Last night Cindy and I were lucky enough to catch the documentary "Planet B-Boy," playing as part of the Tribeca Film Festival. The setting was pure New York: a large outdoor screen set up at the World Financial Center gathering various strata of NY society — from Staten Island guidos to Williamsburg artsies to rowdy…
Happy Fun Smile : Okinawan pop straight outta New York
Cindy and I finally got to see the NY-based Japanese pop band "Happy Fun Smile" at the Sakura Matsuri (cherry blossom) festival at the Brooklyn Botanic Gardens today. They played a fun set of okinawan traditional pop and Japanese chindonya, all of it high energy and highly entertaining for a packed crowd of garden visitors. …
Hanging at “Coffee and Pajamas” 50th show
That’s Illbixby Cerveau, myself, and Doubledown Tandino. We’re all grooving to the great tunes being spun by DJ Elfay Pinkdot in the background at the "Coffee and Pajamas" jazz party this morning. Yes, I know, you are envious of my Hello Kitty PJs. Congrats, Elfay, on your 50th show! Here’s to many, many more!
Elfay spins an all SL musicians set today at “Coffee & Pajamas”
The lovely and talented DJ Ms. Elfay Pinkdot is spinning today a special set of music for her weekly "Coffee and Pajamas" jazz brunch in SL. This morning she is spinning songs performed by Second Life musicians, a number of whom are skilled jazz artists such as Flaming Moe and Astrin Few. Sounds like a…
Support Net Radio: get your congressperson to support H.R.2060
Looks like the US Copyright Office has denied requests for a re-hearing on the issue of the new royalties structure for internet radio stations. For those who haven’t been following the issue, the RIAA in early March successfully got the US Copyright Office to accept a new set of exorbitant song royalty fees for netradio…
Frim Fram: my regular Thursday hang
Just got in super-late, tired but satisfied after a night of dancing. Every Thursday night, for the past five years, my team at Yehoodi has thrown a weekly swing dance party in Manhattan that has become a central gathering point for swing dancers in the city, and a must-visit spot for visiting dancers from around…
Avatars walk the world to fight hunger
The UN World Food Programme every year organizes a "Walk the World" fundraiser / awareness raising event to draw attention to the problem of famine and hunger around the world. In towns and cities all over the planet, people gather to walk in support of humanitarian aid and development assistance for the most needy. This…
The Olmannen ballet: art or the appearance of art?
I finally got a chance to catch the dance production "Olmannen" by the Second Life Ballet troupe this evening. I admit that I am not very fond of ballet — I find the movement very stilted and regimented and the music not to my taste. But I love dance and virtual worlds, so I felt…
The Brazilians are coming, the Brazilians are coming!
Global Voices Online has a suberb summary of a number of blog posts about the rapidly expanding Brazilian presence in Second Life. Brazil is such a huge and culturally powerful country (a sub-continent, really), I could see its people taking over major chunks of SL if they wanted to, similar to their pwning of Orkut…
Second Life bans the Dutch! Who’s next, the Welsh?
Ok, so they have a really funny language and insist on putting mayo on their fries, still that’s no reason to keep Dutch people from accessing Second Life. According to Dutchies Frans Charming and Menno Ophelia, folks using the Netherlands’ based ISP "XS4ALL" have not been able to log into the virtual world for the…