acoustic guitar. DTB is hard to categorize, but Americana Pop Rock comes close. They appear to have a jambandish following, but they’re songs are far too tight for the jamband label to stick.
One of the obvious things that can’t be missed when seeing DTB is their positive energy, which manages to affect the audience, as well. This band is clean, like solar or wind energy is clean. Their music makes you feel good, and it’s good for you. Actually, I’m so impressed, I’m going to change the name of this site to YonderBuffalo.com. Seriously.
by David Burn | Jan 11, 2006 | Digital culture, Literature, Politics
Lyricist, internet freedom fighter and former cattle rancher, John Perry Barlow, hadn’t written a blog post in nine months. As of a few days ago, he’s back. Here’s some of what he has to say:
I began numerous BarlowSpams and blog entries only to have them slam, half-written, into the next improbability, where, beached with awe upon the present, I no longer felt like reporting yesterday’s apocalypse. (Perhaps one day I will bundle up some of these half-vignettes and post them here.)
Certainly, pioneering the electronic frontier is no longer the riveting mission it once was. While there remains much to be done, and the liberty of our descendents still hangs in the balance, that world has become too complex for me to think I can change it, as I once could, with the help of a few smart friends. Now I leave it more to the professionals at EFF. They’re smarter than I am and a lot more diligent with the details. Of course, I will go on toiling in the vaporous vineyards of Cyberspace, but without the same grand sense of personal urgency. Like any old mountain man, I’ve become just another settler, filling in the margins and grumbling about the government.
Previous passages through these interstitial storms felt like my own lonely struggle. Now, everywhere I look, I see others in the same condition. Fundamental life confusion – generally endured invisibly with a toxic sense of private embarrassment – is pandemic. Your personal mileage may differ, but my guess is that you are presently more riven with doubts and questions than you’ve letting on.
Most of the people I know who are still conscious enough to back away from their televisions are in a kind of life-shock. Metanoia, anomie, paralysis, catatonia, existential dread – whatever you want to call it, it’s wide-spread. Everywhere I look, I see people white-eyed and still as though caught in the Headlights of God.
Serious stuff. And then he turns to politics, which for Barlow brings to mind William Butler Yeats’ famous poem, “The Second Coming,” written in 1919.
Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.
Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.
The darkness drops again; but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?
It’s hard not to equate the end of the first stanza with today’s religious right, which is what Barlow does, and in that analysis he has many sympathizers, myself included. He does manage to conjure up some hope for the future, as well as some appreciation of the present, in his new post. Perhaps, the best do not lack all conviction, rather they lack convinction all the time
by David Burn | Jan 8, 2006 | Politics
My buddy, DK, has penned an eloquent treatise against capital punishment for the Salt Lake Tribune. Here’s an excerpt:
Proponents of capital punishment often argue that, on the basis of retribution, punishment and offense ought to be connected. In the case of murder, death is appropriate.
This principle, in legalese, is Lex Talionis, and dates back to the Babylonian Code of Hammurabi, restated in the Old Testament as “If any harm follows, then you shall give life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, burn for burn, wound for wound, stripe for stripe.”
Aristotle and Aquinas used it as the basis for their commentaries on punishment. Dante based much of his depiction of the suffering of sinners in hell on the premise that divine penalty is determined by the sin committed. So, in the Inferno, gluttons are masticated, instigators of civil strife are dismembered, and so forth.
But, in order to be logically consistent, defenders of Lex Talionis must argue that rapists ought to be raped and torturers ought to be tortured. Can you imagine anything more ludicrous and reprehensible than the Department of Corrections hiring officers to rape rapists and drub wife-beaters? Lex Talionis is indefensible.
I’ve always thought the banishment concept practiced by Native Americans was a good answer. Maybe we could send our most vile to a distant island where they fend for themselves, or perish.
by David Burn | Jan 7, 2006 | Music
I sometimes struggle to keep John Hammond straight from John Hiatt and John Hartford, even though they’re all distinct. Anyway, John Hammond, Jr. is the one who tears up the blues. I’m listening now to Wicked Grin, his 2001 release of Tom Waits tunes. It’s wicked, to say the least.
I was partly inspired to buy the record after reading about the senior John Hammond’s role in Dylan’s career. John Jr.’s dad, the Columbia Records producer who signed Dylan, Aretha and so many other greats was born to immense wealth as the great-grandson of William Henry Vanderbilt in New York City.
The be-true-to-your-heart Hammond began patronizing jazz clubs at an early age, entering the record business in 1933, discovering Billie Holiday and producing Bessie Smith. He also played a role in organizing Benny Goodman’s first band.
Acording to PBS’ American Masters series, Hammond recognized the gross injustice of his time and began working for an integrated music world. He was the funder and DJ for one of the first regular live jazz programs, and wrote regularly about the racial divide. His main concern, however, was jazz, and throughout the 1930s he was responsible for both integrating the musicians and expanding the audience. Towards the end of the 1930s, Hammond organized the “Spirituals to Swing” concert, which brought much black music into the white spotlight for the first time.
Working for Columbia records, Hammond found in the political singers of the 1950s and 1960s a vibrancy similar to that of the jazz musicians thirty years earlier. He signed Pete Seeger, and found a young folk singer among the crowds of Greenwich Village named Bob Dylan. All told–Count Basie, Lionel Hampton, Carolyn Hester, Billie Holiday, Big Joe Turner, Pete Seeger, Babatunde Olatunji, George Benson, Bob Dylan, Aretha Franklin, Leonard Cohen, Bruce Springsteen, and Stevie Ray Vaughan–were given an audience, in part, through the work of John Hammond.
Coming from that storied background, it’s little wonder that John Hammond Jr. evokes the blues as well as he does. A funny footnote to all this…Dylan used to hang with John in the Village, but he never knew it was his producer’s son. That’s how chill the guy is.
by David Burn | Jan 7, 2006 | Music
Phil Lesh asked fan site Philzone.com to remove its forum after members began badmouthing him and other Grateful Dead band members. His lawyers are on the case. Phil’s handling his own p.r. Poorly. But that’s nothing new. Ever since he started writing warnings that “the band” would stop touring if we didn’t behave ourselves–that came included with our mail order tickets, no less–I’ve had a hard time with his paternalistic attitude.
Here’s a question from the Philzone forum Phil chooses to address:
Subwoofer: “I will say this…. it’s all very odd. Herring leaves under “interesting” circumstances…. so does Sipe…. Molo bows out for a bit but triumphantly returns….Ryan Adams is the most talked about “poor decision” that he’s made, and yet he backs this RA like he’s the second coming…. and he finally finds a gem with Barry Sless(too bad he couldn’t keep David Nelson around a bit more!). But it’s all very mysterious to me….and I’d think that Phil’s fans would be questioning his motives.”
Phil: Jimmy Herring and I had been growing apart musically since the December 04 shows. It seems we worked better together in the context of the Q. We discussed this after the December shows, after Mardi Gras, after the Colorado shows and we both still felt that it wasn’t right after Vegas. Clearly, it would be a mistake to head off on a month long tour together, so rather than forcing the relationship we agreed to go our separate ways sooner than planned. At that point I decided to ask John Molo to do NYE instead of Jeff Sipe as he had more experience with the material- although Jeff will be joining me again in February.
No Jimmy Herring in the band, no mo’. That blows. I’ll say this, I’ve been around both men, and one of them is really cool.
by David Burn | Jan 6, 2006 | Music
Ben at Magnetbox tracks Amazon’s 100 top selling albums, and notes that 20, or one-fifth, are from indie labels not associated with the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA). He says this is the highest point for indie labels since he’s been tracking it, starting in October 2003. With the antics these guys pull–from lawsuits to digital rights management–it’s no wonder.
by David Burn | Jan 6, 2006 | Digital culture, The Environment
c|net: A Scottish university is testing solar-powered streetlights that also deliver wireless Internet access.
The Project Starsight technology is being tested as part of a deal between Compliance Technology, a company based in Fife, Scotland, and the Abertay Center for the Environment (ACE) at the University of Abertay in Dundee.
The solar panels provide a free energy source for the streetlight and also for the Wi-Fi or WiMax connection.
by David Burn | Jan 6, 2006 | Music
Boing Boing: Coldplay’s latest CD X&Y comes with an insert that discloses all the rules enforced by the DRM they included on the disc. Of course, these rules are only visible after you’ve paid for the CD and brought it home, and as the disc’s rules say, “Except for manufacturing problems, we do not accept product exchange, return or refund,” so if you don’t like the rules, that’s tough.
What are the other rules? Here are some gems: “This CD can’t be burnt onto a CD or hard disc, nor can it be converted to an MP3” and “This CD may not play in DVD players, car stereos, portable players, game players, all PCs and Macintosh PCs.” Best of all, the insert explains that this is all “in order for you to enjoy a high quality music experience.” Now, that’s quality.
I wonder how Coldplay feels about their fans getting all these rules set down for them by the music label? I wonder if most fans who read these rules will be wise enough to blame corporate, or whether they’ll just decide to dig up a band whose label treats them like customers, not crooks? It’s amazing how the labels always seem to come up with new ways of screwing artists: if they’re not cheating them out of royalties, they’re systematically alienating their fan-base.
