Top 10 Tips for a weekend break in Yangshuo, China - from how to avoid a hot air balloon crash to rafting the Yulong River.

Even at 500 metres in a faulty hot air balloon Yangshuo is a breathtaking place. At that nail-biting height the region's famous limestone karsts look even more dramatic; their pointed peaks rising up from flat, green rice fields that spread out from the Li and Yulong rivers.

The town of Yangshuo was until recently a sleepy provincial village. Now it's a bustling tourist hub that has seen phenomenal expansion. Visitors are drawn to the town by the busload, eager to soak up its stunning views and raft down rivers made famous through centuries of Chinese paintings and, more recently, scenes from The Painted Veil.

Parts of Yangshuo can feel a bit like a Chinese Disneyland, especially around West Street. If you're prepared to go off-the-beaten track, and to spend just ¥100 a day on using a local guide, it's easy to experience a Yangshuo that's as far away from package tourism and flag-following lemmings as you can imagine.

TIP 1: The lovely Lilly

We used Lilly Lu for the two days that we were there. She speaks excellent English and can arrange everything from a hot air balloon rescue mission to airport transfers to lightshow tickets to unspoiled stretches of river to simple, but utterly delicious, local dining. Lilly has lived in Yangshuo and its nearby villages all her life. She's an expert on what to do and can guide you to places that package tourists can only dream of. For Lilly's contact details and more info on her tour and services, please leave us a comment with your email address at the bottom of this post.

TIP 2: Cycle far, far away

Get those legs pumping and be prepared to spend at least 2.5 – 3 hours in the saddle. Don't fret: it's flat and easy cycling along river banks and through stunning fields and tiny villages. Bike all the way up to the 400-year old Yulong Bridge and then have lunch. If you're with Lilly she'll show you where to go, but if you're heading up alone make sure you go to the first restaurant downstream from the bridge. The food is fantastic – lots of fresh vegetables stir-fried with garlic, the delicious local specialty "beer fish" and local chicken dishes as well. Note: this is not for the squeamish… if you order fish or chicken you'll see the cooks fetching live catfish from the river or live chickens from a hutch that they polish off in the kitchen and then gut. It's really not that bad, and the end result is well worth any misgivings you might have about ending an innocent life!

TIP 3: When it comes to the rivers, don't follow the crowds

The river trips in Yangshuo are one of the big highlights. At the weekend, especially if it's a public holiday, hundreds of people flock to the water to ride on bamboo rafts and squirt each other with enormous water pistols. If throngs of over excited water rats don't spell tranquility in your book, make sure you make the effort get away from the crowds.

For the Yulong River – bamboo rafts punted by boatmen – spend 3 hours in the saddle biking up to Yulong Bridge and escape the crowds. You'll be rewarded with a 2 hour trip downstream in complete quiet and isolation as it only gets busy for the last 10 minutes (and there it's phenomenonally busy). For the Li River – motorized bamboo rafts – hire a car for the day (only ¥300 - ¥550) and drive to XingPing Town. From there head upstream and you'll be on more or less your own.

TIP 4: Get up early

Set your alarm for 6am and head to Moon Hill. This karst peak has a hole straight through it that makes for some seriously impressive photographs.

You can hike to the top of the peak up a concrete staircase. The steps are pretty steep and it can be hard going unless you're a regular gym bunny. During the summer months the weather gets sticky at about 9am so it's well worth rising early to beat the heat. Getting there before breakfast also means you'll have Moon Hill entirely to yourself; we did and it was amazing.

Once you're at the top you can scramble up a dirt track right to the top of the hole. The guides tell you to allow 1.5 hours for a round-trip. If you're fit it'll take more like 45 minutes.

TIP 5: Breakfast late

The tourist groups tend to leave Yangshuo after breakfast to go sightseeing. If you're prepared to stick around you can wander the town's pretty streets in relative peace. We headed in for breakfast at around 9:30 / 10am and everyone had left. After breakfast at Café Mimosa (16 Gui Hua Road) we spent a relaxed hour exploring old streets that are normally swarming with crowds.

TIP 6: Stay out of town

Daily bicycle rents are cheap (from ¥5 - ¥20 per day), as are taxis (from about ¥30 per trip), so it's easy to travel in from a hotel that's slightly out of town.

We stayed at the Li River Retreat, which was about a 10 minute bike ride from the centre of Yangshuo. The hotel has stunning, un-obscured views from its terraces and balconies. Almost all the rooms have private balconies and they're clean and very reasonably priced (from ¥250 - ¥490 per night). Staff are friendly and can speak English. The Yangshuo Mountain Retreat also gets good reviews from friends who have stayed there (from HK$229 – HK$800 per night).

If you're prepared to stay further outside Yangshuo, the new Hotel of Modern Art gets fantastic write ups (from ¥2080 per night). It's the only hotel in China that's a member of the prestigious Relais and Chateaux alliance.

TIP 7: Don't hot air balloon unless you're very brave

We had a bad experience. At 500m our pilot laughingly announced that we had a small problem. Pointing inside the balloon he told us to look up at the hole that had appeared in the silk. We didn't think it was so funny and spent the 30 minutes it took for us to land in palpations of worry. Added to this terror was my

crippling fear of heights: I should never have got into that basket…

Other friends tell of a white-knuckle ride that involved crash landing in the trees on the side of a steep karst.

Although everyone in Yangshuo does their best to convince you that the balloon pilots are highly experienced, that it's not dangerous and that there have never been any accidents don't believe them. Hot air ballooning is by far and away the most expensive activity you can do in Yangshuo (¥700 - ¥900 per person for 70 minutes) and the local operators want your business.

TIP 8: Check out Fuli

This small town is home to families of fan makers. For centuries Fuli's inhabitants have painted fans and scrolls depicting traditional scenes. They used to make fans for the queen of one of the Chinese dynasties.

If you want to buy scrolls or fans whilst you're in Yangshuo it's worth hiring a car and visiting Fuli as they're about a third of the price and of a much higher quality than the ones selling in Yangshuo's markets. Expect to pay about ¥200 for a big silk fan.

TIP 9: If you're going for the weekend forget about Guilin

The boat trip down the Li River from Guilin to Yangshuo takes about six hours and you have to pack onto a big cruiser. If you're only visiting for the weekend it makes far more sense to arrange for a car to pick you up from Guilin airport and drive you straight to Yangshuo that night. The stretches of river around Yangshuo are quieter and you can travel them on a traditional bamboo raft away from hordes of snap-happy tourists.

Guilin is also a city with 1.32 million inhabitants – it's not the quaint town some brochures depict. If you're in search of peace and quiet ditch the city and head straight for Yangshuo. Hotels can organise a car from the airport (¥380 one way, travel time 2 hours) as can Lilly.

TIP 10: Don't go in a guided group to the light show

It's not as complicated as people have you believe. If your hotel or guide organizes the tickets for you then arrange a driver and go on your own. You'll save being herded about like cattle and will be able to escape the crowds and mayhem much more quickly. Tickets to the light show cost ¥180 per person.

All photos © Emma Torry / Bryony Greenwell ]]> http://thederosh.wordpress.com/?p=1027 Tue, 16 Sep 2008 20:11:26 +0000 thederosh http://thederosh.wordpress.com/2008/09/16/still-more-local-shows-we-havent-gotten-to-mention-yet/ [/caption]

Jeez. You know, when you try to leave no stone unturned, you occasionally turn around and look back and realize you've overturned one hell of a lot of stones. So, since a handful of shows were missed in yesterday's holy-crap-look-at-all-these-shows-we-didn't-get-to-mention-yet post, here are some more:

* The Verbs (Redux) (thank you for the reminder, Ryan) playing at the Outland this Saturday night with Holstein and Thanks For Nothing

* My Wasted Life is back at the Ballroom the same night with Cinemascope, Jam Room and Cinna the Poet

* Congress of a Crow and McGill (now with a wicked light show!) are at the Outland September 25

* House show! At the Goat Lodge (a.k.a. 533 E. Monroe St.), and Jesus, what a lineup: Fromanhole, El Minotaur, Washington Irving, Short Histories of Powerful Nations and Falcon Punch. The backing bands alone are worth the price of admission!

* Bald Eagle comes to the Outland this Friday for a scorcher with the Dirty Blondes and Unteen opening

* Hip hop show sighting! Laddie Lexxlou and Coach D do their thing upstairs at the Ballroom this Thursday night

* Justin Bowling at Lindberg's this Thursday night

DREAM SHOW AT MAI'S CAFE VENTURA

Schiller also had guests: Jette von Roth, Jael (singer from the Band Lunik and from the project Mina) and my personal favourite, Kim Sanders - her performance of the song Forever was amazing and tugged at my heartstrings.

All in all, it was an amazing show, very good lights and I truly adore the sound engineer as I never ever have heard a concert that well mixed!

Guy Perryman created the party Sonic Boom! last night, he always knows how to draw a friendly and funky mix of people together! Thank you Guy.

Masao captured my little light show so well, I am really lucky to have him around for so many reasons but when I saw the results of his snap shots from last night I was extra grateful that he is so handy with our little Nikon!

See for yourself.

I have had a few people ask me recently where I get the hoops from. They are made in the US by PSI, this most amazing pieces of perfectly made fun!

More light up sparkling hoops here

Type: Entertainment

Cost: $0.99

Rating: ★★★★★★★★★☆ 9/10

Review: This is a neat app, especially for anyone who had a Light Brite growing up. This app consists of 9 different colored pegs which you position to make pictures. This app is an alternative to other drawing apps such as Scribble.  This app doesn't haven't many features, but that's the beauty of it, it's so simple to use.  At this time there is no save feature (coming in future updates) but it is easy just to take a screenshot if you want to save a picture.

Screenshots:

Verdict: If you had a Light Brite as a kid, how can you not download this?  Others might find it to simple but it is a fun app.

Link: Light Show

My first response to this spot was, "what the hell is going on?" But when i saw the flickering of the lights i knew exactly what was happening, but that's only because I knew it was a Guiness spot from the beginning. Beautiful. The music and beauty of this spot keep you engaged throughout because you are so unsure of what your really seeing. And once it's revealed, the building version of the famous Guiness waterfall from the top of the glass that is, a little laugh of cleverness escapes. Keep pushing it Guiness.

Great Job, Creatives

This past Saturday was Glow.  Located on the Santa Monica Pier, this free contemporary art exhibit of light was inspired by Nuit Blance in Paris.  One of the major highlights was Usman Haque's Primal Source - an aurora borealis-type exhibit built out of a huge water spray screen with rear projected light patterns.  The changing display was controlled by crowd reaction and ambient noise caught on the microphones set up in front of the display.  If you are interested in seeing Primal Source in action, watch this video!

And last year, even God got in on this action with his own exhibit called Evoke.  A massive interactive light projection on York Minster's western facade.  Can I get an AMEN?

The performance was a light and music show that tipped it's hat to the liquid projections of the '60s. There is a great link I found that talks all about the origins of this art form: http://wild-bohemian.com/liteshow.htm. Since I had never been to a live light show, it was great fun to sit around on the floor and on bean bag chairs, with a bunch of strangers and take it all in. I think I even smelled a bit of herb floating through the air. I'm sure it was nostalgic for some of the viewers, but most of the audience weren't even born then or at least weren't teenagers in the '60s. Though the light and music were great, I kept watching the light and color makers putting together their magic in the back with their overhead projectors. As far as being a profound piece about the war, well, it wasn't. The videos say it all, so have a groovy experience watching them.

Southern Exposure's Gallery Hours:
Tuesday - Saturday, 12:00 pm - 6:00 pm

417 14th Street (@ Valencia)
San Francisco, CA 94103
t: (415) 863-2141
w: www.soex.org

love,
alex
www.listentocolour.com

Oh man, ohne Worte, das Video ist sooo geil! Es ist zwar schon ein Jahr her, doch ich Idiot war nicht da. Ist mir egal, wie weit er nächstes Mal weg sein sollte, ich werde dort hingehen!!!!! Egal was passiert! Ich muss mir das angucken! Ach ja und das Konzept ist sehr sehr sehr an den Film "The Cube" angelehnt...Geiler Film, alle Teile!!!!

Quelle Vimeo via Kanye West Blog

Of course this wouldnt work in your pool if it was full of algae and leaves so in order for it to work make sure you clean your swimming pool properly before hand with pool cleaning chemicals and then have a go! Trust me it is awesome! Check out these links and an awesome video on youtube that I found of this thing in full action;

www.youtube.com

www.poolpartmart.co.uk

My first major festival sets of the year, working with Bassline Circus and Pointless Productions, will be updating with photos on my return. This could be Wino's swansong performance (aren't they all) so I don't want to miss her, MGMT, Vampire Weekend, The Young Knives, Massive Attack, Hot Chip, Goldfrapp, Groove Armada, The Zutons, Spiritualized, Crystal Castles, Roisin Murphy, DJ Yoda, CSS, The Cribs, UNKLE, Ladyhawke and Mark Ronson (surprise guest appearances pls tks).

Anyway, the music made up for it. Day started with a nice, long and stressful journey out Malahide to a friend of a friends who lives right beside the castle. Scorcher of a day, so we sat around drinking, BBQ'n and getting burnt. The perfect warm up. The venue was about half full when we got there, the sun was still shining and didn't stop until after 10pm. Beautiful setting for a beautiful gig.

I must mention the trickery of a friend of the friend of a friend, who managed to sneak into the gig. Dressed in slacks, a shirt and a waistcoat, armed with 5 litres of milk and a pass around the neck for some event in Croke Park, they walked right up to the gate and claimed to be delivering milk. When asked for a pass, they showed the Croke Park pass briefly, cracked a joke and in they went, then promptly dumped the milk in a corner somewhere. While this is pure genius and I can't believe it worked, you'd wonder how many people sneak into these things. Bit harsh on the band in question but then again the price of the ticket was a bit harsh on the regular, honest punter.

So, Bat for Lashes kicked off at about 7pm. My review below was fairly glowing of Natasha Khan's album 'Fur and Gold', but unfortunately the live experience didn't live up to it. Not that it was bad it was just a bit dull. The crowd weren't interested because they were all snobs, impatiently waiting for Radiohead plus the sun was too tempting not to lie on the grass for the evening. The instruments employed were real nice however, including a bizarre one stringed violin sized piece that had a brass horn attached to it, played with a bow, which I must find out what it is. It was good but the album's better.

After much roadie action and jostling for a good spot in the crowd, Radiohead took to the stage around 8:30.

From start to finish they were perfect, with a minor blip from Johnny on 'Videotape', which they promptly stopped and picked up a minute later perfectly. The general perfection was disappointing though. I mean, now I've paid €130 to hear the 'In Rainbows' album as it was recorded (€70 for gig, €60 for boxset). Ok fair enough it's not at the scale of the Tom Waits rip off and I'm happy that I got value for money with the boxset, but I expect more from a performance especially from a band of the calibre of Radiohead.

Anyway, not to be a complete downer, it was still enjoyable. They avoided most of the classics like the majority of their first 3 albums, apart from 'Planet Telex', 'Climbing Up The Walls' (a highlight) and 'Airbag'.

The 'Kid A/Amnesiac' songs were brilliant, in this case I'm amazed at how they reproduce this music live. It's sheer brilliance. Then there was the best from 'Hail to the Thief', no more than 3 songs. They also threw in 'Bangers and Mash and a new song, 'Supercollider', that Yorke performed solo on piano, still rough around the edges though.

I guess my main disappointment was with the performance of the 'In Rainbows' tracks. They played it all except for 'House of Cards', including a nice little acoustic duet of 'Faust Arp'. All these songs were performed exactly like they are on the album, with very little passion in the performances. There was some nice moments like 'Videotape' and 'Jigsaw Falling Into Place', but overall it felt a bit dull for a live performance.

The light show was amazing. As you can see from the pictures, there was strips of lights the height of the stage at the sides and back and about 10 foot above the stage in the middle. The colours and effects the came out of these was incredible, although it would have been nicer if it was darker but I'm not going to complain about the great weather and long evenings. The screens at the back and sides had mainly close up shots of the band and their instruments, a real nice touch for the musos. It also worked with the strips of lighting, creating a stunning visual experience.

All in all it was a good, enjoyable gig, and a great day out, would do it all again tomorrow if I could. Just a shame there was too many negatives. Also, surprising that the additional night (which was actually the Friday night) wasn't sold out. The Saturday sold out within an hour or so but tickets for Friday were still available...

Thursday night we finally went to check out old downtown Vegas. I didn't know what was supposed to be downtown and kinda just suspected a few old-timey casinos scattered in the midst of lots of office buildings. Yeah, not quite, and I now i feel bad about not taking any of our Vegas visitors to Fremont Street because it was awesome. Fremont Street is worlds more compact than The Strip and has been closed off to traffic since 1994, so it's a much more festive atmosphere. We got there just before the 9PM light show, in time to buy a couple football beers, one of the best purchases I've ever made.

Only cool kids drink beer out of a straw. The light show was impressive. The entire block is sheltered by a canopy with the worlds largest TV screen on its underside. They turn off all the neon casino lights, so it gets nice and dark and then the giant screen goes into action. From Wikipedia:

A section comprising one fiftieth of the total canopy equals the size of the world’s current largest electric sign. Originally, nearly 2.1 million incandescent lights were housed in the canopy. With the completion of the $17 million upgrade, more than 12 million LED lamps illuminate the overhead canopy. Within the canopy itself are 220 speakers capable of producing 550,000 watts of sound.

Here's a video I took. There are other, better ones, but I wanted to try out youtube and make my own content.

Fifteen minutes after the 9:00PM light show there was a "Sphere of Death" motorcycle show, also free naturally. You know what the sphere of death is - that metal cage/sphere in which Homer rides loops in The Simpsons' Movie. This particular show culminated with three riders roaming the cage simultaneously. Fun stuff; have a look:

A contortionist preformed after the 10PM light show, but sadly we only caught the last eight seconds because we were touring casinos. There are a number of old, super famous casinos on Fremont Street, like Golden Nugget and Binion's, the original home of the World Series of Poker.

We went into Mermaid Casino first and the two women in the doorway, all gussied up in the fluffy flamingo feather look, gave us beads and a ticket for a raffle and a free drink. I was halfway through the sentence "now what are we supposed to do with these tickets" when a server ran up, and took our ticket stubs and drink orders. I got the most disgustingly strong rum and coke I've ever encountered in my life. It couldn't have been far from straight liquor, and I would have been well served to not drink it. Anand got a Margarita that was more palatable, so after we walked into Mermaid a second time and got two more free drink tickets, I tried my luck with one of those. Straight Tequila. I swear they must have been trying to kill me. Since Anand didn't have any singles for the tip, he put a five dollar bill in a slot machine and cashed out after losing a nickel. This works great in the strip casinos. When you cash out of a strip slot machine, you get a ticket which you take this ticket to a ticket-redemption machine that pays you out in proper change. The Fremont Street machines tend to be a little more old-timey, and actually dispense coins. Pretty awesome to hear all the clinking when you win, unless of course you put a five into a nickel slot machine hoping for change to tip with. Anand got back 99 nickels.

Here's another great slot machine picture. I saw this big bruiser-looking dude sitting by an aisle playing a slot machine and then happened to notice the name of the machine. Check it out.

One more gaming machine photo. This one I decided was my favorite machine in all of Vegas. It's video poker with an excellent pay-out scale, but that's not what makes it special. While normally you have to scrounge around to find nickel video poker in casinos, this one you can play for pennies! Whoa! You could play this for days and only spend a dollar. On the other hand, I'm something of a video poker master now, getting quads left and right, raking in the big bucks through sheer luck, so I'm a little too much of a baller to play for pennies. But here you go; behold its blurry beauty:

And one last picture: the food we ate with our beer and disgusting liquor drinks. Another definite highlight of the trip, coming from a grill in the Mermaid Casino. Actually, I think this may have been why we walked into that casino to start with. A fried twinkie - the first of my life. It was magnificent.

We capped off the night with some blackjack, which I had sworn off but seemed like a decent idea at the moment. I won a couple dollars, playing $5 blackjack for a pretty decent length of time. I'll take it.

]]> http://brainteaser.wordpress.com/?p=116 Wed, 19 Mar 2008 13:57:39 +0000 brainteaser http://brainteaser.wordpress.com/2008/03/19/corregidor-trip-a-reflection/

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“Bayang magiliw perlas ng silanganan, alab ng puso, sa dibdib mong bughaw…”

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My mind was traveling back and forth with lightning speed from the present to historical events almost 60 years ago as we sang the national anthem inside the darkened tunnel. As pictures of past and present events flashed in my mind, a cold chill surged through me.

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“Aming ligaya na ‘pag may mang-aapi ang mamatay ng dahil sa iyo.”

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There was a moment of silence after the last note, then noise suddenly erupted when the other end of the tunnel was finally opened and the kids started running out of the tunnel. I looked around for my friends Salve and Celestine. When I spotted them behind the two girls on my right, I walked to them, noticing their subdued countenance. I knew they were as affected as I was.

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“That made me sad,” I told my friends as we slowly made our way out of the tunnel.

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“Yes. That saddened me too,” my friends replied in unison.

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We were at the Malinta Tunnel in Corregidor, and we had just watched a light show about the World War II. We almost did not watch it because we were already tired from the morning tour. It’s a good thing we eventually decided to see it, as it was already the last leg of our day tour.

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The show is about the Japanese invasion to the Philippines. It focused on how bravely the Filipino-American allies tried to defend the country but failed with the fall of Bataan and of Corregidor. Highlights of the show are images of the death march, the return of Mc Arthur to fulfill his promise, and the subsequent mass suicide of the Japanese soldiers from the very tunnel where we watched the show to avoid having to surrender, or worse, being captured.

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As the scenes were flashed from several stations inside the tunnel amidst a moving narration and sound effects, I could feel my heart thumping with mixed feelings, primarily, of pride and desperation.

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I was proud for and thankful of the thousands of men and women who fought and died during those dark times of our history. But I also couldn’t help feeling very sad toward the end of the show, especially during the singing of the national anthem, with the Philippine flag proudly waving over us.

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As we sang, images of the thousands of men who marched to their death six decades ago kept flashing in my mind and I couldn’t help thinking: “God, here are the men who died for the country so we could be free, so we would have all the things that were denied them. But what have we done? And what are we doing?”

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Then images of what’s happening in our country now replaced the decades-old images, and I became even sadder.

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Viewed from the perspective of what the country has become after all those deaths and sacrifices, that part of our history, and even the other parts when our forefathers fought the earlier colonizers, take a very bleak appearance. It’s like everything was for naught. The lessons, glaring though they were, and still are, seem to have been lost to us.

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We are slaves still, though no longer with concrete chains. We, as a nation, are still slaves to the evils of corruption, to the crab mentality that has plagued us, to the evils of the need for power.

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We are still at war, only this time, no longer with outside forces, but with our fellowmen — and may I add — within ourselves.

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Just like the Japanese soldiers of the later part of World War II had been, we too are inside a very dark tunnel, preparing for suicide. Except that our reasons are not as honorable as the Japanese soldiers’ had been. They committed suicide because it would be a loss of honor for them to be captured, and honor was all that mattered to them; and surrender was not a part of their vocabulary.

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Whereas we are pushing our motherland to commit suicide, with the thoughtless acts of our leaders and the apathy in most of us.

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So I sang the national anthem with a sad heart and moist eyes. And a silent prayer. I prayed that we may find our way through all these things that are plaguing our nation now. That somehow, we would be able to give our children and our children’s children something to be proud of.

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As my friends and I walked to the waiting bus, my mind traveled fast forward to fifty years from now. And I shuddered as I wondered: “How would our grandchildren remember us when they look back to this part of history our generation is weaving?"

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Will they remember us as the generation that toppled a corrupt president, only to  replace him with someone who is equally corrupt — if not more — and a liar? I closed my eyes and made a wish, that we will somehow eventually get things right, and be remembered as the generation that stood up against the evils of corruption, and who steered the country to a brighter future.

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I know my wishes are almost impossible at present. Everywhere we look, there is desperation. But let us not allow these negative feelings we have and the bad things that are happening in our to country destroy us as individuals. For even if our problems as a nation have become a tangled web which now seems impossible to straighten, we can do something still, as individuals and as small groups.

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I still think there is a ray of hope somewhere in this dark tunnel we are all in right now. Let us just keep moving, and doing our part. Small things do add up, and make up for bigger things.

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[Photo Caption: A scene from the Malinta Tunnel Light Show]

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//Sherma E. Benosa; 18 March 2008; 1:25am 

And theeeeen, the show began! I was standing close to the sound engineer, as I'm always interested what's going on there as well and the club was not too big, so I still could see Ville pretty close. It's so surprising to see this small, skinny boy on stage and then hear his gorgeous, powerful voice! It just rocked so much! And the sound was great as well, very powerful and the light show was amazing too.

So, Ville is a gift for the tobacco industry: I'm sure he smoked at least one pack of cigarettes during the concert, just while singing - I have no idea, how he does that. And it was pretty funny, coz the singer of Paradise lost's last sentence to the audience was (as so many were smoking):"Thank you for giving me lung cancer!" and then, there comes the other one and smokes like a machine...

There were only two things that I didn't like too much: seemed that Ville was in a very talkative mood. He talked and talked and talked... worse than a woman! :-)

And the other thing is more a psychological one: they didn't do an encore. They played pretty long, though, but still it would have been better for the crowd if they stopped after one hour and then do another half an hour of encore. This is the learning I take out of it ;-)

(from the facebook invite page)

EMACM presents

THE sound and light event of 2008 in Malaysia, featuring an international cast and culminating with a spectacular audio-visual laser light show by Robin Fox.

Robin Fox is a Melbourne based sound and visual artist currently working with live digital media in improvised, composed and installation settings. He creates audio-visual works for the cathode ray oscilloscope, which have been released on the DVD Backscatter (Synaesthesia Records).

"Most spectacularly, Robin Fox successfully visualized sound with his superb laser show. Think of an oscilloscope, think of the scene in the intensive care unit when the green fluro trace flattens out to a straight line. Now think of that line like a bolt from the proscenium wall across the audience multiplying as it describes an astonishing variety of planes, thanks to the dry ice machine and a couple of mirrors. Fox's use of an audio controlled laser projector to demonstrate the geometry of sound was as elegant as anything you might experience in a concert hall or gallery." – Penny Webb, The Age Newspaper 26/06/2007

Robin Fox (Australia)
http://www.robinfox.com.au/about/

Ang Song Ming (Singapore)
http://www.circadiansongs.com

Akta Angkasa
http://www.geocities.com/senipekik

EMACM Collective
http://www.myspace.com/EMACM

ANAM (Scotland)

TIME : 26th Feb 08, Tuesday, 8:00pm

VENUE : Annexe, Central Market, KL.

ENTRY : RM 18

One night only. Not to be missed.

OK, so...I realize that this is ridiculously late in the year for posting something holiday related, but this doesn't deserve to be completely forgotten.  Here are some pictures from the holiday light show at the end of 2007 in the Wanamaker building. Ever since 1956, this light show has been displayed each year - every hour, on the hour - from the day after Thanksgiving to New Year's Eve.  *Note the breath-taking pipe organ (the largest playable pipe organ in the world).:

This looks pretty cool - it's a "festival of light" that's taking place just around the corner from our apartment in the crazy neon green, red stick laden Grand Canal Square. What with the walky men on O'Connell Street and now this - it's all about the light shows at the mo isn't it?
It's called the Hive, and has been created by KMA (Kit Monkman and Tom Wexler), who, I'm told, are the digital artists behind some v. cool installation in London’s Trafalgar Square. It will take place between the 1st-9th of Feb from 5pm to 10pm as part of Lightwave, the TCD Science Gallery festival (more on this later). Say the Docklands dudes:

"This is a newly commissioned public artwork consisting entirely of projected light and sound through which you, the audience, come and go. By entering you take control of one part of an interactive fantasia driven by your movements and the changing rhythms and timbres of the music. Drawing you in to explore the rich mix of sound and light, the Hive imagines a number of encounters with otherworldly life forms and environments."

Woo woo.

I went to the Christmas light show at Longwoord Garden in Pennsylvania over the holiday. There were some awesome Christmas tree decorations done by local elementary school students as well as other decorations on flowers and trees. Even though there wasn't any snow for my white Christmas fantasy, the light show definitely made me feel festive!

To add to our state's constantly-growing list of bizarrely-themed bandits, we have a Beer Bandit now. 2,300 cases of beer were stolen in Dougherty county over the past week. Someone is going to have a phenomenal New Year's Eve party in Albany, Georgia.

Previously: We rob banks

The first time I watched this video, my mouth hung open the entire time.

It is INCREDIBLE.

Watch it here.

Greatest. Light show. Ever.