I can hardly believe it, but lindy hop legend Frankie Manning will be turning 95 years old next May! I'm honored to be working with a bunch of cool folks who are organizing the Frankie Manning 95th Birthday Festival. From May 21st -May 25th, 2009 (Memorial Day Weekend) lindy hoppers, jazz musicians, tap dancers, friends…
Manu, Naomi & Ramona performing Wilson Pickett song at Swing & Soul (video)
Here's Manu Smith, Naomi Oyama, and Ramona Staffeld just KILLING a performance to Wilson Pickett's "Land of 1,000 Dances" at Swing and Soul in Atlanta this weekend. Sorry for my terrible call-and-response singing into the mic. How do you not sing along to this song?
Memorial to Slain Filipino Journalists in Second Life
Dakila Lacava sent out a notice about a new memorial she created with Gallia Sinatra devote to journalists in the Philippines murdered in the course of doing their duty. Called "Martyrs of Truth", it's a very simple structure with the names of the 62 Filipino journalists who have been "subjected to the ultimate censorship." At…
Rob Bowman on the history of Stax Records
On the last day of the Swing and Soul weekend in Atlanta, I had the pleasure of attending a lecture by musicologist and historian Rob Bowman talking about the history of the Stax record label. Rob has basically spent a good portion of his life devoted to chronicling the story of Stax, a legendary soul…
Swing & Soul ’08 Day 2: “Tighten Up” performance (video)
Here's another fun video from Swing and Soul this weekend in Atlanta: Steven Mitchell, Peter Strom, Manu Smith and Mikey Pedroza dancing to "Tighten Up."
Popin Pete & Mama Yeye at Swing and Soul in Atlanta (video)
Here's a sweet performance by legendary popper Popin Pete last night at Swing and Soul that I'm at all weekend in Atlanta. His level of control and expressiveness is ridiculous and quite beautiful. And Pete is a living link to the origins of this unique style of dance, as a member of the Electric Boogaloos…
Swing and Soul Weekend in Atlanta
It's 4am and I'm chilling with my friends Beckto and Spuds in our hotel room after the late night dance on the first night of the Swing and Soul weekend, listening to Stevie Wonder and other soul jams. So nice. Swing and Soul is a weekend long celebration of soul music and "dancing with soul"…
A tour of the US Holocaust Museum’s Kristalnacht exhibit in Second Life (video)
Drew Stein, CEO of Involve Inc, and David Klevan of the US Holocaust Memorial Museum, gave me a tour of their new collaborative project: "Witnessing History: Kristallnacht, the November 1938 Pogroms" in Second Life. It's an impressive exhibit that shows the power of virtual worlds to combine various forms of media into a powerful, immersive,…
OneClimate.net broadcasting live coverage of UN Climate Change Conference into Second Life
The environmental group OneClimate.net have been broadcasting in Second Life live coverage from the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change in Poznan, Poland. I dropped in on a videochat with Jamie Henn from the activist group 350.org, Daniel Vokins from the UK Youth delegation in Poznan, and then Yvo de Boer, the executive secretary of…
Casio adds 80s dayglo colors to retro calcu-watches
Some of you might remember my video review of the nerdtastic Casio 53W calcu-watch. Well now Casio has re-released the DBC32 series of calcu-watches in awesome dayglo colors. The lime green one is calling to me. Only $60 a pop. Collect them all! [From Gizmodo]