+ Pygmy Lush - Old Friends.

This album is a perfect mixture of the genre’s I’m interested in listening to lately.  Atmospheric downtempo folk-tinged music.  I think my musical tastes are starting to mellow out as I get older.  Pianos recently had the opportunity to play with these guys in Virginia and they blew me away.

Here’s a praising review from punknews.  My favorite track is Chance which you can listen to in that little music player above.

+ Transcendent Man

Transcendent Man is a documentary film (streaming on netflix) that follows inventor & futurist Raymond Kurzweil on a world speaking tour where he discusses his thoughts on the merger of man and machine.  The main focus of the film revolves around the concept of the singularity, a point in the future when artificial intelligence will overtake human intelligence, and the implications this will have on the human race.  Ray and a collection of other scientists give their utopian and distopian views on how this merger is going to play out.

While watching this documentary it struck me just how awesome Raymond Kurzweil is.  When he was 15 he coded a computer program that analyzed the works of classical composers and then generated it’s own music in similar styles.  In his twenties he created a reading machine for the blind using a technique called Optical Character Recognition, which scans a page of text and translates the text of that image into either brail or sound.  After a meeting with Stevie Wonder where he complained about how awful synthesizers sounded Kurzweil invented a new generation of music synthesizers that were capable of accurately recreating the sounds of traditional acoustic instruments.  At 35 he was diagnosed with type 2 diabetes.  Unsatisfied with his medical treatment he stopped taking insulin and created his own supplement and diet regiment.  Now he shows no signs of diabetes.

He also plans on living forever.

What a great track record.

+  Michael Chrichton’s Prey

I’ve been dipping my feet into the sci-fi genre since my friend Zac introduced me to Orson Scott Card’s Enders Game series a few years ago.  Michael Chrichton is best known for authoring Jurassic Park.  Wikipedia says, “His literary works are usually based on the action genre and heavily feature technology. His novels epitomize the techno-thriller genre of literature, often exploring technology and failures of human interaction with it, especially resulting in catastrophes with biotechnology.”

If you’re into science fiction and want to read a disaster story about nano-technology and artificial intelligence that rises above human control and threatens the human race then give this a go.

Jennifer Love Heweit’s new self-help romance book, The Day I Shot Cupid, includes a chapter discussing how Vajazzling helped her get through a tough break up – I bet that’s going to sell well.  I’m sure her publishers were thrilled when she told George Lopez that her vagina looks like a disco ball.

Maybe the next time I’m feeling blue I should bedazzle my ballsack with some led lights or something to boost my self-esteem.

..has a fantastic book that is, after loads and loads of labor, finished and on display.  His book, and many others, are a part of an exhibition showcasing books as a post-modern medium at the 5 Traverse, a gallery in Rhode Island. William’s contribution to the exhibition is a 92-page color cloth-bound book titled “Monday Morning, Going to Work: Subjective Observations of Dreams, Reality & Love”. The book itself is a collection of 3 illustrated tales, “Stupidino Nel Mondo Dei Sogni”, “Charlie Goes A Walkin’”, and “A Story of Love”-  All satisfyingly heart-wrenching, honest, and brutal. For the show, Will has also released 5 different limited edition copies of the book with an accompanying hand-drawn/painted dust jacket. At this moment, only 2 of those are still available, but you can also purchase a copy of the book with it’s normal cover as well. The show will be on display at the 5 traverse until June 27th if you happen to be in the area. For information, visit their website HERE.

For those of you who can’t buy or view the publication in person, Schaff keeps wonderful documentation of his work, including all 3 stories compiled in the book on his flickr account HERE. If you click on his ‘sets’ on the side, you can find each story by title. Also, check out the killer papercuts he’s been doing on commission. Schaff’s sheer volume of, and dedication to, his work is really inspiring. His ability to create and extend the use of a set of personal symbols really starts work as a language to his audience.