If It’s Not Broke, Don’t Fix It
There’s something to be said for consistency… and looking this good at 47.
Note to self: buy a chain bracelet.
Depeche Mode – Wrong (World Premiere / 2009 Echo Awards)
February 23, 2009
February 19, 2009
February 18, 2009
It’s Called Showmanship
My long-time idols, the Pet Shop Boys, were recognized with the Outstanding Contribution to Music Award at this year’s Brit Awards. They were joined onstage by Lady GaGa and Brandon Flowers for one of the most spectacular performances the ceremony has ever seen.
In case you were wondering, this is what a legacy looks like.
February 16, 2009
Currency Conversion on 50 Cent
I had a friend in from Manchester last weekend. We drove around the countryside shopping for antiques and listening to 50 Cent. She said in England he’s known as 50 Pence. She may have been taking the piss, but it made me smile just the same.
If we went by the current conversion, his American name would be 71 Cent.
Note to self: consider strength of dollar before selecting rap name.
See what trouble 71 is getting himself into now: The new track “Crack a Bottle” (avec l’Eminem et Professeur Dré) just broke the record for download sales—soaring 77 places to number one on the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart.
Crack a bottle here:
February 14, 2009
February 13, 2009
Liz Coleman of Bennington College at TED2009
I received this in an email earlier this morning and wanted to repost it here. As a person who has been known to geek out over TED, you can imagine how amazing it is to see my school’s president leading this year’s meeting of the minds.
Bennington College President Elizabeth Coleman joined Al Gore, Bill Gates, Herbie Hancock, and other leading innovators in speaking at the 2009 Technology, Entertainment, Design (TED) Conference in Long Beach, CA last weekend. This highly anticipated four-day annual event challenges the world’s forward-most thinkers to deliver “the talk of their lives in 18 minutes.”
President Coleman’s talk on liberal arts education, Bennington’s new curricular initiative, and the need for an engaged citizenry closed TED’s 25th anniversary conference to an extended standing ovation. France’s Canal Plus (the French HBO) interviewed her for a documentary they are creating about TED, as did TED’s own film team for a documentary they are producing about the 25th anniversary.
The conference included 1,300 attendees that read like a who’s who of the tech world including: Paul Allen (co-founder of Microsoft), Larry Page (co-founder of Google), Steve Wozniak (co-founder of Apple), Jay Walker (founder of Priceline.com), Nicholas Negroponte (founder of the MIT design lab), David Kelley (founder of Ideo and head of Stanford’s d.school), Jeff Bezos (founder and CEO of Amazon.com), and an array of celebrities including Robin Williams, Cameron Diaz, Glenn Close, Goldie Hawn, Matt Groening, Paul Simon, Ben Affleck, Forrest Whitaker and many more.
President Coleman is now prominently featured on the TED conference website. TED will release the conference talks on its website over the coming year–we’ll keep you posted when President Coleman’s is posted.
It was a very good week for connecting Bennington to new audiences in a new context, and it will continue this coming weekend as President Coleman presents at the second Clinton Global Initiative University Meeting in Austin, TX.
February 9, 2009
The Scent of Rain & Concrete
Photo by amelie01
I was talking to a writer friend of mine, Niall, about how much we love the smell that comes right before a summer storm – and then the one that comes immediately following (off of the concrete). He told me about this book he’d read about a man who spends an entire year reading the Oxford English Dictionary from cover to cover. In it, he actually discovers the word for that post-rain smell. The book is called Reading the OED: One Man, One Year, 21,730 Pages, by Ammon Shea, and it comes highly recommended.
Anyway, that uncanny scent continued to waft around my brain (I am so ready for spring to arrive), so I did some research and came up with an explanation published on MadSci.org. Here’s what one contributor has to say:
The smell of rain is caused by ozone (O3). It is commonly produced through dissociation of molecular oxygen (02) into two unstable atomic oxygens (2 O), each of which then recombine with molecular oxygen to make ozone.
This dissociation can occur either by high-voltage electrical discharge or by bombardment with ultraviolet light. The high voltages which occur in thunderstorms create ozone within the cloud (even when lightning is not actively occuring), and this ozone is carried toward the ground by the downdraft in the thundercloud and blown out ahead of the storm, where you smell it and can tell rain is coming.
Ozone is also created high in the stratosphere by ultraviolet light: this is the “ozone layer” which protects us from harmful UV light.
Why would water on asphalt generate ozone? I don’t think it would. But I’ve noticed the smell of water-on-pavement you’re talking about, and I do associate it with rain. Your sense of smell is very evocative: it can bring very vivid memories associated with smells. My theory is that there are two different smells associated with rain: the ozone smell before it starts raining, and the “pavement” smell once the rain begins falling on the pavement. Either one will make you think of rain, and they probably get mixed in your mind.
So what is that smell produced by wet concrete? I honestly don’t know, but It’s similar to the smell of freshly-mixed concrete, and I’ve also smelled it when carrying out the reaction
Ca(OH)2 + CO2 -> CaCO3 + H2O
Some rocks (limestone?) also smell like this when wet. I suspect the smell has something to do with calcium; either small particles are released into the air which enter your nose, or there’s some sort of gaseous calcium-containing molecule produced by interaction between carbon dioxide, water, and a calcium compound (though that seems unlikely.)
Moon / Sony Classics / Release Date Announced
Sony Classics just announced the official release date. Congratulations, Duncan and Nathan. The footage looks amazing. Here’s one of the clips. You can check out a few of the others that were leaked to Quiet Earth.
February 8, 2009
Heavy Rotation – February
My sister, Elly Jackson (of the band La Roux). Same mother. Different country.
In for the Kill / La Roux
Drop the Phone / Shy Child
Wait in a Line / Now It’s Overhead
All Day Long / New Order
Back Of The Van (Mr Vega Remix) / Ladyhawke
Gouge Away / Pixies
Love Lockdown (Mysto & Pizzi Electro House Mix) / Kanye West
Turn To Stone / Girls Aloud
Blood Bank / Bon Iver
Our Life is Not a Movie or Maybe / Okkervil River
My sister Elly’s band, La Roux, has been making waves in the UK and Europe. They’re latest track, “In for the Kill,” is just that. I love the weird key pattern she sings in the chorus. Watch the hi-def video on their myspace.
Another favorite this month is a remix of Kanye’s “Love Lockdown” by Queens-based electro duo Mysto & Pizzi. If you haven’t seen the video for the album version yet, it’s about time you did.
“Love Lockdown” music video / Kanye West
February 5, 2009
Moonage Daydream
MOON. 2009. Directed by Duncan Jones. Screenplay by Nathan Parker.
Further evidence that the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree, Duncan Jones, son of David Bowie, is preparing to release his first feature film, entitled Moon, starring Sam Rockwell as Sam Bell, an astronaught who lives alone on a moon base.
Sam’s days are filled with the routine tasks of managing a rare mineral harvesting plant, while keeping tabs on life back on earth.
Everything is hunky dory (sorry, had to) until an accident strikes, and Sam comes to realize he’s not alone after all.
Sam Rockwell in MOON
The screenplay was written by my close friend (and fellow Bennington grad), Nathan Parker, who adapted the script from an original story by Jones. Nathan took the project on shortly after completeing an adaptation of the Ken Bruen bestseller, Blitz.
Nathan Parker, writer of MOON.
I had the opportunity to read an early draft of Moon, and fell in love immediately. Imagine something like Solaris or 2001: A Space Odyssey, but with a bizarre, dark sense of humor… But then, that’s Nathan in a nutshell.
SH
