Find out more about the Telectroscope here and here. I found out about the Telectroscope when looking over my blog logs. A Metafilter article talked about both it and my Alameda-Weehawken article.
I got back from Coachella Monday morning. The weekend was tremendous fun.
High-points:
Kraftwerk – I’ve heard bits of their music for years but their super-low-key on-stage performance was enthralling.
Prince – He’s an incredibly talented guitarist, an incredible singer, terrific on the piano, an incredible showman and choreographer, a fantastic songwriter, and incredibly expressive and sexy on the largest stage. He even transposes cover songs to be his own phenomenally. (and I’ve had a crush on Sheila E since like 1988)
Brett Dennen – If she is on my top 3, I obviously don’t belong at Coachella but a folk festival. She should headline one.
Walking around with an orb following me – Marcus drove the orb while I interacted with people interacting with the orb. This one lady kept asking how they worked and I strung her along until she demanded “I am an Electrical Engineer. Tell me how it knows where it’s going!” She was crushed when I told her it was remote controlled though I tried to console her with our plans of full autonomy. I also thoroughly enjoyed driving the orb while Marcus played with people.
Serge Tankian’s performance was fun if inaudibly loud, standing about 5 rows back with Marcus.
Fatboy Slim is such a presenter, I loved the first several minutes of the show. Then he turned the bass to 11 and I couldn’t bear staying in my spot 250 yards from the stage :-(
Low-points:
Roger Waters – The music sounded too similar to how it did 20 years ago, I’m not a fan of stagnancy or living on your laurels. And I have to admit Floyd reminds me of some difficult times in my life. His new song “Leaving Beirut” was…. it wasn’t a song but a 4 page high-school essay on what he did on his summer vacation. And he read it as such. Apparently, Pink Floyd’s members make better music together than apart.
Charlotte and I have been learning poi spinning recently. One thing we’ve been doing is watching videos on the intertubes. We came across this video that introduced us to Nick Woolsey. Nick is pretty amazing. His videos show his excellent teaching, a puckish grin and an earnest streak 2 miles long. Oh and also that he is a freaking amazing poi spinner.
For the last 2 months or so I’ve been taking poi spinning classes with Jon Dickinson of Fire Arts Academy and Fire Arts Collective. All I’ve got to say is that he’s really good… a very good teacher in a good physical space with good students and… well, if you’re going to learn to spin poi, I highly recommend him.
Here’s his recent flier. If you missed these sessions, never fear, the cycle will repeat at some point!
Fire Arts Academy is offering sessions of Poi & Staff classes in Oakland. FAA is now taking registration for poi & staff classes in Oakland starting Tuesday March 11th. Private classes in San Francisco and weekend workshops are available, please contact us or check our website. Continue reading ‘I Spin Poi’ »
Internet Explorer viewers of this blog can now see what Firefox viewers have been enjoying for the last year or so…
The green bar behind “Lee.org” at the top of the blog wasn’t visible in IE til I fixed a .css file. Actually, the issue was that IE didn’t follow CSS specs, but it’s hardly worth griping about. IE 6 doesn’t see the background image in my CSS file when it reads as such:
I suppose it’s because IE sees the text being on 2 lines (there’s a carriage return in there) as being 2 elements. But I’m not going to spend any more energy figuring it out.
The writing actually phonetically spells my name in Japanese. Logically, it’s an odd collection of thoughts… “Lee” sounds like “Reason”. Then “Son” and “ko” sound like “village” and “old”.
I have to thank Miki Kawabe for the translation. At Burning Man in 2004, we won the Second Annual Semi-authentic Finnish Wife Carrying Event. We won her weight in beer.
In 2008 we are creating Mutopia our latest collaborative project. It will celebrate the innovation and spirit of our community. Infusing form with greater dynamism and interactivity. Every participant brings new ideas to the work which manifest in fire and animation.
STRUCTURE
13 Seedpods
97’ x 60’ installation footprint
Made of cast aluminium, steel, copper, fire, and light
An interactive LED illumination system throughout installation
Human activated movement controls, via hand cranks and levers
INTERACTIVITY
Mutopia is a participant controlled fire art installation. An individual can initiate sequenced patterns for the fire effects, LED lights and steam. Interactivity is multi-layered in the installation activated via custom buttons, sonar sensors, hand cranks and levers.
You are going to LOVE it!
My favorite part (thus far, nothing is built) is the “Liquid fuel canopy misters”. It’s not too different from a wonderfully dangerous effect I was playing with that I call Fire Fog. Rosa Anna and Mills’ idea is safer than mine but it’ll rock nonetheless!