Photo by Flickr user oceanfrog.
I saw the Dave Matthews Band twice this summer, once in Philly and two weeks ago in Virginia Beach. LeRoi was absent from the latter show. He’d been injured in an ATV accident, suffering punctured lung and broken ribs. Tonight, he died from those injuries.
I’ve seen the Dave Matthews Band more times than any other (well, that doesn’t have a regular spot at a local bar playing covers), so this news hit pretty hard. Especially finding out while watching Larry King interview Bill Maher (without sound) on the treadmill. It’s hard to stand shocked in the middle of a run.
A few tracks featuring Roi from the DMB catalog:
Lie In Our Graves - Live at Red Rocks 8.15.95
Anyone Seen the Bridge - The Central Park Concert
Bartender - Live at Folsom Field (I’m a sucker for a flute).
Also, be sure to check out the rest of oceanfrog’s photos, they’re quite excellent.
# 2008 Aug 19
At around the same time the man from Atlantis was making the splash heard ‘round the world, the creator of Veronica Mars was sitting down with his beloved, lamented series’ star, Kristen Bell, to discuss bringing the cult hit to the big screen.
Excellent news. The world has been a sadder place since Dick Casablancas left our TVs:
We’re a frat. Why rape the cow when you’re swimming in free milk?
Thankfully, it’s only 12 days until Chuck Bass.
# 2008 Aug 19
Orson Swindle on gym etiquette.
My addition: Brush your teeth. Especially if you’re a mouth breather. Heavy breather + what you had two hours ago for lunch = gag.
# 2008 Aug 18
John August on the uncanny valley of superhero political leanings:
I’d argue that the thematic success of comic book characters, and comic book storylines, comes from how closely they can approach the line separating Real from Too Real, without crossing it.
For example, this summer’s The Dark Knight is set in the most realistic Gotham City yet, but its characters still speak in broad philosophical proclamations.
Absolutely. Plus, it helps that In Batman We Trust - we let him get away with various moral incongruities (let’s tap every cellphone! it’s OK because I’m trying to catch an evildoer!) that we wouldn’t accept from more tangible figures of authority*.
*Just kidding!
# 2008 Aug 14
The alleged title of the new U2 album (indirectly corroborated by Universal’s recent registeration of nolineonthehorizon.com):
According to the Mirror, songs set for ‘No Line on the Horizon’ include ‘For Your Love,’ ‘Love is All We Have Left,’ ‘One Bird,’ ‘Moment of Surrender,’ ‘If I Could Live My Life Again,’ ‘The Cedars of Lebanon’ and the title track.
Isn’t it about time for a moratorium on songs with “love” in the title? During the recording of Zooropa, Flood (I think) curated a list of overused words to shy away from in the lyrics (“night”, “street”, etc.).
Like “love”. Or “life”. Or “moment”.
I mean, yay, new U2.
# 2008 Aug 14
David Beckham will star at the Olympics closing ceremony in Beijing as the handover to London 2012 gets under way.
The spectacular event on August 24 will also see Led Zeppelin’s Jimmy Page performing a duet with pop star Leona Lewis.
Don’t really care, just wanted to write that headline.
# 2008 Aug 14
Fireworks over the Olympics pyrotechnics erupted yesterday when it was learned that the elaborate display broadcast to the world as part of the opening ceremony was faked, done digitally in 3-D computer graphics.
The Beijing Times, which first reported the story, said members of the Beijing Olympic Committee defended the ruse because of the city’s hazy, smoggy skies, which made such an elaborate fireworks display at night too difficult to pull off successfully.
Stupid, but so what?
# 2008 Aug 11
Nobody dances anymore:
[Daniel J.] Levitin, the neuroscientist, draws a parallel between people’s dancing inhibitions and their discomfort with public singing. In the 1950s, he points out, “people would sit around and sing songs with a piano player. Now there’s been a professionalization of singing as well.” He suggests that is why we enjoy the first week of “American Idol” so much, because we can laugh at people who don’t abide the new social norm: You don’t perform in public unless you’re really good. Increasingly, he said, we’ve come to think that way about all social entertainment.
# 2008 Aug 05
A violent vigilante from his earliest appearances in May 1939, he subsequently softened with the introduction of a teenaged sidekick, battled against the Axis powers in the comics and in a pair of big-screen serials, became a jovial post-war father figure at the head of an extended family that included a Bat-Woman and a Bat-Hound, encountered primary-coloured robots and aliens at a time when flying saucers were de rigeur at the (B-)movies, and acted as a ninnyishly lantern-jawed straight man to a succession of bad puns and pratfalls in the television series of 1966-68. In the 1970s, under the stewardship of Dennis O’Neil and Neal Adams, the comics jettisoned the sidekicks and turned their protagonist into a suave, James Bondian globetrotter, while the 1980s and 90s saw the character diversify into a plethora of different versions - the mouthpiece for Frank Miller’s cranky, Reagan-era satire in The Dark Knight Returns, a dreamer lost in a maze of sign and symbol in Grant Morrison’s densely allusive Arkham Asylum and a diminutive yuppie continually overshadowed by the theatrics of his enemies in two successful films by Tim Burton, in which their director perfected his distinctive strain of fairy-tale gothic. Far more versatile than any of his pop-cultural peers - Superman, say, or Wonder Woman, or Captain America - the character is a barometer of his times, a reflection of what any given age expects of its heroes.
# 2008 Aug 05
Apple posted a “bug fix” update for the iPhone tonight. Normally I wait a day or two before installing updates, but I made an exception in this case, as my feelings about updating from 2.0 are best explained by this exchange from Buffy :
Anyanka: You trusting fool. How do you know the other world is any better than this?
Giles: Because it has to be.
# 2008 Aug 04
Roger Ebert might be gone from my TV, but he’s still pushing the words. His latest post discusses the failure of contemporary films to appreciate the difference between visual effects serving the plot, and effects for the sake of effects:
The thing about the film is, we logically know the effects are effects, but they have aspects of startling reality. We know that horses can’t gallop through the air, and carpets can’t fly. But, hey, that’s the real Sultan on a real horse, and that’s the real Sabu on a real carpet. Today it might be done with CGI. We would get quick cuts of the horse heaving and tossing its mane, and the Sultan clinging for dear life, and eagles circling, and the overhead shot to the ground below, and the movie would be so busy it would forget the real point of the shot: The horse is flying!
# 2008 Aug 04
The Philadelphia Inquirer writes about the unsolved murder of Penn State graduate student Betsy Aardsma in the school’s library. Her murder in the stacks became campus legend, with most of us ignorant to whether the murder actually happened, or was just campus myth.
Wanting to learn more, my classmate David Milone made a documentary about the murder which philly.com located and posted: Murder in the Stacks. It’s a good primer for the case, and features some camera work of yours truly (the footage of the stacks themselves).
This website offers a $2,000 reward for information leading to the arrest and conviction of the killer.
# 2008 Jul 31
No love for my nostalgic favorite, “Flagpole Sitta”, though:
Fingertips have memories
Mine can’t forget the curves of your body
And when I feel a bit naughty
I run it up the flagpole and see who salutes
Via kottke.
# 2008 Jul 31
All the teasers for season two, collected. I like the use of condemnations from the Parents Television Council as commendations.
Also, motherchucker.
# 2008 Jul 30
Earlier work by game theorists has shown that the reason that, unlike so many other creatures, humans help strangers and unrelated people is down to reputation.
Reputation is important for the evolution of human cooperation, through a process called “indirect reciprocity”, summed up by ‘I help you and somebody else helps me’.
# 2008 Jul 30
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