I saw Elliott Brood today at the Winnipeg Folk Festival. I thought it was one guy but it was three guys with two of them singing, one of them banging away on the backside of his drumsticks and the three of them completely rocking. I thought maybe they were some kind of play on Elliott Smith but they’re not – they’re the real thing – Canadian rock musik. Part of a new breed folk-rock musicians that sometimes gets labeled “death country,” I thought these guys got it – no hillbilly, finger-picking, snot-eating, chicken-drizzling, ho-boy, cowboying country for them. It was a bit like watching the Violent Femmes be all mad at the fact that they were built on country music. Moreover, Elliot Brood was extremely gracious and acknowledged that they were thrilled to be at the Winnipeg Folk Festival and appreciated the huge turnout and support.
The Festival itself rocked as well. I saw a “workshop” of about 7 folkies who ranged in business from folk-satire to falsetto blues and, as always, I kind of fell in love with all of them. The beautifully cool Romi Mayes gave a variegated, traditional performance of a few of her sad-tinged songs of loss and love. Death Vessel‘s Joel Thibodeau brooded (pun intended) amongst the fanfare of the workshop; but his strange, truthful falsetto voice matches anything by Superchunk’s Mac McCaughan. It was the angelic, sublime voice of local girl, Keri McTighe, of Nathan that seemed to capture my sonic brain.
Individual tunes varied in quality but it was a good, strong sampling of the kinds of things folk can and can’t do. Actually, folk can do pretty much anything; as my wife said, if it acknowledges its roots in some way, it’s kind of folk. Right.
And there’s some sadness in all of this as well. Amidst the hubbub and the cheering, the clapping and whooping and calling and sad songs and crazy eyes of the dancing fans and the 31-degree heat beating down on my Tilley’d hat-head, you’re only new once. This was my first experience of the Winnipeg Folk Festival and I can only say that once. Things go and things pass and that’s it, they’re gone. No more. It was my day in the sun.
All posts by Andrew Boardman
New Deck.
We actually got a new deck last weekend and it’s quite nice. Well, it’s not really a deck. It’s more like a landing that takes you outside the house to the yard. Well, it’s not really a landing, exactly. It’s more like a stairway that’s made of wood.
In that same spirit, I’ve recently upgraded the hardware and software of Deckchairs on the Titanic to the latest and greatest, thanks to my friend and colleague, Michael Barrish. Thanks, Michael! It’s working beautifully and it will inspire me to update the site in the coming weeks. More posts, more design, and better, faster bionics coming soon.
Go.
Yesterday I was in Fargo, North Dakota.
Now I Want an iPhone.
Okay, this makes this phone something I want. The funny thing is that I don’t even own a cell phone currently.
Photosynth.
Microsoft’s Blaise Aguera y Arcas shows off Photosynth at the most recent TED conference. Wait for the demo of the incorporation of thousands of Flickr images of the Cathedral of Notre Dame. It’s phenomenal and I have little doubt that this is how either the Web or operating systems will work in a few years. (Thanks, R.L.)
Hillary Dining.
It’s not yet embeddable (the campaign needs some Web smarts still) but I actually enjoyed watching this video of Hillary and Bill parody the Sopranos ending. All new.
Switching from Text Tool to Selection Tool in InDesign
I’ve used InDesign to design printed materials for many, many years now. When you’re working in a text box and you want to move to the selection tool, you have to move from the keyboard, grab the mouse, click on the selection tool and go about your business. It doesn’t sound like a big deal or a time waster but add this movement up over the course of a day and you’ve got a silly workflow.
After 2 minutes of research, I found the solution. It’s a matter of changing the Keyboard Shortcuts in InDesign and it works like a charm.
Michael Moore on Government.
I guess this is politics week here at Deckchairs.
I can’t say enough good things about Michael Moore’s recorded speech to the California Nurses Association on Tuesday about the realities of health care in the United States. It’s completely on and is a must-listen (or -read) for anyone confused about why contemporary health care in America is provided inequitably. He’s so completely coherent, funny, and smart that I think the guy should be considered for a Nobel. Who else is willing to say publicly that American government can be reconstructed to provide real health care for all Americans, regardless of income level?
One beautiful quote: “Ask your grandparents if that Social Security check comes every month. It not only comes every month, my Dad said, it comes on the same day. Through the government-sponsored US mail. And remarkably it is the same amount every month! They actually get the check right. How do they do that? Tens of millions of seniors every month get a social security check on time for the exact amount!”
Hamas Rules.
So 1.5 million Gazans now have the lovingly hooded Hamas government to thank for taking over their schools, infrastructure, and nationhood. A fiasco.
Let’s see who might be to blame here. I’ll write a list:
- The United States (for saying little and doing nothing)
- Gazans (for voting Hamas in)
- Fatah (for idling)
- Israel (for denying)
- The United Nations (for handsitting)
- Saudi Arabia (for funding)
- Syria (for financing)
- Iran (for supplying)
- Egypt (for organizing)
- Jordan (for ignoring)
- Russia (for laughing)
- Lebanon
- Kuwait
- Bahrain
- Yemen (these four, for fomenting and abetting)
I Saw A Mighty Heart.
Despite its not very good title, the new Angelina Jolie vehicle, A Mighty Heart is a surprisingly good movie. I received an advanced screening of it last night and, though I wanted to write up my quick thoughts then, I felt a need to wait one day to let the physical processes crawl into something coherent, which, it turns out, didn’t happen:
- I didn’t quite grok all of the visuals because the theatre (note Canadian spelling) was so crowded that we had to sit in the second row. I don’t think I’ve had to do this since I was 14, watching The Jerk.
- Angelina Jolie, no matter what anyone will say, plays a (pretty) believable wife of Daniel Pearl. We, in the witness chairs, view her slow but brave collapse as her husband is first missing, then hostaged, then murdered.
- I worried at the start that A Mighty Heart would play up the huge cultural differences between Pakistanis and foreign nationals and, in particular, Americans. It did and, despite its somewhat hamhanded approach (the country is shown as one completely overpopulated hellhole), it succeeds in defining the phenomenal differences in privilege Pearl and his family have over nearly the entire world.
- The last little point: The depiction of massive use of cell phones, email, and just-in-time news throughout the movie truly made the movie. It’s hard to imagine what the entire harrowing experience would have been like without trace-back routes, IP detection schemes, photo interpretation, intelligence sharing and interpolation, and lost cellphone calls. Were it a kidnapping depicted in 1947, we would have had 90 minutes of conversation and the reading of daily news.