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Tag Archives: Victor
Victor V-40008 – "Peg" Moreland – 1928
Posted on October 29, 2019 by R. Connor Montgomery
Known to radio listeners across the Southwest from the 1920s to the 1940s as the "King of the Ditty Singers", Dallas' own "Peg" Moreland was surely among the most prolific pre-war folksingers from the State of Texas, yet most unfortunately he has since fallen behind that so-common veil of obscurity.
"Peg" Moreland, from 1930 Victor supplemental.
"Peg" was born Arnot Jackson Moreland (though he switched his first and middle names later in life) on October 29, 1892, on a farm in Rienzi, Texas, a no-longer-extant community in Hill County, one of at least eight children of Samuel Jackson and Mollie (née Arnot) Moreland. From a young age, Moreland memorized folk songs he picked up from his southwestern environment. Not long after 1900, the family moved west to Canyon, Texas, where Pa Moreland operated a grocery store until his untimely death in 1908. There, the young Moreland played piano, clarinet and saxophone in the Canyon Municipal Band. Jackson served in the National Guard for three years prior to the First World War, attaining the rank of corporal, and was later justice of the peace in Randall County for three years beginning in 1921. At some point between 1917 and 1925, Moreland lost his right leg in a railroad accident, presumably during his work as a brakeman on the Santa Fe, the replacement for which gained him the nickname "Peg". He moved to Dallas with his family in 1924. With guitar in hand and a head full of folk ditties, Moreland began singing on Dallas' venerable radio station WFAA in 1925. Moreland sang in a light and pleasant tenor croon—akin to other popular radio folksingers like Bradley Kincaid—and played guitar in a snappy, syncopated, ragtime-esque flatpicked style. His repertoire—said to consist of over two-thousand "ditties"—was not too dissimilar from that of Georgia's Riley Puckett, with material ranging from cowboy ballads, to old minstrel and parlor songs.
For a short time, Moreland went west to work as a railroad mail clerk on the Arizona run before returning to WFAA in 1927. In July of 1928, Moreland traveled to Chicago, Illinois, to record for the Victor Talking Machine Company; in his first session, he cut five sides, followed by three more two days later. While he was there, he spent a brief time performing on the WLS National Barn Dance as "Tex" Moreland before returning home to Texas. The next year, Victor came to him, conducting a field trip to Dallas, during which he recorded another three sides. He later attended Victor field trips to Memphis and Atlanta, in 1929 and '30, respectively, resulting in a further eight sides. All of the sides he recorded, nineteen in total, were released, some on split releases shared with the likes of Harry "Mac" McClintock and Blind Jack Mathis. After 1930, Peg Moreland made no further commercial recordings, but his radio career was far from over, and he also performed frequently in local vaudeville and functions. He remained a fixture on WFAA, its associate station KGKO, and other stations around Texas and Oklahoma, at least as late as the Second World War. Moreland never married and lived with his mother and brothers until her death in 1943. Late in his life, Moreland lived in hotels around the city of Dallas, including the New Oxford and Lawrence. "Peg" Moreland died on January 11, 1973 in Dallas, Texas, of a coronary. His death certificate still listed his occupation as "entertainer" and WFAA as his employer.
Victor V-40008 was recorded on July 5 and 3, 1928, respectively, at 952 North Michigan Avenue in Chicago, Illinois—Moreland's first session. "Peg" Moreland sings and accompanies himself on the guitar.
Peg first sings one of my favorite home-spun ditties: "Stay in the Wagon Yard". The song tells the humorous tale of a farmer who comes to town to bring his crop to market. He leaves the wagon yard to "see the 'lectric lights and watch the cars come in," only to be taken on a drunken spree by some city dudes. He warns his fellow farmers to "buy a half-pint and stay in the wagon yard." Probably best known by Grandpa Jones's rendition, Moreland's recording was the first of several contemporaneous versions, including ones by Georgia fiddlers Lowe Stokes and Earl Johnson, as well as Alabama folkster Lew Childre. The Fresno State Traditional Ballad Index lists Arthur Tanner—who sang on the Stokes recording—as the probable writer, though this seems unlikely, seeing as Moreland, from Texas, made his recording of the song more than a year prior. It seems more likely that Stokes and the gang, who followed Moreland's verse almost to the letter with the exception of omitting the last stanza, heard it from Moreland's record, though where Moreland learned the song I couldn't say; he was not a songwriter himself and denied ever producing any original songs, instead drawing fully on traditional material. In addition to Moreland's Texan heritage, the line "I'm a deacon in a hard-shell church down near Possum Trot" could suggest a Texas origin, assuming it refers to the predominately black farming community near the Louisiana border, though there are places by that name in several other states. It is worth noting that Earl Johnson's 1930 recording adds several verses not heard in Moreland's or Stokes's records. Quite a few recordings have been made since, and the song's popularity with old-time string bands endures to this day.
Stay in the Wagon Yard, recorded July 5, 1928 by "Peg" Moreland.
http://oldtimeblues.net/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/Stay-in-the-Wagon-Yard.mp3
Moreland's rendition of the popular folk song "The Old Step Stone"—commonly known by the title "Goodbye to My Stepstone" or some variation on that—was his first recorded side. The song in its original form is believed to date back to 1880, when it was published as "Old Doorstep" by one J.O. Webster.
The Old Step Stone, recorded July 3, 1928 by "Peg" Moreland.
http://oldtimeblues.net/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/The-Old-Step-Stone.mp3
Posted in Records	| Tagged 1920s, 1928, Folk, Hillbilly, Peg Moreland, Singing with Guitar, Texas, Victor	| Leave a reply
Montgomery Ward M-4244 – Gene Autry – 1931
Posted on September 29, 2019 by R. Connor Montgomery
Gene Autry, pictured in his Sensational Collection of Famous Original Cowboy Songs and Mountain Ballads, 1932.
It would not be exaggeration in the slightest to call Gene Autry a true American hero. From humble roots, he got his start in the show business covering Jimmie Rodgers' hits for other record labels, but soon proved his own merit as a prolific songwriter and talented musician. Before long, he broke into Hollywood in a series B-Westerns and rose not only to become one of America's earliest "superstars", but the idolization of millions of adoring fans. His shrewd business sense made him a multi-millionaire by the time of his retirement at the age of only fifty-seven, and surely one of the only twentieth century entertainers to have a town named after him.
Gene was born Orvon Grover Eugene Autry in Tioga, Texas, on September 29, 1907, son of Delbert and Elnora Autry. The family moved a few miles north to the towns of Achille and Ravia, Oklahoma, when Gene was a child, and when not preoccupied with song he spent time in his youth helping out on his father's farm. In 1941, the nearby town of Berwyn was renamed "Gene Autry" in his honor. Autry took up the guitar at the age of twelve on a model from the Sears-Roebuck catalog. After high school, he got a job working as a telegrapher for the Frisco Line. He often played his guitar and sang to pass the time during slow hours on the job, a habit which gained him the attention of a notable passer-through: Will Rogers. Rogers liked Autry's music, and recommended that he go to New York to make records. Autry did just that in the fall of 1928, but he was turned down by Victor A&R man Nat Shilkret on the grounds that the company had only just signed two similar artists (one of whom may have been Jimmie Rodgers, who had only begun his recording career the previous summer). Shilkret suggested that Autry seek work on the radio instead, and that he did. Upon his return home to Oklahoma, Autry began singing on KVOO in Tulsa as "Oklahoma's Yodeling Cowboy". He made his triumphant return to New York the very next fall, and this time he found success. With Frankie and Johnny Marvin accompanying, he cut two sides for Victor in duet with frequent collaborator Jimmy Long. Thereafter, he began recording prolifically for a variety of record labels, beginning with a session for Gennett, the masters of which were sold to Grey Gull and Cova's QRS label. He then signed on with Columbia for a short time, mostly appearing on their budget labels singing dimestore imitations of Jimmie Rodgers' songs. In 1930, he joined the cast of the National Barn Dance on Sears-Roebuck's radio station WLS in Chicago. The same year, he began his long association with the American Record Corporation, appearing on their many dimestore labels and still covering Rodgers, but increasingly producing his own original material. It was that arrangement that brought him his first big hit in 1931: "That Silver Haired Daddy of Mine". Meanwhile, he continued to record occasionally for Victor and Gennett until going exclusive with the ARC in 1933. The following year, while singing on the radio with Smiley Burnette, he was "discovered" by Hollywood big-shot Nat Levine and selected to appear in an uncredited role in the Ken Maynard western picture In Old Santa Fe. And the rest, as they say, is history.
Montgomery Ward M-4244 was recorded in two sessions in New York City, the first on February 12, 1931, and the second on March 31 of the same year. Side "A" was originally issued on Victor 23548 (which sold 1,901 copies) and "B" on Victor 23589 (which sold only 1,537). Autry accompanies himself on guitar on both sides, and his joined on steel guitar by his friend Frankie Marvin on the first.
The rollicking and raunchy "Do Right Daddy Blues" is a distant cry from Autry's typically mild and genial cowboy songs of later years, instead more resembling one of Jimmie Rodgers' "Blue Yodel" songs with their characteristic braggadocio and hint of machismo. Two takes of this number exist, though this one—take "1"—was the only issued originally; the second take was released as part of Bluebird/BMG's 2004 compilation East Virginia Blues, in their When the Sun Goes Down series examining the "secret history" of rock 'n' roll. Autry also recorded a version of the song for the American Record Corporation's dimestore labels (Perfect, Banner, Romeo, etc.) two months later, and he followed up with a different version for Victor's short lived Timely Tunes offshoot and sequel titled "Don't Do Me That Way" (and subtitled "Do Right Daddy Blues No. 2") at the same session in which he recorded the "B" side of the record presented herein. The song was later picked up by western swinger Leon Chappelear, who recorded it first as "New Do Right Daddy" in 1937, and again as "I'm a Do Right Daddy" in 1951.
Do Right Daddy Blues, recorded February 18, 1931 by Gene Autry.
http://oldtimeblues.net/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/Do-Right-Daddy-Blues.mp3
On "High Steppin' Mama", Autry shows us just how much inspiration he drew from Jimmie Rodgers in his early career, presenting a song that sounds like it could have come straight from the Blue Yodeler himself—equally in content as in style.
High Steppin' Mama, recorded March 31, 1931 by Gene Autry.
http://oldtimeblues.net/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/High-Steppin-Mama.mp3
Posted in Records	| Tagged 1930s, 1931, Frankie Marvin, Gene Autry, Hillbilly, Montgomery Ward, New York, Singing with Guitar, Victor	| Leave a reply
Victor P-79 – Smoky Mountain Ballads – 1941
In the year of 1941, the venerable folklorist and song collector John A. Lomax—best remembered for his 1910 book Cowboy Songs and Other Frontier Ballads, his field recordings made for the Library of Congress in the 1930s, and his discovery of the legendary Lead Belly—set out, at the age of seventy-four, to assemble a groundbreaking album of folk music from the Great Smoky Mountains of the southeastern United States. He selected from the catalog of the Victor record company (and their subsidiary label Bluebird) a total of ten masters of traditional mountain folk music recorded by relatively contemporary musicians and groups by the likes of Uncle Dave Macon, the Monroe Brothers, and the Carter Family. It was late in his illustrious career, and only one of the numerous remarkable accomplishments to his name.
The album cover for Smoky Mountain Ballads, edited by John A. Lomax.
John Avery Lomax was born on September 23, 1867, in Goodman, Mississippi, but he got to Texas as fast as he could. His parents James Avery and Susan Frances Lomax brought the family by wagon to "the low cedar-clad hills of Bosque County," north of Meridian, Texas, where young John was reared. Growing up on what was then the western frontier, Lomax was exposed to cowboy ballads and folk songs sung by a former slave hired to work on the family farm, and he began to do what had seldom yet been done: collect them and write them down. At twenty-one, he left farm life behind and enrolled in college in Granbury. After graduating, he became a schoolteacher around the region of his upbringing. In 1895, he entered the University of Texas in Austin, graduating two years later with a major in English literature. While there, he showed his collection of folk songs to one of his English professors, who decried them "cheap and unworthy." The dejected Lomax then burned them behind his dormitory and turned his focus to his studies. After his graduation, he married Bess Brown—with whom he would have four children, Shirley, John Jr., Alan, and Bess—and taught English for a stretch at Texas A&M. In 1907, he attended Harvard as a graduate student under Professors Barret Wendell and George Lyman Kittredge. Unlike his professor at U.T., they encouraged his interest in cowboy songs and ultimately helped him receive a Sheldon grant to research them. Thus, in 1910, at the age of forty-three, John A. Lomax published Cowboy Songs and Other Frontier Ballads, with a foreword by former president Theodore Roosevelt, the first in a series of song collections he would compile. With U.T. professor Leonidas Payne, he also established the Texas Folklore Society in 1909. From 1910, Lomax also worked an administrative job at the University of Texas, until Texas governor Jim "Pa" Ferguson's feud with academics got him fired in 1917. So he moved to Chicago to work as a banker in a firm operated by the son of one of his former professors, and later worked with U.T. alumni groups after Ferguson's impeachment.
After his wife passed in 1931, at his son John Jr.'s encouragement, Lomax set off on a lecture tour that ultimately resulted in his involvement in the Library of Congress' Archive of American Folk Song. Having previously recorded some Texas folksingers like Newton Gaines on wax cylinders, he arranged with the Archive to provide him with portable recording equipment, with which he would traverse the American South in search of traditional folksingers to record for posterity in the Library of Congress, preferably ones untainted by the influence of modern popular culture—those who still adhered to an older tradition. With his son Alan behind the wheel of his Ford sedan, the Lomaxes began their journey in their home state of Texas in June of 1933, visiting rural prison farms in search of musical convicts whose incarceration had separated their traditional repertoires from the dissemination of popular music. They were first turned away at the gates of the prison in Huntsville, but they soon found success when they arrived at the Central State Prison Farm in Sugar Land, Texas. There, they discovered sixty-three-year-old James "Iron Head" Baker and seventy-one-year-old Moses "Clear Rock" Platt,two "habitual criminals" who had spent the better part of their lives in the Texas prison system. Lomax recorded them singing hollers such as "Go Down Old Hannah", "Old Rattler", and "Black Betty", ultimately making return trips to collect more of their music. Lomax eventually grew fond of "Iron Head", and send him small amounts of money, which were reciprocated in the form of small handcrafted trinkets. Eventually, Lomax secured Baker's parole to act as his assistant, though the arrangement was short-lived. Soon after, they ventured on to Louisiana, where they paid a visit to the State Penitentiary at Angola. Locked away behind the prison walls was a singer and guitarist who would become Lomax's greatest discovery: the forty-five-year-old Huddie "Lead Belly" Ledbetter. After recording Lead Belly in several performances in July of 1933, Lomax returned a year later with superior equipment to capture more of his extensive repertoire in better quality. This time, Lead Belly requested that Lomax deliver a song he had prepared as a plea for his pardon to Louisiana Governor O.K. Allen. Lomax obliged, and Lead Belly was released later that year (though the state insisted that the song had nothing to do with it). Required to find work or face re-incarceration, Lead Belly convinced Lomax to take him on as a driver and aide in his travels. Ultimately, Lomax traveled several hundred-thousand miles and preserved hundreds of songs by numerous performers, both in and out of prison, for the Library of Congress.
With Lead Belly along, Lomax went back to Yankeeland to begin a new series of lecture tours featuring the folksinger. Not long afterward, the partnership between the folklorist and the folksinger ended quite acrimoniously, as Lead Belly sued Lomax for payment that he believed had been withheld—though they later recovered a friendly acquaintanceship. In 1934, he remarried, to Miss Ruby Terrill, whom he had first met in 1921 while she was the dean of women at the East Texas State Normal College in Commerce. His associated with the Library of Congress' Archive of American Folk Music continued after his field work had more-or-less concluded. In 1947, with his son Alan, he wrote and published Adventures of a Ballad Hunter, a memoir of his life on the road in search of America's native song. John A. Lomax died from a stroke on January 26, 1948; an ailing Lead Belly gave his last concert in Austin, Texas, honoring the late folklorist. His legacy was carried on by his sons John Jr., Alan, and Bess, and his influence continued to be felt, both in the field of folklore scholarship and in folk music for the decades to come.
Posted in Records	| Tagged 1930, 1930s, 1934, 1936, 1937, 1938, 1940s, Arthur Smith, Bill Monroe, Carter Family, Delmore Brothers, Folk, Gid Tanner, Hillbilly, J.E. Mainer, John A. Lomax, Monroe Brothers, Riley Puckett, Steve Ledford, Victor, Wade Mainer, Zeke Morris	| Leave a reply
Victor 23696 – Jimmie Rodgers – 1932
Posted on September 8, 2019 by R. Connor Montgomery
A rare snapshot of Jimmie Rodgers in the early 1930s, atop a '31 Chrysler and holding a puppy.
As Jimmie Rodgers' successful recording career entered its fifth year, he was at the height of his fame, and times had never been better—or worse—for the Blue Yodeler.
In 1932, Jimmie Rodgers was living in Texas, "a state he dearly loved." He had moved into his custom built brick manor in Kerrville in 1929 to help ease his tuberculosis with the fresh hill country air, but left for a modest home at 142 Montclair Avenue in San Antonio only three years later, where he hosted a weekly radio program on KMAC. Progressively declining health had forced him to curtail his touring schedule, but staying put just wasn't in his nature, and he continued to motor around the region in his blue Cadillac. At the same time, the record industry—which had made Rodgers a star five years earlier—was too in ill health; the Great Depression, combined with the emerging medium of radio, had record sales dropping fast. By the time the industry hit bottom, Jimmie Rodgers was Victor's best-selling record artist, hence the Depression-era adage that a typical Southerner's shopping list was "pound of butter, a slab of bacon, a sack of flour, and the new Jimmie Rodgers record." In spite of the circumstances against his favor, Rodgers kept up his recording schedule during 1932, producing a total of twenty-one sides over course of the year. In February, he was in Dallas to cut seven sides at the Jefferson Hotel, accompanied first by a hillbilly band including future western swinger Bill Boyd on such tracks as "Hobo's Meditation", and then by a Hawaiian quartet with his longtime collaborators Billy and Weldon Burkes. On the thirty-first of July, he departed for Camden, New Jersey for a productive session with Clayton McMichen, Slim Bryant, and Oddie McWinders, that resulted in such memorable numbers as "Peach Pickin' Time Down in Georgia" and "Whippin' That Old T. B.". Afterward, he traveled on to New York for an audition with NBC, which resulted in a pilot on WEAF but did not materialize further, and another session that produced four sides, including "Miss the Mississippi and You". With talks of a tour of England with McMichen—as Carson Robison had done earlier the same year—Jimmie had big plans, and didn't intend on stopping, but the dire state of the economy and direr yet state of his health put a damper on such lofty ambitions.
Victor 23696 was recorded on February 6 and 4, 1932, respectively, at the Jefferson Hotel in Dallas, Texas. It was issued on August 12 of that year, and sold only 7,746 copies—not bad for Depression-era sales, but still, not too many for their best-selling artist.
First, Jimmie sings another installment in his famous series, "Blue Yodel No. 10 (Ground Hog Rootin' in My Back Yard)", and a blues song it truly is. Previously on Old Time Blues, we've heard Jimmie's first, second, eighth, ninth, and last Blue Yodels. Maybe we'll eventually get them all on here.
Blue Yodel No. 10 (Ground Hog Rootin' In My Back Yard), recorded February 6, 1932 by Jimmie Rodgers.
http://oldtimeblues.net/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/Blue-Yodel-No-10.mp3
On the flip, Jimmie croons a tune about the moon in June predicting the country music styles yet to come in the decade, such as might have appealed to a common Depression-era record buyer's sensibilities—and it does appeal to my own Depression-era sensibilities—"Mississippi Moon". He is accompanied by a Hawaiian style string band made up of Billy Burkes on steel guitar, and Weldon Burkes and Fred Koone on guitars.
Mississippi Moon, recorded February 4, 1932 by Jimmie Rodgers.
http://oldtimeblues.net/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/Mississippi-Moon.mp3
Posted in Records	| Tagged 1930s, Billy Burkes, Blues, Dallas, Fred Koone, Hillbilly, Jimmie Rodgers, Singing with Guitar, Texas, Victor, Weldon Burkes	| 2 Replies
Victor 19171 – Wendell Hall – 1923
Posted on August 23, 2019 by R. Connor Montgomery
One of the foremost exponents of the ukulele craze in the 1920s, Wendell Hall—the Red Headed Music Maker—enjoyed a fruitful career beginning with his introduction of the wildly popular "It Ain't Gonna Rain No Mo'", and could perhaps be viewed among the earliest artists to "cross over" from popular to hillbilly style music.
Wendell Woods Hall was born on August 23, 1896, the youngest of three sons born to minister George and church organist Laura Hall of St. George, Kansas. His family moved to Chicago around the turn of the century, and there young Wendell got his start in music. He was drafted into the U.S. Army in 1917, but fell ill during the flu epidemic the following year and did not see combat; instead, he spent some time entertaining his fellow troops following his recovery. Following his return home, he found work as a song plugger for the sheet music industry. Before long, he struck out on the vaudeville circuit singing and playing the xylophone, but soon—like his contemporary Cliff Edwards—switched to the more inexpensive and portable ukulele. On occasion, he was known to double on guitar or tiple. He began publishing popular songs in the early 1920s, and by 1923 he'd arrived in New York to embark on a successful career as a radio and recording artist. He made his debut on September 28, 1923, in a session for Gennett records, cutting the first of several versions of his big hit "It Ain't Gonna Rain No Mo'". The following month, he re-did the number for Edison and Victor, beginning a successful engagement with the latter which produced a string of popular records and lasted until 1933, interrupted by brief stints for Brunswick in 1925 and '26 and for Columbia in 1927. Hall's rural-flavored novelty songs often blurred the line between popular and "hillbilly" music, and he frequently collaborated with the country guitarist, whistler, and fellow Kansan Carson J. Robison, who made his first records with Hall. With the smash success of "It Ain't Gonna Rain No Mo'" and other successful records behind his belt, Hall introduced and marketed a signature "Red Head" model of ukulele, manufactured by the Regal Musical Instrument Company, and instructional booklets on "Wendell Hall's Ukulele Method". He remained a popular radio artist into the 1930s after the Great Depression had killed off his record career, but began to falter as the ukulele fell from favor later in the decade. Nonetheless, he remained an active musician and music publisher, and made a brief comeback in the early 1950s. Wendell Hall died on April 2, 1969 in Mobile, Alabama, and was buried in Manhattan, Kansas.
Victor 19171 was recorded in New York City on October 12, 1923. It was released on the twenty-third of the following month. It reportedly sold more than two million copies, and Hall later re-recorded both sides electrically on July 29, 1925, to keep them technologically up-to-date. This record was transferred at 76.59 RPM, as is widely accepted for acoustical Victor records of this era.
Firstly, the Pineapple Picador sings his biggest hit composition, that old chestnut "It Ain't Gonna Rain No Mo'". Hall later followed up with the "Second Installment" in 1925 and "Part 3" in 1933. The simple but humorous ditty proved enormously popular with artists in a wide range of genres.
It Ain't Gonna Rain No Mo', recorded October 12, 1923 by Wendell Hall.
http://oldtimeblues.net/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/It-Aint-Gonna-Rain-No-Mo.mp3
Actually recorded first at the session, Hall sings his "theme" song "Red Headed Music Maker" on the "B" side, interpolating "Red Hot Blues".
Red Headed Music Maker, recorded October 12, 1923 by Wendell Hall.
http://oldtimeblues.net/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/Red-Headed-Music-Maker.mp3
Posted in Records	| Tagged 1920s, 1923, Folk, Hillbilly, New York, Popular, Victor, Wendell Hall	| Leave a reply
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A history of jazz before 1930. Offering histories of musicians and bands, sound files, etc.
Extensive discographies of mostly pre-war blues artists meticulously compiled by Stefan Wirz.
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Psychiatry and Songs
Would You Use It To Hurt Me? – Julia Jacklin's Bruising 'Body'
20 Feb 2019 8 Apr 2019 Niall Crumlish1 Comment
Julia Jacklin's album Crushing is out on February 22nd and it opens with a song that has been circulating since last October called 'Body'. In a feature on 'Body' on NPR's All Songs Considered, Jacklin described the song as "a long and exaggerated sigh".
'Body' tells a story in the second person. The protagonist addresses an ex-boyfriend and explains how and why she left him. Her ex ruined a trip by getting arrested and it sounds like a last straw. She is tired of his self-regarding fecklessness: "I know you'd like to believe it, baby / But you're more kid than criminal." He is "just a boy who could not get through a domestic flight / without lighting up in the restroom".
The arrangement here as throughout the song is sparse. There's a snare drum partnering an insistent andante 1-2 bass line (boom, boom-boom; boom, boom-boom) and rumbling piano chords every second bar or so. The piano is like way-off thunder. There's a guitar but there is no strumming of full chords. The atmosphere is taut and tense.
As she leaves the narrator sings of "heading to the city to get my body back" – reclaiming herself. But she imagines his response to her leaving. She anticipates vengeful violent spite. This guy is not used to facing consequences. Even when the police came to the plane, she reminds him, "They let you finish your meal".
She foresees reprisals, and she recalls an old imposed intimacy that leaves her exposed. She sings "I remembered early days / When you took my camera / Turned to me, twenty-three / Naked on your bed / Looking straight at you". Of course he took her camera; she didn't offer it. She asks him: "Do you still have that photograph? / Would you use it to hurt me?" Then an exhalation: "Well I guess it's just my life / And it's just my body".
It took me a few days of listening a lot to 'Body' to begin to understand how the song's tension is attained and sustained. For the first half of the song the chords dissolve slowly into each other and they progress between A minor, D major, F major, and back to A minor. Anyone who has played an instrument knows that D major doesn't belong there. A minor and F major are in the same key, of C, and D major is in the key of D. That D major sounds dissonant. It evokes unease, like there's something hanging unresolved and disquieting over the verses.
Then as the song closes, Jacklin repeats the final couplet four more times. She's accompanied by the guitar and bass and an organ that plays flurries of notes in A minor, F major, C major, and F major. These chords all go together in the key of C and coming from the previous dissonance this sounds right. It sounds complete and final. So the song is resolved at its most resigned moment: I guess it's just my life, and it's just my body.
I first thought "seething" described this song but I was projecting. You naturally want justice but that's no guarantee of getting any. The song does not have the energy to be angry. The song has too much experience to be optimistic. The protagonist leaves a guy because he is proudly careless and destructive and now his careless destructiveness hangs over her. He doesn't deserve power but he won't let it go. It's hard to tolerate the song concluding so full of lingering indefinite dread. But there are times, concludes 'Body', that anger is an affectation.
Knowledge of Beauty: Seán Power & Peter Broderick's 'Ballad of the Lights'
8 Feb 2019 9 Feb 2019 Niall CrumlishLeave a comment
Walk into our kitchen any time in the last three weeks and you might have come across either of our two sons sitting at the table playing Lego and saying "Very, very, very beautiful" in what they imagine to be a Galway accent. They just intone it to themselves at random moments. Michael, who is seven, also likes saying "Suddenly, the ice that was floating down the Hudson river STOPS" and chuckling. They are quoting a song, one that has settled in to all our imaginations, 'Ballad of the Lights' by Peter Broderick and Seán Power.
'Ballad of the Lights' is originally by Arthur Russell. Peter and Seán's version is on a fascinating tribute album, Peter Broderick & Friends Play Arthur Russell. The wonderful singer-songwriter Brigid Mae Power is on the album too and she is Seán Power's mother. She is also Peter Broderick's wife and I think this means that Seán is Peter's stepson. Seán is so good on this song – I guess he couldn't miss it.
In our house we have long been positively disposed to Arthur Russell. My wife listened to his instrumental albums relentlessly when she was pregnant with our youngest, who is three. Evan was so nearly named Arthur, but we were also on a Lemonheads buzz that year. Still, we had never heard Russell's 'Ballad of the Lights' until we heard Peter and Seán's version when it came out on Christmas Day.
'Ballad of the Lights' is really a poem and song narrated by a person looking out from New York to New Jersey ("Why I chose New Jersey to look at I don't know"). Seán opens the song and he does the spoken word sections. Allen Ginsberg performed those parts on the 1977 recording. No pressure Seán! Peter sings the Arthur Russell parts. Seán begins:
A young man sits on the bridge after night fall
And looks across the Hudson river to New Jersey
He wonders about life
And he wonders if he'll ever get old
He sees the lights
And he wonders if they are talking to each other
And he wonders if they are talking to him
And he asks if they are
I tweeted a few days ago that Allen Ginsberg is great and everything but he's no Seán Power. And I do genuinely prefer his performance to Ginsberg's. But Ginsberg is at a disadvantage when it comes to delivering Arthur Russell lyrics. This song is about finding magic and mystery in apparently humdrum experience. I was going to write "magic and mystery where there is none", but that's not it. If the narrator can find it, it's there.
That the narrator here is voiced by a child is part of it because kids have amazing powers of finding mystery. Children are always asking if street lights are talking amongst themselves or if there are worms on the moon and so on. But it's also that Seán has the recitation skills of a nascent poet. He makes these lines sound fresh, like he wrote them. When he lands on the final word in the line "Suddenly, the ice that was floating down the Hudson river STOPS", I hear Paul Durcan in my head on 'In The Days Before Rock'n'Roll', as he escalates and exclaims: "Nor Fats, nor Elvis / Nor Sonny, nor Lightning / Nor Muddy, nor John Lee!"
Anyway. We play this song and album a lot and we have a busy kitchen and often you don't be listening too carefully. But there's a point in the song that always stills me. Mostly Peter and Seán swap verses but there is one point when Seán replies within a verse to a single line of Peter's. It's when Peter sings, of the New Jersey lights, "They are so beautiful", and Seán replies "Very, very, very beautiful". It's such a warm and earnest moment and such a sweet father-son exchange. I love that he says "very" a full three times – like, he's not kidding. I love when my kids listen and when they copy Seán and gently say "Very, very, very beautiful" when they are idling about. I'm glad they are connecting with this wonderful stuff. Knowledge of beauty is itself rare.
Lubomyr Melnyk: It Is Like Having the Sun in Your Hands
"The natural world is where we evolved; where we became what we are, where we learned to feel and to react. It is where the human imagination formed and took flight, where it found its metaphors and its similes, among trees and pure rivers and wild creatures and grasslands rippled by the wind … It is nature which is the true haven for our psyches."
– Michael McCarthy, The Moth Snowstorm
Lubomyr Melnyk is a Ukrainian-Canadian pianist and composer who turned 70 in December. He is the key exponent of continuous music, "a piano technique based on extremely rapid notes and complex note-series, usually with the sustain pedal held down to generate harmonic overtones and sympathetic resonances". Melnyk invented continuous music in the 1970s and there's a 1978 album, KMH: Piano Music in the Continuous Mode, on Spotify. He remained busy throughout the 1980s but in recent years was languishing until the Erased Tapes label rediscovered him in the early 2010s. Melnyk apparently asked: "Where were you when I was 30?"
Melnyk is the eminence grise of Erased Tapes, home to Nils Frahm, Olafur Arnalds, A Winged Victory for the Sullen, and so on. His Erased Tapes bio describes the genesis of continuous music: "He began to play a new kind of music, spontaneous and improvisatory… Using the sustain pedal to create echo and reverb, he transformed free-flowing cascades of notes into hypnotic waves of sound". His own site attests to the music's "meditative and metaphysical" aspects. Reading this self-endorsement I think: "We'll be the judge of that, thank you very much" and also "Yes, that's right".
I saw Melnyk on January 24th, with my wife Sharon in a converted cinema in Hackney. Leaving the country for a concert is a big event so we ration these trips for shows that we expect to be be really special and it was extraordinary. The show was a 70th birthday celebration organised by Erased Tapes. They signed him when he was in his early sixties, and his Erased Tapes comrade Peter Broderick collaborated on his 2013 album Corollaries, which won attention his earlier work had not. He played pieces alone and with Peter Broderick and Hatis Noit. As Melnyk wound down his final piece I felt this pang of sadness, which though unexpected was no surprise, because I did not want to let go of the moment. I wondered if I'd ever share a space with Melnyk again. I was going to miss being in a room with him and his piano. I'd love to be there right now.
In practice, continuous music means that Melnyk plays long pieces that build and evolve, ebb and flow, inexorably, ever-changing. He moves in complex coruscating arpeggios up and down the keys. He plays with the speed and intensity of the Dead Kennedys and the delicacy of the Cocteau Twins. The sound is ocean waves then raindrops sprinkling a lake. Patterns repeat but subtly shift like Michael McCarthy's grasslands rippled by the wind. The music is physical: you feel it in your chest and your belly as much as you hear it. When I really stay with a Melnyk piece I can feel it in my breathing and in the way I connect with the ground. At the show, as Melnyk and Peter Broderick were finishing up 'Pockets of Light', I noticed my heart was beating in time with the music. It just was!
There are a few nature metaphors there and this is by deliberate design of Melnyk. His 2015 album was called Rivers and Streams and he said then that his playing was akin to water: "flowing and ever connected". He said he was influenced by minimalist composers and I can hear sacred minimalism in Rivers and Streams, 'Pockets of Light', and Fallen Trees, but the sacred object is the natural world.
I had read a bit about Lubomyr Melnyk before flying to London, and I'd listened to him a lot, and I had been looking forward so much to seeing him. I'd read him compared to Rasputin, and I'd seen his prodigious beard, and I imagined some haughty Franz Liszt character. I understood he had claimed to be the Jimi Hendrix of the piano or somesuch and this was fine. I've been to a lot of shows by half-ironic performers who are embarrassed to be as good as they are or to allow their work to mean as much as it could. I was looking forward to seeing someone who knows he is the greatest and does not apologise. I was expecting greatness and seriousness from Lubomyr Melnyk, and that was going to be quite enough. I was expecting to witness mastery. I wasn't expecting as much joy. I had him wrong.
I cannot explain to another pianist what it is, but I could tell them truthfully that being able to play continuous music is worth more than anything in the universe. Anything. It is like having the sun in your hands. It is like having the four winds. It is like having ice and snow. It is like having hurricanes. It's like having steel and factories. It's like having the sunshine just pouring through your fingers. It's – it's – it's a JOY.
– Lubomyr Melnyk, "The Continuous Music Man"
In Hackney, Melnyk bowed and thanked the crowd before walking offstage in a manner so delighted and appreciative that you very much wanted to bear-hug him. He spoke about of his forty-year struggle with a classical music establishment that hadn't wanted to hear continuous music: "But you do!" (Huge cheer.) Built into the bear-hug is the sense of loss of a musician of Melnyk's calibre being overlooked for so long, but there's also an amazing inner resolve at work there. Imagine the belief in yourself and your art that it takes to persist despite apathy from all-comers for thirty years. Imagine that sense of mission! What a gift.
Also, Melnyk is not one to look back. At the show, he said that he would not be playing any old music. He opened with a new work and he said the only person who'd heard it before was himself. "This piece has no name yet," he told us. "It's for you. It's all just music!" His career is a constant act of creating the new right now. He said "There's nothing like the feeling the first time a piece of music is born".
It is a lot to ask of a musician or any artist to ask them to make us feel joy. There is a lot to not be joyful about. There is always a new story about humans destroying each other or destroying the earth. And joy has to be genuine. Joy has to exist despite knowledge that contradicts it. An artist who instils joy must acknowledge the suffering and calamity and still find a spark of eternal hope. This is difficult at the best of times but for weeks before seeing Lubomyr I'd been thinking more than usual about the destruction of the natural world. This is often what's in my mind when nothing else is, but I'd been carrying around a pall of gloom after reading a piece detailing the collapse of insect life in the rain forest in Puerto Rico. I couldn't shake the thought that if they go, we all go, and even if we don't, species-loneliness is what we're leaving our kids. The music in Hackney was suffused with love for nature but can you enjoy hymns to the natural world when the natural world is disappearing? Surely grief is the right response? Surely these are elegies?
I thought about Lubomyr here and his long journey and the ecstatic quality of his work; the bountiful heart that is in it. I watched him play this electric luminous music with his back straight, his arms extended and his eyes closed, like he and the piano were interwoven. I watched him stand and beam and look over at his instrument and touch it again, and shake his head with wonder and say "You know, every day the piano sounds more beautiful". I thought, I really want to accept this joy, but it felt indulgent to do so while the rivers and forests to which Melnyk's music pays homage are being deserted and despoiled.
It's taken a few days to get my head at all straight about this and to attempt a response, which actually comes from Michael McCarthy, a writer and naturalist I encountered on On Being. In The Moth Snowstorm, McCarthy writes that to prevent the ruination of the natural world, people must regain belief in nature's worth. He compares the change in our worldview that will be required to save it to the changes that accompanied the the Renaissance and the spread of religion: "These are great events," he writes, "but they are fully matched in historical significance by the calamitous event we are entering upon, the destruction of the natural world".
He argues that we need to reawaken a delight in nature, to remember "that there is an ancient bond with the natural world surviving deep within us, which makes it not just a luxury, not an optional extra, not even just an enchantment, but part of our essence – the natural home for our psyches where we can find not only joy but also peace, and to destroy which is to destroy a fundamental part of ourselves." He writes that a mature love for the natural world recognises the scale of the threat, and is engaged, and a love for a forest or lake or bird will recognise that they may not be there next year, and that love "will do whatever it can to protect or save it; [it is] a love that can be fierce".
McCarthy's book ends where I think Melnyk and his fallen trees and raindrops and huge unruly beauty comes in; where the joy Melnyk's work invokes and inspires finds an even higher purpose, and finds a hopeful, hard-headed home. "Now as the twenty-first century crashes upon the natural world like a tsnunami, with all the obliteration and merciless unthinking ruin," concludes McCarthy, "let this new love be expressed; let it be articulated; let it be proclaimed."

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


We all want to look good. It's not just about a pretty face, but for others to notice our interesting persona, professionally and socially.
Make-up and right hair style enhances our features, completes our grooming.


text:
/*
  Write a program that prompts the user to enter the exchange rate from
  currency in US dollars to Chinese RMB. Prompt the user to enter 0 to convert
  from US dollars to Chinese RMB and 1 to convert from Chinese RMB to US
  dollars. Prompt the user to enter the amount in US Dollars or Chinese RMB
  to convert it to Chinese RMB or US dollars, respectively.
*/

import java.util.Scanner;

public class E3_31 {
  public static void main(String[] args) {
    Scanner input = new Scanner(System.in);
    System.out.print("Enter the exchange rate from dollars to RMB: ");
    double xRate = input.nextDouble();
    System.out.print("Enter 0 to convert dollars to RMB and 1 vice versa: ");
    int direction = input.nextInt();
    if (direction != 0 && direction != 1) {
      System.out.println("Incorrect input");
      System.exit(1);
    } else if (direction == 0) {
      System.out.print("Enter the dollar amount: ");
    } else {
      System.out.print("Enter the RMB amount: ");
    }
    double amount = input.nextDouble();

    double newCurrency = 0.0;
    if (direction == 0) {
      newCurrency = amount * xRate;
    } else {
      newCurrency = amount / xRate;
    }

    System.out.print(amount + (direction == 0 ? " dollars" : " yuan") +
      " is ");
    if (direction == 1) {
      System.out.printf("$%.2f", newCurrency);
    } else {
      System.out.printf("%.2f yuan", newCurrency);
    }
    System.out.println();
  }
}

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaGithub


The slides from Mr. Coogan's presentation are available for download here (pdf link).
The Wisconsin Chapter of ASHRAE is proud to announce that on Thursday, February 15th, James J. Coogan will be presenting on: "ASHRAE Guideline 36P: High Performance Sequences of Operation".
Jim Coogan is a Principal Engineer in product development and applications at Siemens Building Technologies. In 35 years designing controls for mechanical systems, he has contributed to products ranging from simple room controllers to Internet-based operator interfaces. His work has resulted in numerous patents.
Jim has chaired several ASHRAE Technical Committees including, Control Theory and Applications, and Laboratory Systems. He also chaired the committee that developed a Standard Method of Test for Airflow Controls. Jim serves as vice-chair of the committee updating the ANSI Z9.5 Standard: Laboratory Ventilation. Jim participates in the International Institute for Sustainable Laboratories.
Publications include technical papers on room pressurization and laboratory system commissioning. Jim earned his SB in mechanical engineering at MIT.
The talk recounts the background and history of the project. It presents the development status and likely course to adoption and maintenance. Most importantly, it explains the content of the current draft, enabling system specifiers to pick up selected aspects and put them to work now.
We are very excited to have Jim Coogan for our February DL Presentation.
Distinguished Victor W. Goldschmidt Ph.D.
The Wisconsin Chapter of ASHRAE is proud to announce that on Thursday, November 16th, Victor W. Goldschmidt will be presenting on: "Problem Solving in Engineering".
The presentation will review different problem-solving techniques, from well defined (textbook-type) problems with a single solution to typical engineering problems with multiple and alternative solutions is discussed. The latter require ideation and free-thinking. Blocks to creativity are presented together with actual examples demonstrating these impediments to problem solving.
Victor W. Goldschmidt, Emeritus Mechanical Engineering Professor, served at Purdue University from 1964 through 2000. He is currently serving as a Leelanau County Planning Commissioner as well as a facilitator and engineering consultant. During his 36 years at Purdue University, Mr. Goldschmidt was responsible for educating mechanical engineering students, including the direction of graduate research in the HVAC area. Most of his service with graduate students was with the Ray W. Herrick Laboratories with heavy support from the HVAC industries. During early stages of his career, he served as Director of the Engineering Purdue Fellows in Latin America; during later stages he served as department head for Freshman Engineering. Prior to his academic involvement, he worked in Applications Engineering and Development Engineering with Honeywell. Mr. Goldschmidt has taught almost every course in thermal sciences offered at Purdue, as well as a special upper level technical course on the "Creative Process in Engineering." He is trained as a Synectics (special brainstorming) facilitator and is currently engaged in the development of strategic plans and problem solving sessions. A past ASHRAE Director-at-Large, he also has served as a member of Publishing and Technology Councils. He is an ASHRAE Distinguished Service Award recipient and Fellow, as well as Honorary Member of IIR, ACAIRE, ASURVAC and AAF. He resides in North Michigan, above Traverse City.
Registration is below. Currently, the location & venue for the event are being arranged. An email notification will be sent to all WI Chapter email subscribers prior to the event.
Miller Engineering is seeking an experienced and client-focused HVAC Design Engineer for commercial and Mission Critical projects.
The position would involve design development through construction-phase support, coordination with multiple disciplines and clients, and providing innovative solutions.
The Miller Engineering job listing with a complete description of the position can be found under the CONTACT section of the website here.


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Unfortunately due to my workload "She who must be obeyed" (my wife Anita ) and I were unable to make it to The Pirates first gig at Tampere in mid-Finland on Wednesday 15th November but we arrived to a blanket of snow late on Thursday 16th and settled in at our airport hotel for the night. The next day (Friday ) after collecting our hire car with suitably studded tyres we set off on a 120Km drive to Kouvola for The Pirates second gig of this three leg tour.
More by luck than judgement we found that our internet-booked hotel was just 200metres from the venue: "The House of Rock" - so in the afternoon we walked down there to check it out. As we arrived I was recognised by the guys from "Doctors Order" ( more about them later ) and they gave us a pair of much coveted Doctors Order T Shirts. I'd been in touch with them via email for some time prior so it was great to meet them in person. They'd also brought me a copy of their earlier CD to go with the new release "The Doc Pack" which they'd sent me a few weeks ago. And for 10 minutes I got to be an unofficial "roadie" and carry in the snare and bass drums and a few other "necessaries". Doctors Order had been The Pirates support band in Tampere, and on many previous tours, and would be doing the honours again at the third gig in Loviisa on Saturday night. They were also lending The Pirates a drum kit and a couple of amps. The rest of The Pirates kit was hired in. Just as the last piece was being carried in a massive 20 foot black GMC truck pulled up and out from behind the blacked out windows came Mick, John and Mike – when The Pirates travel they do it in style. We all chatted for a while and then "The Boss" ( Anita ) and I left them to the rest of their sound checks and we went shopping. Upon leaving I noticed the A3 poster - which I now have - had Mike Roberts' name on it as well as Mick Green and Johnny Spence - nice touch and I know Mike was well pleased.
The support band this night, "Mala and the Gas Station" went on at around 10:30 to a very enthusiastic crowd and did a strange mix of Rockabilly meets Rhythm & Country. They mixed standard rock and roll numbers with their own versions of Johnny Cash classics "I walk the Line" and "Wanted Man". It seemed to go down well but judging from the huge number of Pirates T-Shirts on show it was obvious who they were waiting for. At midnight Mick, John and Mike took the stage to a tremendous reception and proceeded to play their hearts out for over an hour. The sound quality in the hall was superbly mixed by the guy at the controls but it was obvious Mick missed his own guitars and the cheaper Portuguese replica he had was no match for his talents – but he still made it sing beautifully. The Pirates were fantastic – there's no way of understating the effect that they had on the crowd …. maybe it was the other way around, perhaps the dynamo effect from the floor gave the lads a bit more "get and go". Either way it was great set and a terrific sound.
At this point I'd like to thank the many, many Finns who made it their quest to look after Anita and I at both gigs – and I don't just mean all the offers of free drink ( I could have been paralytic for weeks if I'd taken them up ). The "locals" really are a great bunch and we were well looked after in Kouvola and again in Loviisa. You can see a few of them below. I must admit to feeling a fraud in gaining this notoriety because of The Pirates but I'm more than pleased to be their Ambassador. Over the course of both evenings we were accosted ( nicely ) by so many fans wanting to hear all the latest news and, touchingly, many of them asked after Frank's health and were genuinely saddened to hear of his retirement. And it's not just casual observance by these fans - they know all the words and the history. Several told me of how they'd been to London in the 70s and seen The Pirates for the first time and one even recalled going to Hamburg and seeing Johnny Kidd and The Pirates in the early 60s..
On Friday morning, after barely 4 hours sleep, "Management" (Anita) and I set off towards the next stop: Loviisa. It should have been about 30Km back towards Helsinki but we decided on a drive out in the beautiful country and ended up make a 200Km circle which took us to within 10Km of the Russian border. We reached our Hotel and our fantastic suite at the Degerby Hotel at around 4pm ,in the dark – they have less hours of sunlight up there. It wasn't until I looked out of one of our windows that I saw that the venue- the Zilton –was directly opposite. Lucky again !
This very week (November 2006) The Pirates and Doctors Order got together in the studio and laid down 6 new tracks. They're going to be released as a min-album by the Doctors early next year. Mick plays on every track and John sings vocals on rockabilly version of "drinkin' wine"
You couldn't wish to meet 3 more pleasant or more polite guys. And smart dressers too. On stage they wear crisp dark suits, shirts, coloured ties and silver toed spats on their feet. Off stage when mingling with their audience they wear their uniform black and silver surfer-boy style shirts beautifully embroidered with their own name and "Doctors Order" proudly on display. Their stage act is electric. Their musicianship is first class and they're showman to the end. They write most of their own material and have some interesting arrangements of standards and classics, including as I witnessed tonight a stonking "I Can Tell". True, true professionals.
They have a trademark item where Archie wanders off into the dance floor trailing a 30 foot guitar lead behind, plays some blinding strings and joins the throng of revellers who want to dance all night. This man can play !! He's then joined by Teppo and Harry for a spot of accapello before, without stopping, they all return to the stage and launch into yet another blistering attack of Rock and Roll.
Teppo provides a very solid bass ( using it like a lead guitar at times ! ) whilst belting out vocals at what can only be described as fog-horn level and in a voice as gruff as his Teddy Bear persona – excellent.
Watching Harry is like watching Keith Moon meets "Animal" from the Muppets. His hands are a blur as he seems to hit every drum and cymbal at once and never missing a beat. I could watch this guy all night.
So there it is – Doctors Order: 3 superb musicians, real entertainers with a large loyal fan base and above all, thoroughly great guys. It was a privilege and great fun to share some time with them between gigs.
1.00am came and it was time for the main event: The Pirates entered the arena and the atmosphere was wild. Mick had solved his guitar problem by borrowing Archie's Gibson – something which Archie was most proud of and I've promised to send him the photos. Again the sound was superb. I normally find Pirates gigs deafening and all too often Mick's guitar distorts in a cacophony which, combined with the others, leaves me deaf for hours after. Tonight it was perfect – you could hear everything clearly and come away with 20/20 hearing intact. Mike did a drum solo which sent the audience into rounds of applause and cheers. John wore his new hat and sounded better than I've heard him for a while. And Mick ! – well, Mick played those strings like he was born with them – amazing riffs and perfect chords. Perhaps, again the audience spurred them on. At the end of the set John had to apologise that, due to location of the stage they could hardly go off and come back on for an encore so "Good night and Thank you". No Chance !!! The crowd started singing "Shakin.." and the guys gladly did a belting encore before trying to make their way through the crowd and back to their rooms. A superb performance and certainly the best I've seen from them. It had the masses up dancing from start to finish right in front of the stage. That's not something you see over here where we all tend to stand enthusiastically in front of the stage. In Finland they dance.
We thoroughly enjoyed our trip and we thank Mick, John, Mike, Teppo, Archie, Harri and all the fantastic people of Finland for making it so special. I can thoroughly recommend it to anyone who's thinking of going next year for the repeat.


text:
ARM picks four new robotics projects for fifth funding round
By The Robot Report Staff | December 2, 2019
Source: ARM
PITTSBURGH — The ARM public-private consortium today announced that it has funded four more projects that responded to its fifth Technology Project Call earlier this year. This brings the number of supported projects to 49, involving 44% of ARM's 220 member organizations.
Carnegie Mellon University founded the Advanced Robotics for Manufacturing (ARM) Institute in 2017 through an independent non-profit funded by the U.S. Department of Defense. The organization's mission is to help U.S. manufacturing be competitive through the adoption of robotics and workforce development. ARM is part of the Manufacturing USA network.
Pending final negotiations, ARM plans to provide more than $1.6 million in funding, for a total investment of approximately $5.3 million across the four projects. It previously announced six funded projects in response to its fourth call.
"These projects epitomize the strength of the ARM consortium, bringing together diverse organizations to improve manufacturing processes and lower the barriers to adopting robotics," stated Arnold Kravitz, chief technology officer of ARM. "These projects help to ease issues inhibiting growth in U.S. manufacturing, while elevating the human roles."
The four new projects are as follows:
Human-Robot Collaboration in Quality Inspection
Principal investigator: Fiat Chrysler
This project seeks to improve inspection processes for part quality assurance through the development of an easily programmable robotic 3D inspection system. Success will be measured through improvements in resolution, cycle time, programming time, and enhanced insights. By project's end, the team intends to demonstrate a system that can automatically calibrate and work with existing coordinate-measuring machines (CMMs).
Path Planning for Precision Brazing
Principal investigator: Siemens
Current precision-brazing operations rely on highly manual processes in hazardous environments with high temperatures and noxious fumes. As such, there are a limited number of skilled welders to perform these processes. This project seeks a collaborative robotic solution to supplement the workforce gap through a system where the robot ensures precise flame and temperature control while a skilled operator performs quality control and adds filler material.
SAFE: Safe Autonomy Features in the Edge
This project seeks to leverage advancements in sensors, edge intelligence, robotics, and fail-safe controls to ensure the safety of human workers around their robotic counterparts, specifically automated guided vehicles (AGVs). Current AGVs are limited to moving on a predefined path in a highly controlled manner, limiting real-time decision-making opportunities for human counterparts. This project team aims to improve human sensing and perception in AGVs, allowing for wider and safer applications.
Systematic Robotics Application Assessment Methods and Tools for Decision-Making
Principal investigator: Schlumberger Technology Corp.
Due to the cost and perceived risk with implementing robotics, advocates are often putting their reputations on the line when advocating for adopting robotics in manufacturing processes. This project seeks to minimize risk to manufacturers by improving methods and tools for evaluating manufacturing readiness levels for robotic applications. The expected project outputs include an expert-system-based software platform that identifies the key robotics parameters for a given manufacturing process and suggest solutions.
New project calls
ARM currently has an active Education & Workforce Development Project call. Proposals for this call are due on Wednesday, Dec. 11, 2019. Note that only ARM member can submit proposals.
In addition, ARM last month said that it has been chosen to facilitate and manage a new technology project call for the Department of Defense focused on sustainment. The call and supporting documents will be available for download on ARM's member community and public website on Dec. 4. Learn more about ARM's active project calls at its site.
Ford automates fog light installation with KUKA LBR iiwa cobots
In 2020, AI to enable acceleration from automation to autonomy, say experts
Toshiba Machine debuts collaborative SCARA, humanoid robots at IREX 2019
Techman Robot unveils new arm, factory management software


text:
Swedish dairy farmers' perceptions of animal welfare inspections
Lundmark Hedman, Frida; Rodriguez Ewerlöf, Ivana; Frössling, Jenny; Berg, Lotta
Farmers today must comply with animal welfare legislation and often one or more private standards. This makes the number of regulations quite comprehensive and the control arena more complex, with several different animal welfare inspections and audits taking place at farm level. This study investigated perceptions among dairy farmers in Sweden of the official animal welfare inspections and the private Arla and KRAV audits, both separately and in relation to each other, and examined associated factors that could potentially influence their perceptions. An electronic questionnaire was developed and answered by 216 Swedish dairy farmers during spring 2021. The respondents in general acknowledged the need for animal welfare inspections, but had rather diverse perceptions of the actual inspections and inspectors, reporting both positive and negative experiences. They reported more negative experiences of official and Arla inspections than of KRAV (organic farming) inspections and most did not believe that inspections had improved animal welfare on their farm. Most of the respondents called for better coordination between the different inspection types. Most farmers reported being very worried before an official or Arla inspection, which was related to their more negative perceptions of these inspections. Other factors associated with farmers' perception of the inspections were e.g., acceptance of a regulation, the perceived necessity of an inspection, satisfaction with the inspector's competence, manner, and behavior, perceived fairness of treatment, and whether non-compliances were recorded. The farmers perceived official inspections as more negative if the inspector was a young woman, if there was more than one inspector present, and if the inspection was not pre-announced. These findings indicate a need for objective and accurate communication regarding different animal welfare regulations and inspections. To achieve greater trust and lower concerns among farmers about animal welfare inspections, all stakeholders need to be involved in communication.
compliance; control; experience; legislation; private standards
Frontiers in animal science
2022, volume: 3, article number: 1079457
Lundmark Hedman, Frida
Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, Department of Animal Environment and Health
Rodriguez Ewerlöf, Ivana
National Veterinary Institute (SVA)
Frössling, Jenny
Berg, Lotta
Animal and Dairy Science
DOI: https://doi.org/10.3389/fanim.2022.1079457


What percentage of U.S. adults regularly or sometimes get their campaign news from late night comedy shows?
According to lecture, what types of appeals do political advertisements use? Be able to recognize and give examples.
What are the effects of political advertisements dependent upon? Who is most and least likely to be affected?
What are Negative Campaign Ads?
what types of effects can Negative campaign ads have?
According to lecture, why (and when) do candidates use negative ads?
Why do news programs include political ads in their news coverage?
How can candidates use social media to promote their campaign?
LOCALISM: An American tradition, PUBLIC OWNERSHIP, supporting local economy, high customer service, localize and higher quality items.
CONCENTRATION: CORPORATE OWNERSHIP, cheaper because you buy in bulk, big employer, controlled access.
Be able to define and identify examples of monopoly and oligopoly.
HORIZONTAL INTEGRATION: Concentrates ownership by acquiring companies that are in the same business, such as several radio stations.
Be able to recognize examples of product placement.
What approaches are the film industry taking to adjust to new technology?
What are the different ways that movies can make money?
Approximately what percentage of movies make money at the domestic box office?
Approximately what percentage of domestic box office revenue is kept by movie theaters?
What are the differences between the "traditional" and the "advertiser-integrated" model of TV production?
What are the differences between (and the implications of) the Fairness Doctrine and Equal Time Rule?
What was the original intent of the Telecommunications Act of 1996? What was the actual outcome on media ownership?
What is the impact of the Net Neutrality rules passed in 2015 on access to content?
NET NEUTRALITY: the principle that every web site and every user whether a multinational corporation of you has the right to the same internet network speed and access.
What do the First Amendment and Fourth Amendment guarantee?
Which federal agencies are responsible for regulating media content and compliance?
In the Pentagon Papers case how did the Supreme Court rule on the government's ability to exercise prior restraint?
What types of expression are limited (7 were identified)?
What are the characteristics of "libel" and how do these differ for "public" and for "private" citizens?
How is privacy protected (or not)? What's the difference in privacy protections for public and private citizens?
What are the differences between the authoritarian, state, libertarian, and social responsibility models of expression and speech?
-Authoritarian model: when printing press arrived in 16th century England, it advocated held that the general public, largely illiterate in those days, needed guidance from an elite, educated ruling class. Government criticism and public dissent were not tolerated, especially if speech undermined "the common good". Censorship was frequent.
-Communist or state model: press is controlled by the government because state leaders believe the press should serve the goals of the state. Some government criticism is tolerated but ideas that challenge the basic premises of state authority are not.
-Libertarian model: encourages vigorous government criticism and supports the highest degree of individual and press freedoms. No restrictions would be placed ont eh mass media or individual speech. They tolerate the expression of anything.
What are V-Chips and what percentage of families actually use them?
V-Chip: a computer chip installed in a television receiver that can be programmed by the user to block or scramble material containing a special code in its signal indicating that it is deemed violent or sexually explicit.
What ruling required TV broadcasters to develop a rating system for television? What are the concerns about applying "labels" or ratings to programs?
What is the "Miller Act" and how does it define obscenity?
What are "community standards" and why are they a problem on the Internet?
What is a Chilling Effect and how has this term been used to defend against speech regulation?
It is the discouragement of the legitimate exercise of natural and legal rights by the threat of legal sanction…the right that is most often described as being suppressed by a chilling effect is the US constitutional right to free speech because the government will often threaten consequences prior to publication of media that can be thought to effect national security.
How did "packaging" of products allow manufacturers (and advertisers) to demand more money for the product?
What federal act was passed to monitor patent medicine claims? Which contemporary products were originally sold as medicine?
The Federal Food and Drug Act was passed in 1906 to monitor patent medicine claims. Originally powerful drugs were sold as medicines and they made people feel better. Mrs. Winslow's Soothing Syrup contained morphine and Coca-Cola originated as a medicinal tonic and contained traces of cocaine until it was replaced with caffeine in 1903. Early Post and Kellogg's cereal ads promised to cure stomach and digestive problems.
What is the major difference between mega-agencies and boutique agencies?
Mega-agencies are large ad firms that formed by merging several agencies and maintain regional offices worldwide, while boutique agencies are small and devote their talents to only a handful of select clients.
What is subliminal advertising? Be able to identify examples.
What does VALS stand for? Be prepared to describe two of the different VALS types and predict the types of products they might purchase.
It stands for Values and Lifestyles and it provides advertisers with microscopic details about which consumers are most likely to buy which products. Achievers and experiencers watch more sports and news programs; these groups prefer luxury cars or sport-utility vehicles. Thinkers favor TV dramas and documentaries and like the functionality of minivans or the gas efficiency of hybrids.
How has the Internet increased the ability of advertisers to integrate their products into program websites and to use new and different techniques to reach target audiences?
Why do advertisements use familiar images, stock characters, and stereotypes?
Makes the company seems like it relates to you and makes you want to buy their product.
A brand is a name, term, sign, symbol or any other feature that identifies one seller's good or service. Brands are worth money than products. Someone would pay the extra money for bottle Fiji water than drinking tap water. Dove's commercial for showing women's beauty redefined the brand and had people buying Dove products because it made women feel good about themselves.
What are the 4 Ps of marketing? How can you manipulate those "Ps?" (Be able to recognize examples).
What is positioning? Be able to recognize examples.
What are the three steps to creating an ad?
1. Learn everything you can about the product and consumer.
2. Figure out what you are going to say; what your strategy is.
3. Figure out how you're going to do it- your execution, campaign, the ad.
They are the people that come up with the physical advertisements based on the creative briefs.
Who is the biggest advertiser in the U.S.?
What are advertisers afraid of?
What is Native advertising? Be able to recognize examples.
What is the difference between Puffery and Deception?
What are demographics and psychographics?


text:
Harvey Jones | Saturday, 29th June, 2019
Despite its limitations, the State Pension still forms the bedrock of most people's retirement planning. The first problem is, it only pays £8,767.20 a year, which is barely a third of the average full-time salary.
Beware falling income
There's another problem. If you're in a couple and your partner dies, their State Pension now dies with them. If you rely entirely on the State Pension, this could immediately slash your household income by half, according to a new warning from insurer Royal London.
It wasn't always this way. Some bereaved spouses could claim an enhanced pension based on their partner's National Insurance record. But this entitlement was swept away when the new State Pension was introduced in April 2016.
Married couples who retire after that date no longer inherit a State Pension when their spouse dies, so the survivor's household income could plummet. Women are hardest hit, because they typically have fewer company pensions or other savings in their own name.
Single life annuity trap
They will be hit even harder if their husband bought a single life annuity which stops paying out when he dies. A joint life annuity pays a lower starting income but will continue to give a bereaved spouse 50% of that for life.
It's all horribly complex. But if you are worried, it's worth checking whether you will inherit your partner's company and personal pensions should they die.
There is one more thing you can do. Reduce your reliance on the State Pension by saving for the future under your own name.
Get saving now!
If you have access to a company pension, resist the temptation to opt out. Then top it up by saving in a company pension, or Stocks and Shares ISA.
The ISA option is so attractive because it allows you to invest in pretty much any stock or fund you wish, and then take all your returns free of income tax and capital gains tax.
If you don't know where to start, you could sign up to a low-cost online investment platform which allows you buy shares from just £25 a month, or lump sums of as little as £100.
Once you have done that, you need to start building a balanced portfolio with exposure to a mix of UK shares and funds, and global investments as well.
Perhaps the simplest way to start is to buy a low-cost exchange traded fund (ETF), such as the iShares Core FTSE 100 UCITS ETF, which simply tracks the performance of the UK benchmark index of top 100 stocks, with a tiny annual fee of just 0.07%.
You could then balance this by investing in medium-sized UK companies through another low-cost ETF, HSBC FTSE 250 UCITS ETF, which has a slightly higher ongoing charge of 0.35%.
That could give you a bedrock to your portfolio which you could then supplement with individual shares, such as oil major BP and global mining giant Rio Tinto. You might soon discover that investing can be fun, which should encourage you to put even more money away.
If you do this, the pain of bereavement won't be made worse by that subsequent financial shock.
Harvey Jones has no position in any of the shares mentioned. The Motley Fool UK has no position in any of the shares mentioned. Views expressed on the companies mentioned in this article are those of the writer and therefore may differ from the official recommendations we make in our subscription services such as Share Advisor, Hidden Winners and Pro. Here at The Motley Fool we believe that considering a diverse range of insights makes us better investors.


text:
in the shadow of 10000 hills
Jennifer Haupt, Six Tips for Putting Your WIP Aside – without Declaring It RIP
by Susan Henderson on March 31, 2018
In 2009, I went the Community of Writers at Squaw Valley to see if I could get unstuck with the novel I was writing. What a gift it was to meet Jennifer Haupt there! She was on her own quest, and we bonded right away over our love of literature, our broken spirits, and our struggle to create a story from traumatic material.
In the Shadow of 10,000 Hills , her profoundly moving novel, out this month, takes readers on a journey that spans from the turmoil of Civil Rights Era Atlanta to an orphanage in Rwanda born of unspeakable tragedy. In this hopeful story that transcends race and cultural differences, Jennifer Haupt guides both the survivors and readers toward the courage to believe in love again. An important story reminding us that when a crime is unforgivable, only grace will do.
I asked Jen if she'd write a letter to you because she is full of wisdom and heart. I had no idea she was going to give you something so beautiful as this. Enjoy!
Dearest You,
Every author dreads hearing these words from their agent or editor or mean little voice in their head: "Well, that's the end of the road. Time to put this novel to rest and start writing something new."
I heard these words from my then-agent, seven years ago after the novel I had been working on for three years was rejected by, as I recall in my memory warped by time, every editor in the universe and their mother. I cried every day for at least a month, my soul ached for much longer. I was ashamed. I was embarrassed. I was grieving.
(Spoiler alert!) Thankfully, there's a happy ending to this story: That novel became In the Shadow of 10,000 Hills, which was finally — finally!! — published this week after 11 years of work.
No wait, I just lied. Yes, it's been 11 years since I first started writing this book but I did put it aside several times. That first time was not my choice, and it was extremely painful. The second time, the time I really want to tell you about, was my choice. I want to spare you some of the pain, self-doubt and humiliation I heaped on myself that first time, before I found my footing on a new path (and a new agent!) because these are the tools that resistance uses to keep us all from writing.
I want you to write and be happy. That's why I'm sharing some strategies I gleaned over the past 11 years for how to stop writing — at least for a little while. Here are six tips for putting your WIP aside, without declaring it RIP:
Tip #1: Buy yellow tissue paper and gold stars.
This is a variation of advice I received from our very own Susan Henderson when we met at the Squaw Valley Writers Conference, a month after my agent told me to bury my novel. I shared my secret shame with this lovely woman, and she told me her debut novel recently sold after years of turmoil. She told me she had to fight for her novel, including sending it to editors wrapped in colored tissue paper, scattered with gold stars. (This may not be exactly correct but it's how I remember it.) Susan, along with other writers I met that week who had their own stories of perseverance, inspired me not to give up.
I went home with a renewed commitment to deepening my characters and their plot lines. Long-story-short: After another three years, I sent my novel to three agents. One took me on as a client and sent my novel to a handful of editors. All of them had nice things to say, but none offered a publishing contract.
This time, it was my choice to put aside my novel, and I did it with love. I printed out my manuscript, wrapped it in yellow tissue paper (because sunflowers were my spirit flower for this novel), and lovingly placed it in a drawer of my desk. (Not the bottom drawer, that seemed a little cliché.) I didn't know exactly when I'd unwrap those pages again, but I knew I would not forget it was there. You may actually buy whatever color tissue paper speaks to you and your WIP!
Tip #2: Don't forget about your WIP — even while it's in the drawer.
You're probably wondering about those gold stars from tip one. Here's what I did with mine: I put them in a sea-green glass jar, along with a note that said, simply: Don't Give Up. I kept that jar on my fiction alter, a small table next to the chair I like to sit in (and nap in) while working on a novel.
I didn't want to give up, to lose the characters and world I had spent six years lovingly creating even though my novel was still flawed and I had no idea how to fix it. This helped ward off the grief I had experienced when I hit the end of the road three years earlier; I knew my WIP was still alive and well. We just needed some time apart.
Tip #3: Start a new, totally unrelated, creative project.
Remember this: it's not cheating on your WIP to write that essay you've been mulling over, taking painting lessons, weed the front garden and plant spring flowers… all of the things you haven't had time for because, let's face it, WIPs can be high-maintenance and jealous of the time you spend away from them.
The thing I learned, while my WIP was slumbering in yellow tissue paper and stars is that waking up other passions, broadening my creativity, was actually good for my WIP! I spent a few months cooking, gardening, taking longer walks in the woods, reading — lots of reading! — and when I re-entered novel-land I had more to bring to the pages.
Tip #4: Practice self-compassion.
This tip is closely related to the last one. Do what you love, and the story will follow. (I give no guarantees about the money!)
In retrospect, I was so very mean to myself the first time I put aside my WIP. It's impossible to be compassionate with your characters, or real folks for that matter, when you aren't practicing self-compassion. So, don't beat yourself up for taking a break from your WIP — sometimes, that's the best thing you can do for yourself and your book.
Tip #5: Don't stop working on craft.
Sorry, but I'm afraid you aren't going to become a better writer without, well, actually writing. The good news is that putting aside your WIP leaves more time for studying the work of authors you admire. I've taken a lot of workshops over the past 11 years, and I truly believe the most effective way I've upped my skills is studying the books I love reading. I underline passages I wish I had written, and then I copy them into a notebook and rewrite them using my own words. Most of these passages make it into whatever WIP I'm working on.
I actually kept my first novel wrapped in yellow tissue paper for two years and wrote a completely new novel, instead of carving up my poor first novel yet another time. I set 50 pages at a time to a consulting editor who worked part-time at a major publishing house, had launched a successful literary magazine, and was the author of a bestselling novel. I also took workshops at Hugo House in Seattle, I read a lot (again)… I invested in what I wanted to be my career.
Tip #6: Set a begin-again date.
One thing that keeps writers from putting aside their beloved WIP is the fear that it will, in fact, wind up being the end of the road — and with good reason! Setting a begin-again date, even if it seems arbitrary, helps to soothe that worry. Although, the truth is, your gut will tell you when you're ready to re-enter novel-land.
My gut told me, after I spent two years writing my second novel, that the book I really wanted to be my debut was wrapped in yellow tissue paper. I felt absolutely no sense of failure wrapping novel #2 in lavender tissue paper. My begin-again date was one year. I knew it would take me that long to not just revise, but restructure my first novel. (Restructuring… that's another story for another time!)
So there you have it, permission to set aside your WIP. I'm quite certain that's a huge relief for some of you! For others, I hope it's a safety net. When you begin to feel your book is a burden instead of a joy, give yourself permission to set it aside — without burying it for good.
Jennifer Haupt went to Rwanda as a journalist in 2006, twelve years after the genocide that wiped out over one million people, to explore the connections between forgiveness and grief. She spent a month interviewing survivors and humanitarian aid workers, and returned to Seattle with something unexpected: the bones of a novel. Haupt's essays and articles have been published in O, The Oprah Magazine, The Rumpus, Spirituality & Health, Psychology Today, Travel & Leisure, The Sun and many other publications. In the Shadow of 10,000 Hills is her first novel.


GuitAria reawakens the ancient combination of voice and guitar, producing sounds ranging from Renaissance ruminations and John Cage soundscapes to original collisions between art song and popular song. Alexandra Grabarchuk, when not singing in her sumptuous alto voice, chimes in on toy piano, while guitarist Peter Yates plucks, stomps and croons in accompaniment. The texts, including remarks by Mark Twain, Franz Kafka and Oscar Levant, pass through portals of humor into hidden realms of contemplation. Throughout, the self is presented as a changing point of reference, the meaning of life is derived from its opposite, and things in general are never as they seem. This album includes the cycle One Step Outside of This Gazebo, which depicts a diva's journey from self-involvement to awareness and acceptance, using paired voices, toy piano, foot-shaker and guitar in textures of fingerpicking, rock 'n' roll (if it modulated four times in seven measures), imaginary folksong, reimagined cabaret, and tolling chimes of inevitability. From sour agitation to calm beauty, the story caroms its way along to the final words: "It ends."
Songs by Juan Vasquez, John Cage, Händel, Guillaume Dufay, Monteverdi, and Peter Yates. Alex Grabarchuk, voice and toy piano; Peter Yates, guitar, voice, percussion.
I love the sound of this recording. The balances are just right, and everything is played and sung so soulfully. Alexandra's voice is shown off at its best as is Peter's. And the guitar sound is enticing—just the right balance of warmth and flash. The songs are top-drawer—first rate.
Vasquez: Con que la lavare?


The nascent garment industry in Myanmar has grown significantly in the past five years, from an export value of US$900 million in 2012 to $2.7 billion in 2017.
Europe is the most important market for Myanmar-made garments. According to figures compiled by SMART Myanmar, hotspots include Germany, which accounted for $519 million worth of exports in 2017 and the United Kingdom, which bought garments worth $213 million in the same year. Projections for full-year 2018 are higher, with $930 million worth of garment exports forecast to Germany alone.
The growth of Myanmar's garment sector has taken place at a time when wages in other regional production hubs such as Vietnam have become increasingly expensive. Meanwhile, other centres including Bangladesh have suffered safety and security issues.
Over 1.1 million workers are currently employed in garment, textile, footwear and accessories factories in Myanmar. Additional tens of thousands indirectly work in the industry through logistics and transport services. Research commissioned by C&A Foundation in 2017 predicted that the sector could employ over 1.5 million people by 2020.
Factory expansion has slowed this year due to the political risk stemming from the crisis in Rakhine State. Nevertheless, SMART Myanmar, a project funded by the European Union, recorded 19 factories that have registered so far in 2017 for garment or footwear production.
The industry's rapid expansion in the coming years depends in part on the continuation of trade privileges granted under the EU's Generalised System of Preferences in 2013. On November 2, the EU warned that Myanmar could lose its tariff-free access to the European market if it does not address concerns about human rights violations.
The removal of EU trade preferences would not spell doom for the market; Japan and Korea are the second and third largest trading partners for Myanmar's garment factories.
Factories in Myanmar are primarily set up for cut, make, pack (CMP) contract manufacturing. Under this model, a foreign buyer pays a factory to carry out the labour-intensive aspects of garment production including cutting fabric and sewing garments together according to a template design.
However, an increasing number of factories are now adopting various forms of wet processing, such as dyeing, washing and printing, according to Mr. Jacob Clere, team leader for SMART Myanmar.
Publicly and privately financed vocational training centres are also being opened in Yangon. For example, several training centres offer sewing operator courses that collectively train up about 500 new operators each month, though there is still a need for more such centres.
In one of the training centres run by Aung Myin Hmu, a consortium including CARE Myanmar, BusinessKind Myanmar and Pyoe Pin, supervisors are taught how to manage deadlines, as well as communication and quality control.
One of the directors, Ms. Suzanne Tym, believes investment in line supervisors will be key, as factories expand across Myanmar and businesses seek to improve workers' skills.
As workers become more skilled, Myanmar's minimum wage has also increased, rising in May from 3,600 kyats per day to 4,800 kyats, following a year-long national consultation by a Tripartite National Minimum Wage Committee.
While the garment industry is concentrated mostly in Yangon's Hlaing Tharyar township, there are other growth centres including the Thilawa Special Economic Zone, a 2,400-hectare area beside a deep-sea port some 25 kilometres south of Yangon.
There are also promising garment production centres in Bago, two hours' drive north of Yangon and Pathein in Ayeyarwady Region, according to the Myanmar Garment Manufacturers Association. Incentives to set up factories in these two cities include 50-year leases for foreign investors.
One downside to building a factory in Pathein according to the MGMA is that goods must be transported to and from the region by truck, but the regional government is planning to build a deep-sea port in the region – which would make Pathein an attractive investment destination.
Several garment factories are also being set up in the Kayin State capital of Hpa-an, near the Thai border, where labour costs are cheaper than in Yangon, and new tax structures under the Myanmar Investment Law provide five and seven-year tax holidays for factories in less developed cities and towns.
In Mandalay, Myanmar's second-largest city, factories mostly cater to the domestic market. The city is a centre for textile production and there are hundreds of workshops and small factories around the city that produce and dye cotton textiles.


You can cancel Viasat Internet by calling 855-393-3302.
Hello Marcia, We're sorry to hear you want to cancel your service. In order to cancel, please call Customer Care at 855.463.9333.
"Final arrangements" makes it sound like you're going to kill people who want to cancel, lol.
Make her an an offer she can't refuse.
I don't think you want to leave your email address on a forum like this for the world to see. Call the number you were given and stay on line until you talk to a real person.