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Part 45: Update Forty Three: Boss Bashing Bonanza
Update Forty Three: Boss Bashing Bonanza
Welcome back! Last time, on Final Fantasy IV, we went through a "bonus dungeon" that even Camelot would be ashamed of. Today, as indicated by the title, we're going to be kicking the shit out of some bosses, so let's mosey.
I don't go in any particular order here. We'll be starting with the new harp over to our left.
In order to get these weapons, the person who will actually be using the weapon (Champ, in this case), needs to be in your party. You also need to defeat the boss guarding the weapon, which is all we're doing today.
When you approach the weapon, the character who uses it appears.
And all of the monsters come spinning down in these golden sparklies.
But, time for our first boss!
I never saw him use anything but physical attacks. Matter of fact, if you treat this guy like a Behemoth, it's just as easy to defeat him.
He has no weaknesses to exploit and 55,000 HP to tear through, so this could take a while.
He also counters all attacks aimed at him with his own physical hit. This guy is pretty much just a Behemoth, which is kind of sad at this point.
Sure, he can put up some big numbers, but Blink neuters him, as do the massive amounts of HP that Cecil, Leave and Cid have. Mune is good enough at keeping the party healthy that it's not a big deal.
However, you're supposed to come fight these guys before fighting Zeromus on the Moon and beating the game. This entire dungeon, and these bosses, have their toughness based on you being relative to starting the Moon.
Doing it this way, we're massively over-powered.
And I love every second of it.
He also has Vampire, just as the Abyss Worms on the Moon do.
Cid's Agility is so terrible, it drags down his entire performance. Sure, he has incredible Strength, but he's so slow, it's hard for him to put it to any sort of use. Champ doubles his turns with ease, while everyone else gets about a turn and a half to his one. Combining that with his special ability, Study, and Cid doesn't have a whole lot actually going for him. All of his immense badassery comes from story stuff, while his in-battle prowess actually kind of detracts from that.
For a little while, I was going with the strategy of Blinking everyone and then playing it safe.
And then, y'know, I realized he's just a higher HP Behemoth, and then I stopped caring.
I had Champ Hide for most of it, too, since I didn't want to have his weaker hits incur counter-attacks.
Mune's Spirit stat is 99, so Holy is at max power.
Holy is immensely powerful, even when not hitting a weakness.
Anyways, let's end this fight. It's not terribly complicated or difficult, even if you're a far lower level than I am; it's just a matter of keeping Blink up and then you are invincible.
After the fight, we receive Apollo's Harp.
It deals Fire elemental damage, and is also effective against Dragons. It also raises Champ's Strength, Agility and Spirit +15; the Strength boost is more than welcome and the Agility boost makes him terrifyingly fast.
Next, we'll be heading over to get the Monkey's Paw.
Or it's some sort of claw. I calls 'em like I sees 'em.
The Storm Dragon has the potential to be a massively difficult fight.
Like the Red Dragon in the Lunar Subterrane, he can physically strike two party members at once (or one person twice) for good damage.
However, grabbing Apollo's Harp before this fight makes it much easier.
The Storm Dragon has 40,000 HP, with a weakness to Ice. He's also a Dragon-type, obviously.
Dragons best beware; Champ, Prince pussy of Damcyan, can destroy dragon kind through the power of rock.
Cecil is doing about his average damage, which is good. When you consider that Champ has an advantage against Dragons, suddenly, Cecil dealing this much damage is a good testament to his strength.
...Goddammit, Cid.
I will never get tired of seeing Champ whip out these kind of numbers.
Anyways, as for what can make the Storm Dragon dangerous, this attack is nearly top of the list.
As you can see, it deals some pretty high damage. If you come here as soon as you can, it's entirely possible you'll have trouble surviving just one of these, and that your healers just can't heal fast enough to counteract it.
Leave has his Ice Claw equipped, so he's hitting a weakness here. It's wonderful to see him and Champ tearing something apart like this. If either Kim or Masa were here, this fight would end so fast, it'd be fucking ridiculous.
But, alas, I can only crush him so quickly this way. It's not much slower.
And, uh, Mune is still doin' stuff. I like keeping my health as high as I can, even if I'm rarely in danger.
Especially when there is shit like this around the corner. You might remember Barbariccia doing this waaaaay back when.
It's just as dangerous here, because, seriously, anything that drops your health to single digits without fail is fucking scary.
You might have forgot that Champ will run off and Hide instantly when his health hits critical levels.
It's not such a big deal here, since the Storm Dragon is almost dead.
And now he's entirely dead!
Like I said, this guy has the potential of being difficult. It mostly comes from his Tornado ability, which deals a lot of damage. Coming here fresh off the Giant of Babel could be highly difficult. If you look up there, remember, Mune has 99 Spirit and Curaja didn't heal more than 2,000 HP to the entire party at once.
The Hand of the Gods, as seen here, may not look very impressive. However, it deals Holy damage, so Cecil and Leave are going to absolutely wreck anything that is Undead or weak to Holy. It also adds +15 Strength, Agility and Stamina. Leave now has 99 Strength and I think his Strength before was a natural 91.
Even as overpowered as I am, I'm still not enough to go into a boss fight when the highest amount of HP I have right now is 9.
After resting up, Mune casts Float on everyone. It'll be handy in the next boss fight, even though I probably don't need it.
You might think that we're heading toward that pickax thing. I mean, with casting Float, you're thinking that we're fighting something Earth-based, right? And that pickaxes go along with that.
Nope! We're going toward this fancy looking pimp stick.
Remember, when we're done with this fight, Mune is going to be a five year old girl who is a better White Mage than Rosa, who knows the only offensive white magic spell and also has a pimp cane.
And that we had to kill a fucking dinosaur to get said pimp cane.
The T-Rex is, possibly, the easiest boss around here.
It might look like an Undead enemy, as well as a Dragon.
It's not a bad thing to think that, since that's what I thought at first, too. However, it's neither; it's a fucking Insect, of all things. No weaknesses to exploit, and 60,000 HP.
Leave's new claw is this neato-torpedo gray color.
His Strength really shows here.
But not as well as Cecil's. If Leave's claws added attack power, he'd be hitting like this, too, but all of his attack power is purely natural.
I honestly have no idea how much damage this attack does. I'm sure it hurts, but with Float, it's nothing to worry about.
Cid is...Certainly in my party.
Holy remains powerful and a good use for Mune's MP, as healing isn't a big concern of mine right now.
I've said all I can about this fight, really.
I really would like more to say here, but I got nothin'. He missed with his physical and he has Earthquake. I don't know much else about this guy.
I was caught a tad off-guard here, as my inventory is full again. I've gotta get around to pitching some shit out.
Seraphim's Mace is a tad better than the Sage's Staff, and adds +15 Spirit. When used as an item in battle, it casts Esuna, so it's not super-useful there, but it's something.
Alright, let's grab this thing.
I like these shots of the gold sparklies coming down. I don't know about you guys, but I think they're neat.
Death Mech is guarding Cid's weapon and...
Well, he's something. He's a Mech type with 50,000 HP.
I have Leave's Thunder Claw on the other hand and the Bestiary on GameFAQs doesn't say it's weak to Thunder. I guess Leave is just that strong.
It's gotta be the Thunder Claw.
Oh, and Seraphim's Mace is green. I thought that was neat.
Don't let the numbers fool you; the pimp stick is mighty.
Cid's hammers are effective against Mech types, so that's something. It's the only thing I can think of, off-hand, that he has above anyone else. Cid is good against Mechs and it shows here.
Death Mech has not attacked during this time. I've just been wailing on him this entire time.
Leave really takes it like the French when it comes to being hit with magic. Thank God he's got buckets of health.
And a low tolerance for bullshit, it seems.
For that, we win the fucking Hammer of Thor; Mighty Motherfucking Mjölnir.
It only adds +15 Strength and deals Thunder damage, but it's still fucking Mjölnir. It can also be used in battle to use Blitz, but I think Cid is better off fucking smashing things in the face with it.
We're almost done here, but first, I rest up.
I also run out of here and back to Mysidia. We need Masa around for this next boss fight, as it's finally time for his weapon.
I also took Kim, as magic is basically required for this next fight, so having my two magical shit-wreckers is going to be perfect.
Masa's Intellect is amazing. He also knows every single Black Magic spell in the game.
His new weapon is also a different type than his usual weapons.
His boss fight, however, is a bit of a pain in the ass.
The Flans are just your run of the mill enemies; we've encountered them before. The Master Flan, though, is entirely new. He's a Mage type, so if you kept the Mage Masher, it might not be a bad idea to bring along someone like Goemon to use it on this guy. If not, he only has 35,000 HP and it's easy to tear through.
He's got quite a few powerful spells at his disposal.
And Leave's shitty magic defense rears its ugly head again.
But, whatever, Curaga is cheap and instant, so it's not too big of a concern.
Cecil's physical attack is fucking ridiculous.
And Meteor seems to cast much faster in this version. In the SNES version, it seemed to take at least ten Goddamned minutes to cast.
It's every bit as powerful as it should be.
Now, I read in a Boss FAQ that Master Flan can't be targeted normally. That's bullshit. I was wailing on his ass even when his Flan flunkies were around.
He'll also occasionally bring them back, but it's not a big deal.
Flare, one of the other spells he knows, can be a big deal, though.
Pictured: Flare being a big deal.
Pictured: A Bigger deal Flare.
I love seeing those kind of numbers plastered across the screen. It warms my heart.
Single target Curaga, to me, is what full-party Curaja should be.
Master Flan also has Drain. I don't know why. I think it did an entire 82 damage to Leave here, even with his awful Magic Defense.
Either way, Master Flan is now gone.
As is everything else.
I won these for that fight. I ended up pitching them out as I don't really need them.
Anyways, Masa gets his hands on a dagger.
It's got a pretty decent attack power, too, considering it's in the hands of a five year old. It adds +15 Intellect, and can be used in battle to cast Flood. I can't think of a situation where I'd specifically need Flood, but if I ever do, I've got it on hand.
And with that, we're done for this update!
Next time, we'll start on those Lunar Ruins dungeons. But, first, I've gotta go defeat Zeromus again. I won't bother to show you that, since it won't be any different from the first time, barring who's actually there.
Until then, have a Merry Christmas, a Helluva Hanukkah or a Krazy-Kwanzaa!


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"ALL YOU NEED IS LOVE"
If I speak in the tongues of mortals and of angels, but do not have love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. 2And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. 3If I give away all my possessions, and if I hand over my body so that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing. 4 Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant 5or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; 6it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth. 7It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. 8 Love never ends. But as for prophecies, they will come to an end; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will come to an end. 9For we know only in part, and we prophesy only in part; 10but when the complete comes, the partial will come to an end. 11When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child; when I became an adult, I put an end to childish ways. 12For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then we will see face to face. Now I know only in part; then I will know fully, even as I have been fully known. 13And now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; and the greatest of these is love. (I Corinthians 13:1-13, NRSV)
Love is a popular topic in our culture. From movies to television, literature to theater, thoughts on love are easy to find. Just take music and think of the variety of messages. Where George Gershwin wrote "Our Love Is Here To Stay," Tina Turner sang "What's Love Got To Do With It." In the 1960's, The Beatles sang "All You Need Is Love," while Bob Dylan sang "Love Is Just A Four Letter Word."
Love is a recurring theme throughout the Bible as well. In the New Testament, we find three Greek words for love. "Philia" is the Greek word for friendship. "Eros" is Greek for romantic love, while "agape" refers to selfless, sacrificial love. In his book, the The Four Loves, C.S. Lewis, best known for the Chronicles of Narnia, argues that there are four different kinds of love. Besides the three I've just listed, Lewis also describes a fourth type of love. In Greek it is the word "storge" and it refers to affection especially between parent and child.
Do these four words describe different types of love as Lewis suggested, or merely different manifestations of one love? To answer these questions, we need to look more closely at each type of love.
The first type of love which C.S. Lewis describes is "storge" or affection. He contends that affection is the "humblest love" (p. 231). It permeates our lives and makes us feel comfortable. Lewis wrote "Affection almost slinks or seeps through our lives. It lives with humble...private things; soft slippers, old clothes, old jokes, the thump of a sleepy dog's tail on the kitchen floor" (p. 231). Lewis asserts that affection does not exist apart from the other types of love, rather, it "...can enter into the other loves and colour them all through and become the very medium in which from day to day they operate. They perhaps would not wear very well without it" (p. 232).
When we feel affectionate we feel comfortable around the other person and enjoy spending time together. However, mere affection does not go as deep as the other loves. There is a difference between being friendly and really being friends. This brings us to the next type of love.
The second type of love is "philia," which means brotherly love or friendship. To the ancient Greeks, "friendship seemed the happiest and most fully human of loves; the crown of life and the school of virtue" (p. 224). The bond of friendship can go so deep that it may surpass even a family bond. Proverbs 18:24 states, "There are friends who pretend to be friends, but there is a friend who sticks closer than a brother or sister. Wherever we find our friends, we have found people who make life worth living. People who help us endure our difficult times and celebrate our happy times. The fourth chapter of Ecclesiastes states, "Two are better than one, because they have a good reward for their toil. For if they fall, one will lift up the other; but woe to one who is alone and falls and does not have another to help" (4:9-10, NRSV). The love that we have for our friends certainly involves affection, but it is more than affection. Friendship goes deeper.
There are different levels of friendship. There are people with whom we work that we would call our friends. But if one person changed jobs, what would happen to the friendship? In one instance, the two people might grow apart because they no longer have work in common. In another instance, they may remain friends and find other avenues for the friendship. Even so, the length of a friendship and the depth do not necessarily correlate. With some friends we mostly swap news about what's been going on in our lives. With other friends, we get beyond the headlines and bare our souls.
This brings us to the third type of love which the ancient Greeks acknowledged as "eros" or romantic love. When we talk about being in love, it is eros to which we refer. Falling in love, in all its tumultuous grandeur, can fill our lives with joy or pain. There is nothing like the feeling of becoming vulnerable and opening our heart of hearts to someone. Yet those to whom we are the most open, also possess the power to hurt us the most. Fortunately, they also have the power to heal us the most as well.
Romantic love cannot stand on its own without affection and friendship. There are times when we feel the surge of romantic feelings which we equate with being "in love." There are other times when we don't feel this way at all. Passion comes and goes, but affection and friendship are the cornerstones on which marriage depends. Affection and friendship can help lovers become life-long partners.
Sometimes with our mate, and sometimes in the life of a total stranger we see glimmers of the highest love, that self-surrender known as agape. Lewis defines agape as charity. I think it is better defined as sacrificial love. Where Lewis understands the other loves to be natural loves, agape is understood as divine love. I would part with Lewis on this point. While agape certainly describes God's love for humanity, it seems to me that wherever we find love, true love, be it affection, friendship, romance, or self-sacrifice, we find something with its roots in God. Something which reflects the world as God intended it. At its best, human love mirrors God's love. Humans are capable of agape. Not every minute of every day, but hopefully we have our moments when we give of ourselves in sacrificial and selfless ways. There are people who do the heroic deeds which make headlines--going into a burning building to save a child or donating a kidney. Others make a real sacrifice to take care of an aging parent or a sick friend. People who build wheelchair ramps for a man with ALS, tutor children at Adventures in Learning, cook a meal at the Interfaith Nutrition Network, or pray every week for those on our Prayer Chain – all of these reflect agape. Agape love is best seen in the life and teachings of Jesus. He taught us to think about others, to love the unlovable, and to lay down our very lives if necessary. For Jesus, no one was untouchable and he once healed 10 lepers with a loving touch. He put himself at risk by eating with the most unpopular man in Jericho, Zacchaeus, and by stopping the unjust stoning of a woman caught in adultery. Shysters or lepers, children or disciples, Jesus exemplified love to all, and following his example, our lives can shine with love too.
This brings us back to the question, do these four words, storge, philia, eros, and agape describe different types of love, or merely different manifestations of one love? I would answer the latter. That each is an expression of one love. Love manifests itself in different ways in different situations. Each expression of love shares the same source: God. In I John chapter 4 it says that "God is love." Love sums up God's inexpressible essence. Out of love God created a world where human beings might exist. More than exist, God made it possible for us to live and thrive by giving us the capacity to choose evil or good. When we choose to love we choose the ultimate good. We come the closest to the heart of the Bible's teachings and the soul of Jesus' message of love for God, neighbor, and self.
The more we love others, the more God's love moves freely through our lives. I John 4 also says, "If we love one another, God lives in us, and God's love is perfected in us" (4:12b, NRSV). Or as the Apostle Paul put it, "So faith, hope, and love abide, these three, but the greatest of these is love," AMEN.
Written by Rev. Jimmy Only February 12, 2017 The Congregational Church of Manhasset, New York (UCC)
Eternal God, your love stands firm from generation to generation and your mercy is never ending. You are the source of love—love for family and love for friends, love for the one who makes our heart sing and love for all your children. Pour your love into our hearts, that, overflowing with compassion, we may freely share from the blessings we have received. Give us open and understanding hearts that we might not only love those who love us back, but also love and care for those who are difficult to love, knowing that you love us one and all.
Through Jesus Christ your perfect embodiment of love we pray. AMEN.
Portions of this prayer were adapted from http://lectionary.library. vanderbilt.edu/prayers.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


I won't lie to you, but there are definitely some days after work that I'm absolutely beat and I really don't want to cook, but then those seem to also be the days that I don't have anything in my fridge and I really don't want to spend the money on take out (Chicago is pretty expensive after all). So, when stuck between a rock and an empty stomach, I turn to my quick and dirty take on the ever easy [and normally prepackaged] goodness of Hamburger Helper.
This dish always reminds me of one of my dearest friends, Molly, and all the nights I spent in her apartment during college, hanging out on her couch, watching anime or playing Wii with a beer or glass of wine on the side, and even on the rare occasion, some serious studying. And it is Molly that I always remember whenever I make this dish because this was what we usually had whenever we got hungry and she was awesome enough to share her food with me—that and spaghetti, which is one of her favorite meals ever. I still remember all our trips to Giant Eagle on grocery runs, and I can still see all the boxes of Hamburger Helper stacked in her pantry, in addition to the other crazy things we got up to, and the not so crazy. Once, this wonderful lady came with me to my great-aunt's funeral (which also happened to be Easter weekend), and afterwards, I offered to get the ingredients for dinner that wouldn't take forever to cook. So, we picked up some ham steaks, thinking that would suffice—mind you, these were cheap, prepacked ham steaks—and when we tried to cook it, it was one of the worst tasting things we had ever eaten, and I guess since I'm chuckling while I remember, perhaps it was still pretty good all things aside. I don't know if she remembers that dinner, but I'll have to bring it up next time I talk to her. No doubt she'll laugh about it with me too.
It doesn't look pretty, but really, it's not meant to! YUM!
For the cheese sauce: Melt the butter in a saucepan. Whisk in the flour and cook, whisking for 5 minutes until fragrant and light brown in color. Whisk in the milk and bring to a boil. Whisk until smooth and thickened. Remove from heat and stir in the shredded cheddar cheese until melted. Add the salt and pepper to the cheese sauce. Pour the cheese sauce over the hamburger mixture. Stir gently to combine.
Add hot sauce to taste and top with fresh parsley.


Summer is fast approaching and with the nicer weather coming there are many opportunities to get outside and spend some time together with your partner. Creating a summer bucket list for you and your significant other is a great way to connect and spend time together doing your favorite activities and trying new things.
Be adventurous when you can and take the risk. There is also nothing wrong with being incredibly silly. If you are trying to keep things cost effective this summer, that shouldn't mean you have to limit your experiences entirely. In fact, making your summer bucket list exciting doesn't have to cost an arm and a leg. There are many things you can do together that cost little to nothing at all.
So, this year, make a summer bucket list and attempt to do everything on it. Let loose. This summer is going to be one to remember.
Set up a Tent and camp in the backyard.
Have a candlelit dinner outdoors.
Go see Fireworks and smooch.
Get a couple's massage on the beach.
Go on a double date with your friends.
Go skinny dipping at night.
Rent a convertible and just drive until you want to stop.
Go on a Tandem Bike ride.
Go fly a Kite together.
Mud wrestle, because why not?
Do a patio tour in your city to discover the best outdoor eats.
Go tech free for 24 hours. Yes, that means no phone either.
Make a time capsule and bury it somewhere together.
Stargaze on the hood of a car.
Start a new summer tradition.
Challenge each other to a race, winner buys ice cream.
Take a dance class together.
Write a letter to each other. Yes, an actual handwritten letter.
Visit the place where you first met.
Cuddle by a campfire and make S'mores.
Make Breakfast on the BBQ.
There are so many things that you and your significant other can add to your summer bucket list. Get adventurous this summer and revitalize your connection.
While enjoying your Summer, make sure you also grab this Master List of over 50 Grilling Ideas (you will LOVE them) and check out these Healthy Dinner Ideas as well.


Black History Month is a time for Americans to pay close attention to our history. Fortunately, there are authors and illustrators who have done an exceptional job of researching and telling stories that compel children to ask questions and learn more about a part of our history that should not be forgotten.
This noteworthy book leads the reader through the days of the week as lived by slaves in New Orleans, Louisiana. Weatherford welcomes the youngest of readers to learn about slavery by using an engaging poetic pattern and a predictable text structure. The foreword, written by author Freddi Williams Evans, presents a detailed account of Congo Square's history. Use the "Understanding Text Structure Task Cards" to explore the poetic format the author uses to teach readers about slavery.
Did you know that Susan B. Anthony and Frederick Douglass occasionally met to share ideas about establishing equal rights for women and African-Americans? Author Dean Robbins writes an intriguing story by employing a text structure that compares two extremely brave people. Create a Venn Diagram with students to compare and contrast the two significant difference makers in American history.
Learn about the civil war through the eyes of two young boys in this truly remarkable piece of literature. The heartrending story offers a vast amount of literary teaching points for units of study. Children can practice questioning, inferring, and understanding author's purpose as they connect with a story told with an authentic voice that you can almost hear as you read. Explore the extension activity in the Pink and Say Super Pack to support readers as they compare and contrast soldiers who were only boys.
What is a Freedom Box? What is the Underground Railroad? Why does the boy on the cover of the book look lost? These are just some of the questions children will wonder about when they study the beautifully illustrated cover of this book. As answers to their questions unfold in the story, children will learn about the tremendous hardships slaves endured. Preparing for a minilesson focused on questioning is easy to do with the with this ready-to-go lesson plan from Bookpagez.
Imagine running for your freedom in the dead of night, hypersensitive to the sounds of the dark, hoping to not get caught. You trust an obscured map sewn in a quilt to help guide you to safety. This is a story, told in verse, about how one young slave desperately ran for her life to find freedom. Pair this book with "Henry's Freedom Box: A Story From the Underground Railroad" to compare the different ways in which brave African-Americans escaped slavery. Download the reading comprehension lessons from the Under the Quilt of the Night Super Pack to help readers gain a deeper understanding of the story outlined in this picture book.
There once was a bookstore that was like no other in our country's history. The store was opened around 1930 by Lewis Henri Michaux where he sold books written by and about African Americans. Michaux wanted everyone to understand the power of knowledge. He encouraged his neighbors to read books, ask questions and learn more about events American history that should be remembered. Pair this book with "The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind" by William Kamkwamba; the perfect example of why reading for knowledge is powerful. Use the Retelling and Summarizing Task Cards for both books to practice using an essential reading comprehension strategy.
When brave people plant seeds to make a difference, it takes courageous people to make the seeds grow. This story chronicles the peaceful, yet powerful, movements that occurred in Huntsville, Alabama in the 1960's. The events in this book will provoke children to ask questions about a time in history that was not too long ago. Pair this book with the Retelling and Summarizing lessons in The Other Side Super Pack to practice recounting the historical events that happened in both books.
Author Doreen Rappaport has an extraordinary way of writing stories around important phrases spoken and written by historical figures. Marrying Rappaport's talent with Martin Luther King's quotes makes for an outstanding book about the Civil Rights Movement. Pair this book with other books written by Rappaport for a study in text structure and illustration. BookPagez also has lessons for working more closely with understanding the author's purpose.
This is a book you will want to take your time with. You'll find yourself appreciating and rereading passages that are rich with voice. Woodson's writing style compels readers to think deeply about what it was like growing up as an African-American in the 1960's and 1970's. Bookpagez offers valuable resources to go along with every chapter of this book.
Have you had the pleasure of reading this oldie but goodie aloud to a group of children? You will feel like you are playing right along with Charlie Parker and his jazz band. The words create music all on their own with a beat that makes you want to snap your fingers and tap your feet. Pair this book with another musical adventure entitled "This Jazz Man" by Karen Ehrhardt. This is another book that will make you want to dance as you read about notable jazz players; including Charlie Parker.
Melba Liston loved playing the trombone. She was an exceptionally talented player. Some didn't see her that way, though. The color of her skin and her gender bothered people. They treated Liston unfairly, and she almost quit playing the trombone. Fortunately, her friends convinced her to play wherever she could find an audience, and her travels took her around the world. Pair this book with the Amazing Grace Super Pack to make connections with the literature.
Please share your favorite picture book about the significant contributions African Americans have made to advance our country in making it a better place for everyone.


How to Find Your Niche in Accounting?
Accounting is one of the most competitive businesses out there. There are literally thousands of accounting firms out there. How do you stand out in the crowded marketplace? How do you find a niche the works for you in accounting?
First, let's understand why it is so important to find your niche in accounting. Most of your clients are experts in their businesses. As an accountant, you should endeavor to become an expert in their industry. You don't have to be an expert on all industries. There should be some, such as restaurants or retail stores, where you should be really good at.
The key is to develop your expertise and skills and become a leader in a particular space. Specializing in an industry will make you an authority within your niche. This gives you an edge over the competitors and helps you win more clients over a period of time.
While identifying a niche, you should ask yourself which industry or specialty you want to work in. Do you really like the work and are you really good at it? Do you see any potential for you to become a leader in that particular field? Is there is a skill-set you have developed which you can benefit from – for example, have you considered becoming a virtual CFO or a specialist in payroll management?
What about cloud accounting? Have you considered cloud-based solutions such as QuickBooks Hosting, Tax software Hosting etc. for your business?
Keeping this in mind, let's discuss how you can develop your own niche in accounting.
You can only achieve success in your niche by earning your client's trust. The way to do that is to understand their problems at a much deeper level. Try to get a much better sense of their underlying business issues and how they affect different areas of their business. For example, analyze the consequences of a missed sales target and how that would affect their business. Business owners want an accountant who really understands their business and the industry in which they operate at the same level as they do.
The next step after winning your client's confidence by sharing your expertise on their issues is to find the right solution for their problems. For this, you will need to have a very good understanding of how their business fits in within the industry and the market that they operate in.
You will have to do your research and update yourself with the latest marketing trends. You will need to anticipate changes over the next 2 to 3 years in the industry and formulate a strategy based on that. You must become an active learner, find yourself a mentor and learn from the best.
3: Focus on providing the right advice.
One of the things you can do as an accountant is to automate low-value tasks so that you can focus your time and energy on providing your clients with the right advice and perform other critical high-value tasks that make a huge difference to their business. This is how you help their business grow and become recognized as an authority within the niche.


text:
damn eric clapton got owned Dec. 24, 2015
Two Chicks Owned Eric Clapton So Hard
By Kelly Conaboy
This guy got owned! Photo: Larry Busacca/Getty Images
Owning a celebrity who declared his support for Enoch Powell onstage in 1976 is every girl's dream. In a perfect world we would all get to do it, but, if it turns out this world is not perfect, at least we have these two women to live through vicariously.
According to "Page Six," Eric Clapton recently made an appearance at Chelsea club the Leonora. After word spread throughout the club that Clapton was there, hanging out among the NYC clubgoers, relaxing and chilling as if he didn't reaffirm his support for Enoch Powell in a 2007 interview, Clapton made his way toward the exit. Bye, Eric Clapton.
Before he got out, however, two women — "model types," allegedly — stopped him while "squealing with excitement" and asked for a picture. From the "Page Six" witnesses:
"They handed the camera to Eric Clapton and leaned in to pose with his friend," said one spy. Another witness quipped, "They thought the friend was Eric Clapton. They were young and didn't know what [Clapton] looked like but were excited because they thought they knew who he was."
Oh shit, Eric Clapton — looks like you just got owned! A round of applause for these incredible ladies, and, of course, for Eric Clapton — such a good sport who has never disavowed his support for Enoch Powell but who has learned to at least keep other opinions under his hat.
damn eric clapton got owned
enoch powell
model-types


text:
```
+----+  updates every X min   +--------+
|    |  ------------------>   |        |
|    |         wifi           |        |
|    |  <------------------   |        |
+----+      png greyscale     +--------+
hacked                           local
kindle                         webserver
```

## Setup

### Kindle

#### SSH Access
In order to install the scripts onto your kindle you need to get **root ssh access via usb**. The mobileread [forum](http://www.mobileread.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=150) and [wiki](http://wiki.mobileread.com/wiki/Kindle_Hacks_Information) are a great source on how to perform the **jailbreak**, install **usb networking** and **KUAL** for easiely enabling/disabling ssh access. So far we've only managed to make it work on the [Kindle 4](http://wiki.mobileread.com/wiki/Kindle_4).

#### Update Script

connect you Kindle via usb and ssh into it
```
ssh root@192.168.15.244
```

make the Kindle file system writable
```
mntroot rw
```

create the init and update scripts according to the files in the [kindle](https://github.com/naltatis/kindle-display/tree/master/kindle) directory.
```
vi /mnt/base-us/RUNME.sh
vi /mnt/base-us/display-weather.sh
```

add the update script to [/etc/crontab/root](https://github.com/naltatis/kindle-display/blob/master/kindle/etc/crontab/root)
```
*/30 5-22 * * * /mnt/us/display-weather.sh
```

execute the init script to disable all unneeded tasks and trigger an the first render
```
sh /mnt/base-us/RUNME.sh
```

### Server

The code in this repository is my personal setup which also pulls in data from the heating and ventilation system. Therefore I recommend **forking this repository** and modify the datasources and visual representation as you need it.

You need to have **node.js**/**npm**, **phantomjs** and **pngcrush** installed on the server machine. I'm using a RaspberryPI for this.

Clone the repository
```
git clone git@github.com:username/kindle-display.git kindle-display
cd kindle-display
```

Create your own config file. Adjust the list of plugins that should be used to provide data for the template. You can find the implementation in the `lib` directory.
```
cp config_sample.yaml config.yaml
vi config.yaml
```

Adjust template and styling. You probably want to delete much of my stuff here to get it to work.
```
vi views/index.jade
vi public/stylesheets/style.styl
```

Start the server and open your browser at [http://localhost:3000/](http://localhost:3000/)
```
npm start
```

Now you need to create a png file that can be served for the kindle.
```
./generate_png.sh
```

Now you should find a 600x800 grayscale png file in your `public` folder which is accessibale via [http://localhost:3000/weather_bw.png](http://localhost:3000/weather_bw.png).

Setup a cronjob that regularly executes the `generate_png` script.

## Plugins

...

## Todos

**Power Management:**
Right now the Kindle battery lasts for 2-3 days, depending on the refresh interval. I think here is room for improvement. There are a few options to change the Kindles power management settings, but we haven't found the perfect one yet.

## Credits

**Matthew Petroff**

  * [Blogpost: Kindle Weather Display](http://mpetroff.net/2012/09/kindle-weather-display/)
  * [Github: mpetroff/kindle-weather-display](https://github.com/mpetroff/kindle-weather-display)

**hahabird**

  * [Blogpost: Kindle Weather and Recycling Display](http://hackaday.com/2013/04/01/kindle-weather-and-recycling-display/)
  * [Imgur: Pictures of Wodden Frame](http://imgur.com/a/17Y89)

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaGithub


text:
Rudolf Margolius (31 August 1913 – 3 December 1952) was a Czech lawyer and economist,  Deputy Minister for Foreign Trade, Czechoslovakia (1949–1952), and a co-defendant in the Slánský trial in November 1952.

Imprisoned by the Nazis in the Lodz ghetto and several concentration camps, he survived the Holocaust and joined the Czechoslovak Communist Party, working as an economist. The 1952 show trial involved the Communist Party General Secretary, Rudolf Slánský, and his thirteen co-defendants. They were arrested, unjustly accused, tried, and executed as traitors and western spies. The trial was orchestrated by Soviet advisors, sent to Prague by Soviet premier Joseph Stalin, and assisted by Czechoslovak Secret Service interrogators and the members of Czechoslovak Communist Party Central Committee. The destruction of the Czechoslovak Communist high-ranking party officials by their own colleagues has defied attempts to rationalize it, and our understanding of the affair remains superficial. One of the people who were thrown into the alleged conspiracy was Dr Rudolf Margolius.

The Slánský group consisted of many personalities.  On one side was Slánský, an extremist and one of those who helped to usher Czechoslovakia into the Stalinist era.  At the centre stood Vladimír Clementis (Minister of Foreign Affairs), a Communist and one of the conductors of the February 1948 communist coup, but also a man who had dared to criticize the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact. On the other extreme of the scale was Margolius. Unlike others in the Slánský group, he joined the Communist Party late – in December 1945 – and acquired faith in socialism as a result of his experience in Adolf Hitler's concentration camps and never held any Party appointments, he was purely an economist.

Life
Rudolf Margolius was born in Prague into a patriotic Czech, middle-class milieu. As a law student in the thirties at Charles University, studying together with the Czech poet Hanuš Bonn, he devoted much of his time to the YMCA travelling in Western Europe, Middle East and America.  During Czechoslovakia's Munich crisis with Nazi Germany he was an Army reservist serving together with his friend, music composer, Jan Hanuš.  In 1939, while Czechoslovakia was already occupied by the Third Reich, he married Heda Bloch (later known as Heda Margolius Kovály).

In 1941 he was deported to the Łódź Ghetto and subsequently to concentration camps in Auschwitz and Dachau.  In May 1945 after escaping from Dachau, he was made a leader of the Garmisch-Partenkirchen camp for the war refugees. After returning to Prague in June 1945 together with Jarmila Čapková Margolius went to Bergen-Belsen to search for Josef Čapek. In December 1945 he joined the Czechoslovak Communist Party influenced by his war experiences and murder of his parents and relatives in the concentration camps and hope of instituting better future for the country. Between 1945 and 1948 he worked for the Central Federation of Czechoslovak Industry in Prague. Afterwards he was promoted to the Chief of Staff of the Minister for Foreign Trade (1948–49) and subsequently became Deputy Minister for Foreign Trade responsible for the sector trading with Western countries (1949–52). Together with his colleague, Evžen Löbl, Margolius was the author of dollar offensive in the Czechoslovak economic policy. In 1949 in London Margolius negotiated and signed several important economic and financial agreements with Ernest Bevin and Sir William Strang who represented the British Government. The agreements through Margolius' effort were weighted in favour of the Czechoslovak trade rather than the British trade. Czechoslovak government was satisfied with the outcome of the negotiations and requested that the effort of all those who had participated would be appreciated. Margolius was a lawyer and economist and was not directly involved in the contemporary Communist Party machinations or politics.

Dr. Rudolf Margolius was arrested on 10 January 1952. After months of physical and psychological coercion in addition to being forced to sign a false confession, Margolius met for the first time his alleged co-inspirators led by Rudolf Slánský at the Czechoslovak High Court attached to the Pankrác Prison in Prague in November 1952. Margolius was chosen as a member of the 'conspiracy' because in his capacity as Deputy Minister at the Ministry of Foreign Trade he made trade agreements with capitalist countries against the wishes of the Soviet Union to increase trade with other socialist countries and he dealt with large sums of money. These details had a great impact on contemporary public opinion. As had been determined in advance in Moscow and by the Czechoslovak Communist Party's Central Committee, the court sentenced Margolius and ten others to death, three received life sentences. The Times on 28 November 1952 commented: "The only surprising aspect...is that Margolius...is not among those who have been given the reduced penalty." On 3 December 1952, at the execution, Margolius did not pronounce any last words.

Pavel Tigrid wrote: "Margolius… survived the Nazi concentration camps and after the war enrolled into the Communist Party from the real conviction: that never again would be repeated what had happened in the past, that no one would be persecuted for his or hers racial, national or social origins, in order for all people to be equal, in order to establish an era of real freedom. A couple of years later the comrades succeeded in what the Nazis had not managed: they killed him."

Posthumous exoneration

The Scotsman reported on 16 May 1968:Czechoslovak President Ludvík Svoboda has awarded the Order of the Republic posthumously to Rudolf Margolius, former Deputy Foreign Trade Minister executed in 1952 after the Stalinist Slánský trial. Margolius was accused of being a member of the "anti-party conspiratorial centre," and was sentenced to death along with former Party Secretary Rudolf Slánský and nine others on November 27, 1952. Slánský and the others were judicially rehabilitated by the Supreme Court in 1963. All had been accused of high treason, espionage and sabotage and organizing a Jewish plot to bring down the régime.

A memorial plaque dedicated to Rudolf Margolius is located on the family tomb at New Jewish Cemetery, Izraelská 1, Prague 3, sector no. 21, row no. 13, plot no. 33, directly behind Franz Kafka's grave.

Film documentary and media
Le Procès - Prague 1952, an 1hr 10min French documentary film by Ruth Zylberman for ARTE France & Pernel Media had the world premiere at FIPADOC International Documentary Festival, Biarritz, France on January 18, 2022. The new documentary made from the Slánský trial film and audio archives found by chance in 2018 in a warehouse in the suburb of Prague served as a starting point for the film. The director tells the trial through the descendants of three of the condemned: the daughter and grandson of Rudolf Slánský, the son and granddaughter of Rudolf Margolius, both executed after the trial, and the three children of Artur London, sentenced to life imprisonment.

Historian David Hertl emphasised that Margolius held no roles in the government or in the Communist Party in the programme called The Youngest Hanged in the Trial with the Slánský Group was Rudolf Margolius. But Why Him, is a Mystery to Historians. (Nejmladším oběšeným v procesu se skupinou Slánského byl Rudolf Margolius. Proč zrovna on, je ale pro historiky záhadou.) held in Czech on the Czech Radio Plus, December 1, 2022.

See also
 Heda Margolius Kovály
 Ivan Margolius
 Under a Cruel Star (book)
 Artur London
 Milada Horáková
 Jan Hanuš
 Slánský trial
 Josef Čapek
 List of Czech and Slovak Jews

References

Further reading
 Margolius Kovály, Heda (1997). Under A Cruel Star: A Life in Prague 1941-1968, New York: Holmes & Meier, Na vlastní kůži, Academia, Praha 2003
 Heda Margolius Kovály and Helena Třeštíková (2018). Hitler, Stalin and I: An Oral History. DoppelHouse Press (Los Angeles). , .
 Margolius, Ivan (2006). Reflections of Prague: Journeys through the 20th Century, Chichester: Wiley, Praha za zrcadlem: Putování 20. stoletím, Argo, Praha 2007,
 London, Artur (1971). The Confession, New York: Ballantine Books, .

1913 births
1952 deaths
Politicians from Prague
People from the Kingdom of Bohemia
Czech Jews
Communist Party of Czechoslovakia politicians
Executed Czechoslovak people
Executed politicians
Government ministers of Czechoslovakia
People executed by the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic by hanging
Executed Czech people
Jewish Czech politicians
Jewish socialists
Łódź Ghetto inmates
Auschwitz concentration camp survivors
Dachau concentration camp survivors
Slánský trial defendants
Czechoslovak Socialist Republic rehabilitations
Charles University alumni

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


The Unturned team have just released version version 3.26.3.0! See the full changelog below.
Added Weapons_Use_Player_Damage config options which causes weapons to cause the same damage to zombies and animals as they would to players. This raises the difficulty a bit on hard mode.
Added onServerSpawningItemDrop and onDropItemRequested events for plugins to prevent certain items from being dropped.
Added zombie backstab damage multiplier config option.
Tweaked space requirements when logging in.
Tweaked to log which item caused a usable exception.
Tweaked workshop item allowed IPs list to treat IPs after '-' as blacklist.
Fixed a rare disconnect when exiting or dying in a vehicle partway through input tick.
Fixed unplayable roof intersection in House #01.
Fixed replanting dead trees between arena rounds.
Fixed claim flags on vehicles not doing anything.
Fixed misconfigured serverside version of jail door.


Whether you call it soda, pop, tonic, or Coke, we spend a lot of money on this sparkling beverage. Finding ways to save money on this delicious treat will free your budget up for other expenses. This is a guide about saving money on soda pop.
Whether you call it soda, pop, tonic or coke, we spend a lot of money on this sparkling beverage. Here are some tips for saving money on soda pop as recommended by our ThriftyFun community.
We only buy soda when on sale. Since we drink Coke products, we save the "points" and use them for things we'd normally pay money for, like magazine subscriptions.
Make lemonade or limeade using bottles of concentrate, add sweetener (or sugar) and add water then fill old plastic bottles. Very satisfying taste.
Cheaper and better for you.
You can buy old fashioned coke syrup, generic club soda, and make your own.
If you're "brand loyal" and don't want to give that up, stock up when "your" brand is on sale. The store I work at generally has Pepsi products on sale one week, and Coke products the next. Or if the brand is not that important, buy only what is on sale.
We rarely buy it, so I guess we save a lot on it! Since I stopped buying it, we sleep better, I have lost weight and I don't worry about the kids having too much of it.
I gave up buying soda pop when my daughter was a child. I would mix various flavors of frozen juice with seltzer, some sliced oranges or berries for garnish and serve that at her parties. The kids loved them because it made them feel so grown up and their parents were happy not to have to deal with all the sugar rush. I do the same for my granddaughters now and their friends love them, too. We haven't had soda pop in the house for many years.
Use the flavored sugar free drink mixes you add to water. Walmart and Target sell their own brand of them. Also anything you can do to cut back on pop consumption besides being good for your wallet will also benefit your teeth. In addition to saving your tooth enamel, I was told by someone undergoing dialysis that pop pulls the phosphorous out of your bones, so that is another thing to consider healthwise. Remember, it will benefit you long term.
Do you have any tips for saving money on soda pop? Feel free to post them below.
Shop around for a generic everyone likes. We discovered the Food City brand Dr. Wow in our area tasted just like Dr. Pepper (just a bit more carbonated). Dr. Pepper sells at $4.29 for a 12 pack of cans while the Dr. Wow sells for $4.89 for a 24 can pack. That is double the quantity for a fraction of the cost.
Every store now a days is toting a generic brand: Food Lion, Kroger, Ingles, Safeway, Food City, etc. You just have to find one that tastes good to everyone, that is at a good price. Of course buying in bulk is usually cheaper anyway. I just never expected this soda to be so much cheaper and taste good to boot.
My husband drinks a lot of coke but most of the time he leaves about a cup full. I use to throw it away but now I put it in a small container with a lid and put it in the freezer. I use this frozen coke instead of ice. So no more wasted coke and no more watered down drink.
Source: You can give me the credit.


text:
Q: Firefox crashing Linux Mint 20 (ulyan) memory thrashing Firefox 105.0.1 eats all my memory (mate-system-monitor reports 100%), regularly crashing Linux Mint 20 (ulyan), typically several times a week.
My system completely locks up, mouse and keyboard become unresponsive, hitting <ctrl>+<alt>+<F5> doesn't work.
Mint is surely at fault: Operating systems must insulate against poorly written software that exhausts memory.
Earlier versions of Mint / Firefox didn't suffer this problem.
What can be done?
UPDATE: Upgrading to Linux Mint 20.3 didn't solve.

A: Upgrading to Linux Mint 21 solved.
Another useful solution: magic SysRq key, <alt> + <print screen> + <f> instructs the kernel to invoke the Out of Memory (OOM) Killer, to enable edit /etc/sysctl.d/99-sysctl.conf and ensure kernel.sysrq includes 64, e.g., kernel.sysrq=438 doesn't include 64, it's the sum 256+128+32+16+4+2, whilst kernel.sysrq=502 does.

A: Not the OS's fault. You have a bad physical memory.
Install and run memtester to check the RAM.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


« sometimes a girl`s gotta do, what a girl`s gotta do!
Ein Koffer voll mit Vergangenheit. Und auch wenn es mich zurcheinander bringt, dass du ihn hast, ist es doch deiner, und ich bin froh, genau über dies.
This entry was posted on Montag, August 9th, 2010 at 11:11	and is filed under Bilderbuch, erleuchtet. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.


KABUL -UNS : The United States' envoy for Afghanistan reconciliation process, Zalmay Khalilzad, said "men and women, young and not-so-young, all will join in intra-Afghan dialogue in Doha and eventual negotiations".
Ambassador Khalilzad, the US Special Representative for Afghanistan Reconciliation, posted the update on Twitter following a meeting with President Ashraf Ghani.
"Had important meeting with Pres @AshrafGhani today. We have momentum now with #Afghans working together across party & society.
In his full statement on Twitter, on the other hand, it was noted that Khalilzad discussed "how to ensure the intra-Afghan dialogue in Doha next week, in which representatives of the Afghan government and wider society will participate, can best advance our shared goal of accelerating a settlement process".
The topics, according to the statement, were discussed "with former President Karzai, leaders of the High Peace Council, and other prominent Afghans".
"Ambassador Khalilzad underscored the imperative of reducing violence across Afghanistan in the coming weeks and explored ways to build broader regional support for the current effort to realize the Afghan people's yearning for peace," it added.
Earlier, an official had confirmed that Afghanistan would send a delegation to "exchange views" with the Taliban in Qatar in an ongoing push to find a way out of the country's 17-year-old war.
Fresh talks are expected to take place in Doha later this month, where Taliban members are due to meet with Afghan officials and other stakeholders.
Daudzai stressed that the delegation will only serve to swap views with the Taliban, and its members would not necessarily be the same as a formal negotiating team.
Afghan officials, however, are set to meet on Wednesday to finalise delegates and decide who will comprise that official negotiating team.
Discussions also took place between the Taliban and Afghani opposition groups in Moscow in February.
The Taliban had no immediate reaction to Daudzai's announcement, which comes after Khalilzad spent last week in Afghanistan as part of an ongoing push for a peace deal.
On Thursday, Afghan media outlet Tolo News had quoted Khalilzad as saying the relations between the US and Pakistan would not improve until Islamabad reconsiders its policies pertaining to Kabul.
The envoy of Washington had further highlighted that in addition to a potential peace deal between the Afghan Taliban and the US, Islamabad and Kabul, too, shall reach an agreement through which Pakistan would be able to play a more "a constructive role in Afghanistan".
"We … are seeking that an agreement should be reached between Afghanistan and Pakistan that can result in peace and (can stop) the interferences Pakistan has made in Afghanistan," Khalilzad had said, as per the Afghan publication.
Urging Pakistan to play a more positive role, he said if Islamabad desires better ties with Washington, "their policy toward Afghanistan must change, otherwise, the US and Pakistan relations will not improve".
On the other hand, however, Prime Minister Imran Khan had told Khalilzad on Friday during the latter's side trip to Pakistan that he had some "brotherly advice" for Afghanistan. He was quoted saying to the Pakistani journalists that the Afghan Taliban had wanted to meet him but Kabul protested so he did not do so.
Addressing a rally in Jamrud on Friday, Khan had explained his original comments as "brotherly advice" to the people and government of Afghanistan and said his comments should not be considered interference.
Kabul, nevertheless, was furious about the comment, and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs had summoned a Pakistan diplomat to explain the remarks.
"Afghanistan considers recent statements of Imran Khan explicit interference in internal affairs of Afghanistan and deems PM's remarks a return to his previous stance," Sibghatullah Ahmadi had tweeted.
This marked the fourth time in about a month and a half that Kabul has demanded an explanation from Islamabad for comments related to peace talks aimed at ending 17 years of war in Afghanistan.
Last month, Afghanistan had recalled its ambassador from Islamabad after Khan was quoted in the local media as suggesting the formation of an interim Afghan government that would smooth peace talks between US and Taliban officials since the Taliban refused to speak to the current government.


text:
Global warming destroys "a world roof"
by space · December 15, 2016
Glaciers of the western Tibet were stable for thousands of years. But several months ago two huge ice avalanches which descended from the plateau forever changed a customary landscape. As show researches, probably global warming is the reason of unprecedented icefalls, and in process of climate change similar disasters can happen in the region even more often.
This summer, on July 17, from a glacier Ara more than 60 million cubic meters of ice and rocks were slivered that is equivalent to the volume of 24 000 Olympic pools. In a few minutes the descended avalanche covered about 10 square kilometers of the valley, having killed nine shepherds together with hundreds of sheep and yaks.
Satellite images give an idea of catastrophe scales.
This picture of NASA shows highlands Ara till the avalanche.
June 24, 2016. © NASA
In this picture glacier collapse consequences are visible.
July 21, 2016. © NASA
So large glacial collapses happen extremely seldom. A July incident in Tibet became second-large an ice avalanche which concedes only to the glacier the Splitting which descended in the Caucasus in 2002.
The western Tibet long time was read by stable glacial area. Unlike the Southern and East Tibet where glaciers thawed in high gear, this region seemed rather steady against temperature increase.
However in two months there was the second, at least scale collapse of an adjacent glacier in the same mountain circuit. This time unwinding of a large avalanche did without the victims, but its appearance shocked scientists and locals. "One such event is already surprising; two in a row — an unprecedented case" — were written geophysics by Dave Petli in the blog in October. According to the scientist, responsible for two icefalls is climate change. According to "The Guardian", the country heats up on average on 0,4 °C in a decade — twice quicker, than average global temperature increases.
The document published last week in Journal of Glaciology confirms words of the Loop. The group of the international scientists used computer models and satellite data to clarify the possible reason of rapid unwinding of enormous avalanches. They set that, most likely, the collapse was such bystry because of presence of thawed snow which is formed as a result of processes of thawing on a glacier and actually does ice to more slippery.
"In view of the speed to which there was an event, and the area covered with an avalanche I think that it could occur only in the presence of thawed snow" — the coauthor Lonnie Thompson, professor of sciences about Earth at Ohio University (USA) marked.
The origin of thawed snow in Ara is still unknown, but, according to Thompson, the reason is clear. "Considering that the average temperature on the next meteorological station rose approximately by 1,5 °C over the last 50 years, it is quite probable that snow and ice thaw, and water filters under a glacier down".
The growing temperature can lead to a collapse and other glaciers in the western Tibet, researchers say. Now there is no way to predict such disasters, and it is bad news to the Tibetan plateau in general. The so-called "roof of the world" which covers the most part of Tibet and some regions of China and India is storage of the largest volume of the frozen water outside polar regions. Being a source of several large rivers, including Yangtze, Mekong and Indus, she supplies with water nearly 2 billion people in Asia.
Scientists in China warn that climate change represents serious threat for the Tibetan plateau: his glaciers thaw with a speed of 7% a year. If this tendency of thawing remains, by 2050 two thirds from them will disappear.
Tags: climate
Next story Greece may be a powerful earthquake
Previous story The blizzard has fallen upon China


text:
Tag Archives: Blackburn (England)
November/December 2017 – Sō Percussion ensemble tour their multi-media coal-mining piece 'From Out A Darker Sea' through Derbyshire, Lancashire, London and Kent (22nd, 24th, 25th and 30th November, 2nd & 5th December)
Brooklyn contemporary percussion quartet Sō Percussion (a.k.a. Eric Cha-Beach, Josh Quillen, Adam Sliwinski, and Jason Treuting) are travelling to England in late November to tour a particular commission around various churches in the heart of former coal country. More information below:
"Sō Percussion present an audio-visual exploration of the social history of British coal mining in 'From Out a Darker Sea'. For two centuries, the coal industry formed the backbone of many towns and cities across England. Entire communities sprang into existence as fervent mining activity fuelled the industrial revolution. Integrating art, narrative, photography, film and an original musical soundscape performed live, Sō Percussion – known for their innovative and original productions – capture the environment, personal stories, and aspirations of a community fighting against industrial decline.
"Born out of a collaboration between the quartet and Amber Films, 'From Out A Darker Sea' is inspired by the reinvention of East Durham after the crushing loss of its mining industry. Combining live performance with community education programmes, Sō Percussion are bringing 'From Out A Darker Sea' to sacred spaces in former coal mining areas, from Derby to Deal, this Autumn."
'From Out A Darker Sea' was originally initiated by East Durham Creates and premiered back in August at St John's Church in Seaham, East Durham – in the heart of the region which inspired the original work. The original show dressed out the church interior with an immersive audio-visual installation created by people of the region, and incorporated personal stories and memories contributed by local residents including students from East Durham College.
Regarding the other visual content, Amber Films comment "we've wanted to make a film with Sirkka-Liisa Konttinen's photographs of The Coal Coast since the completed exhibition was premiered at Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art back in 2003. We've also been talking about doing a live score film project for a while. When Forma/East Durham Creates suggested a possible Coal Coast collaboration with Sō Percussion, we were more than happy to meet up with them. Sitting round a table in a cafe in Seaham, both Amber and Sō felt the collaboration could work… Sirkka set to digitising her negs, expanding the range of the imagery. We experimented with timelapse video and the rhythms it generated. We exchanged material with Sō Percussion, who were writing pieces back in New York. In the middle of this we were drawn to the storytelling of Easington ex-miner Freddie Welsh. We're currently working on the standalone film – watch this space!"
See below for band and audience responses to the Seaham show, plus a discussion between Sō Percussion and EDC's Nikki Locke:
Dates for the autumn tour:
Derby Cathedral, 18-19 Iron Gate, Derby DE1 3GP, Wednesday 22nd November 2017, 6.30pm – information here and here
St Giles-without-Cripplegate, Fore Street, London, EC2Y 8DA, Friday 24th November 2017, 8.00pm – information here
St Giles-without-Cripplegate, Fore Street, London, EC2Y 8DA, Saturday 25th November 2017, 8.00pm – information here
Holy Trinity Church, Mount Pleasant, Blackburn, Lancashire, BB1 5DQ, England, 30th November 2017, 7.00pm – information here
St George's Church, 6A St Georges Road, Deal, Kent, CT14 6BA, England, 2nd December 2017, 7.00pm – information here
All Souls Church, Cheriton High St, Folkestone, Kent, CT19 4HE, England, 5th December 2017, 7.00pm – information here
Tags: Adam Sliwinski, Blackburn (England), Deal (England), Derby (England), Eric Cha-Beach, Jason Treuting, Josh Quillen, London (England), New York City (USA), percussion music, Sō Percussion
Categories 2017, 21st century classical music, acoustic music, classical (Western art music), classical fusion, cross-cultural music, instrumental music, New Music, performance art, political music, previews, storytelling
April 2016 – upcoming gigs – two types of British folk tour: Michael Chapman and Moulettes, plus a menagerie of support acts (United Sound of Joy, Richard Moss, Marcus Bonfanti, The Brackish, The Horse Loom, Dirty Old Folkers, Colour Trap)
Two British tours start this week, reflecting – in their way – very different aspects of British folk music.
Recently celebrated by 'Mojo', Michael Chapman isn't just one of the sturdiest and most independent of the singer-songwriters coming out of the homegrown British folk revival of the 1960s: he's also one of the last acoustic guitar masters standing from the generation which included Bert Jansch, Davy Graham and John Renbourne (all of whom are now gone). His playing reveals a fascination with Southern blues, folk, slide and ragtime jazz styles (all of which he's mastered), while his pursuit of sound and setting has drawn him towards drones, delay, and loop effects (all of which he's used as an adjunct to his unadorned playing, rather than as a replacement or distraction). As a singer and songwriter, there are parallels with J.J. Cale; and, rightly or wrongly, I can also hear echoes or anticipations of fellow Cale devotee Mark Knopfler in there, in terms of the husk, the fingerpicking clarity and the unprecious observational skills. (For what it's worth, the two are connected by time in Leeds and both shared, however fleetingly, original Dire Straits drummer Pick Withers, whose jazz-influenced drummer kept the band both grounded and textured in the days before stadiums and weariness).
Here's the press release for the upcoming tour:
"2016 marks noted guitarist & songwriter Michael Chapman's 75th birthday and fifty years since he went on the road professionally in 1966. To coincide with the celebrations, Michael's new instrumental album, 'Fish' has just been released on US imprint Tompkins Square & is already gathering much praise. To mark this important milestone in his life and career Michael Chapman tours in the UK as part of a stripped-back trio also featuring two longstanding allies – pedal steel guitarist BJ Cole (whose association with Chapman goes back a long, long way to the early 1970s) and Sarah Smout on cello (Chapman's favourite musical instrument, which many fans will recall featured strongly on his classic 1970 album 'Fully Qualified Survivor'.). The trio will be playing material from Michael's incredible five-decade performing history as well as some new and experimental music."
Dates are as follows:
Adelphi Club, 89 De Grey Street, Hull, HU5 2RU, England, Wednesday 20th April 2016 – more information
Blackburn Museum & Art Gallery, 10 Merlin Road, Blackburn, BB2 7BA, England, Thursday 21st April 2016 – more information
High Forest Community Centre, High Sinderhope, Hexham, NE47 9SH, England, Friday 22nd April 2016 – more information
Porters Coffee House, Tynemouth Metro Station, Station Terrace, North Shields, NE30 4RE , England, Saturday 23rd April 2016 – more information
The Greystones, Greystones Road, Sheffield, S11 7BS, England, Wednesday 27th April 2016 – more information
The Trades Club, Holme Street, Hebden Bridge, HX7 8EE, England, Thursday 28th April 2016 – more information
Octagon Chapel, Colgate, Norwich, NR3 1BN, England, Friday 29th April 2016 (duo performance by Michael Chapman and BJ Cole only) – more information
Hanover Community Centre, 33 Southover Street, Brighton, BN2 9UD, England, Saturday 30th April 2016 – more information (which suggests that the event has moved to West Hill Hall)
De La Warr Pavilion, Marina, Bexhill-On-Sea TN40 1DP England, Sunday 1st May 2016 – more information
Kitchen Garden Café, 17 York Road, Kings Heath, Birmingham, B14 7SA, England, Tuesday 3rd May 2016 – more information
Café Oto, 18-22 Ashwin Street, Dalston, London, E8 3DL, England, Wednesday 4th May 2016 – more information
A diverse set of interesting support acts are showing up at points during the tour, reflecting both the breadth of Michael's musical references and the way in which venue promoters feel that they can successfully fit others around him on a bill. At Blackburn, the evening will be opened by Richard Moss: Lancashire singer-songwriter, fingerstyle guitarist, mandolin player and member of Anglo-Malaysian guitar duo Squirrels In Space, Irish music band Drop The Floor and the Union Street Country Dance & Ceilidh Band. At the Sinderhope show, support comes from hardcore punk escapee turned folk-baroque guitarist Steve Malley, otherwise known as The Horse Loom.
At the first gig of the tour (up in Hull), it's Bristolian post-punk/psych/jazz band The Brackish who sound like an artfully spilled bookshelf of three decades worth of vinyl. Their muscly, slightly boggled tone mixes in urban blues, Ventures-tinged surf tunes, Frank Zappa air-sculptures and a few of Captain Beefheart's broader brushstrokes (plus a tooth-in-the wind guitar edge which recalls the rawest work of Adrian Belew, at his analogue-screaming decennial point midway between Zappa and King Crimson).
Although they're also a product of the British folk tradition, Moulettes come from a different angle – one which is more fanciful and playful, in which authenticity is less the Holy Grail and more of a switchable ingredient. Like Rose Kemp, their take on folk draws on heavier sounds and on nearly fifty years of extraordinary, fanciful rock music. A Moulettes song comes at you like a dose of multi-instrumental chamber prog, adding cello, bassoon and autoharp to the guitars, bass and drums and the triple-decker lead vocals. Their storytelling itch, sense of mischief and enjoyment of each other's company just glows out of both of these video clips below:
The Brook, 466 Portswood Rd, Southampton, SO17 3SD, England, Thursday 21st April 2016
The Cellar, Frewin Court, Oxford, OX1 3HZ, England, Friday 22nd April 2016
Islington Assembly Hall, Upper Street, London, N1 2UD, England, Saturday 23rd April 2016, 7.00pm (with United Sounds Of Joy)
Exchange, 72-73 Old Market Street, Bristol, BS2 0EJ, England, Sunday 24th April 2016
The Apex, 1 Charter Square, Bury Saint Edmunds, IP33 3FD, England, Tuesday 26th April 2016
The Dark Horse, Alcester Road, Moseley, Birmingham, B13 8JP, England, Wednesday 27th April 2016, 7.00pm (with Marcus Bonfanti + The Dirty Old Folkers) – more information
The Musician, 42 Crafton St West, Leicester, LE1 2DE, England, Thursday 28th April 2016
The Mash House, Hastie's Close, 37 Guthrie Street, Edinburgh, EH1 1JQ, Scotland, Friday 29th April 2016 (with Colour Trap) – more information
The Duchess, Stonebow House, The Stonebow, York, YO1 7NP, England, Tuesday 3rd May 2016 (support tbc) – more information
The Greystones, Greystones Road, Sheffield, S11 7BS, England, Wednesday 4th May 2016
Band On The Wall, 25 Swan Street, The Northern Quarter, Manchester, M4 5JZ, England, Thursday 5th May 2016 (support t.b.c.) – more information
The Convent, Convent Lane, Stroud, GL5 5HS, England, Friday 6th May 2016 – more information
The Tolmen Centre, Fore Street, Constantine, near Falmouth, TR11 5AA, England, Saturday 7th May 2016, 7.30pm – more information
As with Michael Chapman, the support slot arrangements fan out over a diverse range of styles: in fact, even more diverse than the Chapman tour. The London gig features United Sounds Of Joy, the slow-burn sensual pop-noir duo reuniting Michael J. Sheehy and Alex Vald (who, during the 1990s, alternately spat savage vindictive rock filth or crooned a creased and seedy London romanticism with Dream City Film Club).
At Birmingham, support comes from straightahead London blues guitarist Marcus Bonfanti and from wisecracking locals The Dirty Old Folkers (who describe themselves as "a Viz comic, being narrated by the Pogues" and deliver a raucous, sometimes smutty set which might be good-time but which still draws heavily on bad times and working-class resilience).
In Edinburgh, Moulettes are joined by local trad-indie rockers Colour Trap, who look back to golden-age British rock and Britpop scenes of the '60s and '90s.
Tags: B. J. Cole, Bexhill-On-Sea (England), Birmingham (England), Blackburn (England), Brighton (England), Bristol (England), Bury Saint Edmunds (England), Constantine (England), Dream City Film Club, Drop The Floor, Edinburgh (Scotland), Falmouth (England), Hebden Bridge (England), High Sinderhope (England), Leeds (England), Leicester (England), listening to women, London (England), Manchester (England), Marcus Bonfanti, Michael Chapman, Michael J. Sheehy, Moulettes, Norwich (England), Oxford (England), Richard Moss, Sheffield (England), Southampton (England), Squirrels In Space, Steve Malley, Stroud (England), The Brackish, The Dirty Old Folkers, The Horse Loom, Tynemouth (England), Union Street Country Dance & Ceilidh Band, United Sounds Of Joy, York (England)
Categories 2016, acoustic music, alternative folk, art pop, art rock, baroque pop, blues, ceilidh, chamber music, chamber pop, comedy music, country-and-western, cross-cultural music, electro-acoustic folk, experimental/avant-garde rock, folk music, folk rock, folk-pop, instrumental music, jazz, kosmische & Krautrock, political music, pop, post-punk, previews, progressive rock, protest songs, psychedelic folk, psychedelic rock, rock, roots music, singer-songwriter
March 2016 – upcoming gigs – Schnellertollermeier on tour in Ireland and England (with guest showings by ReDiviDEr, Taupe, Tasmin A, Lambhorn, Shatner's Bassoon and Motherese); bassfest in Southampton (with Steve Lawson, BassDbler, Grant Sharkey, A Ninja Slob Drew Me); Steve Lawson and Poppy Porter's synaesthesic show in Guildford.
In a few days time, Swiss avant-rock trio Schnellertollermeier begin a tour of Ireland and England. The group's mellifluous name cutely overlaps and portmanteaus those of each of its members – bass guitarist Andi Schnellmann, guitar player Manuel Troller and drummer David Meier – but also mirrors their working method. Their music, too, is an overlap – a mosaic of small obsessive note-figures either written or improvised, which all three pick up on and play with almost neurologically tight collective timing. They're also masters of dynamics, able to play each fragment at clean moth-wing softness or biting punk fuzz-roar at will and in sync as the moment demands.
They're not quite rock, despite the electric power-team lineup and the locked, riffing minimalism. They're not quite jazz, although they function on a similar level of technical assurance, small-group telepathy and potentially mutative rhythm. They describe themselves as "a little about quiet, and a lot about anger, silliness and precision," which is one way of drawing a loose line around their bag of impetus.If they're anything, Schnellertollermeir are an unconstrained cellular dance – fizzing on what's initially a fixed grid of possibilities, then working around it at ever-smaller, ever-more-complex levels of detail and option; using slivers of math-rock, post-hardcore and free-jazz idiom to get themselves there.
The other quote they toss out is that the group "sounds like classic literature, where you have to keep on re-reading a sentence until you understand. But when you have finally understood, you understand a lot more." Listening to them myself, they're more like a tremendously extended Peter Blegvad palindrome – clever, obscurely arch, coasting on the brink of tumbledown nonsense but staying in place and in grace by a touch of sheer skill and a hinting at a good deep-level joke to share.
The Roisin Dubh, Dominic Street, Galway, Ireland, Wednesday 9th March 2016, 9.00pm – more information
Fred Zeppelin's, 8 Parliament Street, Cork, County Cork, Ireland, Thursday 10th March 2016– free event – more information
The Loft @ The Grand Social, 35 Lower Liffey Street, Dublin, 1 D,, Ireland, Friday 11th March 2016, 8.00pm (with ReDiviDeR)
DROP The Dumbulls @ The Bull, 2 Dublin Street, Liverpool, L3 7DT, England, Sunday 13th March 2016
The Mother's Ruin, 7-9 St. Nicholas St, Bristol BS1 1UE, England, Monday 14th March 2016 (with Lambhorn) – more information
LUME @ IKLECTIK Art Lab, Old Paradise Yard, 20 Carlisle Lane, Lambeth, London, SE1 7LG, England, Wednesday 16th March 2016 (with Taupe)
Number 39, 39-41 Bridge St, Darwen, Blackburn, BB3 2AA, England, Thursday 17th March 2016 (with Tasmin A) – more information
Fusebox @ The Fox & Newt, 9 Burley Street, Leeds, LS3 1LD, England, Friday 18th March 2016, 8.00pm (with Motherese and guests) – more information
Dulcimer Bar, 567 Wilbraham Road, Chorlton-cum-Hardy, Manchester, M21 0AE, England, Saturday 19th March 2016 (with Shatner's Bassoon) – more information
While most of the tour appears to be one-act concerts for Schnellertollermeir alone, at points it sweeps up interesting local bands as well. Unfortunately I can't find out much about the Darwen support act Tasmin A – apart from the fact that she's a tourmate and backing singer for JD Meatyard (a.k.a. John Donaldson of Levellers 5) – but the Dublin gig features ReDiviDeR, an anagram-fixated two-horns-no-chords quartet led by drummer/composer Matt Jacobson with Derek Whyte (bass) and Nick Roth (alto sax) and Colm O'Hara (trombone), playing "downtown grooves , catchy melodies and collective improves" and taking inspiration from Charles Mingus, Steve Coleman, Deerhoof and Phil Ivey. In support at the Bristol gig are the "instrumental surf prog" band Lambhorn, while the London gig features Taupe (the hip hop and heavy metal-quoting "power-jazz commando team" who first showed up on my radar at last year's Manchester Jazz Festival).
Surprisingly for a Manchester show, the gig at the Dulcimer Bar doesn't feature any of the masses of experimental projects which throng the city. Instead, "six-piece madcap surrealists" Shatner's Bassoon (a double-drum pile-on of jazz and wayward electronics barely containing Michael Bardon, Ollie Dover, Joost Hendrickx, Andrew Lisle, Johnny Richards and Craig Scott) hop across the Pennines from Leeds. The Leeds gig itself features Motherese – a teamup of vocalist/violist Aby Vulliamy, pianist/singer Laura Cole (of Metamorphic) and improvising singer Maria Jardardottir. Motherese aren't even playing their first gig for a couple of days yet, so I'll feature more about them in the next post.
Steve Lawson (bass guitar virtuoso, loop musician, occasional avant-garde teddy bear and unstoppable Twittergob) can generally be relied upon to conceive, or latch onto, interesting gigs. With his own work spanning from textural ambience and tasteful but outgoing songwriter accompaniment to New Age, multi-collaborator jazz fusion and even political death metal (and since he's a man who's perpetually enthused by new contexts to explore) he's naturally going to be drawn to more unorthodox events… and, generally speaking, not the standard type of unorthodox events either. This month he has two of them in southern England.
Innovate Guildford Festival of Science and the Arts presents:
Poppy Porter & Steve Lawson
G Live, London Road, Guildford, GU1 2AA, England,
Saturday 12th March 2016, at some point between 10.00am and 4.00pm – free event – more information
"As a synaesthetic, abstract artist/jeweller Poppy Porter has a visual response to sound – she specialises in making jewellery inspired by the abstract shapes and colours of her synaesthetic inner landscape, and her art is mostly object-centred (as she puts it, "sound goes into my ears and art comes out of my hands"). Steve Lawson is a solo bassist who is best known for his improvised music and whose art is almost solely performed.
The duo perform in a collaboration that follows the evolving process of the work between them. Steve plays, building a layered, improvised sonic landscape to which Poppy responds by drawing what she "sees" synaesthesically (shape, colour, movement). Steve then reacts to what has been drawn, using the fresh drawings as a visual score and improvises further. A feedback loop is created between them. Although Poppy and Steve's individual art forms are different, there is a meeting of minds that pushes beyond the physical object or sonic creation giving rise to a visual, musical, aural and performance element in the work.
Following the performance, the audience will have an opportunity to have a go at drawing the music themselves. The idea of this workshop is to get the audience to try looking at the world in a different way. Rather than drawing an object, Poppy and Steve ask the audience to have a go at expressing how the music affects them. Paper and pencils will be provided and the audience can then listen to Steve play and express what the music is telling them in whatever way they choose with the art materials. We hope that the audience will be inspired to look at creating art in unusual ways and become aware of how we all think and express ourselves differently."
For the precise performance time, it's probably best to check on Steve's Facebook or Twitter accounts closer to the time. This event is part of a larger one-day festival of imagination and practical application taking place in Guildford over the course of a day. Further details and a promo video are below:
"Innovate Guildford will ignite the imaginations of young and old through a stunning showcase of innovation taking place in Guildford – from cutting-edge research to a sneak preview into the future. Our free festival is for everyone and will particularly appeal to young people – to inspire and nurture the scientists, engineers, artists and innovators of tomorrow."
Steve's second March event is more familiar territory for him, since it's what's described as "a night of genre-defying solo bass performances from some of the most innovative bass players around." Pretty much a plural version of the day-job, then.
Gigs In The Gallery presents:
"Sorry To Hear You're a Bassist!" – Steve Lawson + BassDbler + Grant Sharkey + A Ninja Slob Drew Me + Greyum May (DJ sets)
The Art House, 178 Above Bar Street, Southampton, SO14 7DW, England
Thursday 17th March 2016, 7.30pm – more information
J.D. Short, a.k.a. BassDbler, grew up playing alternative rock and hardcore in Chicago, Nashville, Indianapolis, and Louisville before studying music formally and moving on to build guitars for Rickenbacker. It was only on his relocation to New Zealand that he developed an affinity for electronic music and realised that it held a similar DIY ethic to the music of his youth. The resulting approach also partially inspired by science fiction (specifically Frank Herbert's 'Dune' saga) described by Aquarius Records as "bass-heavy dubstep electro-prog ambience" has been revealed on a pair of albums: 'Slow Blade Penetrates The Shield' and its slightly-more-acoustic follow-up 'Machine & Ghola'. When not working on BassDbler projects J.D. creates film scores and works as music director for the Giant Fire Breathing Robot website and podcasts.
In 2013 singing/songwriting/double-bass-playing Grant Sharkey (previously a member of Southampton drum-and-two-basses absurdists Toupé) pledged to independently record and release an album every six months over a period of twenty years. Now it's 2016 and he's up to six albums – one of which is a single forty-five-minute song (dealing with "how amazing live music is compared to a life of television"), while another he wrote while recovering from Carpal Tunnel Syndrome surgery on both wrists.Usually the albums are recorded around Grant's bass and voice with drums and assorted guest vocals added later, although ukelele and other sounds aren't unknown.
Grant's most recent effort is the combined album/political concept 'Ignoramus', which was released into the wild last November and which is (depending on how you look at it) either a set of double-bass-plus-voice songs or a philosophical/political manifesto for a new nation based on questioning our current course as a species, or probably both. It follows up and inverts some of the portrayals in his previous, nationalism-inspired album 'Goon' – "the five-part life-cycle of someone that doesn't ask any questions about their situation."
Another Southampton act – A Ninja Slob Drew Me – is extended-range seven-string bass player Daniel James, who since 2007 has created "moody, mostly instrumental albums" of finger-tapped ambience and distortion, citing post-rock, film soundtracks and trip hop as influences. After four albums as a solo act, Daniel introduced violinist and vocalist Jo Stevens into the project last year as a full partner, with their first album as a duo due to arrive later this year.
Former Ozric Tentacles/Firebird bass player Greyum May (more recently occupied with his own psychedelic/progressive project Keepers Brew) will be playing host but (as far as I know) will be staying off the bass himself in favour of playing a DJ set of "the best in bass-heavy tunes."
Headlining, Steve Lawson will presumably be offering what he usually offers – deftly melodic bass playing which he'll simultaneously loop, layer, warp, e-bow and KAOSS-Pad into semi-improvised minimal-maximal solo orchestrations which mingle jazz tunefulness, crowd-pleasing rock directness, and the textured rhythmic detail of prime electronica. Half of the time it won't sound like a bass, and a third of the time it'll sound like nothing on earth; with the added bonus being that you won't necessarily need to be a hardened avant-gardener to appreciate it.
More gig news shortly…
Tags: A Ninja Slob Drew Me, Aby Vulliamy, Andi Schnellmann, Andrew Lisle, bass guitar music, BassDbler, Blackburn (England), Bristol (England), Colm O'Hara, Cork (Ireland), Craig Scott, David Meier, Derek Whyte, Dublin (Ireland), duo music, Fusebox (event), Galway (Ireland), Grant Sharkey, Greyum May, Guildford (England), IKLECTIK Art Lab (promoters), Johnny Richards, Joost Hendrickx, Lambhorn, Laura Cole, Leeds (England), Liverpool (England), LUME (event), Manuel Troller, Maria Jardardottir, Matt Jacobson, Metamorphic, Michael Bardon, Motherese, Nick Roth, Ollie Dover, Poppy Porter (jeweller), ReDiviDer, Schnellertollermeir, Shatner's Bassoon, Southampton (England), Steve Lawson, synaesthesia, Tasmin A, Taupe, Toupe, trio music
Categories 2016, acoustic music, acoustic pop, alternative pop, ambient music, art rock, cross-disciplinary pop, crossover, DJ sets, electro-acoustic music, electronic, electronica, experimental music, experimental/avant-garde rock, festivals, free jazz, funk, improvisation, instrumental music, jazz, jazz fusion, jazz rock, loop music, math rock, performance art, pop, post-bop, post-hardcore, post-progressive rock, previews, process music, progressive rock, psychedelic ambient music, punk jazz, rock, singer-songwriter, soul-jazz, soundscapes


text:
Competition Finalists
Turner to Cezanne by Annalisa Quinn
"Turner to Cezanne" is a finalist in the 2011 DC Student Arts Journalism Challenge.
On loan from the National Museum of Wales, "Turner to Cezanne: Masterpieces from the Davies Collection" features the donated collection of two Welsh sisters. The exhibit largely consists of European Impressionist, pre-Impressionist and post-Impressionist paintings. But the charming thing about this exhibit is its slight inconsistencies, its surprises. The fact that these paintings come from the collection of two amateur collectors means that the exhibit is unexpectedly personal, full of the tastes and whims of two very particular people.
The first room features Turner's tumultuous and ethereal seascapes. Ghostly ships linger on the horizon and ocean skies are awash with violent oranges and purples. These luminous and sky-filled water paintings of his are, for me, the apotheosis of 19th century British painting. One of the best, "Charing Cross Bridge," shows the Houses of Parliament just visible in silhouette through the heavy hanging mist of the Thames. Hints of dawn — rose and orange — suffuse the painting, with everything else a gentle blue-grey. These misty paintings, pre-Impressionist, are almost atmospheric studies.
The room that follows is highly varied — dim and lovely Daumiers, a Manet and even some Renoirs. Daumier is especially well-represented, with everything from his caricature sketches to his more famous oil paintings. Renoir's "La Parisienne," a painting of a tall, beautiful woman dressed all in royal blue, is a highlight. The painting — of a Parisian actress — was shocking when it was first painted because of the subject's direct gaze and loosely tied hair. Though she is covered neck to toe, it's not hard to see that provocation even now due to her arresting bright blue dress and strong face.
One of the lovely, unexpected surprises is James Whistler's "Nocturne: Blue and Gold — St. Mark's, Venice." St. Mark's Cathedral looms through night mist — somehow both exquisitely detailed and murky at the same time. The cathedral itself is not idealized — it's a little dirty with a hint of scaffolding through the fog — but somehow more striking for that (perhaps because Whistler knows that those dark and dismal Venetian winter nights are really the best ones — the quietest and the loveliest). In fact, the Davies sisters apparently shared a great love of Venice, visiting many times together and collecting paintings of the city, several of which are featured in this exhibit.
Another apparent favorite of the sisters is Maurice de Vlaminck's fiercely colored and skewed landscape paintings. One of the minor Fauvist painters, de Vlaminck was inspired by the color experiments of the Impressionists.
Mysteriously, though, and strange in light of the title of the exhibit, Cezanne only has two paintings in this collection — one, a fairly standard landscape: purple mountains, blocks of green and brown in the foreground. The other, "Provençal Landscape," is lovely and dynamic — a tumult of color, twisting purple trees set against the pink earth.
Visitors end the exhibit with two of Carrière's Maternity paintings — "Maternity" and "Maternity (Suffering)." These two paintings of a mother and child are brown and pink canvases, misty and lovely, though not, like many other paintings of this exhibit, imprecise. Rather, Carrière paints light on skin with such exquisite care that the paintings are exacting even though indistinct. These two sensual, subtle and graceful paintings are the perfect end to an exhibit filled with quiet surprises.
What other exhibit would juxtapose solidly Academic paintings and Cezanne? The collection is lovely — feminine, almost — and entirely unexpected. You may see any number of Impressionist exhibits, Academic exhibits, Fauve exhibits or Post-Impressionist exhibits — this is unusual because of the charming scramble. There is the familiar — Monet's water lilies — together with the unexpected, the overlooked and the quietly gorgeous.
Annalisa Quinn is a junior at Georgetown University. She is a double major in English in Classics, with a focus on Ancient Greek. A native of Washington, DC, Annalisa has a lifelong interest in the DC arts scene and hopes that it will play a part in her future career. After college, she plans to pursue graduate studies in Ancient Greek Literature or English.
Editorhttp://www.dayeight.org
Bourgeon's mission, through our online publication and community initiatives, is twofold: to increase participation in the arts and to improve access to the arts. Bourgeon is a project of the not-for-profit Day Eight.
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A long time coming, I introduce to you, the new Great Scott Sites website. It feels good, doesn't it? It should. It was built using Responsive Web Design (RWD). Responsive Web Design?! Greg, what on Earth are you talking about? Well, Mr. or Mrs. User, I'm glad you asked. This article by the ever so talented people at A List Apart explain it pretty well. It's one of the first articles on RWD, if not the very first.
Also, the GSS logo got a bit of an update as well. It makes sense, new chapter of life and all now that my part-time freelance work is full-time! Party! As much as I'd love to follow trends for agency, I tried to stay clean and simple which is pretty much reflects how I do everything else for GSS. I know the user's time is valuable (as mine is too) so there's no sense in cluttering up the place. I am a believer of KISS – Keep It Simple, Stupid. I just don't know why the saying has to call me stupid. Jerk.
Back to Responsive Web Design – If you don't want to read it, let me summarize. Responsive Web Design is the framework that the website is designed and built on. The style guides (CSS – Cascading Style Sheet) actually read the screen size you're viewing the website in. Not the device, common misconception. Then, depending on the size of the screen, the site will display the website content accordingly if it's a desktop computer, smartphone, tablet, smartwatch or even your TV. Try resizing the screen of my website (yes, this one) if you're on a desktop computer. Notice that after a while, the right column hosting the Blog Categories pops under the main content in the left column. If you're on a smartphone or tablet, you're already seeing the right column under this main, left column. So scroll down. I'll wait… Get it? There, now you're a RWD Pro.
Why am I telling you this? Well, when I first started designing websites this framework was non-existent. But to my defense, the iPhone had only recently been introduced and the iPad wasn't even a twinkle in Mr. Jobs' eye. RIP Steve. So in order to stay relevant in the world wide web, you have to keep up with trends and have to pay attention to how your users are viewing your website. If your users are viewing your website from their smartphone, then it's my job to deliver your content to them in the best way possible.
Yes, it will take a bit longer to build your website, but in the end it's worth it. After all, the reason for your website is to give your users something – whether it be info or a service or a product. Or you can tell your users to only view your website in Internet Explorer on a desktop computer at a screen resolution of 800 pixels x 600 pixels. Good luck on that!
This is impressive! I am sure you will do well with it.
Thanks, David! I appreciate it.