http://www.diffdrum.demon.co.uk/maninsf
...Well, gearing up for my UK visit this week. Getting quite excited
to explore London after a 12-month lay-off. And for those of you who
don't know, I'm also gearing up for my permanent relocation back to
the UK in November. Yep, time to return to the Motherland. So after
the UK vacation, I'll be back here in SF for three weeks or so, giving
me just enough time to say my last goodbyes, visit those sights I
haven't gotten around to yet (although those are few and far between
as I've been playing tour guide for most of the year) and get spangled
one last time in the city by the Bay. Sniffle...
...Various things to check out this week. Go to http://members.phoenixdsl.com/~piscean/
which houses a bunch of images from the Burning Man festival, the
big music-technology-freak show that happened in the Nevada Desert
last month (see misf29). Lots of nudity, interesting sculptures and
bad haircuts among the pix. Kind of wished I'd made it there...maybe
next year...
...Then there's http://www.explodingdog.com
You need to check this site out. Basically it's the homepage of this
artist, Sam, who, if you send him a title, will draw a picture for
you. Sounds weird but very inspiring...
...Urb magazine asked me to reveal to them my top ten albums of 2000
and write a line or two about each one. So if you're in need of some
stocking filler ideas for Xmas, check out these sonic gems...
1 A:xus - "Soundtrack For Life" (Guidance)
Zero-G breaks float with angel vox high in the little fluffy clouds.
Inspirational.
2 Laurent Garnier - "Unreasonable Behaviour" (F Communications/Fr)
The best yet from France's techno kingpin. Ooh la la!
3 "Incredible Sound Of Gilles Peterson" (Sony)
Mr Eclecticism connects the dots between the obtuse, the angular and
the anthemic.
4 Lackluster - "Container" (Focus/UK)
I bleep therefore I am.
5 Swayzak - "Himawari" (Medicine)
Ice-cool tech-house shot through with frazzled snooploops and spangled
sneakbeats.
6 "Larry Levan: Live At The Paradise Garage" (Strut/West
End)
This is where it all started - the master at work.
7 Terrence Dixon - "From The Far Future" (Tresor)
Serenely sculpted machine music, beating with a crystalline electronic
heart.
8 "Kyung Rok chillout mix" (CD-R)
It's time to lie down and be counted - the best mix Mix-It heard all
year (contact uprok@hotmail.com).
9 Circulation - "Colours" (Circulation/UK)
The tech-house masters conjure up a rainbow of future funk.
10 "Abstract Fusion 2" (Track Mode/Music Is)
As deep as Atlantis, as groovy as Chicago, as out-there as Detroit.
...While absentmindedly surfing the Web the other day, I came across
the fact that Oscar Wilde once visited San Francisco. He was in town
in March 1882 as part of a lecture tour. Given his reputation at the
time as a bleeding-edge novelist and playwright, a progressive and
outspoken commentator on the arts, and as a suspected practitioner
of "the love that dare not speak its name", newspaper reporters
outdid themselves in ridiculing the 28-year-old. Cartoonists pounced
upon him with a fervour less brutal than gleeful, although the women
draped themselves about the new "lion". The garb adopted
by the young Wilde, which included short breeches, long silk stockings
and a shoulder-length haircut, was hailed with horror and amazed contempt
by young dandies educated to long tight trousers, high stiff collars,
and full moustaches. ..
...Of course, Wilde was famous for his epigrams as much as his plays
and novels. My faves include: "In this world there are only two
tragedies. One is not getting what one wants, and the other is getting
it"; "The well-bred contradict other people. The wise contradict
themselves"; "To love oneself is the beginning of a lifelong
romance"; and "California is an Italy without its art"
which probably didn't do him many favours over here...
...Wilde stayed at the Palace Hotel, then the largest hotel in the
world (it was destroyed in the 'quake of 1906). After his lecture,
he visited Oakland (across the Bay), made the obligatory tour of Chinatown,
visited the Bohemian Club, toured San Jose (he knew the way), and
then left San Francisco on April 8, 1882 in a blizzard of editorial
denunciations. But like all men born out of time, he took it all in
his stride. After all, he stood closely by two of his own epigrams:
"To be popular one must be a mediocrity" and "Whenever
people agree with me, I always feel I must be wrong"...
...I'll leave you for now with this URL. Make sure you turn up the
volume on your computer: http://www.amishrakefight.org/gfy/
Namaste,
Kieran
He was born with a gift of laughter
and a sense that the world was mad.
Rafael Sabatini
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