Bonnaroo previews/Space marriage/Toast of Music City
June 3, 2009
My Morning Jacket @ Bonnaroo 2008 Credit: Steve Cross
It’s that time of year again in Tennessee. The hot days and humid nights have settled in for good, and that only means one thing: Bonnaroo is upon us. I’m covering it again for the Scene this year and I’m ready to make my 2nd experience even better than the 1st. I’ve been told that the Village Voice may be using some of my images for other blogs/papers under their umbrella. (For a list of their papers go here.) Normally I would never attend Bonnaroo. Don’t get me wrong- the bands are great, the outdoor setting is great, but the people are generally not so great. Having to constantly deal with mud-caked hippies who’ve done waaay too many drugs and smell like a combination of bad patchouli, port-a-john, and feet is not my idea of fun. Being a member of the press, however, alleviates that concern because you spend a minimal amount of time actually out in the crowds, and NO time in the camping/parking area. Press parking is right behind the stages, and there’s a nice air-conditioned tent with complimentary water, as well as media trailer with wi-fi. Look for my photos on Nashville Cream, and possibly those other papers’ blogs mentioned above. Speaking of Bonnaroo, Nashville’s own music blogger superstar Janet Timmons has been hard at work (along with some help from a few other local bloggers/writers) posting a preview for every artist playing Bonnaroo. Check it out. Will she make it in time?
The Tennessean/Metro Mix is hosting another edition of its annual Toast of Music City poll. Last year some of the top restaurants ended up being Olive Garden, Shoney’s, and Golden Corral. SERIOUSLY?!?!?! WTF?!?!? Get your ass over to the poll and make sure such a travesty doesn’t happen again. Thanks to Nashvillest for reminding me of this.
Improv Everywhere comes up with some of the best pranks/social experiments I’ve ever seen. Their latest was one of their best yet: they gave one lucky NYC couple getting married at the clerk’s office a surprise wedding reception in Foley Square. Check it out.
Speaking of couples, the first weightless wedding is being planned. Though not actually happening in space, it’s the next best thing: the famed “Vomit Comet.” Let’s hope they don’t end up puking on each other during their vows. “I do… BLEGGGHHH!”
Part of the problem with the public image of NASA and space exploration in general is that astronauts aren’t viewed in the same light now as they were back in the 60’s. Back then, media coverage of NASA and its missions was MUCH more extensive than it is now. Those astronauts were literally treated like movie stars. The public adored them and they helped to make people actually care about space exploration. Nowadays coverage of the shuttle launches barely gets onto the bottom of CNN.com. I found a tiny glimmer of hope this morning, though: this new Louis Vitton ad photo taken by Annie Leibovitz on i09. It’s astronauts Sally Ride, Buzz Aldrin, and Jim Lovell. For more info go here. This is totally awesome and I hope to see NASA start caring more about PR and creating a bigger, more positive public image for itself.
Photo by Annie Leibovitz
Let’s get the obvious stuff out of the way 1st… Camera Obscura was amazing last night, and we got to chat with TracyAnne for a minute. She seemed to like Nashville and I told her to be sure to come back on their next tour. Let’s hope they do. Oh, and the sound was exceptional too. Mercy has good sound for the most part, but this mix was especially good. Perfect night.
The Green Wagon is an awesome little store that only opened 6 months ago on Murphy Road in the Sylvan Park area, and just as I expected, the girl who runs it is opening another location on the east side. I must say it’s much sooner than I expected, though! She’s also opening a vegetarian cafe along with it. I’ve been to the current store a few times and it’s pretty awesome. If you haven’t checked it out yet, please do. And if you’re on the east side you’ll no longer have an excuse not to go. Via Nashvillest. Also, thanks to Morgan for pointing out my error regarding the age limit of the Opryland’s Poolapalooza events on yesterday’s post. They are actually all-ages this year.
Some cool sciene-y tidbits today:
The next mission to Mars will be called “Curiosity” thanks to a 6th grader name Clara Ma who won NASA’s essay contest to name the rover. Up until now it’s been called “Mars Science Laboratory.” This next rover will be by far the biggest we’ve sent to the red planet- about the size of a small sedan. Via Bad Astronomy.
Just when you thought Blu-Ray had totally killed the DVD, some scientists in at Swinburne University in Australia have come up with a new 5-dimensional storage technology that may put the DVD back in 1st place. Their idea is to use sophisticated multi-surface gold nanoparticles in the disc. It will not only use the different layers of the disc (as DVD’s currently do), it will also use polarization and the color of the laser light to encode information. The end result will be a DVD that can potentially hold about 7 TERAbytes of data. TERA-bytes. More at the Daily Galaxy.
Remember those crazy devices on Star Trek that doctors could just wave over a patient and tell what was wrong with them? Well, that technology is slowly becoming reality with the invention of a new portable device that identify pathogens in about 5 minutes. The Ostendum corporation has developed a prototype and is currently testing it. Although you still have to take blood or other fluid samples from a patient to use this thing, it’s still pretty damn cool, and will be a HUGE advantage in the battle against pandemics such as the H1N1 (Swine) flu. Via Science Daily.
I came across this intriguing blog called Movies in Frames via Kottke.org today. It has a plethora of various movies that the contributors have summed up (or at least attempted to sum up) in 4 frames. Some are not very effective, but some are. More visually-oriented films such as Heima, Little Miss Sunshine, and Darjeeling Limited work well. The one you see above is Stand By Me, which reminds me that I need to see this movie agian.
Tonight is the night! The Camera Obscura show is finally happening. To my knowledge, they’ve never played Nashville before, and it’s LOOOONG overdue. I can’t wait. If you like melancholy yet catchy twee pop… or if you like Scottish accents… by all means come to this show! You won’t regret it. Their show a couple years ago at the 40 Watt in Athens was one of the best shows I’ve ever seen. Mercy is no 40 Watt (sorry Drew/Bruton), but this is probably the best venue for them to play in town. They’ve also been tweeting about Nashville since they arrived yesterday. Follow them.
The Opryland Hotel started a new summer weekly event last year Friday nights called “Poolapalooza” featuring local bands, the Cascades pool, and a good bar. It went over pretty well from what I’ve heard (I never attended one), and I certainly hope Megan & I can make it out to one this summer. Check Nashvillest or the Gaylord Website for the full lineup/dates. Each event is free, 21+ all-ages (thx to Morgan for catching my error), and starts at 7pm. That means you can get wet, drink some margaritas, hear some rock, and be done in time to hit up another show later in the evening!
Nashville Cream reports that 3 local fashion designers are finalists to be on the show Project Runway. As with most posts on there, there’s plenty of bickering in the comments. But it just wouldn’t be the Cream without them. I know Shea and Amanda, but I don’t know Shannon at all. What I do know is that everyone I’ve met involved with Local Honey and the local fashion scene is super-nice and very down-to-earth. I sincerely hope to see one of them on the show soon!
Oh yeah… Meg White married Jackson Smith and “little” Jack Lawrence married Jo McCaughey in a double-wedding in Jack White’s backyard on Friday. Obviously Jack & Jo didn’t immediately embark on their honeymoon because we saw him at Fido on Monday.
My only science-y bit today is to tell you to go sign the petition on the website for Space Exploration Day. This is an attempt to get the government to recognize July 20th as National Space Exploration Day. This July 20th will mark the 40th anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing. I whole-heartedly agree that this should be an officially-recognized holiday. Supposedly it will be on same level as Flag Day.
Today I leave you with this hilarious little cartoon found at dontstaylong’s tumblr.
Two good updates from space via Space.com:
Ever since last November, astronauts on the International Space Station have been working out glitches in their new urine/wastewater recycling system. Yesterday they finally were able to successfully test it and drink water made from their own urine. It’s a bit uncomfortable to think about drinking the water from your own urine, but it may eventually be necessary for people even here on Earth if the population keeps expanding exponentially. The problem isn’t that water itself is in short supply, it’s that the vast majority of it is either undrinkably saline (the oceans) or located too far away from the people who need it. So far there’s not an energy-efficient or cost-effective method of desalinization of ocean water.
The astronauts onboard Space Shuttle Atlantis are scheduled to land tomorrow at Kennedy Space Center at 10:01 AM EDT. They’ve been given the all-clear on the heat shield inspection and are currently getting the shuttle ready for re-entry. As always, nasa.gov will have live coverage and video of the landing.
In other space-related news, former astronaut Scott Parazynski finally reached the summit of Mount Everest yesterday. He’s been at it for a few years now, and last year an injury forced him to delay his climb. This time he made it, and brought along some “moon rocks and remembrances of fallen astronauts.” He was also doing research and collecting samples for various other scientific endeavors. Read more at this Universe Today article.
Turbo Fruits: NBN showcase at SXSW 2009.
The Next Big Nashville website is still the 2008 version, but according to this post on Nashville Cream (which is about sonicbids, not NBN), NBN 2009 will feature a Friday evening of events that will take over the honky-tonks on lower Broadway, as well as an outdoor event on Saturday. This is all good news because those bars are all conveniently located close to each other, much like the bars/venues in Austin for SXSW. It makes it much easier to hop between shows, especially if bands you want to see are playing at nearly the same time, but different venues. I would hope the outdoor event on Saturday is the grand finale throwdown, like the one at Cannery last year.
Please do yourself a favor and go browse through Photos that Changed the World. These are truly magnificent images. Some are very graphic and difficult to look at, but everyone needs to see these photographs. Via Kottke.org.
Via dontstaylong
It’s that glorious time of year again. Moustache May is in full swing! If you have a stache, sign up! If you want to grow a stache and document the progess, sign up! *Update: as of ~12:45pm registration is already closed… ya snooze ya looze!* Or just bookmark it and check often for the always clever theme-days. I did it last year and it was fun, but I think I’m gonna lay low on the stache this year… It took at least 2 weeks for mine to grow enough so that I no longer looked like a creepy child molester.
Tonight I’ll be at a party, but a lot of you will probably be seeing Junior Boys & Max Tundra @ Mercy Lounge.
Also, The Rabbit Release party is going down at the Dirty Eye Warehouse (100 Talyor St.) Featuring Caitlin Rose, Heypenny, and others.
Tomorrow is also looking to be a good night for show-going:
The Pains of Being Pure At Heart @ the End w/ Zaza, Mother Father, and Bows & Arrows. Mother Father are locals… I have no clue about the other 2. I’ve blogged about POBPAH on here before. Obviously this is where I’ll be.
Also Saturday- Pico vs. Island Trees/Butterfly Boucher/The Bridges @ the Basement.
Do I really need to mention the Death Cab shows Sunday and Monday at the Ryman? We’ll be there Monday- I got Megan tickets for her birthday.
The world’s fastest camera can take 6.1 million photos per second. Needless to say, this device is only for scientific purposes. I mean, who else would ever want to take that many photos in a second? It also doesn’t use the conventional CCD or CMOS sensors that regular digital cameras use. Those sensors aren’t capable of anything even close to 6 million frames per second. The technology is explained fairly well in the article, so just go read it if you’re interested.
Universe Today has a story that sheds some much needed light on the confusion over the recent buzz about NASA’s plans for the shuttle fleet, the Constellation program, what we’ll be doing on the moon, etc… In a nutshell, congress is prepared to shell over the dough needed to extend the space shuttle program past 2010 (if needed), NASA still doesn’t have an administrator, and nobody’s really sure just what we’ll be doing on the moon in 2020.
Lastly, I give you the iSnort app:
Have a great weekend!
E.T. detected by 2019/my 8 off 8th
April 28, 2009
One prominent NASA scientist believes that we will find life on Mars by 2019. Peter Smith, who led NASA’s Phoenix Lander Mission, made that prediction at a recent presentation at the University of Delaware. I used to think that Mars was probably dead, but used to harbor life millions of years ago. But due to recent findings of the Phoenix mission and the twin rovers Spirit and Opportunity, I do think there’s a chance that we’ll soon find microbial life beneath the soil surface. I certainly hope he’s right… more at Fanboy.com.
President Obama recently further confirmed his promises on boosting science funding and “restoring science to its rightful place.” But unfortunately NASA has not been mentioned nearly as much as other government science organizations. Phil Plait over at Bad Astronomy expresses his worries about this and the fact that Obama still hasn’t appointed a new NASA Chief Administrator. I’m inclined to agree… though I should make a point that overall this is a huge win for science and reality in general, and we’re already making vast improvements over the last 8 years of putting politics and ideology before scientific truth.
Oddee has a great post today about 10 amazing and fascinating natural phenomena. I’ve seen a few of these myself, including mammatus clouds, but none quite so dramatic as those pictured.
If you’re Nashvillian reading this, you’ve surely heard about the recent carjackings and robberies in East Nashville. Unfortunately 3 close friends of mine were victims of one of the carjackings, 2 of which received gunshot wounds. They are all fine and recovering, but these people were all heavily involved in our great local music scene and instantly the scene has rallied around them to help with their medical expenses. Jeremy Ferguson of Battletapes has volunteered to put together at least one, if not several benefit shows for these guys. I’ll post more info as soon as dates and lineups are confirmed. It’s possible that there may be a silent auction at these shows, and if there is I will probably put some framed prints in it. Thankfully, it seems that all 3 suspects have been caught.
As I’ve mentioned before, I’m curating an 8 off 8th at Mercy Lounge on May 11th. It’s gonna be a great one, and I urge you to mark your calendars and plan to attend. As always, it’s free and 21+. Here’s the awesome flier, created by Alicia and Drew at Monkey Ink Design. Spread the word!
Monkey Ink Design!
Evan Voytas=jam of the summer/Eureka finally returns/Asteroid may not have killed dinos
April 27, 2009
It’s pretty rare for me to instantly fall in love with a band/artist these days. I’ve just become so “Nashville” about everything- jaded/oversaturated/desensitized/insert-apathetic-synonym-here. But RCRD LBL posted some mp3’s from this dude named Evan Voytas on Friday, and I was instantly blown away. It feels good to be totally into something new. This guy’s stuff is a little bit of everything- the tracks I’ve gotten my hands on so far range from a shoegazy, fuzzed out slow pop jam to electro-driven rock with a touch of twee to a full on summery disco-pop groove. That last track I’m describing is called “Getting Higher,” and I have hereby proclaimed it to be the official jam of the summer 2009. Please, PLEASE go to RCRD LBL and download it now! Then go to the Hype Machine and you’ll be able to find several other great tracks. But “Getting Higher” is where it’s at. It’s an instantly love-able dancey track, complete with a 70’s funk bass groove, and straight-up disco beat, and uplifting sunny guitars and syths bathed in a healthy but tasteful dose of reverb.
In local news- Makeout With Violence, the locally made feature-length film starring several members of our music scene, pretty much owned the Nashville Film Festival, taking the best feature-length narrative film and best music awards, along with a few other smaller awards. It’s good to see these guys finally getting the recognition they deserve for their 3 years of hard work on this thing.
My love of science fiction is no secret. That’s why I’m quite pleased to know that one of my favorite TV series Eureka, has finally been scheduled to return to action on July 10th on the SyFy channel. (Yes, the SciFi channel is now SyFy…. go figure.) I read about this on io9, and I agree with their sentiment that moving the show to Battlestar Galactica’s old slot of Fridays at 10pm/9 central was a bad idea. That means I’ll end up watching most of it online because I’m normally out & about by that time on a Friday night…
So we all know that the dinosaurs were killed because of a giant asteriod hitting just off the Yucatan Penninsula in Mexico, right? That’s what they taught us in middle school science class, afterall…. Not so fast. As more and more new evidence is uncovered, that theory is starting to look more and more… extinct. Universe Today posted this morning about some new discoveries that date the actual impact at least 300,000 years prior to the mass extinction. At the same time comes the discovery of a supervolcano eruption (or even a series of supervolcano eruptions) called the Deccan Traps in India. Such an eruption could easily have thrown enough dust and ash into the air to block out the sun and cause a sudden massive cooling. My personal hunch is that the asteroid surely did have some degree of impact on the global climate, (pun fully intended) and obviously would’ve killed a ton of dinos in the immediate area, but ultimately it may have been the volcanic activity that dealt the lethal blow to our bird-like ancestors.
I’ll leave you today with this great image of the next space shuttle crew… I must say NASA has been doing a great job of marketing lately. First the whole C.O.L.B.E.R.T. thing, and now this:
Click to enlarge
Ice Cream/Ray Kurzweil/NASA embarks on biggest delay ever
April 21, 2009
Today is the annual free cone day at Ben & Jerry’s. From what I’ve heard, they’ve gotten the issue of long-line-management down to a science, and it shouldn’t take as long as you think it will to get through. Good luck! I honestly don’t know if I’ll do it or not…
The Protomen won last night’s Road to Bonnaroo 8 off 8th. They join The Features, who won the first installment of this 3-part series. The final one happens Mon. May 18th.
The 2009 Lollapalooza official lineup has been announced. Headliners are: Depeche Mode, Tool, the Killers, Jane’s Addition, Beastie Boys, and Kings of Leon. It takes place August 7-9 in Grant Park, as always.
Diplo and Switch have a new Jamiacan dancehall-inspired project called Major Lazer. It’s pretty much exactly what you’d expect when you mention those two and dancehall in the same sentence. Stereogum has 2 free mp3’s.
The new Zooey Deschanel film 5oo Days of Summer screened at the Nashville Film Festival this past weekend. Not exactly sure of the Nashville connection to this film, but Nashvillest has a nice guest blog review by Winston Hearn.
A documentary film on renowned inventor and thinker Ray Kurzweil has been made. It’s called Transcendent Man. According to my NetFlix, a release date has not been announced, but it’s in the Tribeca Film Festival. Kurzweil theorizes that humanity will reach a technological singularity in the next 30 years, and that the only way for us to survive is to learn how to become literal cyborgs- meld our minds with computers. Here’s the trailer.
Space.com reports that the lightest exoplanet thus far has been discovered in the famous Gliese 581 system. This latest planet is called Gliese 581 E and is the 5th planet found in this system. It’s only 1.9 times the mass of earth, but unfortunately it’s VERY close to its host star, orbiting it in a mere 3.15 days. That means it’s way too hot to support life. The only planet (that we’ve discovered) in this particular star’s habitable zone is Gliese 581 D, but it’s 7 times the mass of Earth, and though it’s thought to have a rocky core, it’s probably completely covered by a vast deep ocean. In other words, it’s a waterworld. So that would preclude any land-based life forms, but there certainly could be life in those oceans!
Finally, the Onion reports that NASA has officially embarked on the biggest, most epic delay in history. Indeed.
Kepler’s first images/Green rooftops/hipster grifter
April 17, 2009
Image via Space.com
The Kepler spacecraft took its first few images earlier this week, and NASA has released them. The one shown here is zoomed in on a small cluster of stars about 13,000 light years from Earth. Kepler has a 95 megapixel camera to take these images. 95 megapixels. Fuck.
An awesome new concept is emerging in some of the world’s largest cities- green rooftops. It’s a concept that I sincerely hope catches on quickly. Typical building rooftops are dark and dry; they absorb and then release much more heat than a natural plant-covered surface would, and the result is what’s called the “heat-island effect.” This phenomenon is what causes some large cities to be a few degrees hotter than the surrounding areas, and it’s a growing problem. But if we cover most of the city rooftops with gardens and grass, this problem would be virtually eliminated. Please check out this National Geographic article on the subject… not only for the story but for the awesome photography.
Will humans ever be able to travel beyond our solar system? Or will we just resort to armchair astronomy and send an army of intelligent robots to other worlds to explore them for us? The question is tackled in this great article by Luke McKinney from the Daily Galaxy. It’s a short and entertaining read, as all of McKinney’s witty posts tend to be.
The new Harry Potter movie comes out July 15th, and the trailer has just hit the interwebs. I first saw it on this io9 post.
Carles of Hipster Runoff had an encounter with the now somewhat-famous hipster grifter, who brought her cancer/pregnant/sex fraud scheme from Salt Lake City to Brooklyn scammed quite a few hipsters out of a lot of money.
As I said yesterday, I’ll be photographing Rites of Spring this weekend, but there’s also a TON of other great stuff going down, most notably National Record Store Day on Saturday, for which Grimey’s is hosting their Big Ass Outdoor Sale. Be sure to stop by between 10am-8pm and check out the great record deals and live music out in the parking lot. A list of some other stuff happening can be found at Nashvillest. Have a great weekend!
South Park may have pulled off the impossible: putting Kayne West’s ego in check. This Billboard.com article reports that last Wednesday’s episode “skewered the famously self-important rapper… painting him as a narcissistic figure so out of touch with reality he couldn’t even take a (very politically incorrect) joke.” Well done, South Park. Check out Kayne’s blog post here.
Stephen Colbert is a smart guy. The most brilliant thing he’s done recently is rally his fans to vote on an open NASA poll for the name of their next node to be added to the International Space Station. They had some suggestions- Serenity, Earthrise, etc… very typical-sounding names for stuff like that. But they had an write-in option, which Colbert exploited. The result was that the name “Colbert” won the contest for naming the node, and NASA has been scratching its head as to what to do about it ever since. Tomorrow night we’ll find out their decision in a clever way- astronaut Sunita Williams will be on the show to unveil the name. Will it really be Colbert? Only time will tell. It’ll be an interesting episode for sure…
The CIA and USAF have finally declassified a project that was based at the mysterious Area 51 base in Nevada. The LA Times interviewed 5 former employees of the facility who disclosed details on a top-secret spy plane code named OXCART. This plane allegedly has an odd shape, and was capable of flying at Mach 3. This could explain a HUGE number of the UFO sightings in that area, because according to this article there were 2,850 test flights of this thing, all conducted from Area 51. This is a bigger deal than it may seem, because up until now, the government didn’t even acknowledge that Area 51 existed. By declssifying this project they’re now admitting that it does exist. A big step forward if you ask me. I’ve always been fascinated by the place, and really want to go out there just to walk up to the signs telling you that you’ll be shot if you try to break in. I’m quite sure that there are some crazy things going on there involving technology that we haven’t even dreamed of yet, but I won’t say or believe that they’re reverse-engineering UFO’s and keeping aliens in freezers until proof of such a claim exists. Via io9.
Friday’s tornado outbreak was pretty devastating, though the vast majority of the damage was from an EF3 twister that hit nothern Murfreesboro. The official NWS survey has determined that a total of 4 tornadoes hit middle TN on friday- three EF1’s and one EF3. The report actually says “at least EF3,” so there’s a chance it may be upgraded to an EF4. One of the things that made this particular tornado so devastating was the fact that it was a multiple-vortex tornado. I will leave you with this absolutely amazing video footage shot from a tall building in Murfreesboro. (Probably the bank building.) You can easily see the smaller funnels inside the main vortex. The first few seconds are jittery but he sets the camera down and you get a long, clear look at this monster. Watch closely at about :45, 1:15, and 1:30 where you can clearly see a smaller vortex to the right of the main one.
steve cross loves music and science 