Lollapalooza was August 4th - 6th

 

Eels

Lady Sovereign

My Morning Jacket

Sleater Kinney

VHS or Beta (DJ Set)

The Go! Team

Mix Master Mike

Broken Social Scene

Dresden Dolls

The Flaming Lips

Thievery Corporation

 

There was an overwhelming amount of music at Lollapalooza.  The Dresden Dolls were the real discovery for me from the concert.  One woman on piano and a man on drums.  They gave the most emotional performance of the festival and thus the most memorable.  I would definitely go see them again in concert.  Thievery Corporation were also surprisingly good live.  Tatum and I went to see them at the Metro (a club name I remember from the days I was obsessed with the Smashing Pumpkins)  I also saw them perform at Lollapalooza itself.  Its nice to see an digital age band like Thievery Corporation do such a credible and authentic live show.  I say credible because there were lots of vocalists and live instruments on stage.

 

 

Can't wait to move to London and spy on my neighbours!

 

 

Yikes!

 

This is what Brokeback Mountain could have been.

 

 

I miss Jellineck and Noblet!

I am in the Phoenix airport waiting for my flight to leave to Newark so I can make my way to Brooklyn.  Had kind of a strange experience here at "Americo's" in the Phoenix airport.  I got to catch part of the Winter Olympics show.  It was kind of strange to be sitting among a bunch of strangers silently watching a bunch of acrobats create a dove out of their bodies.  I'm just not used to silence in a airport lounge.  People were mesmerized by the tv.  Even dazzled by Pavarotti's opera number which I thought would have at least gotten yawns from a few of the members of the diverse crowd. 

 

I just started reading Tolstoy's "War and Peace" on this trip.  I wonder if I will muster up the energy to read more on the next flight or just try to grab some z's.

 

Also, I give my blessing to this airport for providing free WIFI.  May other airports take note.

 

 

This is a nice example of what you can build on top of the flickr photo service.  This site lets you type up a message and then have random pictures generated to spell it out like a ransom note or something.  Just look at it!

 

Great show at Rebar on Saturday night. 

 

It plays through Jan 29th at Rebar and then is moving to Thumpers.

 

Good jazz band, great drag queen, all about coffee.  Since I love coffee I was mesmorized the whole show. 

 

 

Check out http://www.thosedamntwins.com  Lisa and I got together some of our friend's artwork and matched it with a bunch of snippets of tracks we are working on.  Right now the website is just a graveyard of our work.  We are working to get a nicely produced EP ready in a couple months.

 

Thanks to Darwin for doing such a great site design!

I've been looking into podcasts as part of what I will be doing for my new job as a technical evangelist at Microsoft.  I liked this highly rated podcast I found from wired.com.  Basically its a weekly video about how to perform certain yoga techniques.  I think if you like yoga, you'll appreciate this free web class!

 

http://www.yogamazing.com/

Lisa and I are working on getting new stuff for our those damn twins website.  If you go to http://www.thosedamntwins.com today you will see the Tokyo Fish video that I made from the videos that Darwin and I shot in Tokyo.  I also made the song that goes along with it.  I hope you all enjoy.

I was trying to describe this character to my vegetable-aware friend Bailey.  I said, "He looks like a carrot but he's white".  Immediately Bailey knew it must be a daikon.  I wish I'd bought this guy when I was in Tokyo.  Unfortunately the one Darwin and I wanted was quite large, and we were sure how he would fit in our luggage.  At least I can stare at him and dream.

 

Bailey if I find him online to purchase I'll let you know!

Reading this month's Harpers I read the story about the "Gospel of Thomas".  I always kind of felt like my disciple got a bad wrap in the Bible.  Doubting Thomas had to feel Jesus's wounds to believe that they were real.  The article made me aware of new information pertaining to the ancient texts that made up the Gospels in the early books of the New Testament.  Historians believe that an ancient text that can be attributed to Thomas may have been forced underground by the censors of the time.  This Thomas can be seen as a counterculturalist at the time.  He chose to represent Heaven as a place on Earth.  This Gospel runs counter to the popular interpretation (esepcially these days) that we have to toil away our days in pain and desperation on the Earth because we will receive our divine reward in Heaven.   

 

I have to do more research on this Gospel of Thomas and will keep you posted. 

 

Here's the first link when searching. 

 

 

 

Darwin has ordered us some english subtitled versions of this show.  I am very excited to receive these.  All I know is these guys are crazy when you see them speaking Japanese, so I hope it translates.

 

Great legs!

The website superfuture is something I have been looking for.  I always thought it would be cool if something like this existed.  Like all things on the internet, it already does.  Basically superfuture is a listing of independent boutiques and stores in large cities around the world.  Many times when I visit a place, I want to be able to go to stores that carry things specific to that area.  In this globalized world, that is becoming harder and harder.  Tokyo was full of European and American stores.  Thanks to TimeOut Tokyo for helping me find superfuture.  One word of warning about the website, I don't really like their map interface because its not zoomable.  This is especially hard in Tokyo where half the streets don't even have names!

 

 

Flight got in to Seattle this morning around 6:40AM.  Strange to leave Tokyo at 3pm to arrive in Seattle on the very same day early in the morning.  I have had reverse culture shock readjusting back.  Taking the cab ride to my place I realized how much bigger all the vehicles are in the US.  I will miss those cute tiny Japan trucks.  But alas, I am happy to be back.

I'm using the Vimeo site now to host videos.  I have lots of videos to post.  Vimeo seems like a good idea but so far the interface has been clunky to use.  I had to upload this video numerous times to bring it to you.  But here it is, hope you like it.

 

The first of many

 

 

Can all be found on Darwin's blog.  He is doing a great job showcasing our trip.

 

 

They weren't kidding about Shinjuku Station in Tokyo being a busy place.  Darwin and I came in on the train from the Narita airport last night into Shinjuku.  There were so many people there.  I felt like "Gojira" (japanese for Godzilla)  as I pushed my way through the crowd with all my luggage.  Darwin and I both ran over a few people's feet but I guess that is just part of the game in Tokyo.  I also felt like a salmon swimming upstream in Shinjuku.  I had to add in a northwest reference there.

 

Went to Akihbara today to look at electronics.  Definitely another world out here.  The other name for the neighbourhood is "electric city".  Its like a William Gibson novel with anime, video games, manga, etc.  I'll post some pictures.