Tuesday, October 18, 2005

SSSS...

... if you ever see this on your airline ticket, be prepared for the rubber glove treatment. I didn't know this before last week.

Apparently, this means you have been "randomly" chosen by your airline to be separated from all other passengers as you pass through the TSA checkpoint, and you will have everything you own searched, you will receive a wanding, a pat-down, they'll check inside your pants, (I'm using the back of my hand, the back of my hand, tell me if you are feeling uncomfortable...) they'll dump your carry-on luggage out, they'll thumb through your wallet (that didn't seem right...)

This happened to me on both legs of my journey. Oh, well - I guess that's the price of freedom in a democracy, right? But you know - it made me nostalgic for the old days, when you could meet somebody at their flight-gate in airport, and hug them as they came off the plane. Now people have to run out to your car in the waiting zone out front, where cops are chasing you off. Flying now is really impersonal and actually sort of stressful, since if you get separated and super-searched it sort of puts you on the defensive when you've done nothing wrong. Again, I guess that's the price of freedom in a democracy, right?

Anyway, enough belly-aching. I went to an Apple sponsored conference on 1:1 laptop computing initiatives in higher educations in Laguna Beach in Southern California (Hey Fuzz, just north of San Diego!) - so the scenery made up for any inconvenience coming or going.

SO, on the plane rides out and back, I experimented with yet another music making software application on my Palm, titled "Bhaji's Loops", made by the same people who make the Microbe software I've been chatting up in this blog. It's pretty damn impressive software.

I can compose & produce multi-track arrangements of sound-sampled instruments directly on my Palm. (Remember, this is a little handheld gadget about the size of a cell-phone).

Anyway, here's a song that I did to teach myself how to use the basics of this software (as I sat on the plane to and from California):

Laguna-02b-44-HR.mp3 - (high bandwidth - stereo)
Laguna-02b-44-LR.mp3 - (low bandwidth - mono)

I figure if I ever get a TV series, I can use this as my opening theme.

Thursday, October 06, 2005

Edward Dormer: Flat Rock @ Carbon 14 Gallery...

Edward Dormer is a Philadelphia based artist (scuptor, designer, videographer) who does interesting and exquisite work with natural materials in both outdoor and indoor settings.

He's having an opening on First Friday (Tomorrow, October 7, 2005 from 5 to 9pm) at Carbon 14 Gallery in Old City (126 North 3rd Street, Philadelphia, PA 19106 - tel: 215-923-2352)

It's a new video and anthracite work - you'll have to go see it to know what that means. The installation will run from October 7 through October 28th.

Here's a link to a site hosting a Flash based invitiation to the opening event and installation (make sure your browser has the Flash plug in)...

http://www.ambientdin.com/flatrockinviteDORMERfs.html

If you click on his name in the Flash invite, you'll also get to see a body of his other work as well - definitely worth it. If you're able, go check out his installation!

Tuesday, October 04, 2005

I am...

... really exhausted.

Huuuhhhhhh...