Blogs List
 Tamar Fleishman |
The Final John AdamsSun, April 20, 2008 @ 10:02PM The finale starts in 1803. John Adams returns to Massachusetts. Dr. Samuel Rush is called to the house -- their daughter has breast cancer. She has to have a mastectomy. There was no anesthesia in those days. They strap her spread eagle to the bed. She bites on a cloth. You can hear the bed rattling downstairs as she struggles. She survives. The rumors of Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemmings abound... which we now know through DNA were true. Adams hurts his foot while gardening. He becomes bored. Their daughter gets cancer again. She refuses treatment. She asks her parents to forgive her absent husband. She dies and we see them have to pack up her childhood things. Her husband returns. He apparently became successful. Gilbert Stuart painted the Adamses, but then President Madison told him they didn't want the pictures in the White House. The Adamses keep the portraits. Abigail appears to have had some sort of stroke and then she dies. Jo
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Squeeze Box
 Taylor Kuykendall |
The First Amazing FestivaFri, April 11, 2008 @ 11:26AM The other day, I went on a photo shoot with Cory Jackson, a reporter for the Charleston Daily Mail. He wanted some photos to accompany his story about two men that had converted an old Ford Festiva into an electric vehicle. I recognized my duty to a friend, and as the best damn photographer around, so I attended. The concept is quite interesting. The car uses no gasoline, but instead has been converted to a system of six batteries that can travel about 15 miles on a single four hour charge. That may not seem like much, but given that the used car was purchased for well under a thousand dollars, and the conversion only cost a few thousand dollars, it does not take too long to realize the advantages of having an extra work car. In a culture that is so attached to gasoline, we must begin looking for alternatives and Matt Rowe and Mike Beahme are taking the initiative on the Huntington front. Using previous work from the Internet, the team put together an impressive work vehicle that
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Paper Thin Walls
 Justin McIntosh |
Song of the Day: "Sweet Avenue" by Jets to Brazil"Mon, May 12, 2008 @ 3:22PM Blake Schwarzenbach formed Jets to Brazil after his band Jawbreaker, a San Francisco punk band often cited as an influence with some of the first emo bands, disbanded in the 1990s. The band takes its name from a poster in the movie, "Breakfast at Tiffany's," which is one of those classics I keep meaning to watch some day. Anyway, "Sweet Avenue," the last song off JTB's debut, "Orange Rhyming Dictionary," has been playing through my iPod a lot recently, perhaps because of my own current relationship status. The song, a smooth acoustic number with minimal drums and piano, tells of seeing the world through a new light thanks to love. Cliche maybe, but in the throws of love it's handled with much more class and original lines than 95 percent of the love songs out there. The first lines are the best in the song: "tasting you and rain I walk down to the train/trying not to look down/this day could one day be an anniv
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Books You Should Be Reading
 Amy Mendenhall |
Netherwood by Michele LangMon, May 12, 2008 @ 10:56AM A far-off future where people can be downloaded into a hive consciousness of computers and a mega-conglomerate rules all is the setting of Michele Lang's science-fiction romance, "Netherwood." Talia Fortune has spent enough time in the virtual reality Netherwood as her avatar personna, Amazonia, that she has become attached to the illicit pleasures of that world - fighting, romance and danger, with her cyber lover, Avenger. But Talia's Real position is sheriff and as the primary shareholder of FortuneCorp. Her grandmother and employer, Violet, who has recently forgone her body and being downloaded into the computer hive mind, gives Talia the task of tracking down a cyber outlaw Kovner in the Real, and after the last encounter with Avenger, Talia's beginning to suspect they are one in the same. Traveling to the off-world colony, Fresh Havens, she meets with her uncle and finds that Fresh Havens is being sabotaged by the people hiding out in Gray Forest. Traveling there
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The Fire In The Attic
 Ben Spanner |
"The Piano Sounds Like a Carnival..."Mon, April 21, 2008 @ 3:53PM Hello, my name is Benjamin James Spanner. I read books. All kinds of books. Tolstoy, Foer, Blake, Stephenson, Hemingway. I listen to music. Radiohead, Vampire Weekend, Dylan, Buckley, Lennon. I read interesting blogs, keep up to date on progressive social issues, and have had my foot in the door of social change. I'm culturally cool and am part of the growing electronic buzz that is my generation. Now what if I told you I loved Billy Joel. Yup, look at your face right now. I bet all the money in my pockets against all the money in your pockets that your face went from interested smile to confused twitch. Don't worry, you don't have to pay me, but instead do me a favor and hang with me for a couple more paragraphs. I grew up like most every American kid. We listen to what our Dads listen to, keep some, discard others, and have a weird attachment to the rest.
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Something Appropriate
 Brad Tennant |
For the love of the egg shakerWed, April 30, 2008 @ 2:49PM You know what music needs more of? Egg Shakers. I've got some and they are awesome. It's not that the sound is that revolutionary, they are just smaller maracas, but they are fun. They aren't that cool to stand there on stage and use, but the sounds keeps things moving. They are easy to break and easier to lose, but at least they are cheap. But beyond anything, they just cheer you up. It's a light sound, easy to use and you can throw them around for anyone to play. It's not a deep-love, maybe more of a crush. Like a light-hearted summer fling. I know it's kind of absurd to focus on such an insignificant instrument to the point to write song just to be able to use them, but it's no more silly than taking time out of my day to write about them. Silly little things. Ah, egg shakers.
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