Once they did get on stage, they played sans keyboards, sans Matt’s vocals, and très rapide. I can only assume that they played such fast versions of their songs to make up for the lack of keyboards and extra vocals; granted, it is customary to speed up songs during live performaces, but just when you thought Eleanor couldn’t sing/talk and faster, she’d pour out a montage of Blueberry Boat songs faster than an auctioneer selling cattle. And although keyboards are typically a key part of their songs, they still managed to put on a pretty good show without them… considering it a was a 2nd-stage stop on a Sunday night.

They played songs not only from “Blueberry Boat,” but also from “Bitter Tea” and “I’m Going Away,” including the wonderfully ominous “The End is Near” which could be talking about anything from a relationship to apocalypse with “The end is near, the end is near the time has come. There ain’t no way, nobody will save you now… don’t even think that there’s a way out of this. Down the road and up the creek it’s over, it’s such a clear and certain hell of a thing, it’s over.”

And even though we had to be at work the next morning, it was worth it because it was such a small crowd in a relaxed venue, making for an intimate evening with the Friedbergers.

Fiery Furnaces

Fiery Furnaces

Fiery Furnaces

Fiery Furnaces

Fiery Furnaces

Fiery Furnaces

Fiery Furnaces

Fiery Furnaces

The Lamppost WordPress Theme

Clean, elegant, green, orange, silver, modern, widget-ready, Adsense-ready, supports gravatars.

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Barry Lopez

I recently returned, part-time, to my old job of digital mapping. It’s a leisurely job where I can work on maps all day while being able to listen attentively to short stories and still get the job done. I’ve always liked maps, and I’m usually happy when I have a short story or good music to listen to, so it works out.   However to say that my mapping work “pales” in comparison to the mapping work in this story would be a gross understatement and it’s actually the antithesis of the type of mapping described in it.

The story I listened to today from my podcasts of Selected Shorts was Barry Lopez’s “The Mappist,” and it’s one of the best stories I’ve heard yet.  Elegant, beautifully written, and meaningful at the same time. 

It makes me wish I had a project as noble as one of the character’s in the story and makes me question (once again) my own infatuation with technology.

It's a world of laughter a world of tears...

Part I covered our first morning in Disneyland and Part II picks up at Small World – which was one of my very favorite rides – it was beautiful!!  As you will see here, I went crazy with the pictures, and even got a video of the entire wonderful ride!

This is a culmination of Small World pictures from March 17th and 18th, from the entrance to every painstaking detail I could get a shot of inside the ride.  I rode this several times – once videotaping the entire way, once or twice taking pictures the whole way through, and a couple times simply sitting back and enjoying the ride.

First, here’s the video:

And… It’s a Small World – in photos!

One of the splendid Small World garden animals

Small World Ride Entrance

Small World Moose Topiary

Small World Bear Topiary

Small World Clock Tower

...its a world of hopes, its a world of fear...

...theres so much that we share that its time we're aware its a small world after all!

Entering Small World Ride

Hello There

The happiest cruise that ever sailed!

Small World Ride

Small World Ride

Small World Ride

Small World Ride

Small World Ride

Small World Ride

Small World Ride

Small World Ride

Small World Ride

Small World Ride

Small World Ride

Small World Ride

Small World Ride

Small World Ride

Small World Ride

Small World Ride

Small World Ride

Small World Ride

Small World Ride

Small World Ride

Small World Ride

Small World Ride

Small World Ride

Small World Ride

Small World Ride

Small World Ride

Small World Ride

Small World Ride

Small World Ride

Small World Ride

Small World Ride

Small World Ride

Small World Ride

Small World Ride

Small World Ride

Small World Ride

Small World Ride

Small World Ride

Small World Ride

Small World Ride

Small World Ride

Maurice Sendak’s Where The Wild Things Are has always been one of my favorite books.  In fact, I even find myself watching the children’s TV show “Little Bear” (based on Sendak’s Little Bear) every now and then, even though my daughter grew out of the show years ago.

The playful (and wild) spirit as well as the art and craftiness of Sendak’s works are what attracts me the most, and while the movie did retain some of that look, feel, and craftiness (which was my favorite part of the movie), it did not have any of the playfulness that Sendak’s book had.  Rather, the wild things were morose, lackadasical, mumbly, and just plain whiny throughout the entire movie.  And that’s where the movie goes very wrong, in the characters’ desperate attempts to shove their sadness and loneliness in your face with every line, they never actual pull you in to their characters, but rather leave you wishing they’d take their overdramatic emotions off of their furry sleeves.

With enough hipster names for ten movies, including Spike Jonze (Being John Malkovich and Adaptation), Karen O (Yeah Yeah Yeahs), Dave Eggers (A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius), and actors Forest Whitaker, James Gandolfini, Catherine O’Hara, Max Records (of DCFC video fame), Catherine Keener, and Mark Ruffalo among others, it had the ingredients of a must-see yet doomed to fail movie from the start.  Well I had to see it, especially after seeing that amazing trailer with Arcade Fire’s “Wake Up” playing with the wild scenes.  (And where is that Arcade Fire tune now that the movie’s out, I ask you??)

For me, it would have been better to almost make the whole movie more of a music video of sorts, since they pretty much had the look and feel, and had some really beautiful scenes like the crafted village scene which was quite magical. But sadly, the characters and dialogue left very much to be desired.

I also want the themes on this site to be fully tested and high quality, so I plan on deleting some of the older ones because I don’t really like them enough to redesign them for the latest version of WP and I’d rather work on new ideas.

I’m especially excited now because WordPress.org has accepted one of my themes!  So I submitted two more this morning and will continue to try to make interesting, free themes both for this site and for Savvy Web Design, where I post niche themes for more business-type sites.

Tiki Time!

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Enjoy!

Introducing Filmix:

Filmix WordPress Theme

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It supports gravatars, is widget-ready, Adsense-ready, dark, modern, clean, and released under the GPL license.