In Which Two Streams of My Musical Life Meet and Mix

Furthur, the best of the post-Garcia incarnations of the Grateful Dead, played a cover of Train in Vain, originally by The Clash, last night at Radio City Music Hall, in New York City. They didn't do too bad.



The song was originally sung by Mick Jones, the lead guitarist for The Clash.



I'm a Deadhead and I was a huge Clash fan back when they were active. I've written about this before. I think it's really cool that these two streams of music have come together.

STEM Education Should Be STEAM Education

Mickey Hart has written a nice little Huffington Post column on the importance of the arts in education. He argues that the science, technology, engineering and math approach, known as "STEM," won't work as well without the arts.

Neuroscientists also have shown that the brain is hardwired for music, innovation and creativity, all other human activities follow. No human culture known to historians or anthropologists has ever existed without music and dance. The arts are a necessity for insight: the arts make us human.The energy that you acquire from art and music turns inspiration into invention. This allows an inventor to dream up something never envisioned before and creates new industries and good-paying jobs.

I think he's right.

The Last Hours of Winter

I took a short walk this morning on the Junction and Breakwater trail that runs through parts of Cape Henlopen State Park between Lewes and Rehoboth Beach. Spring begins this evening at 7:21 p.m., but this morning was cold and clear and the trees remain spare and stark in the weak and watery light.

I Thought She Looked Familiar

This is a couple of years old, but it's new to me. Ann Marie Calhoun and her brother Joe Simpson play the old Grateful Dead tune Ripple. Her performance is remarkable.

I shouldn't be surprised. I'm pretty sure I've seen her work elsewhere. There's been lots of it and it looks like she'll be an interesting artist to watch.

Not least for how musically abandoned she is in her interpretation of what is one of my favorite tunes.

All It Needs is a Splash of Paint

A space scene? A lightning bolt? Either way.

Skull Chair

Here's to Pleasant Surprises

It's been a busy week or two lately. You may have noticed a lack of posting here, but be sure I was busy elsewhere.

Last week at this time I was starting a short midyear conference of the National State's Geographic Information Council (NSGIC), in Annapolis. I'm communications chair for that group and so spend the conference taking notes and developing an on-line, cloud-based repository of conference stuff.

And when I returned to the office, it was to a release of 2010 Census redistricting data for Delaware, which I am working my way through as lead staff (the entire staff, to be honest) of the Delaware Census state Data Center.

So I was looking forward to this weekend; to a nice dinner out with both our girls and to ferrying daughter #1 back north to Villanova after her mid-term break. But old-lady nature threw me a curve and hit me with a fast-moving sinus infection that settled over the roots of my upper left molars for an effect like an un-ending explosion.

I'm on the mend though. And this morning came across a pleasant surprise in my RSS Reader feed (took me a while to get here, didn't it?). Yesterday I added a new blog, that of the proprietor of a new bookstore that has just opened here in Lewes called biblion. reading back through her entries, I found one from a week ago that included, as a one-off gesture to a friend, an embedded performance by
Rodrigo y Gabriela of their guitar duet Tamacun.




I've been a fan of this pair ever since hearing them interviewed on NPR a few years back. They are from Mexico, where they played heavy-metal rock before dropping out of that scene and travelling around Ireland for a time, where they earned their living playing more traditional music. They play a fusion of folk musics with a rock and roll abandon that I quite like.

This tune is on my iPod and gets much use when I'm writing, the rhythms and fast pace seem to help my fingers keep up with  my brain.

Freedom. Exercised.

The news out of Wisconsin this past week has been fascinating for many reasons. It's been interesting to see the tensions of our political, social and economic challenges play out on a normally civil mid-western stage. And the turmoil in the middle east adds a depth that helps us keep it in some perspective.

That it's taking places in Madison adds personal interest. I was there in the fall of 2007 for a national GIS Conference and used the occasion to tour the state capitol. It's a lovely building and was fully open to the public when I visited.



This same spot has been filled with Wisconsin folks lately, exercising their right to speak. Here's a view from this weekend.



I like this.

Success! I Fixed A Google Maps Mistake. Now, For the Next One...

I got word from Google Maps today that they have accepted my correction to the location of the Judy V charter fishing boat. Google had shown it as a business located on the street outside our house, but it's actually based at the Indian River Inlet Marina, south east of here.

We live on Inlet Place, in Lewes. The Indian River Inlet Marina is on Inlet Road, south of Dewey Beach. Unfortunately, the road data that Google Maps has for Delaware doesn't include Inlet Road, so we tend to get identified as the location of things at the Inlet. For a short time, the offices of Delaware Seashore State Park were found (by Google, anyway) at our house. I think I sent a correction on that one as well.

I can't remember when I submitted the Judy V correction, but it's probably been less than a year. Back in April of last year, I gave a presentation on GIS and on-line mapping to a class of the Delaware academy of Lifelong Learning. I used my correction request as an example of what to be careful about with on-line maps.

It's not Google's fault, really. They are an aggregater of other data. They use state, federal or private sector aerial photography for their "satellite" view. They use crowd-sourced information for reviews of businesses and photos of places. And they use publicly available GIS data for roads, cities, waterways and the like. That Inlet Road is not on their maps yet speaks to a failure of what-ever mapping company they are using to provide road data to pick up Inlet Road.

For the record, the Delaware DataMIL, which serves statewide road data for Delaware, does have Inlet Road.

Now that the Judy V's place-marker has been moved, I see that Google identifies our house as the local headquarters of the Coast Guard.

I guess I need to get back into correction-suggestion mode.

This is Molly Lewis. She Made This Song Which I Really Like (For Several Reasons)

Let's start with a few basic facts. I am, and have been for a while, a fan of Stephen Fry. He's a hugely intelligent and terribly interesting writer, actor, director, etc. I first found him when he and his then performing partner Hugh Laurie (who I also really like) put together a TV series of PG Wodehouse stories (I love PG Wodehouse's writing too).

I also like quirky music, idiosyncratic singer-songwriters, and female vocalists. And I like real songs; too much of music these days is just an excuse for elaborate stage shows and dancers. There's nothing wrong with dance, but I like musicians and singers who play and sing songs.

So this evening I found this, by way of MetaFilter. It's by Molly Lewis and is a sung open letter to Stephen Fry, who is gay, proposing a combining of genetic material to improve the human genome.



I understand Mr. Fry heard this when it came out last spring and was charmed. I just think it's cool.

A Walk Around Killens Pond

I spent part of Saturday afternoon walking around Killens Pond. Daughter #2 wanted to spend the day at Lake Forest High school, watching a high school swim meet (which her school won, I think). I decided to use that as an excuse to spend some time at Killens Pond State Park with my camera.



Afterwards, I spent some time at the new Kent County Library, working online via their free wifi (thanks, very much) until it was time to pick up my daughter again.