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Author: JV/Archives

2008-02-08

Vienna Vegetable Orchestra

tomatoesFrom their site: “The Vegetable Orchestra performs music solely on instruments made of vegetables. Using carrot flutes, pumpkin basses, leek violins, leek-zucchini-vibrators, cucumberophones and celery bongos, the orchestra creates its own extraordinary and vegetabile sound universe. The ensemble overcomes preserved and marinated sound conceptions or tirelessly re-stewed listening habits, putting its focus on expanding the variety of vegetable instruments, developing novel musical ideas and exploring fresh vegetable sound gardens.”

From their automate CD, here’s an excerpt of “cut 2” (1:03 mp3):

2007-08-28

Storytelling — How Toons

[ How Toons ] Digg turned this up today:

How Toons

a collection of science- and engineering-related web comics.

I’m a bit partial to the form, my long-standing affair probably started about the time I got my first Dr. Seuss book. This struck me as particularly infectious — possibly because I’ve been re-immersing myself lately: novelized pastiches such as geoffrey woods’ Leaper and Austin Grossman’s Soon I Will Be Invincible; Moore and Gibson’s The Watchmen, Alex Ross and Mark Waid’s Kingdom Come, Frank Miller’s irrepressible Dark Knight and nearly everything Brian Woods has done; films such as Unbreakable, Sin City, Superman Returns, Batman Begins, and, of course Heroes.

What impresses me most, I suppose, is the resilience and versatility — how and why comics have persisted…

2007-08-27

Bike and Thieves

Martin Moulton on the trail of his stolen bikeAs the recent victim of a bike theft, this story in today’s Washington Post was particularly poignant:

As Web Fuels Bike Thefts, Victims Turn Vigilantes

Favourite Quote:

“You steal someone’s bike, and God have mercy on you if they ever find you,” he said. “It’s something so insanely personal. People have a more personal connection to their bikes than their iPod.”

and, this admittedly depressing closer:

“He posted to the site startlingly clear photos of a man riding what he said was his bike, and he filed a police report. Police have followed up on his tips to no avail, McKenna said.”

2007-07-06

The Crime: Journalism

Thoroughly depressing article on an Al Jazeera camerman who’s been incarcerated at Gitmo for nearly six years: “Prisoner 345,” Columbia Journalism Review.

2007-06-26

Now this is a biker…

Jeremias PinkLatest High Country News has a profile on a pocatello graphic designer who also makes bikes to give away — when he’s not teaching folks how to fix their own bikes… Seems to be currying a sort of low-key activist stance on fighting urban sprawl.

here’s the web teaser.