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Category Archives: david bowie
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David Bowie Is app: Floating in a most peculiar way
January 9, 2019 Tim Anderson	Leave a comment
The exhibition David Bowie Is, originally at the Victoria and Albert museum in London and subsequently on tour around the world, has proved an enormous success with over 2 million visitors in 12 locations. Sony Entertainment has now released David Bowie Is AR Exhibition, an app for iOS and Android that uses Augmented Reality to enable users to enjoy the exhibition at home and whenever they like.
I found the app though-provoking. I am a fan of course, so keen to see the material; and I attended the London exhibition twice so I have some context.
I tried the app on an Honor 10 AI – note that you have to download the Google ARCore library first, if it is not already installed. Then I ran the app and found it somewhat frustrating. When the app starts up, you get a calibrating screen and this has to complete before you can progress.
If you struggle at all with this, I recommend having a look at the help, which says to "Find a well-lit surface with a visible pattern or a few flat items on it. A magazine on a desk or table works well." Another tip is that the app is designed for a table-top experience. So sit at a desk, do not try walking around and using a wall.
The app streams a lot of data. So if you are on a poor connection, expect to wait while the orange thermometer bar fills up at the bottom of the screen. The streaming/caching could probably be much improved.
Once I got the app working I began to warm to it. You can think of it as a series of pages or virtual rooms. Each room has an array of object in it, and you tap an object to bring it into view. Once an object is focused like this, you can zoom in by moving the phone. Pinch to zoom should work too though I had some problems with it.
Here is a view of the recording page:
and here I've brought a page of Bowie's notes into view (note the caption which appears) and zoomed in; the resolution is good.
The clever bit is that you can move objects around by tap and drag. This is a nice feature when viewing Bowie's cut-up lyric technique, since you can drag the pieces around to exercise your own creativity.
Fair enough, but is this really Augmented Reality? I'd argue not, since it does not mix the real world with the virtual world. It just uses the AR platform as a viewer into this virtualised environment.
The experience is good when it works, but not if you get disappearing content, endless "calibration", stuttering videos, or content that is too small and stubbornly refuses to come into view – all issues which I encountered. It also requires a fairly high-end phone or tablet. So your environment has to be just right for it to work; not ideal for enjoying on a train journey, for example. And some of the content is literally shaky; I think this is a bug and may improve with an update.
Would it be better if it were presented in a more traditional ways, as a database of items which you could search and view? Unfortunately I think it would. This would also reduce the system requirements and enable more people to enjoy it.
It does look as if there is a lot here. According to the site:
56 costumes
60 original lyric sheets
33 drawings and sketches
7 paintings
I would love to be able to look up these items easily. Instead I have to hunt through the virtual rooms and hope I can find what I am looking for. Just like a real exhibition, complete with crowds and kids wanting toilets I guess.
augmented realitydavid bowie
david bowie, music
David Bowie's Welcome to the Blackout released on CD
July 3, 2018 Tim Anderson	1 Comment
David Bowie's Welcome the Blackout, originally a Record Store Day vinyl exclusive, has now been released on CD and streaming services.
The album is excellent, a live performance taken from Earls Court London on June 30th and July 1st 1978. The tour is the same one from which the earlier release Stage was taken, but on this one both the performance and the recording is superior in my opinion. I have reviewed it based on the vinyl release here.
Now the CD is here, packaged in a tri-fold sleeve even though there are only 2 CDs. Two of the inner panels are blank black, which I guess is a design reference to the title.
You also get a fold-out with sleeve notes and a small poster, which was not included in the vinyl release. There is a a review of one of the concerts by David Hancock (first published 30th June 1978 which must mean it is of the 29th June performance NOT featured here, but it matters little). The front of the fold-out is the cover of the tour programme/magazine, called ISOLAR 2.
Apparently these extras are a limited release (though I would guess a large number has been produced). There is also an unlimited release in a standard jewel case without the booklet (as I understand it).
The sound of the CD is fine and similar to the vinyl. This is not something to take for granted, as CDs are often mastered for a louder sound at the expense of dynamics.
Recommended if you don't have the vinyl and want a physical release.
david bowie, music, reviews
David Bowie: Welcome to the Blackout
April 22, 2018 Tim Anderson	8 Comments
The 21st April 2018 was Record Store Day, when the industry comes up with hundreds of special edition vinyl records which are offered for sale only through independent record shops. A helping hand for the independents, or a an attempt to con us into buying overpriced product via the old trick of artificial scarcity? Take your pick; but there's no doubting that it gets thousands of people into record shops for at least one day in the year.
For me, the highlight this year was a 3LP David Bowie live release, called Welcome to the Blackout. Not least because it was recorded at Earls Court London on the evenings of 30 June and 1 July 1978, and well, I was there, at least on one of the nights (I am not sure which). I remember it was an amazing experience, and that the the set visuals including the vertical bars backdrop were stunning – apologies for the poor quality of the picture below, which is taken from here.
The Earls Court concerts were filmed by David Hemmings but the film was never released. However this might explain why the concerts were recorded by Tony Visconti and selected songs from the last two concerts were mixed by David Bowie and David Richards at Mountain Studios, Montreux between 17th and 23rd January 1979 (according to the sleevenotes). Two additional songs on Welcome to the Blackout, Sound and Vision and TVC 15, do not use Bowie/Richards mixes, perhaps because they were not selected at the time.
In 1978 David Bowie embarked on the ISOLAR II world tour, building on the release of Low and Heroes. The tour began in San Diego, March 1978, and ended in Tokyo, December 1978. Performances in Philadelphia in late April, and in Boston in early May, were recorded and formed the basis of the album Stage, first released in November 1978. Stage was originally just 17 songs, presented in a different order from that of the performance. In 2005 this was expanded to 20 songs, and the performance running order was restored, so that the opening track is the moody instrumental Warszawa. There was also a surround mix released on DVD Audio for a short time. Then in 2017 Stage was again reissued, now with 22 songs.
Since we already have Stage in so many guises, do we need Welcome to the Blackout? Having enjoyed this release for a couple of days, my answer is an emphatic yes. The Earls Court dates were at the end of the European leg of the tour, which did not resume until November in Australia. Bowie seems to be energised by this being in some sense the last concert of the tour and refers to this several times. He also performs two songs not on any version of Stage: Sound and Vision, and Rebel Rebel.
More important, the character of both the performance and the sound is different. There is simply more energy, and although the crowd noise is still mixed fairly low, it comes over as more of a live performance than the rather bland sound of Stage. We also get a longer Station to Station, under 9 minutes on Stage, and over 11 minutes here.
The band, the same one as for Stage, is outstanding:
Carlos Alomar: Rhythm guitar
Adrian Belew: Lead guitar
Dennis Davis: Drums and percussion
Simon House: Electric violin
Sean Mayes: Piano, string ensemble
George Murray: Bass guitar
Roger Powell: Keyboards, Synthesizer
I've compared several songs on Stage and Welcome to the Blackout. For example, the song Blackout itself, which is decently performed on Stage, is introduced here by Bowie saying hoarsely "Welcome to the Blackout"; the instrumentation at the beginning of the song is more menacing and engaging on the new release; the vocal is more frenetic and desperate.
In TVC 15, the opening loony voiceovers is louder and more distinct on Welcome to the Blackout; it sounds like the band is having a great time and the song is more fun to listen to.
Jean Genie is stunning on this album; the guitar growls and grinds, Bowie's vocal is full of drama; it makes the Stage performance (only on the 2017 edition) sound tame.
Despite the occasional flub, I can't find any instances where I prefer the Stage recording.
Of course the album is meant to be heard as a piece, and seems to me to be an excellent capture of one of Bowie's best performances.
Having said that, this concert lacks the intensity of Bowie in 1974 or 1976. Bowie is more at ease here.
I was fortunate to catch Bowie in performance in 1978. His next tour was not until 1983, when we got a different kind of performance to support the more mainstream Let's Dance album; and after that in 1987 with the unsatisfactory Glass Spider tour.
Full track listing:
What in the World
Be my Wife
Sense of Doubt
Speed of Life
Breaking Glass
Soul Love
Art Decade
Alabama Song
Station to Station
TVC15
Finally a shout out to Ray Staff who mastered the album. On first listen he did a great job. I love the dynamics and the overall balance of the sound.
Recommended; and if you find the album hard to find at a sensible price, or don't have a record player, there is no need to panic as it will probably be out on CD and download/streaming in a few months.
Update: Welcome to the Blackout is released on CD on 29 June 2018.
Exploring David Bowie's "Life on Mars?"
March 22, 2016 Tim Anderson	Leave a comment
"Life on Mars?" has always been a favourite among David Bowie's songs, and even more so since his death in January. Many have performed it as a tribute, not least by Lorde at the Brits Bowie tribute, Rick Wakeman (the pianist on the original) and Sarah Blasko.
A great song then; but one characteristic it shares with Queen's Bohemian Rhapsody, another much-loved track, is that the lyrics are fantastically obscure, particularly in the second verse.
It's a God awful small affair
To the girl with the mousey hair
But her mummy is yelling, "No!"
And her daddy has told her to go
But her friend is no where to be seen
Now she walks through her sunken dream
To the seats with the clearest view
And she's hooked to the silver screen
But the film is a sadd'ning bore
For she's lived it ten times or more
She could spit in the eyes of fools
As they ask her to focus on
Sailors, Fighting in the dance hall
Oh man! Look at those cavemen go
It's the freakiest show
Take a look at the lawman
Beating up the wrong guy
Oh man! Wonder if he'll ever know
He's in the best selling show
Is there life on Mars?
It's on America's tortured brow
That Mickey Mouse has grown up a cow
Now the workers have struck for fame
'Cause Lennon's on sale again
See the mice in their million hordes
From Ibiza to the Norfolk Broads
Rule Britannia is out of bounds
To my mother, my dog, and clowns
'Cause I wrote it ten times or more
It's about to be writ again
As I ask you to focus on
Sailors …
Still, while Queen's effort may veer towards pomp and nonsense I have nothing but respect for Bowie's lyrical craftsmanship. I think we will struggle to make perfect narrative sense of the song but nevertheless there may be some insights to be had.
What does Bowie himself have to say about it? The back cover of Hunky Dory, the album from which the song comes, states "Inspired by Frankie", a reference to Frank Sinatra. The contemporary advertisement for the album adds more handwritten notes on the song, this time "A sensitive young girl's reaction to the media."
Then there are the notes on the song for the 2008 iSelect compilation:
This song was so easy. Being young was easy. A really beautiful day in the park, sitting on the steps of the bandstand. 'Sailors bap-bap-bap-bap-baaa-bap.' An anomic (not a 'gnomic') heroine. Middle-class ecstasy. I took a walk to Beckenham High Street to catch a bus to Lewisham to buy shoes and shirts but couldn't get the riff out of my head. Jumped off two stops into the ride and more or less loped back to the house up on Southend Road.
Workspace was a big empty room with a chaise lounge; a bargain-price art nouveau screen ('William Morris,' so I told anyone who asked); a huge overflowing freestanding ashtray and a grand piano. Little else. I started working it out on the piano and had the whole lyric and melody finished by late afternoon. Nice.
Another key reference is this interview from around 2002, specifically about the making of "Life on Mars?"
In this interview, Bowie tells the story of how he was asked to write an English lyric for a French song, called Comme D'Habitude (rough translation, "As Usual").
The original song, entitled Pour Moi ("For Me") was written by Gilles Thibaut (lyrics) and Jacques Revaux (music) and offered to singer Claude François. The lyrics and music were adapted by all three, renamed Comme D'Habitude (rough translation, "As Usual"), and the song became a break-up song related to the ending of the relationship between François and the young Eurovision winner France Gall.
Bowie translated the song as Even a Fool learns to Love, and you can hear a snippet of his version in the interview above, but François rejected his lyrics. (Bowie adds that it was "a godawful lyric. Dreadful").
Comme D'Habitude describes a relationship near its end; he is still in love but they see little of one another as he goes to work before she gets up ("Quietly I leave the house. Everything is grey outside. As usual") and is in bed before she returns. "All alone, I'll go and lie down in this big cold bed, as usual". They make love but he is "playing at pretending".
Bowie translated the song as Even a Fool learns to Love. His version is also about a relationship gone sour, but tells the whole story, about a man who is the life and soul of the party ("a fool"), meets a girl, falls in love ("a clown and an angel so much in love"), but the joke "turns stale" and the time when even a fool learns to love becomes a "sour time".
"The next time I heard it, it was My Way by Frank Sinatra," says Bowie. François had rejected his lyrics, and Paul Anka had come up with My Way.
"I was really pissed off. It should have been my song. So I thought, OK I'll write my own version. So it's My Way on Mars," says Bowie.
"Inspired? It was more revenge."
"Life on Mars?", while not exactly a relationship song shares with Comme D'Habitude a sense of discontent with life and reflection upon it.
Actually the opening lines do suggest a relationship "a godawful small affair", one that is unacceptable to mum and dad. The girl goes out, like the man in Comme D'Habitude, into a grey and sad world. Her friend (boy or girl?) cannot be found.
Bowie's song then departs from the script, exploding into a kaleidoscope of images as the mousy-haired girl stares at the cinema screen. Yet this does not rescue her: she sees clearly that the fantasy world of entertainment will do nothing to change the greyness of her world. Mickey Mouse is not a real friend; he grows up "a cow" and whatever that means it is not flattering.
The song becomes surreal as Bowie plays with reality.
The girl is watching the film. The girl is living the film. The girl's life is a film. The girl, or the narrator, wrote the film. The film is being "writ again" as we are trapped in our humdrum lives. "A sensitive young girl's reaction to the media."
Is there Life on Mars? Wait a moment, how did Mars get into this song? Bowie is playing with us of course. Let's look at a few shades of meaning:
2001 A Space Odyssey, part inspiration for Space Oddity, "look at those cavemen go", and note the little quote from Also Sprach Zarathustra as the song fades. The film's central character goes to Jupiter not Mars, but hey, it's all space; and like Space Oddity, inner space as much as outer space. Is there life there? Maybe, but it's pretty desolate.
Life on Mars is a B movie too, cheap sci-fi. It's escapism but not life, not real life.
Is there life on Mars? is a question of yearning, because there is no life on earth, or it seems that way in our most desolate moments.
Bowie tells us that this kind of interpretation is not too far off. In 1998 he was interviewed by Alan Yentob for the BBC, in a kind of follow-up to Yenton's earlier documentary Cracked Actor.
David Bowie telling Alan Yentob about Life on Mars
"She may be an ordinary girl," says Yentob, "but isn't she as alienated as any of your other characters?"
"I think she finds herself let down," Bowie replies. "I think she finds herself disappointed by reality. I think she sees that although she's living in the doldrums of reality she's been told that there's a far greater life somewhere, and she's bitterly disappointed that she doesn't have access to it. It's very hard to think back to one's state of mind 25 years ago. I guess I would feel sorry for her now, I think I had empathy with her at the time. That's probably the difference."
When asked in the 2002 interview referenced above about whether the song is about alienation, he says:
"A lot of it is. One's interior kind of isolation as well. It doesn't just mean one's social isolation, it can mean how you get in contact with your own feelings. It can be quite personal in that way.
"My subject matter hasn't really changed over the years. I'm still in a way writing about life on Mars, all these years later. (Laughs). And the man who sold the world … the way that I present songs has changed a lot. And the style for each album has changed considerably. I'll often try new rhythms and kinds of arrangements. It's like, I want to keep writing about the same subject but my approach, it's like I'm trying to get into it, like finding a different door each time I approach that same subject."
Can we go further, and examine the lyrics with more precision? It is difficult because the song is deliberately surreal; yet there are intriguing connections which may or may not be intended. Is it Lennon ("Power to the People") or Lenin who is on sale again? Bowie with his love of word play likely intended both meanings.
What about "The workers have struck for fame?" In 1941, there was a famous strike by Disney's ("Mickey Mouse") animators. One of their grievances was lack of credit for their work:
"To add insult to injury, the animators weren't featured in the credits of the film, with all credit going to the owner of the studios himself, Walt Disney."
says this report.
Bowie however did not want to explain everything. Mick Rock, who worked with Bowie on a video for the song, says:
I would not be so presumptuous as to try and put any meaning on it. Certainly David Bowie never has as far as I know. I don't know what it means. But it means a helluva lot to me, it's like a poem by Rimbaud, say, what does it mean? Intellectually it is very hard to define. You can only say, I love it.
I would not go so far as Rock; Bowie has given plenty of clues about his intent in writing the song. At the same time, he enjoyed leaving room for the listener's imagination and participation, referring to the French painter Marcel Duchamp and approving in this interview with Jeremy Paxman:
The idea that the piece of work is not finished until the audience come to it and add their own interpretation, and what the piece of art is about is the grey space in the middle.
However you look at it though, it is a pretty gloomy lyric. Why do we like it? Well, it is witty, it is evocative, it is mysterious; and the music absolutely soars, complete with unexpected key changes and a near-octave leap from "on" to "Mars". Like all the best music, it takes us out of ourselves to another place and makes our reality a little less grey than it was before.
Thanks to members of the Steve Hoffman Music Forum for assistance with puzzling out this song, and to author Nicholas Pegg for the source of the quote from the Yentob interview, which he also references in his book The Complete David Bowie.
re-examining Song for bob dylan by david bowie
March 15, 2016 onlyconnect	1 Comment
I've always liked this song, which appears on Bowie's 1972 album Hunky Dory, but never fully understood it. Recently I've given it some further thought and music forum discussion. Here are the lyrics:
Hear this Robert Zimmerman
I wrote a song for you
About a strange young man called Dylan
With a voice like sand and glue
His words in truthful vengeance
Could pin us to the floor
Brought a few more people on
Put the fear in a whole lot more
Ah, Here she comes
Here she comes
Here she comes again
The same old painted lady
From the brow of a superbrain
She'll scratch this world to pieces
As she comes on like a friend
But a couple of songs
From your old scrapbook
Could send her home again
You gave your heart to every bedsit room
At least a picture on my wall
And you sat behind a million pair of eyes
And told them why they saw
Then we lost your train of thought
The paintings are all your own
While troubles are rising
We'd rather be scared
Together than alone
Ah, Here she comes …
Now hear this Robert Zimmerman
Though I don't suppose we'll meet
Ask your good friend Dylan
If he'd gaze a while down the old street
Tell him we've lost his poems
So they're writing on the walls
Give us back our unity
Give us back our family
You're every nation's refugee
Don't leave us with their sanity
In a full-page advertisement for Hunky Dory at the time, Bowie offered some handwritten notes on the songs, and for this one he wrote "This is how some see B.D." – perhaps distancing himself a little from the song.
I am a big Dylan fan and for me the song represents a kind of interaction between two heroes, albeit one-sided. The phrase "a voice like sand and glue" seems to me a neat summary of how some hear B.D. and the ability to get past that into the beauty of his songs and performances is a kind of shared secret among Dylan fans.
I also like Bowie's vocal performance which captures something of Dylan's nasal, scratchy voice but without descending into full-blown parody.
That said, there have always been things that puzzled me. Who is the "painted lady" and why does she "come on like a friend?" Since this is the chorus, it is emphatic, but I didn't have a clue what it was about. And why do we not want the "sanity" of "every nation's refugee" in the last verse?
An aside on critiquing Bowie's work
As an aside, its worth noting that although Bowie has attracted reams of prose about his work, very little of it examines such puzzles. In general, pop lyrics are not treated very seriously, and if a song does not quite make sense, most of us just shrug if we even think of it at all.
Bowie himself used a cut-up technique for some of his work, in which words are rearranged to make new texts, and you might reasonably conclude that that the resulting output is unlikely to make sense in a conventional manner.
Despite the above, it seems to me that Bowie took great care over his lyrics and I am constantly finding new shades of meaning in his work. He also loved word play, as noted by his friend Brian Eno after Bowie's death:
"I received an email from him seven days ago. It was as funny as always, and as surreal, looping through word games and allusions and all the usual stuff we did. It ended with this sentence: 'Thank you for our good times, brian. they will never rot'. And it was signed 'Dawn'.
"I realise now he was saying goodbye."
I do believe therefore that the lyrics deserve more attention than they usually receive, even though it means digging into Bowie's interests in the arcane and occult, for example, which can be both demanding and uncomfortable.
Two writers deserve a shout-out here for doing a lot of this spadework. One is Nicholas Pegg, author of a book called the Complete David Bowie (now being revised) which is full of excellent research.
The other is Chris O'Leary, whose song-by-song site Pushing Ahead of the Dame and associated books are also thoughtful and full of insight.
Song for Bob Dylan
Back on point: what is this song about? It is part tribute and part open letter to Dylan, the central thought being that the man who once effortlessly created "words of truthful vengeance" has gone off in a different direction – and we need him back.
Bowie I suspect knew this to be a rather narrow view, hence his note "this is how some see B.D." allows for other perspectives.
Dylan began his career as a folk singer, with songs of "protest" that spoke out against injustice, racism and war. He went electric in 1965, escaping the "protest singer" box but not without backlash. Then in 1966 he had a motorcycle accident and went into a kind of retreat, emerging in 1967 with gentler-sounding albums like John Wesley Harding and Nashville Skyline, more country than folk or rock. Dylan's ill-received 1970 album Self Portrait used his own child-like painting of himself on the cover; "your paintings are all your own."
In 1971 then, when Bowie was writing Hunky Dory, Dylan seemed to have lost all interest in reforming the world as well as settling for a less energetic style of performance, losing it seemed the incandescent power he achieved on albums like Highway 61 Revisited and Blonde on Blonde.
The stage is set for Bowie's song. The first verse is straightforward, setting the scene; but then we get the painted lady. Who is she?
A "painted lady" is slang for a prostitute; but as Pegg observes, this is also a reference to Athena, the goddess of war (among other things) in Greek mythology. The 5th century BC Greek poet Pindar writes:
"from the cleft summit of her father's brow Athene sprang aloft, and pealed the broad sky her clarion cry of war"
There are also other references in Greek mythology to Athena being born from the forehead of Zeus and emerging fully-clothed.
Athena, in other words, was born from the brow of Zeus, god of thunder and ruler of the Olympian Gods, the "brow of the superbrain."
In this context Athena seems to represent mankind's sad tendency to be seduced ("painted lady") by war and to "scratch this world to pieces"; Bowie appeals to Dylan to "send her home" by returning to his potent songs of protest.
Bowie is always inclined to the apocalyptic and the idea that "troubles are rising" and the world being "scratched to pieces" is nothing strange to him.
Bowie plays with identity in the last verse, addressing Robert Zimmerman, Dylan's proper name, and asking him to bring back the Dylan persona. Bowie knew all about personae, "David Bowie" being in some ways a creation of David Robert Jones, his own proper name.
What about the final couplet:
Dylan may not be a refugee as such, but is on the side of the refugees, that much makes sense. But where does sanity come in?
Bowie's view of sanity may not tally with our own. His family had a history of madness, his brother was in an asylum, and in his earlier song All the Madmen he explored the idea that society's division between sane and insane may be arbitrary. "I'd rather stay here, with all the madmen, I'm quite content they're just as sane as me".
Sanity then is not necessarily better than insanity; but the couplet is still odd. One suggestion I've heard is that "their" could refer to the nations, not the refugees.
I've found three performances of Song for Bob Dylan, one on Hunky Dory, one a rehearsal for a John Peel session where it is sung by Bowie's friend George Underwood, and one from a 1972 live performance. In all three cases the word "their" is not clearly articulated. It could be "our sanity" or even "insanity". Printed lyrics are not always correct. If it is "our sanity" it might mean, don't leave us with the sanity that drives us to war.
Song for Bob Dylan is a good song but not wholly satisfactory. Dylan stopped being a protest singer way back in 1964 or thereabouts and there is an uncomfortable sense that Bowie is inviting another artist to regress; perhaps this is what made him hesitant about the song in his notes.
I still like the song though. I can't think of any better songs about Bob Dylan.
bowiehunky dorysong for bob dylan
Bowie's sublime blackstar: why you should buy the vinyl
March 6, 2016 Tim Anderson	Leave a comment
I was broken-hearted when David Bowie died in January; but grateful that he left us with one of his finest works, the album called Blackstar or possibly just ★.
I had pre-ordered the CD but soon realised that I would have to get the vinyl. The cover design is different. The CD has a black star on a white background.
The vinyl on the other hand has a black cover with a cut-out opening onto the black vinyl inside.
The cutout hole is like a wound, no coincidence. The fragmented star symbols below spell Bowie. Great work from designer Jonathan Barnbrook.
As a piece of art it is beautiful and powerful, as an album cover it is highly impractical. The cutout star shape is easily bent when you shelve the record, and the transparent plastic inner sleeve is not ideal for protecting the vinyl.
I have even heard it suggested that this is deliberate, the fragility of the package echoing the fragility of life.
In addition there have been quality control issues. Some reissues have a horrible soft PVC inner sleeve that clings to the vinyl and seems to damage it, causing swooshing noises. Others are just rather noisy. You are doing well to get one that plays perfectly on both sides.
I am on my second copy and it is not perfect, but what I found most surprising was how much better it sounds than the CD.
Play Lazarus: the vocals are more real, the bass more dramatic, the wind instruments more sonorous and eerie.
I am curious about such things, and made a 24/96 digital copy of the track. It still sounds better than the CD, though something is lost in the copy. One reason – probably the main reason – is that the CD is "brickwalled", that is, compressed for maximum loudness at the expense of dynamic range. Here is the view of the Lazarus track on CD in Adobe's Audition CC:
And here is the vinyl:
That CD waveform is tragic; all the wide dynamic range of which CD is capable wasted for no good reason.
The vinyl is better in part for technical reasons; you cannot max out vinyl in the same way.
It is also intriguing to see frequencies above 30K in the vinyl (not that you can hear them).
Still, the bottom line is that it does sound better, especially if you hear the vinyl directly.
Recommended, despite the fragility and imperfection of the medium.
blackstardavid bowievinyl
David Bowie, star man
January 11, 2016 onlyconnect	Leave a comment
In January 1972 I started at a new school. I had enjoyed pop music on the radio but it was here that I gradually became aware of things called albums, records with other-worldly sleeves and amazing propulsive music. I wanted them.
It look a while to get a record player of my own so I started with cassettes – taping everything I could find.
In April 1972 a single was released, Starman by David Bowie. It was catchy, it was extraterrestial, it was about listening to the radio at night (just like I used to do), it was about letting the children boogie, I loved it.
Moving on to the Ziggy Stardust album, Bowie became special to me. Looking back I am sure it was because I felt a bit of a misfit and Bowie's music and image was about acceptance and celebration of oddness, as well as exploring sexuality in ways that were appealing and mysterious to innocent young things like myself.
I kept the faith through Bowie's ch-ch-changes, Ziggy Stardust's retirement, the fractured world of Diamond Dogs, the strangely downbeat David Live, the funk of Young Americans, train noises and Earl Slick's frantic guitar on Station to Station, sombre electronica on Low, and then the unforgettable "Heroes", love in the shadow of the Berlin wall.
Bowie had his difficult middle period for sure, but was always interesting. He was an actor as much as a musician and one of the acts he performed was himself; with Bowie the difference blurs.
His work shows a deep interest in what it means to be human; he's content that the madmen "are just as sane as me" (with all the ambiguity that implies), his writing on outer space is also about inner space because if you imagine yourself "out there" you have nothing but yourself for company.
Bowie had huge artistic courage. I much regret not seeing his 1995 "Outside" tour when apparently some audience members walked out because he focused on his dark new material and not greatest hits.
That said, I was fortunate to see Bowie in concert on several occasions, starting with Earls Court in 1978, and including Milton Keynes Bowl 1983 and (most memorably) Nottingham's Rock City in August 1997.
Some Bowie memorabilia from my attic
This last was the closest I got to the man, playing in a small 1,500 capacity club venue and standing fairly close to the stage. He performed a long set with many of my favourites, the darker side of Bowie, starting with Quicksand from Hunky Dory "I'm sinking in the quicksand of my thought" and including I'm Afraid of Americans, Fashion, Fame, Under Pressure, White Light White Heat, and much of Outside.
Late period Bowie is more of an acquired taste than his early years but rewarding. I found The Next Day in 2013 moving and when he sang "Where are we now" of course I was transported back to my schooldays and asking the same question of myself.
Bowie was reclusive in his later years, especially after being injured on tour in 2004, and lived quietly in New York.
Today's news brought the news of his death, "after a courageous 18-month battle with cancer" according to his son Duncan.
This means that he composed his just-released album Blackstar in full knowledge of his illness and perhaps anticipating departure.
The song Lazarus, accompanied by a New York musical of the same name, seems particuarly to the point.
"Look up here, man, I'm in danger
I've got nothing left to lose
I'm so high, it makes my brain whirl
Dropped my cell phone down below
Ain't that just like me?
This way or no way
You know I'll be free
Just like that bluebird
Now, ain't that just like me?"
Other lyrics on the album have new significance today, like these from Dollar Days:
"If I'll never see the English evergreens I'm running to
It's nothing to meet, it's nothing to see
I'm trying to
I'm dying too"
Bowie made his ending an artistic moment and one that is not without hope – Lazarus rose again after all – but also, like all his best work, full of ambiguity.
Thank you David Bowie.
Bowie is – Exhibition at the V&A London
June 30, 2013 onlyconnect	Leave a comment
The David Bowie exhibition at the V&A in London is stunning. It has been on since 23rd March and remains until 11 August, but advance tickets sold quickly which is why I ended up on an overflow date: Sunday evening when the rest of the museum is closed. Setting the scene outside is some faded pavement art including the iconic "Heroes" pose. We went in through a side door, along a corridor, and to the exhibition entrance to pick up the Sennheiser headphones and wireless receiver; these detect where you are and provide appropriate music and commentary.
The sound was excellent overall though the technology not quite perfect, particularly towards the end where the concert soundtracks seemed a bit mixed up, but no matter.
There are several kinds of exhibit:
Writings and occasionally paintings by Bowie and others – including handwritten lyrics, sometimes with variations and corrections
Album artwork and outtakes
Stage sets, some sketched, some 3D models
Concert footage
Film extracts
Books and posters that influenced Bowie or capture his era
The standard of the exhibits is excellent, with many things that I (as a reasonably well informed though not quite obsessive fan) had not seen before. It started well for me with a handwritten note about 1. Outside, which starts:
What Eno and I are endeavouring to do with this album is, by means of the loosely knit story line and characters, create a textual and musical diary that will record feelings and fears as we approach the end of the millennium.
The visual layout of the exhibition (along with the audio soundtrack) is key to its appeal. I would describe it as appropriately fractured, with clever use of light and shade, and splashes of bright colour to offset the monochrome of the many handwritten or typed documents.
I was expecting a plentiful array of stage costumes, and there is, but at no point does this feel like a costume exhibition. The costumes are positioned for dramatic effect, many of them high up, and form a kind of backdrop to the other exhibits.
The popularity of the event means that you cannot proceed quickly, especially as it takes time to read and take in many of the exhibits. This might even be a good thing, forcing you not to rush. According to the organisers, most people take around 90 minutes to look round; I took a little longer.
I was pleasantly surprised by the demographics of those attending. There were plenty of visitors in their twenties and thirties, who had not been born when Bowie was strutting his stuff as Ziggy Stardust, which made me wonder how they had encountered his work.
It was intriguing to see some of Jonathan Barnbrook's alternative designs for the cover of The Next Day, Bowie's most recent album. The final version shows a white square blanking much of the sleeve of "Heroes"; alternates show subverted cover art based on Pin Ups and Aladdin Sane as well as a different take on "Heroes" using an overlaid bright red patch with the lettering "Where Are We Now?" showing through; perhaps that one was intended for the single.
The film section includes part of the Elephant Man show in New York, in which Bowie gives a superb, heart-rending performance. I hope that a whole show exists on film and that we get to see it sometime.
The large room at the end is where you see and hear concert footage including some rarities, such as Sweet Thing from the Tower Philadelphia in 1974 (the David Live concerts). This is where the audio went slightly wrong for me which was a shame; but I did enjoy watching and hearing the end of the famous Ziggy retirement concert in great quality. "Not only is this the last show of the tour … it's the last show … that we'll ever do." Cue wailing and tears; apparently even the band did not know in advance. What a showman.
Make sure you catch this before it finishes. Although advance tickets are sold out, some are released each day if you turn up in the morning.
A new old song from david bowie: where are we now?
January 8, 2013 onlyconnect	Leave a comment
Why is the arrival of a new song from David Bowie so moving? Several reasons.
First, the surprise of it. A decade in reclusive retirement, the inevitable rumours of ill health, little prospect of anything new, and then this, not only a song, but an entire album is in the can.
Second, the song itself. Cover designer Johnathan Barnbrook writes:
The song Where are we now? is a comparison between Berlin when the wall fell and Berlin today.
which has some authority since he worked with Bowie, but of course it is more than that, it is about Bowie then and now, and for those of us who grew up with this music, about ourselves then and now.
It is not a happy song, mournful and uncertain about the future (the song title ends with a question mark) but it is not an unhappy song; Bowie seems more at peace with himself than in the past.
I love the song and expect to play it frequently for a while.
Never forget though that this is art and comes from one skilled at hiding in plain sight.
Much respect for Bowie that is able to be his age (like Leonard Cohen) rather than re-enacting his youth (like Mick Jagger).
The cover of the album is also striking.
Do read Barnbrook's questions and answers from the link above for some insight into why it is as it is, for example:
Obscuring Bowie's image is also reference to his identity, not only in the past when he changed endlessly but that he has been absent from the music scene for the past ten years. Was this an act to hide his identity or that he has simply become more comfortable with it?
Another question!
I can't wait for the album.
david bowie, reviews
Review: The Bowie Variations by Mike Garson
October 15, 2011 onlyconnect	Leave a comment
I am a big David Bowie fan (as I guess will be most purchasers of this CD) and first noticed Garson's work in the magnificent, edgy accompaniment to Aladdin Sane – specifically, that track, though he makes a great contribution to the entire album.
Garson played on many of Bowie's albums, from Ziggy Stardust through to Reality, and made a key contribution to the sound. I particularly like his work on David Live, Bowie's live album from 1974, but it is consistently good, which is no doubt why he remained part of the band.
This CD is I guess a kind of tribute and reflection on his work with Bowie; one of the tracks is actually called Tribute to David. Garson performs solo piano variations on a number of Bowie's songs. Note that these are variations, not performances as such, and since Garson is a creative jazz pianist they really are variations; in some cases it takes a while to work out what the song is, even if you know Bowie's version well.
The performance is excellent, and the recording quality is outstanding. Nevertheless I was a little disappointed; found it a little too mellow and smooth for my taste. Perhaps Garson needs the interplay with the band to spark that edgy quality that I love.
david bowiemike garson


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California's 9th State Senate district is one of 40 California State Senate districts. It is currently represented by Democrat Nancy Skinner of Berkeley.
The district encompasses the northern East Bay, stretching along the eastern shores of San Francisco Bay and San Pablo Bay. It forms the focal point of the East Bay, centered on Oakland, the third largest city in the San Francisco Bay Area.


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Home Latest Uganda News Bobi Wine, Besigye team declared unity between the two teams but Besigye...
Bobi Wine, Besigye team declared unity between the two teams but Besigye still silent
Forum for Democratic Change Party (FDC) and the People Power pressure group declared their planned agenda to work as a team, earlier yesterday in a media briefing. But the two group leaders including Dr Kizza Besigye of People's Government and Bobi Wine of People Power were absent at the conference.
They sent representatives on their behalf, People's government leader was represented by Mukono Municipality MP, Betty Nambooze while the newly appointed People Power spokesperson, Joel Ssenyonyi, represented Bobi Wine.
"As you might be aware. for some time now, the two principals have been holding talks to answer the demands and request by various people in Uganda who want to see a close working relationship between them as people and political organisation," said Nambooze.
The two leader's absence in the meeting left people wondering that may be they don't like the union, and it could have been pushed by the other members in both teams.
And also the loud silence from Dr Besigye. He has not yet publically pronounced his stand regarding this union. It's only the People Power leader Bobi Wine who had publically voiced it out.
After Besigye's visit to Bobi Wine, that occurred last week, Bobi Wine's social media platforms had it that the two teams talked "about where the people's struggle for liberation stands, and what we must do together to complete the task ahead."
READ MP Zaake Charged With Treason, Remanded on Gulu Prison Till 14th of March
"What we all agree about is that Museveni's regime of blood and national shame has never been as vulnerable, weak and utterly exposed as it is today. We only need to mobilise our people for the final push and victory will be guaranteed.
But Besigye did not comment.
Also after the media conference held by the two teams, Bobi Wine rushed to his social media platforms and announced their unity.
And still Dr Besigye has not yet responded either in acceptance or denial.
Nevertheless, the People's Government Facebook page already have the latest developments.
Besigye and Bobi Wine have been fighting each other for quite long.
For instance, Bobi Wine accused Besigye early last month while at Hotel Africana over his claims that Uganda has no democracy yet he has been on the presidential ballot paper four times.
"Of late I have come to conclude that some members in the opposition are only concerned about their positions and will fight any composition that threatens their positions. For a leader to say a ballot can never oust Museveni without offering another option is disappointing."
Appearing on a local Radio Station in Jinja, Besigye minimised Bobi Wine's idea of arguing people to get National IDs to unseat president Museveni in 2021 presidential ballot.
READ Breaking: Singer Chris Evans Kaweesi in critical condition at Mengo hospital
"Those who think they use National IDs to remove Museveni don't understand the man," Besigye noted.
DR Kizza Besigye
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redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


By Sara Schuster·	 7/28/2015, 10:35 a.m.
Al Paris and Alan Heckman are doing a five-course collaboration dinner for your lobster enjoyment.
We know you still want more lobster news. Even if you say you don't, we know that, deep down in your shellfish-lovin' hearts, you really do.
Which is why we now bring you this: A Lobster-Palooza in Stockton, New Jersey. A five-course lobster extravaganza, happening at the Stockton Inn on August 5th.
Since "extravaganza" can be interpreted many ways, let's do specifics here: The dinner will be hosted in collaboration between chef Alan Heckman (of the Stockton Inn) and chef Al Paris (of Philly's Paris Bistro). For $79 per person (before tax and gratuity), you'll get five courses of lobster dishes, dessert included. Further, the deal will be available until September 6th, so you've got time to go, and then go back again if you so choose.


9 out of 10 based on 288 ratings. 3,910 user reviews.
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Fermanagh and Omagh District Council's annual end of year Irish Oral Exam and Celebratory event will take place in Strule Arts Centre on Wednesday 13 June. The oral exam will take place between 6 pm and 8 pm and anyone interested in undertaking it can do so simply by turning up on the night.
Successful participants will have the opportunity on the night to purchase the "couple of focal" badge, or a silver or gold fáinne depending on the proficiency in the language that they demonstrate in the exam.
An evening of music, song and dance will follow at the conclusion of the oral exam provided by Declan O' Kane, Ray Moore and friends. This concludes Fermanagh and Omagh District Council's programme of events and is open to everyone. Admission is free of charge.
For more information on either the Irish oral exam or the celebratory event, please contact kevin.goodwin@fermanaghomagh.com or tel 028 82247831.
Beidh seans ag daoine scrúdú béil sa Ghaeilge a dhéanamh mar pháírt d'imeacht cheiliúrtha dheireadh na bliana a bheas ar siúl in Ionad Ealaíne na Sruthaile Dé Céadaoin 13 Meitheamh. Imeacht bliaintiúl é seo a eagraíonn Comhairle Fhear Manach agus na hÓmaí mar pháirt dá clár imeachtaí ar mhaithe leis an Ghaeilge a chur chun cinn.
Beidh seans ag daoine ar an oíche suaitheantas cúpla focal, fáinne airgid nó óir a cheannach dá réir leibhéal na Gaeilge atá acu. Ceol, amhrán agus damhsa a bheas ar siúl i ndiaidh an scrúdaithe le Deaglán Ó Catháin, Ray Moore agus cairde ann mar aoicheoltóirí.
Tabharfaidh an t-imeacht seo clár imeachtaí na Gaeilge Chomhairle Fhear Manach na hÓmaí chun críche don scoilbhliain seo. Beidh saorchead isteach ann agus fáilte roimh an huile dhuine chuige.
Le tuilleadh eolais a fháil ar an scrúdú béil nó ar an imeacht ceiliúrtha féin téigh I dteagmháíl le kevin.goodwin@fermanaghomagh.com nó cuir glaoch ar 028 82247831.


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Euphaedra neumanni is a butterfly in the family Nymphalidae. It is found in south-western Ethiopia and southern Sudan.
It is a member of the Euphaedra preussi species group q.v.

References

Butterflies described in 1902
neumanni

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


Setting a price for one's products and services is never easy, as the line between maintaining profitability and proposing rates that are relatively close to what the client is willing to pay is a fine one. With today's economy driving companies across the board to pay less for more, this task just got tougher.
Arguably the most crucial element in determining one's price is knowing how much it costs to do business. While many organizations are slicing margins, it's paramount to know your cut-off point. The temptation to undercut is a strong one, but if too drastic, it ultimately hurts companies and, in the long run, the entire industry.
"Now, people try to get jobs at low margins so that they can keep that person as a client, and keep employees on staff," said Nadim Sawaya, president of Enterprise Performance Consulting in Pittsburg, CA. "I see quite a few people taking jobs at low margins to break even, just to cover overhead." This can be a slippery slope, however, if companies aren't clear on what their overhead actually is.
is that right now, with the economy, companies that don't understand the cost of doing business," said Marc Forman, president of Alarm Electronics and Communications in Prescott, AZ. "They are trying to go out and get jobs for what they think it costs just to try to keep people working. This never amounts to a good solution." Nor, he added, does decreasing the value of what a systems integrator brings to a project. "The major national companies have gone out and devalued the work of an integrator because they have deep pockets. They will decrease the cost or give something away, and try to convince people to pay for things on a monthly basis."
For Forman, this requires his team to be steadfast in maintaining some control over the company's pricing structure. "We will say to residential clients, 'Are you looking for the cheapest price, or are you looking for a company that's going to be here a year from now?'" he illustrated. In the commercial realm, the company's sales team will draw a parallel between their company's own expenses and those of the client's. "I will talk to a facilities manager or a property manager for a commercial business and say, 'How much does it cost you to have the copier repairman come in? How much does it cost you to have a plumber come in and take care of the drain problem?' It's not hard to convince them, because when we show them the value that they are getting, and the fact that we've been around for a long time, they understand that there's a reason for us charging what we do."
At Verrex Corporation in Mountainside, NJ, the commoditization of flat panels requires a longer discussion on pricing. "We get a regular response from customers expressing confusion about pricing structures of commercial flat panels versus consumer flat panels," explained Bill Baretz, executive vice president. "That's a big challenge, because in many cases there are legitimate differences, but the customer says, 'The commercial version of what I want is $8,000 and the consumer version is $4,000. I'll take my chances with the consumer version.'"
In these cases, Verrex personnel underline the value they bring to the integration of this technology, as well as the services they offer when there are problems. If the customer still decides to purchase a consumer product for a professional application, the company will handle the installation only. "We say, 'Go ahead and buy it and take it to the job site, and we'll put it in for you. If there's a problem, you own the warranty and we don't," Baretz explained. "Seventy percent of the time, people realize that this approach is not worth it."
Baretz noted that one of the issues that is becoming more prevalent is associated with the chain of distribution. "There is a heavier level of desperation on the part of certain manufacturers who are marketing, and in many cases, selling, directly to the end user, or they are negotiating pricing structures with the end users," he said. "It's understood and expected that manufacturers will conduct a dialogue and promote their products to the actual end users. Beyond that, the end user will engage them in some type of pricing commitment. It forces the integrators to look to other manufacturers that won't do that."
Another area that has seen increased pricing competition is related to labor: those organizations that don't have certified installers on board are able to charge less. "That tends to drive the cost of the labor down because you don't have to pay that person the same rate as a qualified journeyman or a certified installer," Forman said. To overcome this, systems integrators need to draw on the strength of their customer relationships. "I believe that the good companies across the board know how to work through that, and how to build relationships with our clients so that they understand that when the serviceman comes out, he's actually going to fix it."
While economic pressures have required organizations in all industries to reduce purchases, the good news is that customers still need the products and services that systems integration companies provide. The difference today is that the systems they sign off on are more modest than they would have been a couple of years ago. "In many cases, they may have to scale back from a premium solution to a solid solution that doesn't have all of the bells and whistles," Baretz said. The demand is still there, but the level of spending has decreased. "They will still buy that system, but the product mix has to be looked at for value as opposed to the highest level of functionality."
Carolyn Heinze (carolynheinze.blogspot. com) is a freelance writer/editor.


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Never place household glass like drinking glasses or window panes in your recycling!
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Did you know that from the 1960s through the mid-90s many thousands of acres of your forests were being sold at a loss to you the tax payer by the U.S. Forest Service? The agency was building miles of damaging roads and clear cutting our forests with abandon. By the 80s, Georgians were shocked and fed up with what was happening. Georgia ForestWatch volunteers and the conservation community worked together to stop it. And stop it, we did!
Clear cutting on the Chattahoochee National Forest increased from 13,000 acres in the 1960s to 36,500 acres in the 1980s. The U.S. Forest Service argued that this method was the most efficient method to harvest timber. But conservationists, ForestWatch volunteers, and even some independent loggers in North Georgia decried the practice as wasteful and destructive and countered that it would not lead to healthy forest regeneration. They also pointed out that the active clear cut program was resulting in a net loss to the taxpayers when all administrative costs, overhead and deferred maintenance on forest road systems were tallied. Surveyors, naturalists, hunters and botanists also noticed that 15-20-year-old clear cuts did not appear to have the same amount of oaks and hickories as forests prior to the cut. The agency just turned its back, kept on cutting and actually increased its pace.
Georgia ForestWatch volunteers struggled and worked hard and smart through the 1980s and early 1990s to halt these damaging timber sales characterized by clear cutting, siltation of streams, runaway road building and disruption of rare habitat. This effort was finally rewarded by a federal court decision in the 1996 case, Sierra v Martin, which halted when a panel of federal judges ruled that the Forest Service had failed in its duty to monitor the effects of its timber program — bringing a halt to the controversial logging practice.
Slide show: 200 year history of timber harvest – Coming soon!


The total driving distance from Cancun Mexico to Playa del Carmen, Mexico is 43 miles 69 kilometers. Your trip begins in Progreso, Mexico. Puerto del Carmen enjoys year- round sunshine.
It is well connected by a modern highway that is fast to drive. This spiritual experience takes part inside a lush jungle located just outside of Playa del Carmen. By taxi, it will be a 1 hour drive to Selina Playa del Carmen. Find a drive playa del carmen.
Offering direct access to the beach, Suite Hotel Fariones Playa is 10 minutes' drive from Lanzarote Airport. Daytime temperatures often exceed 30° C, while the winter is milder with an average of 14° C. Thanks to a request from one of our readers we' ve decided to make this short guide on the tips tricks of taking a Playa del Carmen taxi. Find a drive playa del carmen.
The Jungle Maya Expedition is the most extreme adventure tour in Playa del Carmen! Explorer' s Guides show you how to visit great places like a local.
I' ve already said that for all the Mexico travel warnings, there is nothing about Playa Del Carmen. Then browse our selection of holiday villas in Puerto del Carmen Lanzarote' s oldest , most popular resort, which is located midway along the warm sunny southern coastline of the island around ten to fifteen minutes drive from the airport at nzarote ( ACE) airport is just a 10 minute drive from Puerto del Carmen resort. ADO Bus Private transfer Taxi If you are traveling solo or just two people it can make sense to take the ADO bus.
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Playacar Phase I has exclusive villas. But the private transfer companies can be very good deal for you especially if.
AS OF NOW ( October WARNINGS EXIST FOR THE ENTIRE RIVIERA MAYA – INCLUDING CANCUN, TULUM, PLAYA DEL CARMEN THE. The Cancun Airport is actually between Cancun Playa Del Carmen but is still about 50 minutes from the center of Playa Del Carmen. You' ll find it about an hour' s drive down the coast from party- hard Cancun.
Here is our guide with all the options on how to get from the Cancun Airport to Playa Del Carmen. Daytime temperatures often exceed 30° C,. Holiday Villas in Puerto del Carmen.
Driving distance from Cancun Mexico to Playa del Carmen Mexico. STATE DEPARTMENT WEBSITE.
Driving in a foreign country might be something you cannot imagine yourself doing or you might have some anxiety over doing it. One of our top picks in Puerto del Carmen. You could also take a local colectivo, which runs every 15 minutes will also take you few blocks away from the bus station. Then browse our selection of holiday villas in Puerto del Carmen Lanzarote' s oldest , most popular resort, which is located midway along the warm sunny southern coastline of the island around ten to fifteen minutes drive from the airport at Arrecife.
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You could also take a local colectivo which runs every 15 minutes will also take you few blocks away from the bus illeure réponse: I went to playa del carmen a few months ago was not disappointed at all. Eight different adventures and a real Mayan cultural experience all in one great tour. Arriving at Playa del Carmen exit on Benito Juárez Ave.
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The sun was hiding behind dark stormy clouds the beach was virtually fore the first raindrops started to fall, we strolled along the shoreline passing hotels beach bars while local women tried to tempt us to enjoy a massage on the beach. * FREE* shipping on qualifying offers.
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The waterpark is at the end of the road the coastal walkway. Day 2 – Getting To Know Playa Del Carmen. Searching for Puerto del Carmen villas for rent?
At the end of the street you will find parking lots and you can walk to the dock. For those in search of experiences a little closer to the luxury of the hotel we offer unforgettable international cuisine from 14 restaurants 16 bars.
A real Mayan Shaman will perform a cleansing ceremony which is said to cure your body of ailments and balance your chakras. Driving in Mexico and Playa Del Carmen. Our introduction to Playa Del Carmen started a little differently than for most tourists. NOTE: THIS CHANGED IN MID- AS THERE HAVE BEEN SEVERAL SHOOTINGS IN THE AREA THAT HAVE AFFECTED THE U.
Find a drive playa del carmen. Villa Del Sol is a semi- detached property located in a cul- de- sac in a residential area of Playa Blanca. Hidden beaches great taco bars, secret fishing holes buzzing nightspots await. Getting a taxi in Playa del Carmen can sometimes be more complicated than it should be. 00 per vehicle for the driver to enter the cruise area - this will need to be paid in cash upon pick- up. Driving distance from Progreso Mexico to Playa del Carmen, Mexico is 204 miles , Mexico The total driving distance from Progreso, Mexico to Playa del Carmen 328 kilometers.
Feb 06, - Rent from people in Playa del Carmen, Mexico from $ 20/ night. Find unique places to stay with local hosts in 191 countries.
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Make great memories! At Wasabi Loco we provide memories for a lifetime. We have excellent boats available for charter.
Welcome to Paradisus Playa del Carmen La Esmeralda.


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Unintended Effects of Climate Change Response Measures… Jobs pg 2
Damage caused by The Process: At the insistence of sensible nation states such as the United States, the Czech Republic, Japan, Canada, and Italy, the Cancun outcome acknowledges that The Process is causing, and will cause, considerable economic damage, delicately described in the Chairman's note as "unintended side-effects of implementing climate-change response measures". The solution? Consideration of the catastrophic economic consequences of the Secretariat's heroically lunatic decisions will fall under the control of – yup – the Secretariat. Admire its sheer gall.
Damage to world trade: As the power, wealth and reach of the Secretariat grow, it finds itself rubbing uncomfortably up against other supranational organizations. In particular, the World Trade Organization has been getting antsy about the numerous aspects of the Secretariat's proposals that constitute restrictions on international trade. At several points, the Chairman's note expresses the "decision" – in fact, no more than an opinion and a questionable one at that – that the Secretariat's policies are not restrictive of trade.
The Canute provision: The conference will reaffirm the decision of its predecessor in Copenhagen this time last year "to hold the increase in global average temperature below 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels", just like that. In fact, temperature in central England, and by implication globally, rose 2.2 Celsius in the 40 years 1695-1735, as the Sun began to recover from its 11,400-year activity minimum, and rose again by 0.74 C in the 20th century. There has been no warming in the 21st century, but we are already well over 2 Celsius degrees above pre-industrial levels. The Canute provision, as some delegates have dubbed it (after the Danish king of early England who famously taught his courtiers the limitations of his power and, a fortiori, theirs when he set up his throne on the beach and commanded sea level not to rise, whereupon the tide came in as usual and wet the royal feet), shows the disconnect between The Process and reality.
Omissions: There are several highly-significant omissions, which jointly and severally establish that the central intent of The Process no longer has anything to do with the climate, if it ever had. The objective is greatly to empower and still more greatly to enrich the international classe politique at the expense of the peoples of the West, using the climate as a pretext, so as to copy the European Union by installing in perpetuity what some delegates here are calling "transnational perma-Socialism" beyond the reach or recall of any electorate. Here are the key omissions:
Ø The science: The question whether any of this vast expansion of supranational power is scientifically necessary is not addressed. Instead, there is merely a pietistic affirmation of superstitious faith in the IPCC, where the conference will "recognize that deep cuts in global
[greenhouse-gas] emissions are required according to science, and as documented in the [IPCC's] Fourth Assessment Report."
Ø The economics: There is no assessment of the extent to which any of the proposed actions to mitigate "global warming" by cutting emissions of carbon dioxide or to adapt the world to its consequences will be cost-effective. Nor, tellingly, is there any direct comparison between mitigation and adaptation in their cost-effectiveness: indeed, the IPCC was carefully structured so that mitigation and adaptation are considered by entirely separate bureaucracies producing separate reports, making any meaningful comparison difficult. Though every economic analysis of this central economic question, other than that of the now-discredited Lord Stern, shows that mitigation is a pointless fatuity and that focused adaptation to the consequences of any "global warming" that may occur would be orders of magnitude cheaper and more cost-effective, the Cancun conference outcome will continue to treat mitigation as being of equal economic utility with adaptation.
Ø Termination: Contracts have termination clauses to say what happens when the agreement ends. Nothing better illustrates the intent to create a permanent world-government structure than the absence of any termination provisions whatsoever in the Cancun outcome. The Process, like diamonds, is forever.
Ø Democracy: Forget government of the people, by the people, for the people. Forget the principle of "no taxation without representation" that led to the very foundation of the United States. The provisions for the democratic election of the new, all-powerful, legislating, tax-raising world-government Secretariat by the peoples of the world may be summarized in a single word: None.
How did this monstrous transfer of power from once-proud, once-sovereign, once-democratic nations to the corrupt, unelected Secretariat come about? The story begins with Sir Maurice Strong, an immensely wealthy UN bureaucrat from Canada who, a quarter of a century ago, established the IPCC as an intergovernmental, political body rather than as a scientific body precisely so that it could be maneuvered into assisting in the UN's long-term aim, reiterated at a summit of senior UN officials this May by Ban Ki-Moon himself, of extinguishing national sovereignty and establishing a world government.
The Process began in earnest in 1988, when the IPCC was established. Shortly thereafter, on a June day in Washington DC deliberately chosen by Al Gore because it was unusually hot, his political ally and financial benefactor James Hansen appeared before a Congressional committee and put before it a wildly-exaggerated graph predicting global warming over the coming 20 or 30 years. Yet June 2008, the 20th anniversary of his testimony, was cooler globally than June 1988, and worldwide warming has happened at less than half the rate he predicted.
The Rio Earth Summit in 1992 allowed environmental groups and world "leaders" to grandstand together. From that summit emerged the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, which began holding annual conferences on "global warming".
The Kyoto Protocol in 1997 committed its signatories to cut back their national CO2 emissions to 1990 levels by 2012. Most are not going to make it. The US Senate, with Al Gore as its president, voted 95-0 to reject any treaty such as Kyoto, which bound only the West while leaving developing nations such as China to emit carbon dioxide without constraint.
Very little progress had been made by the time of the Bali conference in 2007: but at that conference a "road-map" was constructed that was to lead to a binding international treaty in Copenhagen in 2009.
Just one problem with that. The US Constitution provides that, even if the President has signed a treaty, his signature is meaningless unless the treaty has been debated in the Senate, which must ratify it by the votes of at least 67 of the 100 Senators. It became clear to everyone, after the Obama administration failed to cajole or bully even 60 Senators into passing the Waxman/Markey cap-and-tax Bill, that no climate treaty would pass the Senate.
Worse, the Secretariat grossly overreached itself. Believing its own propaganda to the effect that none but a few vexatious, fossil-funded sceptics believed that "global warming" would be small enough to be harmless, it drafted and posted up on its website a 186-page draft Treaty of Copenhagen, proposing to turn itself into an unelected world government with unlimited powers to impose direct taxation on member nations without representation, recourse or recall, to interfere directly in the environmental policies of individual nations, and to sweep away all free markets worldwide, replacing them with itself as the sole rulemaker in every marketplace (treaty draft, annex 1, articles 36-38). Some quotations from the draft reveal the sheer ambition of the UN:
"The scheme for the new institutional arrangement under the Convention will be based on three basic pillars: government; facilitative mechanism; and financial mechanism. … The government will be ruled by the Conference of the Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change with the support of a new subsidiary body on adaptation, and of an Executive Board responsible for the management of the new funds and the related facilitative processes and bodies." (Copenhagen Treaty draft of September 15, 2009, para. 38).
The three central powers that the UN had hoped to grant itself under the guise of Saving The Planet from alleged climate catastrophe were as follows:
"Government": This use of the word "government" is the first use of the term to describe a world government in any international treaty draft.
"Financial mechanism": The "financial mechanism" was a delicate phrase to describe a new power of the UN to levy unlimited taxation directly on the peoples of its member states: taxation without representation, and on a global scale.
"Facilitative mechanism": This mechanism would, for the first time, have given the UN he power directly to coerce and compel compliance on the part of its member states, by force if necessary. The Treaty draft describes it as –
"… a facilitative mechanism drawn up to facilitate the design, adoption and carrying out of public policies, as the prevailing instrument, to which the market rules and related dynamics should be subordinate."
In short, there was to be a New World Order, with a "government" having at its command a "financial mechanism" in the form of unlimited rights to tax the world's citizen's directly, and a "facilitative mechanism" that would bring the rules of all formerly free markets under the direct control of the new UN "government", aided by an already-expanding series of bureaucracies.
At no point anywhere in the 186 pages of the Treaty draft do the words "democracy", "election", "ballot", or "vote" appear. As the EU has already demonstrated, the transfer of powers from sovereign democracies to supranational entities brings those democracies to an end. At the supranational level, in the UN, in the EU and in the proposed world government, decisions are not made by anyone whom we, the voters, have elected to make such decisions.
The exposure of the draft treaty in major international news media panicked the UN into abandoning the draft before the Copenhagen conference even began. Instead, the UN is now legislating crabwise, as the European Union does, with a series of successive annual agreements, the last of which was the Copenhagen Accord, each transferring more power and wealth from individual nations to its supranational bureaucracy. The latest of these agreements is being finalized here in Cancun.
The European Union, which has stealthily stamped out democracy over the past half-century by a series of treaties each transferring a little more power and wealth from elected hands in the member states to unelected hands in Brussels, has been advising the Secretariat on how to do the same on a global scale.
After the spectacular bloody nose the Secretariat got in Copenhagen, it was most anxious not to endure a second failure in Cancun. To this end, it obtained the agreement of the German government to host a monthly series of conferences in Bonn in the early part of 2010, some of which were open to outside observers and some were behind closed doors in a comfortable suburban palace, where the new way of legislating for the world – in secret – first came into use.
The Chinese regime, anxious to get a piece of the action, agreed to host an additional session in Tientsin a few weeks ago. The purpose of this near-perpetual international junketing – which the national delegates have greatly enjoyed at our expense – was to make sure that nearly all of the elements in the Cancun agreement were firmly in draft and agreed well before Cancun, so as to avoid what too many journalists have tediously and obviously described as a "Mexican stand-off".
It is precisely because of all this massive and expensive preparation that the note by the Chairman, whose main points are summarized above, may well reflect what is finally decided and announced here in a couple of days' time. The Chairman is not simply guessing: this Note reflects what the Secretariat now confidently expects to get away with.
However, following the Copenhagen disaster, our grim future New Masters are taking no chances. They persuaded their friends in the mainstream news media, who cannot now easily back out of their original declarations of blind faith in the Church of "Global Warming" and are as anxious not to lose face as the Secretariat is, to put it about that at Cancun this year and even at Durban next year very little of substance will occur.
The intention is that, after not one but two international climate conferences, the second of them in Rio in 2012 on the 20th anniversity of the Earth Summit that began it all, the Secretariat will have become so wealthy and will have accreted so much power to itself that no one – not even the US Senate – will dare to resist ratifying the Treaty of Rio that brings democracy to an end worldwide and fulfils Lord Mandelson's recent statement that "we are now living in a post-democratic age."
Over my dead body. The people know best what is best for the people. The governing class no doubt knows what is best for the governing class, but does not necessarily know what is best for the people, and must always be kept in check by the ballot-box.
If we are to have a world government at all (and, as the science of "global warming" alarm continues to collapse, the current pretext for world domination by a privileged few is wearing more than a little thin), then it is essential that the world government should be an elected government, and that, as Article 1, Section 1 of the US Constitution makes plain when it grants "All legislative power" to the elected Congress and to the now-elected Senate, none shall make laws for the world or impose taxes upon the world except those whom the people of the world have elected by universal secret ballot.
How can we, the people, defeat the Secretariat and keep the democracy we love? Simply by informing our elected representatives of the scope, ambition, and detail of what is in the Cancun agreement. The agreement will not be called a "Treaty", because the Senate, particularly after the mid-term elections, will not pass it. But it can still be imposed upon us by the heavily Left-leaning Supreme Court, which no longer makes any pretence at judicial impartiality and may well decide, even if Congress does not, that the Cancun agreement shall stand part of US law on the ground that it is "customary international law".
What to do? Send this blog posting to your legislators. It is their power, as well as yours, that is being taken away; their democracy, as well as yours, that will perish from the Earth unless this burgeoning nonsense is stopped.
VJCywink2016-10-12T16:44:27-04:00
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Biography – BOYD, MOSSOM MARTIN – Volume XIV (1911-1920) – Dictionary of Canadian Biography
BOYD, MOSSOM MARTIN, businessman and breeder; b. 19 Jan. 1855 in Bobcaygeon, Upper Canada, son of Mossom Boyd and Caroline Dunsford; m. 5 Sept. 1883 Ida Lillian DeGrassi (d. 1942) in Lindsay, Ont., and they had four sons and three daughters; d. 8 June 1914 in Philadelphia and was buried in Peterborough, Ont.
The Boyds were a Scots-Irish family with roots in County Donegal (Republic of Ireland), where family tradition involved military service in India and naming sons Mossom. Mossom Sr was about to be sent back to India, the land of his birth, when he decided to follow an acquaintance to the Kawartha Lakes north of Peterborough in 1834. He fell in with a number of gentlemen farmers, including members of the Need, Langton, and Dunsford families, who provided financial support to Boyd's entrepreneurial energy. He took over the management of Thomas Need*'s sawmill and store in Bobcaygeon in 1844, married Caroline Dunsford the same year, and formed a short-lived partnership with John Langton* and James Wicks Dunsford in 1849. Langton described Boyd, when rafting logs to Quebec, as "a restless being who can keep himself and everything that comes in contact with him in a state of excitement for two or three months at a time. . . . He may want a curb at other times but there you may give him the reins." Boyd subsequently cut square timber and sawlogs throughout the Trent River watershed, built grist and sawmills at Bobcaygeon in the 1850s, and signed a lucrative deal in 1869 to cut lumber on lands of the Canadian Land and Emigration Company in the Haliburton region.
Mossom Martin Boyd joined his father in business in 1871 at the age of 16, after attending Trinity College School in Port Hope. The Boyds dealt directly with British agents in the timber trade and in the 1870s they gained access to the New York and Albany lumber markets through Boyd, Smith and Company of Peterborough and Irwin and Boyd of Port Hope, the latter run by Mossom Martin's brother Gardiner and brother-in-law and cousin James Moore Irwin. They maintained their presence in the United States through Getman, Boyd and Company, Oswego; Talcott, Boyd and Company, West Troy; and Boyd and Company, Albany, which was run by another brother-in-law, John Macdonald.
Upon the death of Mossom Sr in 1883, Mossom Boyd and Company was formed as a partnership between Mossom Jr, his half-brother William Thornton Cust Boyd, and John Macdonald. In 1883–84 they produced nearly 16 million feet of sawlogs and in 1885 they shipped over 6 million feet of lumber by rail and canal to wholesale outlets in Albany. The high point of their operations in Ontario occurred in 1888–89, when 23 million feet were produced. Although the 1880s saw lumbering around Bobcaygeon reduced and Boyd timber limits in the Ottawa valley sold, new fields were purchased in the Muskoka, Lake Nipissing, Sudbury, and Algoma areas. On the last day of 1888, M. M. Boyd estimated his worth, including inventories of lumber, limits, mills, steamers, equipment, and lands, at $694,837.62. He speculated too in land in southern Ontario, held mortgages on properties in Toronto, and maintained a residence there as well as in Bobcaygeon.
Being heavy users of the Trent, St Lawrence, Oswego, and Erie canals, the Boyds vigorously supported canal navigation. They sought a charter for the Huron Trent Valley Canal Company, formed in 1874, and promoted the completion of the Trent Canal through the Trent Valley Canal Association, an endeavour that almost drew a reluctant Mossom Martin into federal politics as a Conservative in the 1890s. The Boyds embarked as well on their own navigation and railway companies. The Trent Valley Navigation Company was begun in 1883, initially to link the Kawartha Lakes with the Grand Trunk Railway at Lindsay and the Boyds' lumberyards. Never a profitable enterprise, the navigation company was later aimed at the tourist market and local development. When it ceased operations in 1915, the deforested Trent valley was being transformed into recreational lands. Another Boyd promotion, the Lindsay, Bobcaygeon and Pontypool Railway, received its charter in 1890. As its first president, Mossom handled the protracted negotiations for dominion and municipal subsidies; construction began in 1903, when a 99-year lease was signed with the Canadian Pacific Railway. The LBPR joined the main Ontario line of the CPR at Burketon Station in Durham County, but it never had the stability to achieve much beyond Bobcaygeon, where it had access to the Trent Canal.
By the 1890s major changes were under way in the forest-products industry in Ontario. The Trent watershed, like many other regions, was largely depleted of merchantable timber. Boyd adapted by shifting eastward and westward and initiating further diversification. He sent expert timber cruiser Nelson Vannier to scout British Columbia in 1891. In 1893, a year after the death of John Macdonald, the company was reorganized as Mossom Boyd Company. It ceased its Albany operations, auctioned off timber limits in Haliburton and on Lake Huron, the French River, and Lake Nipissing, and bought 620 square miles of limits on the north shore of the St Lawrence River between Baie-Trinité and Rivière aux Rochers, Que. These limits were never developed, however.
On the Pacific coast, the Boyds helped extend the long arm of Ontario lumbering interests to Vancouver Island. There the company acquired limits on the Nitinat River in 1893, bought the Hughett and McIntyre mill at Cowichan in 1895, and chartered the Cowichan Lumber Company Limited in 1897. As well, it operated the Georgia Lumbering Company and a sawmill at Genoa Bay. Other island interests included limits in the Comiaken, Helmcken Island, Port Renfrew, Sahtlam, and Shawnigan districts; on the mainland the company held limits on Gambier Island in Howe Sound, Port Moody harbour, upper Lillooet Lake, the Fraser River near Port Haney, and Homfray Channel. Its enterprises included an interest in promoting the Cowichan Valley Railway and the Cowichan River Improvement Company. In July 1899 Boyd commented that there was "lots of competition and sharks and alligators in human form looking to devour the innocent," but he perceived that British Columbia would be the best place for his sons to make their fortunes. Two of them, in fact, Gardiner Cust and Laurence Chadwick, would run the Cowichan Lumber Company after Boyd's death. Boyd interests extended across the country, with timber limits in Manitoba and Saskatchewan as well as on the Atlantic and Pacific coasts. In 1904 the Boyds closed their mill at Bobcaygeon.
While the Boyd lumbering empire grew and absorbed the interests of extended family, Mossom developed a passion for stockbreeding, as did several other barons of industry, such as Walter Edward Hart Massey* and Sir William Cornelius Van Horne. In 1883 he acquired a 1,200-acre island in Pigeon Lake near Bobcaygeon, where he started the Big Island Stock Farm; he later added the Red Deer Hill Stock Farm near Prince Albert (Sask.). Boyd bred horses, cattle, and sheep for show and sale in Canada, the United States, and Great Britain. He specialized in Aberdeen Angus and Hereford cattle, Clydesdale, Percheron, hackney, English Shire, and Suffolk Punch horses, and Oxford Down and Persian sheep. He experimented with and created a variety of cattle known as Double Standard Polled Herefords, and in the early 1890s he began breeding cataloes, a cross of cattle and prairie buffalo. His intense interest in breeding caused him to flirt with eugenics when he published "A system of numbering individuals of the human family" in the American Breeders Magazine (Washington) in 1911.
Boyd was dedicated to his family and provided his children with experience in private schools and English universities. An Anglican by religion, in later life he travelled considerably and maintained interests in exploring, rare books, art, music, and such recreational activities as yachting, riding, and driving. He was a member of the Union Club of Victoria, the Toronto Board of Trade, and various stockbreeders' and forestry associations. Obsessed with money and its careful, regulated handling, he was a meticulous keeper of accounts and papers, including records of daily expenditures on tips, laundry, and church tithes. Boyd's corporate holdings evolved under the same scrutiny and became increasingly complex. Before his death, he evidently contemplated a "corporate reorganization" under the legal direction of Zebulon Aiton Lash of Toronto. Boyd died on 8 June 1914 of an anaemic condition in a nursing home in Philadelphia, where he had gone for treatment. Mossom Boyd Sr had carved his niche in the forests of the Trent watershed, but it was Mossom Martin Boyd who expanded the empire from coast to coast. The empire, however, did not long survive him. By 1917 the Saskatchewan farm had been wound up, and many limits in British Columbia were sold off in the 1920s.
Larry Turner
AO, RG 80-5-0-121, no.11993. NA, MG 28, III 1; MG 31, A10, 35–36. Trent Univ. Arch. (Peterborough, Ont.), Boyd family coll. Canada Lumberman Weekly Edition (Toronto), 6 Nov. 1895. Watchman-Warder (Lindsay, Ont.), 11, 18 June 1914. J. T. Angus, A respectable ditch: a history of the Trent-Severn Waterway, 1833–1920 (Kingston, Ont., and Montreal, 1988). G. E. J. Barker, Tales of the Buffalo (Fenelon Falls, Ont., 1992; copy in Bobcaygeon Public Library, Bobcaygeon, Ont.). E. M. Chadwick, Ontarian families: genealogies of United-Empire-Loyalist and other pioneer families of Upper Canada (2v., Toronto, 1894–98; repr. 2v. in 1, Lambertville, N.J., [1970]). H. R. Cummings, Early days in Haliburton (Toronto, 1963). C. D. Howe and J. H. White, Trent watershed survey: a reconnaissance, intro. B. E. Fernow (Ottawa, 1913). John Langton, Early days in Upper Canada: letters of John Langton from the backwoods of Upper Canada and the Audit Office of the Province of Canada, ed. W. A. Langton (Toronto, 1926). R. [S.] Tatley, Steamboating on the Trent-Severn (Belleville, Ont., 1978). W. D. Thomas, Bobcaygeon: the hub of the Kawarthas; a history of the village and its surroundings ([Bobcaygeon?], 1980). D. J. Wurtele, "Mossom Boyd: lumber king of the Trent valley," OH, 50 (1958): 177–89.
Agriculture – Stockbreeders
Business – Manufacturing
Business – Transportation
North America – Canada – Ontario – Centre
LANGTON, JOHN (Vol. 12)LASH, ZEBULON AITON (Vol. 14)MASSEY, WALTER EDWARD HART (Vol. 13)NEED, THOMAS (Vol. 12)VAN HORNE, Sir WILLIAM CORNELIUS (Vol. 14)SYMONDS, HERBERT (Vol. 15)
LANGTON, JOHN
MASSEY, WALTER EDWARD HART
VAN HORNE, Sir WILLIAM CORNELIUS
Larry Turner, "BOYD, MOSSOM MARTIN," in Dictionary of Canadian Biography, vol. 14, University of Toronto/Université Laval, 2003–, accessed January 17, 2020, http://www.biographi.ca/en/bio/boyd_mossom_martin_14E.html.
Permalink: http://www.biographi.ca/en/bio/boyd_mossom_martin_14E.html
Author of Article: Larry Turner
Title of Article: BOYD, MOSSOM MARTIN