Thomas Alan Waits (born in 1949)

Tom Waits's style is a mesh of the beat poet, the eccentric satirist, and the dramatic orator; a mongrel storyteller, mixing Bob Dylan, Frank Zappa, and Freddie Mercury into a medley of vaudeville, jazz, show-tunes, blues, folk, and rock. With his arsenal of an unique, otherworldly voice, a long life of hardship and happiness, and over-the-top exaggerations of the extreme and normality, Waits brings a new and often overlooked depth to songwriting.
Besides being a mastermind and a wordsmith, Waits is a brilliant storyteller. Weaving tales that are beautiful and treacherous, burlesque but refined, folksy yet urbane, he draws listeners into humanity's dark-side, dragging mankind's sins and shame under the examiner's spotlight, showing every speck of the grit and grime. Not withstanding this dreariness, he still gives the listener moments of levity, rays of light among the rain clouds, a joke, or a fragment of uplifting philosophy. He shows love, sacrifice, beauty, and worship, all the while holding up a mirror, reflecting misery, greed, vanity, and blasphemy. (more..)

Sally Johnson on Clark's Fiddle

Few events in the history of old-time music can match the excitement that there was when the legendary Clark Kessinger appeared at a fiddler’s contest in 1966, over 30 years after making some wonderful 78 rpm recordings and then effectively disappearing from the scene. Amazingly, the master musician was still every bit as good as his early recordings would indicate, both as fiddler and entertainer. In a few short years Clark Kessinger—then in his early 70’s—won contests at Dublin, VA, Galax, and Union Grove, NC, appeared on the Today Show, at the Smithsonian Folklife Festival, with Flatt & Scruggs on the Opry, and numerous other high-profile events, and recorded four fine fiddle albums.
In this clip Clark Kessinger plays "Sally Johnson" (a Texas Style Old Time Fiddle tune) at the Newport Festival

Last night’s reading

The traditional bedside table doesn’t always fit how we spend the last few waking moments in bed but it’s not something we think about either. Designer Stephane de Sousa wanted to design a minimalist bedside table in powder coated steel to address what we really need - a waterproof surface, bookshelf, and a simple way to remember where you left off on last night’s reading.(via Frogsmoke)

Feel Fine with Beatles and Pescado Frito

Pescado frito or peixe frito, or fish (usually cod) deep-fried in vegetable oil, is a traditional Shabbat dish amongst Spanish and Portuguese Jews. The deep-frying in vegetable oil makes this fish crisp and light even when eaten cold, and it has therefore been a favourite dish of the desayuno (late breakfast/lunch) after synagogue services on Saturday morning. It is also eaten in the Philippines, a former Spanish colony, where it is called pinritong isda in Filipino.
It is generally believed that pescado frito is the origin of the fish part of fish and chips.

Something of a freak

At the time, Cage was teaching Experimental Composition at New York City's New School. Eight years beyond 4:33, he was (as our smoking MC informs us) the most controversial figure in the musical world at that time. His first performance on national television was originally scored to include five radios, but a union dispute on the CBS set prevented any of the radios from being plugged in to the wall. Cage gleefully smacks and tosses the radios instead of turning them on and off.
While treating Cage as something of a freak, the show also treats him fairly reverentially, cancelling the regular game show format to allow Cage the chance to perform his entire piece.

Old Fuck Is Bad for Ya

George Carlin is still packing venues with fans who crave his legendary brand of observational, cantankerous wit.
At 70, he isn't just mailing it in, either. He performed about 80 shows across the country in 2007, and is still razor-sharp and very much on his game.
But with a record 14 live HBO stand-up comedy specials under his belt -- most recently a Saturday outing dubbed "It's Bad For Ya" -- Carlin admits to having a different take on things now.
It's not that he has exactly mellowed. Mellow isn't in Carlin's makeup. But no longer is he motivated to push the comedic envelope as a pioneer, as he did so memorably as a barrier-busting, hypocrisy-exposing rebel of the Las Vegas stage and the man who would become a Supreme Court test case via the famed "Seven Dirty Words" television furor in 1972.
"I accept it as someone looking in from the outside that the culture is destroying itself, and as someone who is no longer part of the human race, I can be fascinated by it rather than mourn it," he says.(more...)

Lora Verhovsky In Ein Hod

Lora Verhovsky is an Artist that revives the old technique, called "Leather Intarsia", but in new forms of expression and new subjects, as a contemporary form of decorative art, and creates large Leather Pictures so unique, that other like works simply do not exist
"Leather Intarsia" technique have been used by French and Italian artisans in 17-18 centuries, when the majestic Baroque stepped elegantly aside in favor of the playful Rococo.The variety of products, such as book covers, decorative boxes, wallpaper for carriages and clothing, had been created using this complex and labour-consuming technique, demanding huge patience and time. Today, unfortunately, only in few museums around the world we can see and admire those creations (more...)
Lora Verhovsky is taking part in a exibition in Ein Hod on 8th of March

Gaia and Predictions of Doom

"What would Lovelock do now, I ask, if he were me? He smiles and says: "Enjoy life while you can. Because if you're lucky it's going to be 20 years before it hits the fan."

Professor James Lovelock discusses his concerns about the impending consequences of global warming at the lecture Climate change on the living Earth'. He will argue that although the scientific language of the IPCC report is "properly cautious", it gives the impression that the worst consequences of climate change are avoidable if we take action now.
Instead, his view of the future is much more frightening. Even if we act now Professor Lovelock believes that six to eight billion humans will be faced with ever diminishing supplies of food and water in an increasingly intolerable climate and wildlife and whole ecosystems will become extinct. He argues that we have set off a vicious cycle of positive feedback' in the earth system whereby extra heat in the atmosphere from any source is amplified, causing yet more warming. He will say: "We are at war with the Earth and as in a blitzkrieg, events proceed faster than we can respond."

"Lovelock believes global warming is now irreversible, and that nothing can prevent large parts of the planet becoming too hot to inhabit, or sinking underwater, resulting in mass migration, famine and epidemics. Britain is going to become a lifeboat for refugees from mainland Europe, so instead of wasting our time on wind turbines we need to start planning how to survive. To Lovelock, the logic is clear. The sustainability brigade are insane to think we can save ourselves by going back to nature; our only chance of survival will come not from less technology, but more.
Nuclear power, he argues, can solve our energy problem - the bigger challenge will be food. "Maybe they'll synthesise food. I don't know. Synthesising food is not some mad visionary idea; you can buy it in Tesco's, in the form of Quorn. It's not that good, but people buy it. You can live on it." But he fears we won't invent the necessary technologies in time, and expects "about 80%" of the world's population to be wiped out by 2100. Prophets have been foretelling Armageddon since time began, he says. "But this is the real thing."

(read more...from Guarduan)
thanks to Emanuel Yakobson, Ph.D.