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Madcity 2016—Corky Siegel & Howard Levy, Le Fete de Marquette, Otis Redding, Ben Sidran, sudden death and Bernie Sanders
August 15, 2016 Jim
I was at the Delta Terminal at LaGuardia early morning July 14 waiting for my nonstop to Milwaukee when I saw that fellow music writer Joe Bosso Facebooked how he loved Grand Funk Railroad growing up, and how he couldn't understand how the critics hated them.
I laughed out loud.
I had hated them, too, at the beginning, when me and the guys sat around smoking pot, guzzling beers and sniffing glue nonstop to "I'm Your Captain (Closer to Home)." But everything changed when they started having hit singles like "Bad Time," "The Loco-Motion" and "Rock 'n' Roll Soul." A million years later I was privileged to write the booklet notes to the box set Thirty Years of Funk: 1969–1999 and become big friends with frontman Mark Farner. Joe, who rightly called GFR "a total kickass band," had just interviewed Mark, and drew an ambiguous response from the esteemed Ira Robbins-co-founder of the late, great Brit-rock/new wave-oriented mag Trouser Press-who observed that 150 music writers had been invited to meet the band at the beginning at New York's Gotham Hotel.
"Exactly six journalists showed up," Ira tallied, then cited the famous block-long billboard in Times Square promoting the Closer to Home album, at a cost of $100,000. He seemed to be suggesting that Grand Funk's success was due much to marketing; for sure it wasn't press adulation. Not wishing to cause my usual Facebook firestorm, I merely stated, "I wrote the notes for the box set. Mark is a sweetheart and great as ever," prompting Ira to kindly reply, "You're a midwestern partisan, you are!"
"On my way back to Wisco as we speak!" I wrote back, and it was now time to board.
It was my third annual July trip to Wisco, as I call it, to visit my ninetysomething mother in Madison. I didn't plan anything when I went back two years ago, but I got lucky: My high school buddy Andy Linderman, now the renowned blues harmonica player Westside Andy, had a gig on July 4 at Waupun–a tiny town 50 miles northeast of Madison mostly known for being the site of the state prison–and I tagged along. The annual Celebrate Waupun festival had two stages–the blues stage, that Andy was part of, and of all things, a Cajun music stage, the big name being Feufollet, a Lafayette band I'd first seen there in the late 1990s when they were all kids. They're young adults now, after personnel changes including the addition of Kelli Jones-Savoy, the hugely talented wife of my dear friend and huge Cajun music talent Joel Savoy from nearby Eunice, The Cajun Prairie Capital.
It turned out that Feufollet was playing one of my old Madcity haunts, the Crystal Corner bar, a few days later, so I got to see them twice while I was in town. But also playing the Cajun stage was of all people, Jim Schwall, guitarist for the Siegel-Schwall Band, one of the main reasons I got into writing about music in the mid'70s in the first place.
I'd first seen Jim at The People's Fair rock festival in Iola Township some 140 miles north of Madison, which took place in late June of 1970, when Siegel-Schwall played sometime between 1 and 5 a.m. Saturday morning, the second day of the weekend festival. As I've written here elsewhere*, it was life-changing. I think Andy was at the fest, but I know he'd originally turned me on to them and I instantly became a devotee, turning everyone I knew onto the band and seeing them again scores of times throughout the next decade. I wrote about them extensively when I began writing about music, and continued after moving to New York in the early '80s, eventually positioning myself to oversea the CD reissue of their entire Vanguard catalog.
Jim's Siegel-Schwall partner Corky Siegel became one of my closest friends, but I never knew Jim that well. After moving to New York he moved to Madison, so I missed out on getting to know him better there. So I was thrilled to get to see him and hang out a bit during the day at Waupun, where he was playing bass in Madison's Cajun Strangers.
"There's a theory that there are 35 blues bands in Madison, and 28 blues musicians!" Jim told me, by way of explaining how and why he and so many other Madcity blues players end up playing regularly or sporadically in so many local blues bands. I can't remember what band Andy was playing with, but I know it wasn't his, and that like Jim, he played in a number of local blues bands as well.
I was smarter last year in planning my trip, but that's because I knew well in advance Elvis Costello was playing in Madison with The Imposters–their own gig during a couple days off from their tour opening for Steely Dan. I wrote about the show—and it's significance to me and my career—here last year*; another high point of last year's trip was getting to hang out again with Jim, at the Atwood (Avenue) Fest.
This year I was hoping maybe Jimmy Liban was playing somewhere. Jim Liban, another great blues harmonica legend, from my hometown Milwaukee.
Of all the artists—and they probably number in the hundreds if not thousands—whom I saw and loved and supported in my writing career who deserved and didn't get the widespread mainstream recongition they deserved, none ranks higher in my estimation than Jimmy Liban. Luckily, he put out a record a couple years ago, I Say What I Mean, and I made it my Album of the Year in examiner.com. He hadn't had a record out in God knows how long, and wouldn't have had not a young (relatively) guitar player named Joel Paterson, who had played with Jimmy when he was cutting his own musical teeth in Madison, decided, now that he was well established in Chicago and had started his own indie label, to put out an album of Liban originals.
I Say What I Mean did get Jimmy a gig in Europe, and also took him to Memphis for the Blues Music Awards. But remember: This is the blues, so there wasn't much else. When I called him a few weeks before booking my trip, he told me that he was in the middle of a one-year hiatus from playing—though he had promised a friend that he'd play his wedding, and was honoring that commitment. When the year was up he'd decide if he'd want to play again, but for now, it just wasn't any fun any more, essentially playing the same Milwaukee haunts for the same Milwaukee people. I shared his frustration, and added it to my own.
That left Corky. I went to his website and sure enough, he had a gig on July 16 in Fort Atkinson, a 45-minute or so drive from Madison, at Cafe Carpe. I booked the trip, flying to Milwaukee and taking the Badger Bus to Madison. That first night, it turned out, was the start of the four-day Le Fete de Marquette festival, in of all places, Madison's Central Park. I didn't even know we had a Central Park in Madison, and that it was a walk from where I used to live on South Hancock Street a few blocks back of the State Capitol. I went there with my old pal Jeff Laramie, owner of the booking agency SRO Artists, who used to be second in command at Mountain Railroad Records, home of artists including Jim Post, Steve Young, a pre-Timbuk3 Pat MacDonald and Spooner–which was fronted by Doug Erikson, later to become Duke Erikson of Garbage, and had on drums Butch Vig, also of future Garbage and Nirvana production fame.
It being Madison, I smoked some pot, followed Jeff and wife Terri around and was blown away by the music (like the festival name suggests, it focused on French-related music), and the one artist I remember seeing is Cyril Neville. I only wish I remembered the conversations I had with Jeff and Terri because I know I had at least five ideas for great stories/commentaries, and I was too high to take down any notes, none of which likely would have made sense had I done so. I at least remember one thing that I think Jeff said, that echoed my thoughts on pre-Democratic Convention Bernie Sanders.
I of course supported Bernie's positions, but I didn't support Bernie. He lost me from the beginning on vocabulary ,three words in particular—the first being revolution. I don't care what he meant, revolution connotes violence. If it doesn't scare a lot of people to death outright, it puts them way the fuck off.
Bernie's second bad word was obvious—socialism. Again, even though I doubt most people can correctly defin it, socialism scares people and puts them off, especially since it still widely and wrongly connotes communism. Maybe America is ready to elect a socialist, not to mention a Jewish socialist. I just didn't want to bet the Constitution on it.
The third word was establishment. Bernie kept railing against the establishment, much as I did when I was a teen high school radical in the late '60s. Except this ain't the late '60s, and now I'm the establishment—and I'm not ashamed of it. I always love President Obama's line from the 2008 campaign, "We're the ones we've been waiting for!" And I'm proud of who I was in the '60s in Madison, when there was an awful war going on and a Selective Service draft and a generation gap, and to suggest, like the Bernie or Bust people, that now Obama and Hillary Clinton and I are essentially the same as Nixon, well, I'll have none of it.
And now I'll add a fourth word, one that has to do with what Jeff or I did or didn't say: rigged. Yeah, Bernie, like Trump, riled up his followers by claiming that the "system" is rigged, when he was losing a good fight fair and square. Here he only reinforced a main paranoid tenet of American culture since the JFK assassination, that everything that happens that's bad is a conspiracy, then, with Trump, helped extend it by giving his followers free reign to believe that winners are corrupt and therefore win unfairly, hence their victories are illegitimate. This breeds cynicism, incivility, unwillingness to compromise, a belief that if you don't get everything you want, nothing is preferable.
Now by no means an I saying that Hillary is spotless, or that I like her, though it turns out that I do, very much–having in fact hated her eight years ago when she ran against Obama, having been a Clinton hater long before then. But she earned my respect and eventual admiration for sucking it up after losing, campaigning for Obama, serving as his Secretary of State and now winning the nomination fairly and handily as the candidate far and away most supportive of the President–which Bernie was to a lesser extent, his chief supporters to a far lesser one. Again, I support Bernie's positions, which are closer to mine than Hillary's, and I recognize her weaknesses and shortcomings as a candidate–but in relation to Trump, they're virtually nonexistent, and the differences between her and Bernie are likewise truly miniscule. All this said, I do hereby salute Bernie for doing the right thing at and since the convention, and am relieved that the bulk of his followers do appear to have similarly sucked it up.
I just wish I could remember the other stuff we talked about, but that old Madison Green—not to mention a new addition in the Madtown Mule—a beer infused with lime and ginger made by Capital Brewery, that I drank an entire mule team of—-made me forget everything except the sight of people as old as me who still lived in Madison and still went out to hear music, and that it was such a great setting in a park in the middle of the near East Side with the majestic State Capitol building visible in the sunset, the Capitol that you can see from miles away as you near Madison on the Badger Bus, that I used to walk through on my way to State Street and the University-area music clubs when I lived there and wrote for The Madcity Music Sheet and was a stringer for Variety before moving to New York.
I do remember one other thing, part of the Bernie discussion, that I myself came up with and gave to a girl that we were talking to, a friend of Jeff's, that I know she never acted on, that I should have—a t-shirt slogan: "Vote conscientiously–not your conscience." If anyone who reads this is so inclined to print up and sell some shirts, honor compels you to cut me in.
I returned to the festival the next night to meet up with Rockin' John McDonald, my friend of over 40 years—as long as he's had his beloved I Like It Like That oldies radio show every Saturday night on Madison's listener-sponsored WORT-FM. I thought I was cool wearing my orange New York Public Library t-shirt, but RJ topped it with his vintage blue Dr. Bop and the Headliners entry. That day, by the way, I returned for the first time since leaving my third job with the State of Wisconsin in either 1978 or '79 to the old State Office Building on 1 West Wilson, overlooking Lake Monona, where I worked two blocks south of the Capitol.
I needed a birth certificate, as I was suddenly thinking of fleeing to India and didn't have a passport. I walked into the building and thought I'd stepped into The Twilight Zone: Not everything was the same—there was a security station in the lobby that wasn't there in the '70s. It all looked brighter outside, too. But the institutional flooring and hallways were the same, and it was a step back in time that I recently depicted here.
I can't remember, but I think my office was on the second floor; I think my second job with the State, a file clerk at the Division of Corrections, was on seventh floor, and the first, where I was a reader/typist for a blind man at the Division of Vocational Rehabilitation, was also on an upper floor.
The clerk at the Bureau of Records, of course, was my age 40 years ago, modified in the passage of time and mores by arms full of tattoos. When I was done I walked out and got to the lobby and stopped, giving in to the stupid impulse to go back and tell her that I used to work in the building 40 years ago. She feigned interest.
Since I worked there, and long after I left Madison, they built a Frank Lloyd Wright-designed convention center, the Monona Terrace, behind the State Office Building, on the Monona shore. They put in a plaque on the terrace in memory of Otis Redding, who died when his plane crashed into Lake Monona on Dec. 10, 1967. I was with my friend Beth, whose husband Tim Onosko, the renowned futurist/author, was one of my dearest friends and supporters, an older brother/mentor. Tim died of cancer a few years ago. Pancreatic. I thought he'd beaten it and will never forgive myself for not knowing he hadn't, though Beth assures me it was okay, he didn't want anyone to know. Except I should have known and it wasn't okay.
We went out on to the terrace, and I sat on one of the benches surrounding the Redding plaque and looked out onto the quiet, still waters of Lake Monona, silently wondering what might have been. What might have been had Otis lived, and Tim. Had I stayed in the Madcity.
Saturday mid-afternoon I took my mother's car and drove to Fort Atkinson with my 21-year-old niece Ariela to see Corky and Howard at Cafe Carpe. We got there while they were doing soundcheck. I hadn't seen Corky since he was in New York four years ago to play Lincoln Center Out of Doors with Dr. L. Subramaniam. I don't remember the last time I saw Howard, but it was probably at one of his gigs at the Association of performing Arts Presenters (APAP) some 10 years ago, maybe.
Corky and Howard play together a lot, but this was the first time I'd see them—and I was bringing along my niece Ariela, 21, who's a classical piano student at New York's Mannes School of Music, who was also in Madison visiting her mom (my sister). After greeting Corky, his wife/manager Holly and Howard, Corky echoed my excitement over her getting to see Howard (as well as Corky), who does things on a 10-hole diatonic harmonica—i.e., play it chromatically by conceiving an "overblowing" technique–that no one else knows how to do, let alone articulate. You really don't need to be a musician, let alone understand music, to know when you hear Howard play that he's doing something that sounds great, but makes absolutely no sense technically speaking.
Howard tried to put it in piano terms for Ariela–but even that was ridiculous.
"I make my mouth do the stuff my fingers would do," he said. I doubt she understood him. I certainly didn't.
"I'm not really thinking about this," he added, speaking, I supposed, of his harmonica. "I visualize the piano."
He might just as well have been speaking in tongues.
It was at Café Carpe, a wonderful little café/bar/listening room—-maybe 50 seats–in a century-old brick building on the Rock River with a screened porch overlooking the water, owned and operated by regionally renowned folkie Bill Camplin and Kitty Welch. Holly raved about the pumpkin pie; the carrot cake was definitely the best I ever had.
On the wall of the music room was a bumper sticker that read, "I may be old but that's okay…I got to see all the great bands."
Bill introduced the show with a Hitchcock like "Good evening," then asked how many in the SRO room were musicians. At least half raised their hands. I can't imagine any of them understood what was going on with Howard, either, other than it was, using Bill's words, "absolute magic."
Comedic, too. Corky walked to the stage from the back while playing harp, Howard doing same a few paces back in a goofy processional. On stage they tried to out-footstomp each other while Corky played and sang Little Walter's classic blues "Mellow Down Easy," leading into a blues harmonica battle between the two.
They went on to trade solo pieces, both on piano and harmonica and sometimes both. At one point Corky laughed out loud at a Howard harmonica solo, which was entirely appropriate considering he was essentially defying all science, such that all one could do was laugh out loud. Howard said that the harmonica is the only instrument that you can pick up upside-down when you're drunk and not know it. That sort of made sense, but really, it was like listening to Albert Einstein's feeble attempt at relating with the village idiots.
Then Howard did a Beatles medley including "In My Life" and "Michelle," his chording so complex that melodies were sometimes barely decipherable, as if he were somehow blowing into a kaleidoscope. "America the Beautiful," with harp in right hand and left playing piano, segued into "This Land is Your Land," then he shifted to both hands playing piano and Corky returning, playing harmonica before they sat together at the piano bench duetting—or more accurately, practically crawling over each other while changing hand position, Corky's at first in between the taller, lankier Howard as he wrapped around him from behind, then the two with their hands alternating before Corky picked up a harmonica, then Howard did the same, each now playing harmonicas with one hand, piano with the other, in left-right-right-left hand mirror image. They also handed off solos on harp and piano and back and forth to where it became dizzying to follow the dazzle.
But that wasn't all: Howard also played a bass harmonica, penny whistle and on an encore, an angklung set of tuned shakers. But when he doubled the melody on harp and piano simultaneously, well, mouths were agape, and at least in my case, still is. He and Corky walked off together to Siegel-Schwall's "Hey, Billie Jean," each finishing the other's phrases.
The first half of the trip now done, the rest would focus on the few friends in Madison I have left who are still alive, our conversations invariably concerning our respective cancer treatments, except that in Robin's case he added a new wrinkle to the medical history in having dropped dead at the Minneapolis airport a few months ago—luckily within short distance from a defibrillator. Of course I asked the expected question, i.e., Did you see anything on the other side? Rob's answer, of course, was no.
Tom, whom I worked with at the State Office Building (same with Rob), seemed to be coming along great after intensive treatment for throat cancer. He was skeletal two years ago, and now he's playing soccer and drumming in a band.
I had lunch with Chuck Toler, who was partners with Ken Adamany back when I first started writing. The money they made managing Dr. Bop & the Headliners went into developing Cheap Trick. We called Ken, who sounded great. Ken owned The Factory, the nightclub Otis was going to play the day his plane went down in Lake Monona.
Next day was my last—Tuesday, July 19–and I'd end it with some old-time club hopping starting at Otto's Restaurant & Bar, near my mom's, where Westside Andy and the Glenn Davis Duo are playing every Tuesday evening during the summer outside on the deck/patio at 5:30 p.m. I'd checked Andy's schedule before flying out and saw that he was playing every night I was there, all out of town gigs except for this one. He recognized me immediately in his side view mirror when I snuck up on his car after he parked.
It was the second week in a row that an old friend had surprised him, the first being a gal we knew from high school whom he hadn't seen forever—whom I haven't seen since—who looked great, who had married the brother of another high school friend, but the husband had died—death being more and more the operative word in these kinds of conversations. Back from a recent Stockholm swing if I heard right–alwasy a 50-50 proposition at best–Andy was still playing with any number of local blues groupings, this one being with Davis, who plays guitar and kick drum and sings. Like Corky and Howard, they turned to Little Walter with "Just Your Fool" while I was there, which was about an hour or so before heading downtown, Andy's latest album Blues Just Happen in hand, to the Cardinal Bar. I used to hang out there a lot 40 years ago, when it was my corner bar and a straight-friendly gay disco with the best dance music in town.
Tuesday summer early evenings at the Cardinal now are turned over to Ben Sidran's "Salons for Secular Humanists, Arch Democrats and Free Thinkers," in which my old friend Ben, Madison's renowned jazz pianist/author/composer who cut his teeth in The Ardells, a Madison band made up of UW students in 1961 that also included Steve Miller and Boz Scaggs—and Jos Davidson, who would go on to play bass in an early Siegel-Schwall configuration. Ben also played in the Steve Miller Band in the late '60s.
He was on break when I got there and ran into Stu Levitan, president of WORT-FM's board of directors and head of the Madison Landmarks Commission, whom I'd hung out with at the Marquette fest when I met up with Rockin' John. He told me that Ben was at the front of the bar. Sure enough, Ben was sitting by the window, engrossed in a conversation. So I stood nearby waiting for him to look at me, though I wasn't sure he'd recognize me, it had been so long since I'd seen him in New York. I know the last time I saw him in Madison was at a Dr. Bop gig, since we both would be called up to sit–and drink–at the ultimate oldies show band's famous onstage Celebrity Bar.
So I stood there waiting, then noticed a familiar looking woman looking at me like she'd seen a ghost—which would have made sense had she recognized me. Except who's going to recognize me here now? I thought, and usually people who think they recognize me are soon disappointed when they find out I'm not who they hope I am.
Except that now this woman was smiling broadly and seemed certain it was me, and suddenly it dawned on me that she was right! It was Lynette Margulies, frontwoman pianist/vocalist of jazz-pop group Four Chairs No Waiting back in the day, whom I hadn't seen since back in the day. I have no idea how she recognized me, but really, I should have recognized her right off.
Lynette immediately interrupted Ben and told him who I was, and he practically fell on the floor. "It's old home week!" he said when he regained his blance and composure, and sure enough, he'd been locked in conversation with another old Madison journo friend who also lived in New York and was in town visiting. As for Lynette, she remembered when I reviewed Four Chairs when I was stringing with Variety just before splitting for New York—and will never let me off now for not recognizing her right away.
(Photo: Lynette Margulies)
As for Ben's second set, it really was fabulous—almost all new music by him and and his guitarist Louka Patenaude, bassist Nick Moran and drummer Todd Hammes. Loved the song "College," especially the line "that's the place…where I went wrong"–that is, if I read my notes correctly—always a 50-50 proposition at best.
"Who didn't go wrong in college?" Ben asked when it was over. "And if you didn't go wrong in college, you missed a huge opportunity!"
"Too Much, Too Late," he said, was "in the spirit" of his "guru" Mose Allison, which made me think of how I always look at Corky as my guru, though I should add that Simon Burgess is my actual guro, or teacher, in Filipino martial arts.
"It's the 'singles' show!" Ben joked, "just the hits tonight!"
Again struggling to decipher my notes, I can't tell if someone asked about Steve Miller, or if Ben brought it up on his own. He did say how everybody asks him about Miller, and observed how Miller's been playing "the same 12 songs for 40 years," no doubt because of the big bucks he gets paid to do them.
Here Stu, who later explained that he was just quoting Ben from one of Ben's books, called out something on the order of how those big bucks also paid for Ben's graduate education so he should shut his mouth, and for sure, Ben's stint with Miller included his lyrics to "Space Cowboy."
"At least write a song!" Ben continued, speaking directly to the absent Miller. "It seems like such a waste."
At least Ben sure made it seem that way from his end, considering the quality of his new songs. I'd been sitting with Patenaude's proud mom, and he sat with us for a few minutes after the show.
It's like learning," said Patenaude, a youngish cat who's played with Ben since the mid-2000s. "It's really loose and fun. He tries something out and sees if we feel it and if it works."
Ben then told me that he rarely makes it out to Manhattan any more.
"There's no reason to come to the city any more," he said, though he does get to Brooklyn, where his son Leo, also an esteemed musician/composer who co-produced the Oscar-winning song "Al Otro Lado Del Rio" for the soundtrack to the movie The Motorcycle Diaries, lives. And while he's working on a new album—and Stu said that the whole first set was new songs that were also great—Ben said that he realized there was no point to it, at least in terms of today's record companies, airplay and traditional music business marketing.
But what are you going to do? I asked. You're a musician, and a musician makes music. I'm a writer, and a writer writes—even though I just lost examiner.com, my main outlet, that barely paid. I still have this site, that I have to pay for. But what am I going to do?
Stu, meanwhile, is working a on a book about Madison in the '60s, and I again ask you, Stu, to mention that I was one of the Memorial 101 who were suspended from James Madison Memorial High School for protesting Kent State. Before closing out the night—and trip—down the street at the Essen Haus to catch a little of jazz concertina player Brian Erickson, I walked over to where the cigarette machine used to be next to the front door, where I picked up a copy of The Madcity Music Sheet the night I got back from a week's vacation in Nashville on Memorial Day in 1977-—my first time there—when I dropoped by the Cardinal to hear folk legends Malvina Reynolds and Rosalie Sorrels. There was a stack of giveaway papers on the cigarette machine and I picked one up and paged through it—then just a single sheet of newsprint folded over twice–saw an ad for Southside Johnny & The Asbury Jukes (with guest Ronnie Spector) appearing in town at the Stone Hearth, and went because I was a huge Ronettes fan and understood where Southside was coming from musically.
I met Gary Sohmers, the Sheet's publisher at the Southside gig, and not knowing anything about me other than that I'd come to the show after seeing it highlighted in his paper, he asked me to write for it. I told him I flunked out of high school. "It doesn't matter!" he said. And that's how my career began—and now, some 40 years later, it still doesn't matter. The only difference is that there was no cigarette machine now at the Cardinal.
I told Stu and his girlfriend how great this night had been, indeed, the entire trip–in terms of seeing so much fantastic music. She said maybe I should move back to Madison–the perfect setup for one of my favorite Sandra Bernhard lines, Sandy, of course, being from Flint, Michigan.
If you can make it in New York, says Sandy, you'll be a failure everywhere else.
Bessman News, Music, Politics	Ben Sidran, Bernie Sanders, Bill Camplin, blues, Boz Scaggs, Butch Vig, Cafe Carpe, Cajun music, Cajun Strangers, Cheap Trick, Chuck Toler, Corky Siegel, Cyril Neville, Dr. Bop & The Headliners, Dr. L. Subramaniam, Duke Erikson, Elvis Costello, Essen Haus, Feufollet, Four Chairs No Waiting, Frank Lloyd Wright, Garbage, Gary Sohmers, Glenn Davis, Grand Funk Railroad, Hillary Clinton, Howard Levy, Jeff Laramie, Jim Liban, Jim Post, Jim Schwall, Joel Paterson, Joel Savoy, Kelli Jones-Savoy, Ken Adamany, Kent State, Lake Monona Cardinal Bar, Le Fete de Marquette, Little Walter, Lynette Margulies, Madcity Music Sheet, Mark Farner, Monona Terrace, Moutain Railroad Records, Nirvana, Otis Redding, Otto's Restaurant & Bar, Pat MacDonald, Rockin' John McDonald, Ronnie Spector, Sandra Bernhard, Siegel-Schwall Band, SImon Burgess, Southside Johnny & the Asbury Jukes, Spooner, Steely Dan, Steve Miller, Steve Young, Stu Levitan, The Beatles, The Ronettes, Tim Onosko, Timbuk3, Trouser Press, Westside Andy, WORT-FM	6 Comments
The persistence of John Mayall
March 27, 2016 March 27, 2016 Jim
The first time I saw John Mayall had to be at Bunky's in Madison, Wisconsin, in the late 1970s, and I'm pretty sure Harvey Mandel was with him. I don't remember the last time but it had been a while, so long, I'm afraid, that I came dangerously close to embarrassing myself when I walked into City Winery Monday night (Mar. 21) and almost asked the old man at the merch table if Mayall might be hanging out after the show–said old man, of course, being Mayall himself, getting in a few pre-show CD sales.
Compounding the near embarrassment was the fact that even at 82, John Mayall looks pretty much the same as he did at Bunky's, hair shorter and whiter perhaps, but that's about it. He definitely sounds as good, even without Mandel; here he had a couple other excellent Chicago players in bassist Greg Rzab and drummer Jay Davenport, and ace Texas guitarist Rocky Athas. He also retained his unusual set-up of two keyboards–Hammond organ on his right, Roland electric piano on his left-lined next to each other horizontally in the middle of the stage as he stood behind them facing the audience, alternating between them when not playing guitar or harmonica, or in some cases harp with one hand, keyboard with the other.
Remarkably, too, Mayall still plays as good as he sounds on all instruments–spry on keys, crisp on guitar and harps. It made perfect sense that he played "Dancing Shoes," from his 1999 album Padlock on the Blues (love that title!) that featured John Lee Hooker. Hooker, old bluesers remember, played with Canned Heat, and Mayall also performed his ode to that great blues-rock band, "The Bear," from his 1968 album Blues from Laurel Canyon. He went even deeper into his catalog with the slow Chicago blues-styled "Have You Heard," from his 1966 album Blues Breakers with Eric Clapton–Clapton, if you don't know, being merely one of a myriad of future legends besides Mandel who came up through Mayall blues bands.
From 1967's Crusade (which featured the likes of future Rolling Stone guitarist Mick Taylor and future Fleetwood Mac founding members Mick Fleetwood, Peter Green and John McVie) came the train song "Streamline," and from 1970's USA Union came the ecology-minded "Nature's Disappearing," which came out, incidentally, the same time that Chicago's Siegel-Schwall blues-rock band took a similar tack on "Do You Remember."
Mayall introduced "Big Town Playboy" as a cut from "one of those new albums" (2014's A Special Life, to fill in the blank), and from his latest album Find a Way to Care–from late last year–were "Ain't No Guarantees" and the Lonnie Brooks cover "I Want all My Money Back," for which he switched from Hammond to Roland during the instrumental break.
But he was equally impressive in switching from the Chicago blues harmonica style to rhythmic country/folk blues chording–what he termed "chicka-chicka" during the lead-in to "Room to Move" on his 1969 album The Turning Point. And he in fact ended the set with "Room to Move"–now a true harmonica classic–after noting how people call it out every night, but that he doesn't always do it, and that he wouldn't do it the next night (the second of two at City Winery) since it would be an entirely different set.
"There are some oldies in the house tonight! I saw you come in the door!" he had said at one point, referring to those in the crowd who went all the way back with him–and no doubt me in particular. As I took one last look at him as he signed CDs at the merch table after the show I thought of my conversation with Jennifer Warnes from a few nights earlier.
"My generation of artists has been hit pretty hard," she said. "For those of us who survive, there's an urgency to keep on going. Look around at all our peers who have passed like Joe Cocker [her duet partner on the 1982 hit 'Up Where We Belong']. The antidote to the horribleness, if you know how to be a beautiful, decent, good and capable professional, is for God's sakes, do it–and do it on a pedestal so that young people can see you! Write a sentence, paint a beautiful painting, cook a beautiful meal–it must be done. The most revolutionary thing you can do is persist in doing things well."
I'm not sure there were a lot of youngsters at City Winery, but John Mayall's band members are certainly younger, and I've actually got a ways to go before I catch up with him. I just hope I persist as well as he clearly has.
Music	blues, blues harmonica, Canned Heat, Chicago blues, City Winery, Corky Siegel, Eric Clapton, Fleetwood Mac, Jennifer Warnes, Joe Cocker, John Lee Hooker, John Mayall, Lonnie Brooks, Mick Taylor, Peter Green, Rolling Stones, Siegel-Schwall Band	Leave a comment
The tone of Memphis Charlie Musselwhite
I don't know when it was or who it was–or what instrument it was in reference to–but someone once told me it was all about tone, the player's instrument's tone, that is.
It's one of the many keys to Charlie Musselwhite's greatnesss as a blues harmonica player, but it applies to any harp player, really. Re Charlie, he has one of the richest tones, virile, robust, horn-like, smooth yet rhythmic. And like all the greats, readily identifiable.
Compare it with my pal Corky Siegel's, though in Cork's case, I do a shitty job describing it. All I can say is, without knowing exactly what I mean, that it's balloon-like. Like the reeds in his harp were encased in a balloon, maybe, or some such material that expands and contracts without breaking–even when overblowing, to use a technical harmonica term out of context.
Listen to the 1970 Siegel-Schwall '70 album track "Walk in My Mind" and the harp accents at the end of each phrase and then the fluid back-and-forth bend at the end of each verse and, please, come up with a better description.
But back to Charlie. I don't know when I got to know him, but figure I must have met him, at least, before I came to New York from Madison in 1982. But me and my blues friends used to talk about him all the time after we got out of high school and started going to see him, and even though we didn't know him, God knows we cared about him as if we did.
"How's Charlie doing?" we'd ask whoever was lucky enough to see him most recently. "Oh, he didn't look so good," was often the answer.
We attributed it to his drinking, and for sure, the extreme introvert was a big drinker–two quarts of liquor a day, he once said, "every second I was awake," until he tapered off ("I remember getting all the way up to noon without a drink and I thought, 'that calls for a drink!'" he told travelingboy.com's T.E. Mattox)" and then quit cold after being moved by the bravery of Jessica McClure, the 18-month-old tyke who famously fell down the well in Texas in 1987 and was dug out 58 hours later. He had always felt he had to drink to play in front of people on stage, but now figured that if Baby Jessica could sing nursery rhymes to herself during her ordeal, why couldn't he "just get up on stage and do something I know perfectly well how to do" without the alcohol prompt.
Charlie ended up writing "The Well," the titletrack of his 2010, about Baby Jessica. He now lives in Sonoma County, and after his gig Thursday night (Mar. 10) at City Winery, said he's the only musician who moved to wine country and quit drinking. Too bad, in a way, because they made up a special signature bottle of wine for him.
He had walked out with his band unannounced, setting up his harmonica case on a stand next to his mic and keeping it open, facing him, throughout the show. It was covered with stickers, not unlike those of so many other touring musicians, but from where I sat the only one discernible was the "I [heart] Clarksdale [Mississippi]" at the bottom, though I'm sure the rest were good.
Born along the Mississippi Blues Trail in Kosciusko, Miss., Charlie Musselwhite, who later bought a building in the historic blues town of Clarksdale, moved with his family to Memphis as a child. He recalled running moonshine during his City Winery set (he said it was nothing like Robert Mitchum's 1958 bootlegging movie classic Thunder Road, though it has been noted, incidentally, that he and Mitchum bear a resemblance, though a Facebook friend says recent promo shots of him look more like David Niven).
"The police wanted me to live where they worked," he said, so he moved to Chicago and drove an exterminator truck, thereby learning where the blues clubs were and hanging out and studying with the great Chicago bluesmen, many of whom likewise moved from Mississippi in search of work.
Late in the set he spoke of busking with blues guitar legend Robert Nighthawk on the streets in Memphis, where he eventually picked up the nickname Memphis Charlie.
"We made tons of money," he said. "Twenty-five bucks once."
But watching Nighthawk, he also learned how to play a stinging slide guitar, as demonstrated during the set on "Crying Won't Help You." He also performed "Strange Land," from his landmark 1967 debut album "Stand Back! Here Comes Charley Musselwhite's Southside Band," about discovering Chicago following his move and before, he noted, knowing about Robert A. Heinlein's sci-fi novel Stranger in a Strange Land.
His harmonica case, like I said, remained open. Charlie periodically fished out a different-key harp, maybe glanced at the set list or otherwise looked down into it as his phenomenal guitarist Matt Stubbs soloed. One of my favorite Charlie Musselwhite myths was that he slept every day until Hollywood Squares came on, so I was kinda hoping he was checking out some whole episodes or at least a few classic Paul Lynde bits on an iPad secreted in his harmonica case–but I didn't ask afterward.
I also remembered two of my favorite Charlie Musselwhite response lines, one of which I use whenever the opportunity arises: Some guy once yelled out, after he took the stage at a gig, "How are you doin', Charlie?" upon which he answered, "You don't know, do you?" In fact, I actually used that line in a tweet just last week. The other, too specific for me, was Charlie's understandably annoyed retort to "Play some blues!": "You give me the blues!"
Here, though, it was, "How y'all doing tonight? We got the blues in the house tonight. You ready to hear a little blues?" and a request that the club's "million dollar dance floor" be filled: "I see women move and I feel like I accomplished something!" he said, in his ever soft voice and droll manner.
He did "Long Lean Lanky Mama" from last year's great live album I Ain't Lyin', and noted that "by pure coincidence, all the blues tunes we're doing happen to be on that CD" after revealing that "it turns out there's a way for you to listen to us in the safety of your own home," copies of I Ain't Lyin', also by pure coincidence, being available at the table by the door.
While it's safe to say that everyone at City Winery was blown away by Charlie's blues harp blowing, one fan stood out, standing up in the VIP area the entire show.
"Do it the way you done it!" Cyndi Lauper commanded after Charlie called her up, upon which she sang Chicago blues harp hero Little Walter's "Just Your Fool," as she did on her 2010 album Memphis Blues–also recorded with Charlie–after a remarkable on-the-spot soundcheck micromanaged from the stage with City Winery's sound man down to the precise number of hertzes.
"She really is a sweetheart, who knows her voice and range exactly," he marveled after the show. "But you'd never want to cross her."
I filed this last comment somewhere in my brain for future reference if needed, though Cyndi was a purring pussycat next to Charlie.
"I toured with him every night and pride myself on watching him and telling myself to remember everything," she said, and she was typically adorable as she sang and danced like she was in some Mississippi Delta roadhouse. She was just as adorable after the show, making trademark goofy faces while posing for selfies with all who asked.
"She just killed me again!" said Charlie after she finished, adding in between his own fan selfies after the show that she was so funny on tour that he once had corn come out of his nose from laughing so hard. It might happen again, for Cyndi's parting words were "Charlie, you should go on tour with me!"
Charlie returned for his encore while everyone was still standing.
"Did somebody say 'Christo'?" he asked. "I wasn't going to do it."
His signature instrumental "Christo Redemptor" was on Stand Back and is on I Ain't Lyin' as well, and really, there was no way he wasn't going to do it. He stayed long after it was over to sign copies of the album at the table by the door.
Music	blues, blues harmonica players, Charlie Musselwhite, City Winery, Corky Siegel, Cyndi Lauper, Jessica McClure, Robert Nighthawk	5 Comments
Talking to Myself Out Loud: Identifying with Rachel Dolezal
June 25, 2015 Jim
There's a great Godfrey Cambridge line in the 1970 Ossie Davis-directed action comedy classic Cotton Comes to Harlem, "Is that black enough for you?," which likely spawned Billy Paul's "Am I Black Enough for You" 1973 follow-up to his signature "Me and Mrs. Jones"–itself sampled by Schooly D in the 1989 rap song of the same name.
Turns out that Dolezal really wasn't black enough, not with her disingenuous defense of her trying to pass, not without success, for African-American, which didn't bother me so much as her over-the-top defensive birther stance that there was no biological proof of her relationship to her parents.
Then again, I'm just as guilty, if not for trying to pass myself off as black–though I often do say, when the conversation turns to race, that I'm "light-skinned"–than for co-opting black culture, as has been done by now by virtually everyone in the world.
Somewhere long ago I read or heard how white boys wished they were black, or at least certain white boys, of which I most certainly was one, once I started listening to the blues back in Madcity Wisconsin. Early Bob Dylan brought me to the Madison Public Library, Bob Dylan, who himself embraced black music and culture so tightly that he recorded with Victoria Spivey and Big Joe Williams and by himself under the blues guise of Blind Boy Grunt. And when I started listening to the blues, besides all the country and folk blues records and Chicago blues records I checked out of the library, it was the Siegel-Schwall band, then made up of three white blues players and one black, that became my biggest and lasting influence.
I make reference here to the Born in Chicago documentary featuring Corky Siegel, Mike Bloomfield, Paul Butterfield, Barry Goldberg, Charlie Musselwhite, Steve Miller, Elvin Bishop, Harvey Mandel and Nick Gravenities–all of whom learned the blues at the feet and amps of Chicago blues pioneers like Muddy Waters, Howlin' Wolf and Willie Dixon, just as the Rolling Stones, Animals and Yardbirds were covering the same records in England.
So I can easily understand Rachel Dolezal, not to mention Caitlyn Jenner and anyone else who wishes they were born someone else or somewhere else. And as for listening to the blues and wishing I were black, well, it didn't stop there. I went on to listen to and love country music, Cajun music, Russian, Indian, Arabic, going so far, at least in relation to country music, to affect what must be about the most blatantly phony Southern accent any guy that could never shake his Midwestern accent ever attempted, almost to the point of self-caricature.
As for being black, I always remember how I've enjoyed being among the few whites, er, light-skinned blacks at all black gatherings, like the first time I was in Jamaica and went to Trench Town, the Kingston neighborhood where the likes of Bob Marley gave birth to reggae, that was so dangerous and off-limits to whites that a number of residents had to be bribed to let me in. Or the first time I saw Ashford & Simpson at Radio City in 1983: It was a sold-out show, and I didn't count more than half a dozen or so of us light-skinneds. Many years later Nick & Val's assistant Miss Tee scolded me for not having black-eyed peas on hand for New Year's–a Southern tradition.
"You've been hanging around black people so long, and you don't have no black-eyed peas?" she asked, incredulously–then hand-delivered a big potful. It was up there with being called the "N-word" by one of the great white blues harmonica players, spoken–and taken–with great affection and respect. A fellow Rider in the Storm, he, too, had managed to leave the House in which he was born to become someone else he wanted to be.
I love how one of my dearest Facebook friends commented how race is "a social construct erected to oppress certain groups of people."
"That is the only way in which it is a real thing–because truly at a basic atomic level there are no racial differences," she explained. "But the social construct has made race real and has made the concept very powerful. It has been a scourge that persists too often today. Tragic and stupid…."
Observations, Personal, Talking to Myself Out Loud	Ashford & Simpson, blues, Caitlyn Jenner, Godfrey Cambridge, Ossie Davis, Rachel Dolezal, Siegel-Schwall Band	Leave a comment
Dick Van Dyke stars in Dustbowl Revival video
May 25, 2015 Jim
Let everyone else rhapsodize about Taylor Swift and her glam big-star gal-pal "Bad Blood" music video avengers. It can't hold hold a samurai sword to the Dustbowl Revival's "Never Had to Go."
The Venice, Cali.-based bluegrass/gospel/pre-war blues/New Orleans swing band's first single from its fourth full-length album With a Lampshade On–due from Signature Sounds Recordings on July 21–is fine enough on its own, but it makes for a sprightly video thanks to the still spry participation of the one and only Dick Van Dyke.
Did I say still spry? The man's 89, for Pete's sake, and doesn't look any older than me! And moves a whole lot better! He could probably perfectly still trip over the ottoman in the living room of The Dick Van Dyke Show and look none the worse for wear.
The "Never Had to Go" clip commences with Dick dropping the needle on a scratchy LP, then cuts to the Dustbowlers performing the lively tune on the patio. Dick turns to his wife–his real wife, Arlene, at their real house–and tries to get her to dance with him, as vocalist Liz Beebe smiles at him from outside. But Arlene is busy cooking lunch and ignores him, even as he continues to coax her by dancing with a stuffed bear, playing a toy accordion and guitar, and mugging and clowning and reminding us what an extaordinary performer he is–and what a joy it is to see him again and in such great shape. Indeed, he's so sweetly persistent that Arlene eventually gives in and shows herself a light-footed dancer in her own right.
And while it's such an upbeat tune and lively performance, the video is not without suspense: Dick and the Dustbowlers are interacting with each other throughout, but it's always in quickly intercut separate shots and never together in the same one, leading you to feel cheated in that for whatever reason—cheap budget constraints, most likely-they did their work at different times and in different places. But sure enough, Dick and Arlene come outside dancing in front of Dustbbowl Revival in the last half-minute, leaving all of them–and us–thoroughly satisfied.
Music, Video	bluegrass, blues, Dick Van Dyke, Dustbowl Revival, gospel, swing, Taylor Swift	Leave a comment


You could create artificial intelligence by Dot Net That there are many programming languages that can be used the use of traditional programming languages in which the self-call processing feature is available, and also has been associated with building regulations languages specialized been developed in artificial intelligence applications is the most important languages lisp language and the language of prolog where it was identified for the initial stage of the project the fifth generation of computers in Japan and tend to descriptive more from being a procedural languages.
Lisp. · Python. · Prolog. · Java. · C ++.
A: can be described as familiar programming languages (including .Net) as linear programming languages or Linear Structural procedural or object-oriented Object Oriented.
But there is another kind of programming languages known languages Logical logical programming or languages tariff programming Declarative, and the most famous is the programming Prolog language .. In such languages, information is presented in the form of Facts Facts and rules Rules, and the role of the programming language is the conclusion of new facts of this information .. this is the Prolog Artificial Intelligence language, and when studied in college, I wrote the programs to solve some famous puzzles, such as a charade man who with him carry clover and a goat and a wolf and wants to transit them to the other side of the river using a boat can not carry it with him, but something only one at a time .. and already we got all possibilities to resolve.
But this does not mean that the traditional programming languages can not deal with artificial intelligence programs .. The problem is not in the programming language, but in your definition you of intelligence and how it can be represented .. Among the most famous techniques in the field of neural networks Neural Networks are used to create programs that are gaining experience in a way resemble humans education, and by providing a lot of examples of the program and tell him the correct results, if the progress of the program for many photographs of the faces of men and women, and ask him each time to tell you Is this the face of a man or a woman .. In the training phase, you will have to correct his answer to know when to hit and when a mistake .. Depending on the inputs, outputs and corrections, the program adjusts the neural network transactions to give the best guesses at a time, to become the closest thing right, are ending the learning phase, and begin to use the software effectively.
The problem of this method is that it can not come close to using precision but many complex neural network transactions and multi-stage, and training needs to be millions of examples and experiences.
There are other more effective way of neural networks, which use statistical methods to represent the intelligent systems, though the statistical methods are not much different from neural networks in terms of procedures .. In this way, it is to examine a large number of samples (such as images or sounds or language sentences) , and analyzed mathematically by complex equations, to characterize each sample a range of values of sport (called Vectors), and then try to find a link that brings together all these samples together through analysis actress values for each of them .. after this is compared to any new sample results we have obtained of the test samples, where you can determine if this new sample is nearby or far from it analysis .. and check this statistical method good results in the identification of images, sounds and analyze the languages and the like .. Perhaps Jojil used this method in a property search for similar images, and so analyzed the colors of each image and the distribution of points where a set of vectors Vectors, and when it requests a search for a similar picture, it analyzes your image as well, and then begin to apply some equations on it and looking at the data for images that have the same results of the analysis base .. This of course makes the search process faster, Vhola actually looking at the pictures, but in the group numbers expressed ..
As I said: All of the above can be done in any language of the Dot Net .. The important thing is: Do you have sufficient knowledge of mathematics, statistics and science systems and methods of audio processing and image in order to write the appropriate software?
Certainly it needs to be viewed in many specialized areas such references, not just writing some programming commands.


Zeitz, C; Gross, A K; Leifert, D; Kloeckener-Gruissem, B; McAlear, S D; Lemke, J; Neidhardt, G; Berger, W (2008). Identification and functional characterization of a novel rhodopsin mutation associated with autosomal dominant CSNB. Investigative Ophthalmology and Visual Science, 49(9):4105-4114.
This list was generated on Fri Apr 19 18:30:32 2019 CEST.


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Posted on Last updated: September 19, 2020 Categories History and Genealogy
Who Were the Scotch-Irish Americans?
In this post, we'll explore the Scotch-Irish and try to understand what brought them to America – and how they might have ended up in your family tree.
When I was growing up, I knew very little about my mom's paternal side of the family. Supposedly, my maternal grandfather's dad was Slovak, and his mother was "Scotch-Irish".
The term "Scotch-Irish" acquired a little bit of a mystic flavor to me since no one seemed to be to about to tell me, definitively, who the Scotch-Irish were, and why they came to the United States.
It should be stated that Ireland and Scotland are very close together, geographically and culturally speaking. In fact, Scotland was settled by Irish tribes as far back as the Dalriada in the 5th century AD, and people have moved back and forth between the two islands for thousands of years.
There was so much exchange of people from one side to the other that it is often difficult to tease out the differences in genetic DNA testing. Despite this fact, people still find themselves proud of their Irish and/or Scottish heritage, and it is very important for some people to be able to distinguish between these communities.
When you start investigating your Irish (or Scotch-Irish) heritage, you might find that it doesn't match what what you believed about your family history. I eventually found that in my own family, I could not verify that any of my mother's paternal grandmother's family was Scotch-Irish.
I'll explain more about what I discovered later on in this post. Always follow where your family tree takes you, since history, like our own families, is complicated.
What does Scotch-Irish really mean?
As a kid, the term Scotch-Irish seemed like a handy term to describe someone who was of Irish and Scottish descent. In reality, this isn't what it means at all. The term is used to describe Irish immigrants from a particular part of Ireland, specifically, Ulster Ireland (Northern Ireland).
These immigrants from Northern Ireland came from one particular area of Ireland (Ulster) and were descendants of people who fled Scotland, thus the term "Scotch-Irish".
Another commonly used term to describe the Scotch-Irish is "Ulster Scot" or "Ulster Scotch". The terms are generally interchangeable.
The term Scotch-Irish is based on the term "Scotch-Irish Lyllibolaro", which was a negative term used by the natives of Ireland to describe the new immigrants from Scotland.
Even though it was a negative term to begin with, the Scotch-Irish in America eventually began to use it again, but this time in a positive light, hoping to distinguish themselves from the newer wave of Irish immigrants who began to arrive in the US in the 1840's.
Why did the Scotch-Irish leave Scotland?
Religion is often the source of conflict that causes extreme suffering, and often ends in one population attempting to flee a particular area, and the history of the Ulster Scots, or the Scotch-Irish is no exception.
The Scots who left Scotland to live in Ireland, at the encouragement of the English government, whose descendants eventually became the Scotch-Irish who would leave Ireland to live in America, were Protestant. All in all, about 2 million people with Scotch-Irish roots left Ireland for America.
We don't often really understand how our decisions can affect the future for hundreds of years, and this may have been the case with the English settlements in Ulster, Ireland.
The immigration of Scots to Ireland for religious reasons can be cited as the source of the conflict between Ireland and Northern Ireland for hundreds of years, even extending into recent history.
When did the Scotch-Irish come to America?
Beginning in about 1718, and up until the time of the Revolutionary War between the colonies and Britain. It halted during the war, since the British would actually stop ships carrying Scotch-Irish and force the men to fight for the British side of the conflict.
The Scotch-Irish began immigrating again as soon as the war ended.
Their history in the US is closely tied with the expansion of the American territory and the classic "American" identity. The Scottish lands that the ancestors of the Scotch-Irish lived on when they were in Scotland was a difficult land to work, and it was a tough existence.
The theory is that these Scotch-Irish immigrants were an especially hearty-stock of people, used to conflict and hardship, and so they tended to be among the first groups of people moving west, and south. They settled in areas that were often still occupied by Native American groups, which resulted in conflict and tragedy.
What's the difference between Scotch-Irish and Irish?
You might not be surprised to learn that the difference between the Scotch-Irish and the Irish is… religion, generally speaking. Before the arrival of the Catholic Irish immigrants that came in great numbers starting in about 1840, there was little need for the Scotch-Irish in the US to distinguish themselves from anyone else from Ireland.
The Scotch-Irish fit in quite well with the Protestant religions that were common to the newly-formed United States.
When the Catholic Irish immigrants started to arrive, leaving Ireland out of necessity due to the potato famine, it suddenly became important, and sometimes necessary, for the Protestant Irish who were already in the US, to distinguish themselves from the Catholic Irish who were new arrivals.
This is how the term "Scotch-Irish" regained popularity. In fact, the term is not commonly used anywhere else except for the United States, which sort of "proves" its origin and the reasons behind it.
In the 1800's and early to mid-1900's, it just wasn't generally a good thing to be Catholic in the United States. If you were Catholic during this time period, you were likely to suffer from discrimination and even violence.
At this same time, tens of millions of Catholics immigrated to the US, causing extreme racial and religious backlash. Sometimes, this backlash became violent.
It is understandable, under those circumstances, why the Ulster-Scots, or the Scotch-Irish, would do anything that they could do create a simple way of helping Americans distinguish the Protestant Irish from the Catholic Irish.
It probably helped that the term Scotch-Irish implies that you aren't really Irish, but really Scottish. So when the signs said "Irish Not Wanted" or "No Irish Need Apply" a Scotch-Irish man wasn't really, truly Irish, but in actuality was of Scottish descent.
And of course, most importantly, he was not Catholic.
Where in the USA did the Scotch-Irish end up?
Scotch-Irish immigrants ended up settling in every corner of the United States, but there are some states which tended to have more Scotch-Irish than others. The following is a list of the top ten states that had the highest number of residence citing Scotch-Irish ancestry in the 2010 US Federal Census:
These immigrants quickly worked themselves into every aspect of American life. In fact, the United States has seen more than fourteen Presidents with Scotch-Irish ancestry.
Even so, there are still distinct Scotch-Irish communities all around the country, and there are still aspects of their ancestor's culture that are visible today.
Can your DNA tell you if you are Scotch-Irish?
Many of my readers ask me whether or not it is possible to take a DNA test that could determine whether they are Irish, or Scotch-Irish, or even just Scottish.
Remember how I mentioned towards the beginning of this article that there has been a lot of movement back and forth between Scotland and Ireland between the two areas?
While this is true, and there has been lots of genetic mixing between the two regions over the past thousand years, Ancestry DNA has been able to build a very specific genetic profile of what the genome of the Ulster Irish "looked like".
Since these immigrants to Ireland lived in relative isolation because of their different religion (and the fact that the native Catholics viewed them as intruders), they likely stuck to themselves. This might explain the cohesive identity that they retained when their descendants migrated to the colonies, and later, the United States.
Furthermore, it could certainly explain how Ancestry DNA might be able to isolate the Ulster Irish DNA from the general Irish that some companies test for, or the more general Ireland/Scotland/Wales, another Ancestry DNA ethnicity category.
If you do show DNA that is very similar to that found in Ulster, Ireland, it might show up similar to this on your Ancestry DNA test results:
To be clear, Ancestry DNA can only tell you if you might have had ancestors living in Ulster Ireland. They can't tell you specifically if those ancestors originally came from Scotland, if they migrated to the US or another country, or if they ended up living somewhere else in Ireland.
In order to really trace your Scotch-Irish, or Ulster ancestry, you will have to build a family tree and do some of that old-fashioned genealogy research. Fortunately, family tree research is easier than it ever has been. You can do almost anything from the comfort of your home, since many records are now online.
Do you want to go ahead and do the Ancestry DNA test? What about building your family tree on Ancestry? If you use the links below, I will get a small commission at no extra cost to you, but it really helps me support this website:
Discovery the story AncestryDNA® can tell
Ancestry Free Trial (for building your family tree on Ancestry)
I hope that this post gave you some insight about the Scotch-Irish, their roots in America, and how to research your own Irish, and possibly Scotch-Irish, ancestry. If you have anything to add, I would love to hear from you in the comments.
Can I Still Be Irish Even Though I Have None in My DNA Results?
Irish DNA in Mexico?

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


The Acklam Green Centre has hosted its first Dementia Friendly film screening for people living with Dementia, and their friends, family and carers.
A pilot dementia-friendly film screening of High Society took place in the centre's large conference hall on Valentine's Day for 38 people from the local community. The event was organised in partnership with Brian Rowcroft, business engagement lead for Dementia Friendly Middlesbrough, a project that continues to develop Middlesbrough as a nationally recognised dementia friendly community.
Dementia friendly screenings enable people living with dementia and their carers to enjoy a cinema experience in a safe and comfortable environment. Screenings are enhanced to suit the needs of people living with dementia; during the showing of High Society low lights were left on inside the conference hall and people were encouraged to express themselves freely during the film.
The Acklam Green Centre business and community centre is recognised as a dementia-friendly venue and staff from the centre have recently become Dementia Friends, having participated in the Alzheimer's Society's programme which is designed to transform the way the nation thinks, acts and talks about dementia. The screening was organised to further highlight its commitment to supporting those with the condition in the local community, and to explore whether there was an appetite for more events being held at the centre.


July 18 in the village Lazarev was Championship of Sochi for enduro racing on motorcycles.
Low-cost Long-haul Can it work?
To operate profitably within Europe seems a distant hope for traditional network carriers. Lufthansa is currently rolling out a desperate attempt to lower its gigantic losses. That's why it relaunched Germanwings as a low-cost carrier (LCC) on short-haul routes not operated from its Frankfurt or Munich hubs. Other network carriers like ,British Airways, Air France and Iberia have long withdrawn their core brands from most domestic and short-haul routes within Europe and instead focused on more lucrative long-haul flights from their big hub fortresses.
Continue reading Low-cost Long-haul Can it work?
Human memory can store a huge amount of information. If we talk about the possibilities of the child's memory, they are almost limitless. «Shape-Mom» to examine how the child will form memories and how to develop his memory.
Continue reading Human memory can store a huge amount of information. If we talk about the possibilities of the child's memory, they are almost limitless. «Shape-Mom» to examine how the child will form memories and how to develop his memory.
Electronic assembly technologies are constantly improved in response to new ideas about the quality of products and reduce their cost requirements. Perhaps one of the last operations that are still carried out manually in the process line remain termoprofilirovanie. This article describes the technology termoprofilirovaniya automatically in real time, and the benefits that it has to manual measurement profile.
LIMITATIONS OF MANUAL PROFILING decades measurement thermoprofile manually enterprise e-assembly was considered the best method to determine the optimum parameters for the reflow oven and wave soldering equipment, and make sure that the thermal process is consistent with the specified parameters.


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C'mon, You Know You Want One. 18 Yorkies Need New Home
Deciding who ultimately gets them is no easy task.
Richard Cook,
photo by lori sperling/KDKA
The Animal Rescue League Shelter and Wildlife Center is awash in Yorkies — 18 Yorkshire Terriers, to be exact.
They all lived in a crowded home on the North Side until Sunday, when their owner passed away suddenly, leaving no one to care for the dogs.
"They need some more medical evaluation. They need to be groomed up, and some of them need to be spayed and neutered, and then they'll hit the adoption floor," Dan Rossi, executive director of the Animal Rescue League, tells KDKA-TV. By late Tuesday, there was no shortage of people who want to take them home.
"Our staff has already had well over a thousand adoption inquiries for these pups," the Animal Rescue League said on its Facebook Page.
Anyone interested in adopting one of the dogs must complete an application which can be found here. The deadline to file an application is Sunday, May 10 at midnight. A random drawing of qualified applicants will decide who gets a Yorkie. Only those chosen to adopt the dogs will be notified. The Animal Rescue League says it doesn't have enough staff to contact all of those not chosen.
This article appears in the May 2015 issue of The 412.
Categories: The 412


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package com.emetophobe.unitconverter.activities;

import android.content.Intent;
import android.os.Bundle;
import android.support.v4.widget.DrawerLayout;
import android.support.v7.app.ActionBar;
import android.support.v7.app.ActionBarActivity;
import android.support.v7.widget.Toolbar;
import android.view.Menu;
import android.view.MenuItem;

import com.emetophobe.unitconverter.ConverterType;
import com.emetophobe.unitconverter.R;
import com.emetophobe.unitconverter.fragments.GenericConverterFragment;
import com.emetophobe.unitconverter.fragments.NavDrawerFragment;
import com.emetophobe.unitconverter.fragments.TemperatureConverterFragment;

public class MainActivity extends ActionBarActivity implements NavDrawerFragment.NavigationDrawerCallbacks {
	private NavDrawerFragment mNavDrawerFragment;

	private String[] mConverterNames;
	private CharSequence mTitle;

	@Override
	protected void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) {
		super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);
		setContentView(R.layout.activity_main);

		// Set up the toolbar.
		Toolbar toolbar = (Toolbar) findViewById(R.id.toolbar);
		setSupportActionBar(toolbar);

		// Set up the navigation drawer.
		mNavDrawerFragment = (NavDrawerFragment) getSupportFragmentManager().findFragmentById(R.id.navigation_drawer);
		mNavDrawerFragment.setUp(R.id.navigation_drawer, (DrawerLayout) findViewById(R.id.drawer_layout));

		mConverterNames = getResources().getStringArray(R.array.converter_names);
		mTitle = getTitle();
	}

	@Override
	public boolean onCreateOptionsMenu(Menu menu) {
		if (!mNavDrawerFragment.isDrawerOpen()) {
			// Only show items in the action bar relevant to this screen
			// if the drawer is not showing. Otherwise, let the drawer
			// decide what to show in the action bar.
			getMenuInflater().inflate(R.menu.main_menu, menu);
			ActionBar actionBar = getSupportActionBar();
			actionBar.setDisplayShowTitleEnabled(true);
			actionBar.setTitle(mTitle);
			return true;
		}
		return super.onCreateOptionsMenu(menu);
	}

	@Override
	public boolean onOptionsItemSelected(MenuItem item) {
		switch (item.getItemId()) {
			case R.id.action_settings:
				startActivity(new Intent(this, SettingsActivity.class));
				return true;
		}
		return super.onOptionsItemSelected(item);
	}

	@Override
	public void onNavigationDrawerItemSelected(int position) {
		mTitle = mConverterNames[position];
		ConverterType converterType = ConverterType.fromInteger(position);

		GenericConverterFragment fragment;
		if (converterType == ConverterType.TEMPERATURE) {
			fragment = new TemperatureConverterFragment();
		} else {
			fragment = new GenericConverterFragment();
		}

		Bundle args = new Bundle();
		args.putSerializable(GenericConverterFragment.EXTRA_CONVERTER_TYPE, converterType);
		fragment.setArguments(args);

		getFragmentManager().beginTransaction().replace(R.id.container, fragment).commit();
	}
}

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaGithub


Welcome to Rotaflow FV Ltd. Rotaflow design and produce Swivel Joints.
Swivel Joints are pipe fittings, which allow pipe work to rotate through 360 degrees whilst carrying fluid under pressure without leakage.
Rotaflow was established in 1982 and we became a limited company in 1984. We are UK based and family owned. During our 34 years of experience we have gained substantial knowledge and expertise to assist in many industries from Oil and Gas, Food, Steel, Nuclear, Chemical and Process industries. We supply worldwide both direct and through our agents. Our products include some off the shelf items, however our niche is being able to design and produce swivel joints that fit the clients exact and unique requirements and meet all required relevant industry quality standards.


text:
Listen to "Woman Like Me" by Little Mix and Nicki Minaj (Lyrics Review)
Little Mix has teamed up with Nicki Minaj for their latest single "Woman Like Me," which borders around women empowerment. The brand new song and the lyric video soared to a million views on YouTube alone within a few hours of release. Fans were eagerly waiting for new music by Little Mix.
"Woman Like Me" speaks about all things that make a woman, a woman. There is a little bit of everything in her. A bit of crazy, a lot of love, a lot of miracles and a whole lot of power. This song embraces women for who they are and questions if there are any takers for strong and independent women like herself.
Releasing the song, Little Mix shared their thoughts on the song on Instagram:
A post shared by Little Mix (@littlemix)
"Woman Like Me" single is possibly from the upcoming fifth studio album by the group.
Listen to "Woman Like Me" by Little Mix
Download "Woman Like Me" Single on iTunes and Amazon
Nicki Minaj dedicated this song to all the women out there;
A🌹for all the women like me.
— Nicki Minaj (@NICKIMINAJ) September 14, 2018
Little Mix teased an acapella version of "Woman Like Me" on Twitter.
♀♀♀♀ pic.twitter.com/b0T6ctcoFt
— Little Mix (@LittleMix) September 27, 2018
Lyrics Review and Song Meaning of "Woman Like Me"
The first verse is dedicated to spelling out what kind of women they are singing about. She talks about women who are not intimidated; women who do not shut up or stand down for injustice. Sometimes they go overboard telling the truth, only to realize later on that they could have sugarcoated it a bit more.
"I like my coffee with two sugars in it" is a popular phrase designed to help spell the word 'necessary' properly. Notice how the word 'necessary' has one 'c' ("one coffee") and two 's's ("two sugars") in it.
These women dress classy and work, as opposed to the imperial age women who were only supposed to look after the household chores and children.
Powerful, but insecure and working on it. These are the millennials. These are the women who are taking over the next generations.
Oddly enough, "Woman Like Me" now turns into an emotional love song. The second verse by Jade and Perrie talk about how the touch of this guy makes them melt inside. They also get pretty sexual talking about spending nights under the bed covers with her lover.
These empowered women do not call themselves perfect. They know they are far from it. They do admit it throughout the song. Little Mix talks about the mistakes they have made and how they regret them as well. That is a sign of maturity and taking responsibility.
[polldaddy poll=10134943]
The second verse of "Woman Like Me" is all about their love struggles. They talk about their weekend plans with their partners. Little Mix suggests getting 'take out' or 'going out.' Neither option suggests the women cooking for their men. These lines elaborate on how women of the new generation do not succumb to the traditional gender roles.
This verse also goes onto shout out to one of the most prominent female superstars in the world right now-Beyonce. Little Mix taps in "Drunk In Love" by Beyonce featuring her husband Jay-Z.
The third verse done by Nicki Minaj is all about asserting her dominance as queen of rap while alluding to all the women out there. She talks about getting paid in millions, adapting to changing music like a chameleon adapting to its surrounding, and how she is the mom of all the new female rap artists.
This new single has gotten the attention of both Little Mix's and Nicki Minaj's fan bases which comprise of a majority of women. The song does an excellent job to lay out the format of the new-age women who are more independent, vocal and open minded.
Let us know what you think about "Woman Like Me" single by Little Mix and Nicki Minaj. Do you think this is a good female empowering track? Share your thoughts in the comments below.
Full Lyrics to "Woman Like Me" by Little Mix
Read "Woman Like Me" by Little Mix on Genius
Tags: Little Mix, Nicki Minaj
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James Arthur – Say You Won't Let Go | Lyrics Meaning Revealed
James Arthur – Say You Won't Let Go | Lyrics Meaning Revealed February 4, 2023


text:
Q: c++ lambda expressions variables in classes I want to save lambda expressions variables (like in the fist code block). The problem is that then I use a classes (like the second code block) the compiler return me some errors. I don"t know how to fix it.
I hope somebody can help me and explain, why it's not working like this. Thanks.
First Code:
// variable for function pointer
void (*func)(int);
// default output function
void my_default(int x) {
    cout << "x =" << "\t" << x << endl << endl;
}

int main() {
    cout << "Test Programm\n\n";

    // 1. Test - default output function
    cout << "my_default\n";
    func = &my_default;
    func(5);

    // 2. Test - special output function 2
    cout << "my_func2\n";
    func = [](int x) {  cout << "x =" << "  " << x << endl << endl; };
    func(5);

    return 0;
}

Second Code:
class test {
private:
    // variable for function pointer
    void (*func)(int);
    // default output function
    void my_default(int x) {
        cout << "x =" << "\t" << x << endl << endl;
    }

public:
    void dummy(void) {
        // 1. Test - default output function
        cout << "my_default\n";
        func = &my_default;
        func(5);

        // 2. Test - special output function 2
        cout << "my_func2\n";
        func =  [](int x)->int{ cout << "x =" << "  " << x << endl << endl; };
        func(5);
    }
};

// entry
int main() {
    cout << "Test Programm\n\n";

    test a;
    a.dummy();

    return 0;
}

Compiler:
pi@raspberrypi ~/dev/property $ gcc -std=c++0x -o test2 test2.cpp -lstdc++
test2.cpp: In member function 'void test::dummy()':
test2.cpp:491:17: error: ISO C++ forbids taking the address of an unqualified or parenthesized non-static member function to form a pointer to member function.  Say '&test::my_default' [-fpermissive]
test2.cpp:491:17: error: cannot convert 'void (test::*)(int)' to 'void (*)(int)' in assignment
test2.cpp:496:77: error: invalid user-defined conversion from 'test::dummy()::<lambda(int)>' to 'void (*)(int)' [-fpermissive]
test2.cpp:496:28: note: candidate is: test::dummy()::<lambda(int)>::operator int (*)(int)() const <near match>
test2.cpp:496:28: note:   no known conversion for implicit 'this' parameter from 'int (*)(int)' to 'void (*)(int)'

A: The problem is that member functions are not normal functions, they can't be assigned to a function pointer because the type in which they are member is part of their type.
Also, a member function needs to have an object to be called on, which will be the this inside the function code.
You have several solutions:

*

*allow only functions which are member of your class
void (*MyClass::func)(int); // but you can use it only with members of the class

*use std::function
typedef std::function<void(int)> func;

The solution 2 is the simplest as std::function is designed to work with anything that is callable with the same signature as the one in the template parammetters.
Also, it's the only solution that allows you to store closures(objects from lambdas).
See C++11 styled callbacks? for details.
class test {
private:
    // variable for function pointer
    std::function< void ( int )> func;
    // default output function
    void my_default(int x) {
        cout << "x =" << "\t" << x << endl << endl;
    }

public:
    void dummy(void) {
        // 1. Test - default output function
        cout << "my_default\n";
        func = std::bind(&test::my_default, this, std::placeholders::_1);
        // or
        func = [&]( int i ){ my_default( i ); };
        func(5);

        // 2. Test - special output function 2
        cout << "my_func2\n";
        func =  [](int x)->int{ cout << "x =" << "  " << x << endl << endl; };
        func(5);
    }
};

// entry
int main() {
    cout << "Test Programm\n\n";

    test a;
    a.dummy();

    return 0;
}

A: A member function is not like an ordinary function, in that there has to be an instance of the class available in order to invoke it (i.e., the object that will become *this). You can't make an ordinary function pointer variable point to a member function.
If you want to create a function pointer that can be called using any instance of the class, you need a member function pointer. You would write
void (test::*func)(int);

to declare it,
func = &test::my_default;

to assign it, and
(this->*func)(5);

to call it. Of course, now you can't make a member function pointer point to a lambda.
If on the other hand you want to bind this as the instance and create an ordinary function from a member function, well, you can't actually make an ordinary function pointer to it. Instead you'll want an std::function object,
std::function<void(int)> func;

bind as follows:
func = std::bind(&test::my_default, this, std::placeholders::_1);

and then call normally. std::function works with lambdas just like a function pointer would.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


The D.J. Lovell Scholarship is open to full-time undergraduate and graduate students who are studying optical science and engineering. Fields of study may include optics, photonics, imaging, optoelectronics and other related disciplines. You must also be a student member of SPIE (International Society for Optical Engineering) to be eligible for this award.


text:
How nanotechnology can benefit smart cities
(Nanowerk Spotlight) A smart city is an infrastructure framework that addresses the growing urbanization challenges by embracing integrated and automated information and communication technologies to help optimize all city operations, help achieve sustainability goals and better quality of life for its citizens (read our primer on smart cities).
Generally, the development of smart cities requires more efficient and less polluting transport systems, more habitable residential buildings that require less energy to operate, establishment of better managed public services of all kinds (gas, water, electricity, waste disposal, etc.).
Components of a smart city. (Source: TechTarget)
Working towards this goal involves developing and using technologies on several fronts. Some of the challenges are:
The development of lighter and more resilient materials whose manufacture requires less energy, for use in transportation or buildings;
The development of electric cars by designing new batteries or development of hydrogen technologies;
The design of vehicles and systems that allow automatic driving;
The design and manufacture of more resistant construction materials, capable of self-repair that remove air pollution, helping to purify the city's air;
The development of new building materials capable of photovoltaic energy generation, or able to filter light based on brightness;
The development of low-power lighting and signaling systems;
Establishing extensive networks of sensors that monitor traffic, parking spaces, waste disposal utilization, air pollution, the presence of pollen, the temperature, the number of pedestrians, the moisture content of soil in public parks, etc. in real time and with pinpoint accuracy;
The development of networked devices that are able to make decisions automatically and autonomously;
Support of control and observation tasks by system drones;
The development of systems for storage and processing of the huge amount of data collected in order to improve information systems, decision-making, power grid and water network management, the participation of citizens in city government, etc.
Just going through this list it becomes clear that the development of smart cities is linked to the development of new materials and devices, the use of sensor networks, the handling of huge amounts of data ('Big Data'), the development of communication networks between objects, decision-making ('Artificial Intelligence'), data security and decentralization ('blockchain'), and a range of other smart technologies. This leads to and integrates with new concepts such as Smart Roads and Smart Factories.
Future smart transport in smart cities is about intelligent vehicles, signs and roads. (Image: University of Zaragoza)
When it comes to nanotechnology and the development of new nanomaterials and nano devices that smart cities can benefit from, there are several areas that immediately stand out:
Millimeter- wave technology for 5G networks for virtual city-wide networks
Nanomaterials to be used in the construction of smart buildings
Tiny sensors or even smart dust to enable city-wide IoT
Smart windows to regulate buildings' indoor climate
Efficient, smart lighting systems
Energy-generating smart roads
High storage capacity batteries and ultracapacitors with fast loading times for electric vehicles and battery storage of renewable energy
Water purification and filtration
Smart phone hardware that enables smart city connectivity of inhabitants
Let's take a look at some of the major nanotechnologies at play:
By providing higher data rates, increased traffic capacity, ultra-low latency, and high connection density, 5G offers opportunities for urban innovators striving to create smart city services.
In conjunction with the Internet of Things (IoT) and crowd management tools, 5G should enable transport operators to improve their response to overcrowding and deliver information to passengers on safer routes and vehicles.
It is estimated that, by 2030, the world will see an Internet-of-Things with over 75 billion connected devices, most of which will require 5G.
(Source: reply.com)
Researchers have demonstrated how properties of graphene enable ultra-wide bandwidth communications coupled with low power consumption to radically change the way data is transmitted across the optical communications systems. This could make graphene-integrated devices the key ingredient in the evolution of 5G and the IoT.
Already, researchers have demonstrated wafer-scale production of graphene-based photonic devices, enabling automation and paving the way to large scale production.
There are already plans to use the sub-terahertz range as a working range in the sixth generation (6G) wireless technology, which is being prepared for active introduction in our lives from the early 2030s. Researchers have already developed magnetic nanopowders to be used in 6G reception devices.
The use of nanomaterials in the technological development for the 5G wireless communications. (Source: DeGruyter, doi:10.1515/ntrev-2020-0054)
Nanotechnology-enabled sensor technology
Data-collecting sensors embedded in all kinds of devices are at the core of IoT applications. Especially in demand are light-weight, thin, robust, and flexible sensors that can be seamlessly integrated onto any surface, which is difficult to realize in conventional electromechanical sensors.
Common sensor categories in IoT applications. (Source: IEEE Transactions on Magnetics, 55(11), pp.1-22)
Wireless sensors, whether electronic or photonic (light-based), can monitor such environmental factors as humidity, temperature and air pressure. One example of IoT-suitable sensing devices are fully integrated and packaged wireless sensors for environmental monitoring applications that can be 3S printed.
Another example are graphene sensors embedded into RFIDs for wireless humidity sensing: By layering graphene oxide (a derivative of graphene) over graphene to create a flexible heterostructure the team have developed humidity sensors for remote sensing with the ability to connect to any wireless network.
Still a bit in the future is smart dust – imagine a cloud of sensors, each the size of a grain of sand or even smaller, blown aloft by hurricane winds and relaying data on the storm to weather stations below. Picture an invisible sensor network embedded into a smart city's roads to monitor traffic, road surface damage and identify available parking spaces – all in real time. Or billions of nanosensors distributed over areas with fire hazards to detect a fire at its very beginning. Or envision programmable smart dust that triggers an alarm signal when invisible microcracks are detected in a turbine blade.
Already, advances in nanoelectronics and nanoelectronic chiplets have reduced the footprint of smart dust quite a bit (read more: 'Solar-powered smart dust').
Nanomaterials to be used in building construction
Nanotechnology has a significant impact in the construction sector. Several applications have been developed for this specific sector to improve the durability and enhanced performance of construction components, energy efficiency and safety of the buildings, facilitating the ease of maintenance and to provide increased living comfort.
"Nanoparticles of TiO2, Al2O3 or ZnO are applied as a final coating on construction ceramics to bring this characteristic to the surfaces. TiO2 is being used for its ability to break down dirt or pollution when exposed to UV light and then allow it to be washed off by rainwater on surfaces like tiles, glass and sanitary ware. ZnO is used to have UV resistance in both coatings and paints. Nanosized Al2O3 particles are used to make surfaces scratch resistant. These surfaces also prevent / decelerate formation of bad smells, fungus and mould.
The Jubilee Church in Rome, built with photocatalytically active, self-cleaning concrete made by the company Italcementi. (Source: quartiermagazin.com)
"Basic construction materials cement, concrete and steel will also benefit from nanotechnology. Addition of nanoparticles will lead to stronger, more durable, self-healing, air purifying, fire resistant, easy to clean and quick compacting concrete. Some of the nanoparticles that could be used for these features are nano silica (silica fume), nanostructured metals, carbon nanotubes (CNTs) and carbon nanofibers (CNFs).
A bit more futuristic: With the addition of engineered nanomaterials that change the crystalline structure of concrete, imaginative architectural designs become possible and buildings achieve new heights and forms. Steel reinforcements are a thing of the past as concrete structures have ample strength to support themselves, in shapes that make the Guggenheim Museum look tame. Engineered from the strongest, lightest nanomaterials, suspension bridges and other weight-bearing elements look more like spider webs than structures.
Already, researchers have demonstrated strengthening of concrete by infusing it with nanocrystals or by nanoengineering concrete with graphene, resulting in a new composite material that is more than twice as strong and four times more water resistant than existing concretes.
Photovoltaic materials
Imagine: A wide range of photovoltaic materials based on molecular, organic, polymeric, dye-sensitized, and colloidal quantum dot-based solar cells cover horizontal and vertical building surfaces. Enhanced by multifunctional nanoscale designs, they capture light and convert it into electric power for buildings and the urban infrastructure. At night, they re-emit visible light for their buildings and surroundings.
It isn't cars and vehicle traffic that produce the greatest volumes of climate gas emissions – it's our own homes. Nanotechnology is bound to put an end to all that. The building sector is currently responsible for 40% of global energy use and climate gas emissions.
In the future, however, we will start to see construction materials and high-tech systems integrated into building shells that are specifically designed to remedy this situation. Such systems will be intelligent and multifunctional. They will consume less energy and generate lower levels of harmful climate gas emissions.
For instance, insulation materials made from nanospheres will allow to reduce existing insulation material thicknesses. While standard insulation materials such as mineral wools have conductivities in the region of 35 milliwatts per meter, nanospheres may exhibit values as low as about 20 mW/m. This is lower than the thermal conductivity of air.
Solar cells installed in panels fixed to our roofs and walls will be a thing of the past. Instead, they will be integrated into the roof tiles and external wall paneling materials with cheap thin-film solar cells. This will save on building materials and construction costs, and will reduce electricity bills.
Of the estimated 75 billion IoT devices that will be installed by 2025, a majority will be located indoors. Broad installation of such IoT devices requires the devices to become autonomous, meaning that they should no longer need batteries or a grid connection to operate. To achieve this, it is crucial to identify a local low-maintenance energy source that can provide local power to IoT devices, especially in ambient conditions.
To this end, researchers have developed new indoor photovoltaic cells that can convert up to 34 per cent of visible light into electricity to power a wide range of IoT sensors.
The dye combination for the new solar cells was designed specifically to absorb light at visible wavelengths. (Image: Uppsala University)
Widespread use of engineered nanomaterials in the Smart City
Engineered nanomaterials are expected to be widely used in city environments. Carbon dioxide and other air pollutants are reduced as power plants, buildings, and vehicles use nanostructured membranes. Recycled water is purified with nano-enabled filtration and osmosis systems, for instance by using nanofiltration membranes to treat industrial wastewater from heavy metals, and these systems are available for individual households and new local urban water treatment systems.
For instance, graphene excels at removing contaminants from water and researchers already demonstrated the use of 3D-printed graphene aerogels for water treatment.
As the above examples make abundantly clear, nanotechnology-enabled materials and devices will play a major role in sectors such as electronics, communications, construction, and energy; all of which are key areas for the implementation of smart cities.
Check out our SmartWorlder section to read more about smart technologies.
Bio-inspired 'wooden armor' modeled on the structure of fish scales
Towards 4D printing with structural colors
Antibiotic-like boron nitride nanosheets for combating drug resistant bacteria
Upcycling strategy turns discarded solar cells into thermoelectrics
Graphdiyne functionalized by silver nanoparticles to combat the threat of antibacterial resistance
Combining 3D printing and self-assembly to fabricate the world's lightest material
MXene quantum dots as promising material for immunoengineering
Self-powered, 'one-terminal' tactile sensor for wearables
Synthesis, properties and applications of 2D materials beyond graphene
Inserting mechanical drugs into living cells (w/video)
Perovskite photovoltaics for a greener Internet-of-Things
Nanotechnology-enabled low-cost, point-of-care, self-test of sodium in the comfort of your home
Nanotechnology in the Olympic Winter Games
Interface engineering enables tunable topological transitions in biaxial crystals
The future of contact lenses - lab-on-a-lens, augmented reality, and head-up displays


Well, I suppose you're not keeping him, but he's just a mite, and winter is coming on, in the South where it surely doesn't get too cold but you assure me that it does. So, what will the little one do? I mean, you're not keeping him, I guess. But he has no mother to care for him. Can he manage on his own? Because I imagine you're not keeping him.
Maybe Mr. Collins will take him to Rosings now and then. He can sleep in a shelf in one of the closets.
But, have you thought about keeping him?
You know, when you're an animal lover, you just have to let your heart win you over sometimes. We have had many pets and some of the most loving were those we said we weren't going to keep, but did. I loved the link to Mr. Collins that showed up at the end of your post. He is beautiful!
Haha, these kittens are so hard to resist.
Ah yes. We told Tall Cat we weren't keeping him but still he insists on calling at the kitchen window and strolling in for a sleep on the chaise longue. How many years ago was that now?
I have a pet stray, she won't come near us or into the house, but is happy to laze they days away on our deck or outdoor furniture, and turns up for food twice a day. We've been feeding her for a year now.
You will soon have quite the little zoo - is Daisy going to be a vet or farmer?
Aww, you must keep the handsome little boy kitten. You know you want to.
How did he get the name Pickles? You have such names to delight every Austenite (aka Fitzwilliam and Mr. Collins) but he is named after a food?