The Library of Congress is the research library of the United States Congress and is the oldest federal cultural institution in the United States. Located in three buildings in Washington, D.C., it is the largest library in the world by shelf space and holds the largest number of books. The head of the Library is the Librarian of Congress, currently James H. Billington.

The Library of Congress was established by Congress in 1800, and was housed in the United States Capitol for most of the 19th century. After much of the original collection had been destroyed during the War of 1812, Thomas Jefferson sold 6487 books to the library, his entire personal library, in 1815. After a period of decline during the mid-19th century the Library of Congress began to grow rapidly in both size and importance after the American Civil War, culminating in the construction of a separate library building and the transference of all copyright deposit holdings to the Library. During the rapid expansion of the 20th century the Library of Congress assumed a preeminent public role, becoming a “library of last resort” and expanding its mission for the benefit of scholars and the American people.

THE CHRISTMAS FACTS

Largest Christmas cake

The largest Christmas cake by making a cake of 30 ft length, two ft width and weighing 2,500 kgs! as per Guiness Book of world Records

World’s largest Christmas tree

Styx Valley, Australia — The world’s tallest Christmas Tree isn’t on the White House lawn or in Trafalgar Square this year: it’s in the Styx Valley, a tract of ancient forest in Tasmania. It’s a living, 84 meter (276 foot) Eucalyptus tree

SOME INTERESTING FACTS @ CHRISTMAS

 The poinsettia is a traditional Christmas flower. In Mexico (its original birthplace), the poinsettia is known as the “Flower of the Holy Night”.

 Louis Prang, a Bavarian-born lithographer who came to the USA from Germany in the 19th century, popularized the sending of printed Christmas cards. He invented a way of reproducing color oil paintings, the “chromolithograph technique”, and created a card with the message “Merry Christmas” as a way of showing it off.

The word Christmas is Old English, a contraction of Christ’s Mass.

The first president to decorate the white house Christmas tree in the United States was Franklin Pierce.

Germany made the first artificial Christmas trees. They were made of goose feathers and dyed green.

Electric lights for trees were first used in 1895

In the annals of American Jazz one label stands apart from the rest: Blue Note. It was initially founded in 1939 by German ex-pat Alfred Lion and a communist writer named Max Marguilis. Lions and Marguilis were soon joined by photographer Francis Wolf, and the three of them made history together by forming an independent label that quickly garnered a reputation for both giving artists the chance to innovate, and treating them with respect while they were doing it. The rich, deep legacy of the Blue Note A&R direction has left us with gems from masters like Herbie Hancock, Wayne Shorter, Grant Green, Cassandra Wilson, Sonny Rollins, Jimmy Smith, John Coltrane, Donald Byrd, Eric Dolphy, Horace Silver and on, and on, and…..

Historically, Jazz has been a difficult business to flourish in. Many times, having the opportunity to perform it, or work in it was the only reward that the most committed received. Blue Note had been a place where purists found strength in numbers, and huddled together for needed solace and inspiration to ward off the indifference of a sometimes unwelcoming world. All of that going against the grain can be challenging, but sometimes you get the reward of being right.

At the dawn of the new millenium Brian Bacchus, a young A&R exec who had the three essential qualities of the Jazz man, intellect, soulfulness and an ability to improvise, heard a three song demo by a young female singer/songwriter/pianist that showed promise. The young artist was barely out of her teens, and newly arrived in New York from Texas. She had an estranged father who had shown the Beatles the mystery of the sitar, and she had a low, husky, sexy voice that made you want to listen, but more importantly buy her recordings. The young Texan’s name was Norah Jones, and she not only became the biggets selling artist in the history of Blue Note Records, but the biggest selling artist of this decade. Brian has written a fascinating first person account that details the meeting, signing and recording of the mega star. Enjoy!

insideplaya

HERBIE HANCOCK & WAYNE SHORTER

JIMMY SMITH

ART BLAKEY

With the Christmas season upon us, there has been a lot of buzz over several much-anticipated recordings by established artists – Maxwell, Sade and Norah Jones. Norah, of course will always have a special place in my heart because of my pivotal role in launching her career. Over the years I’ve been asked many times about her discovery and signing and I really didn’t think there was anything more interesting to add, but the recent clearing of an old storage space that held tons of cassettes, CDs and DATs made me re-visit my first experiences with Ms Jones with fresh eyes and ears. Sometimes a little time is needed to gain a richer perspective on your experience and sometimes a little nudging from another respected A&R man (the insideplaya) will get you to take another peek and remember some new facets of an artist – that you may have overlooked. That and a dope new album by Norah, “Fall”, gave me a reason to relive some of those beautiful early career moments as well as to measure her growth as a singer, pianist, guitarist, songwriter and even as an actress.

Sometime back in early 2000, Shell White, who worked in royalties at EMI, came to see me with an artist that she had started to manage in her spare time. I had been at Blue Note Records, and doing A&R for a few years by then. At Blue Note we had unusually frequent communication with the royalties department because of the vast Blue Note catalog, and because there were always scenarios where we might have to track down older royalty artists that had changed their address too many times for anyone in royalties to know where to send their check or if they were even alive. Anyway, Shell came in with Norah and met with Bruce Lundvall, my boss and the man responsible for resurrecting/re-activating the label back in the 80’s. He called me in and asked me if I would meet with them, take them to my office, and listen to the CD they brought.

I sat them both down and quickly got the lowdown on how Norah had recently come to town from Texas, and how Shell had heard her singing background vocals on a project that her husband JC Hopkins was producing with Victoria Williams on Atlantic Records. I listened to the three tracks on the CD. There were two jazz standards and one standout original by songwriter Jesse Harris. The standard that stood out was “Spring Can Really Hang You Up The Most” which is a tough tune to sing especially for a young singer. Norah nailed it vocally even though the accompaniment wasn’t anything outstanding. Norah was on piano with a young bassist and drummer. Later, I would find out that Jesse was recording his publishing demos for Sony/ATV Music Publishing with Norah doing all the vocals – smart move!

After my meeting with Norah and Shell, I went over to Bruce and told him that I wanted to sign her. Her voice was all that and she was a special jazz vocalist, but we really needed to see her live. Bruce listened to the 3 tracks and concurred.

The first time I saw Norah live was at a little downtown club called Deanna’s. She primarily sang and played all jazz standards with an upright bassist and drummer. The band was not too tight, but her singing was great and she accompanied herself well. After that, I went out to see her every chance I got. Norah was also singing and playing in a host of other bands so I went out to see all of them too. Most importantly, in terms of her development, she had started singing in songwriter Jesse Harris’ band and handling not only the piano chair, but doing all the lead vocals.

JESSE HARRIS

The Living Room (then on the corner of Allen and Stanton in the Lower East Side, and now around the corner on Ludlow) was a favorite spot for Jesse’s group with Norah as well as many other up and coming singer songwriters. The camaraderie among songwriters there as well as the appearance by songwriters like Richard Julian, Jim Boggia, Sasha Dobson and Rebecca Martin certainly influenced Norah on the songwriting tip too.

Norah had also started singing and playing with the Waxpoetic a band that recorded for Atlantic Records. Waxpoetic was the brainchild of Turkish saxophonist/keyboardist, Ilhan Ersahin. Ilhan now owns and runs a great Lower East Side club, Nublu, that has become an incubation spot for some pretty hip bands (Brazilian Girls, Forro In The Dark, Clark Gayton’s Explorations in Dub, Love Trio, etc.) as well as being a hip young label – melding progressive jazz initiatives with electronica and other music.

As Ahmet Ertegun (the founder and head of Atlantic Records) and Ilhan Ersahin were both Turkish and affiliated with Atlantic, it wouldn’t be strange to see Ahmet at Waxpoetic’s gigs that Norah was on. I knew this was trouble and sure enough I got word from Shell White that Atlantic was also knocking on Norah’s door.

ATLANTIC RECORDS FOUNDER AHMET ERTEGUN

I immediately went to Bruce Lundvall to let him know. I suggested that we sign Norah to a demo deal with us ASAP. This was for two reasons. One, Norah had minimal studio experience, and I felt she needed to get comfortable in the studio as well as better flesh out the skeletons of the performances and recordings that I had heard thus far. Two, a demo deal with Blue Note would at least keep Atlantic at bay for a moment and we would secure the right to match whatever they might offer once the term of our demo deal was up.

My relationship with Norah and Shell White was solid by then, and we spoke almost daily. I had been out to see Norah at almost every gig with either her group, Jesse Harris’ group or Waxpoetic since we first got together. I think this and the fact we had the inimitable Bruce Lundvall, whose track record and old school charm mirrored Ahmet’s, tilted the decision in our favor so Norah agreed to sign with us.

Norah, Shell and I quickly got to organizing her first real demo sessions to get something down on tape. I suggested engineer Jay Newland, whom I had worked with in the past on a myriad of projects. Jay was low-key and a great engineer, both musically and technically. He also had an ear and extensive experience in Jazz, Country, and Blues projects so I knew he would ‘get’ where Norah was coming from, as well as keep her first sessions calm and drama free. They met and Norah loved him.

Next I called Vera Beren at Sorceror Sound to schedule two days. Sorceror was a reasonably priced studio downtown on Mercer Street with great gear and no major frills, so it was a great place to focus and just do music. Jay liked working there too, so I knew it would be a great introductory studio experience for Norah. Little did I know how good it would be!

Meanwhile Norah had been putting the nucleus of a band together as well as writing her own music. Her boyfriend and the bassist in her band, Lee Alexander, would also turn out to be a pretty special songwriter in his own right (“Lonestar,” ” Feeling the Same Way,” ” The Painter Song,” “Seven Years”). Lee and I had first met through a mutual friend and musician, guitarist, engineer Liberty Ellman, who happened to be biding his time getting record biz experience while re-launching his career and label on the East coast. I believe he and Lee knew each other from the Bay Area. Lee sometimes subbed in Liberty’s jazz trio, which had a crazy regular gig at The Rouge, an intimate chill bar owned by actor/director Michael Imperioli in Chelsea. Norah’s gigs with Jesse Harris were also starting to create a little buzz and becoming more co-lead affairs, as she became the focus. She was also starting to debut her own material. Drummer Dan Reiser had been playing in Jesse Harris’ band and was also now on Norah’s gigs. With the addition of guitarists Adam Rogers and Tony Scherr, as well as Jesse himself on guitar, we had the nucleus of the first demo sessions and actually a good part of her debut record, “Come Away With Me”.

LEE ALEXANDER

THE BREAKTHROUGH DEBUT

The demo sessions went extremely well and there was a great vibe in the studio. Also on hand was Anoushka Shankar, Norah’s half sister via the great Ravi Shankar, her father. Strangely enough, she had been signed to Angel, the classical sister label to EMI’s Blue Note by my A&R counterpart, Steve Ferrera, without us knowing the connection. Steve, a talented A&R, drummer, songwriter and producer, is now at J Records acting as Clive Davis’ right hand man (Kelly Clarkson, Heather Headley, Chrisette Michele). Anoushka had just been in town touring with her father and brought their tabla player with her to play on a Jesse Harris tune, “Something Is Calling You.” On the 6-track EP “First Sessions,” that was given a limited pressing so that Norah would have something to sell at gigs in the interim before the first CD dropped, the tabla is taken off. Norah felt it was incongruous with the sound of the other 5 tracks, but I always really loved the sound of the tabla on that track. In the two days at Sorceror Sound, Norah recorded and rough mixed 12 tracks! Nine of those tracks were really strong and are still circulating in a few hands. When I finally listened to the mixes I knew we had something special, but I had no idea that this would become the nucleus of what would eventually become one of the biggest selling records in the history of the record business.

to be continued…..

Music and dance in India are among the oldest forms of classical arts with traditions that date back several centuries. Musical forms prevalent today have roots in the book ‘Samaveda’. The source of Indian dance forms is the ‘Natya Shastra’,regarded as the fifth Veda, written between century B.C. and second century A.D. The uniqueness of Indian classical dances is that they are all devotional in content, using the body effectively as a medium of communication to express moods and emotions. Indian music has developed within a complex interaction between people of different races and cultures. Today, Indian classical music can be classified into two broad traditions, north Indian and south Indian. The north Indian tradition is known as Hindustani Sangeet. The different forms of Hindustani music are Dhrupad, Dhamar, Khayal, Tappa and Thumri. The south Indian tradition of mUSIC is called Carnatic Sangeet. Both traditions are fundmentally similar but differ in nomenclature and the way they are performed. Many musical instruments are unique to the Indian cultural environment. Perhaps, the most eminent are the sitar and tabla, made popular by artists such as Ravi Shankar and Zakir Hussain respectively.

The Knock Nevis

The Knock Nevis is a massive ship, currently used as a floating storage and offloading unit (FSO). Owned by the Norwegian company Fred Olsen Production, she was previously a supertanker and still holds the record as the longest ship ever built.

When plying the sea, the vessel had a fully laden draft of 24.6 m (81 ft), rendering it unable to navigate the English Channel, the Suez Canal or the Panama Canal when its load was up to capacity. As a tanker she was known as the Seawise Giant, Happy Giant, and Jahre Viking.

The Knock Nevis was the longest ship ever constructed, longer than many of the world’s tallest buildings are tall. Though slightly smaller than Taipei 101 at 509.2 metres (1,671 ft) and the Sears Tower at 527.3 metres (1,730 ft) from street level to top of antenna, she is larger than the Petronas Twin Towers at 452 metres (1,480 ft).

In spite of its great length, the Knock Nevis is not the largest ship, ranking fifth in gross tonnage at 236,710 GT, behind the four 274,838 to 275,276 GT Batillus-class supertankers, the largest self-propelled objects ever constructed.

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Ravi Shankar

Heureusement que Chacha est là pour tenir le blog ! Parce qu’en ce moment je passe ma vie en province pour le boulot… et pour écrire au calme c’est IMPOSSIBLE ! Et cela m’ENERVE au plus HAUT POINT !!!

Bon étant donné que je n’ai le temps ni de lire, ni d’aller au spectacle, même pas au cinéma, ni de voir une expo… bref juste la misère… je me suis dit que j’allais me faire plaisir quand-même en écoutant de la bonne musique..

Toujours mes petites recherches sur iTunes m’ont amenée à découvrir les dernier album de Nora Jones : The Fall. (la couv’ de l’album est super Glam !)

J’adore sa voix un peu cassée, éraillée (je crois que j’ai un peu la même au réveil…) au ton langoureux et quelque peu mélancolique… soutenu pour certains morceaux seulement par une guitare acoustique.

Du coup, cela m’apaise et me déculpabilise de ne plus partager avec vous ( de manière temporaire je vous rassure… )

Les rythmes sont variés mais restent tout de même très doux.

Sur Wikipédia : Norah Jones (née Geetali Norah Jones-Shankar le 30 mars 1979 à New York. Elle change officiellement son nom en Norah Jones à l’âge de 16 ans), est une chanteuse, musicienne et actrice américaine. Elle est l’une des filles du célèbre joueur de sitar indienRavi Shankar, de la productrice américaine Sue Jones, et la demi-sœur de la joueuse de sitar Anoushka Shankar.

La carrière de Norah Jones est lancée en 2002 avec la sortie de son premier album,Come Away with Me, qui se vend à plus de 20 millions d’exemplaires^{[réf. nécessaire]}. La chanteuse reçoit cinq Grammy Awards pour cet album, dont celui de la «Meilleure nouvelle artiste». Son second album, Feels Like Home, sort en 2004, son troisième album, Not Too Late, sort en 2007 et The Fall – quatrième opus – en 2009. Norah Jones a vendu plus de 39 millions d’albums dans le monde entier^{[réf. nécessaire]}.

En 2007, elle joue le rôle principal du film My Blueberry Nights, de Wong Kar-wai.

Je (me) recommande cet album dans le bus/métro pour atterrir en douceur du lit au bureau…

A écouter sur :

http://www.norahjones.com/index.php

En live cette voix :

Every so often you come across a CD or LP where you just can’t identify the country it was released in. Its kind of frustrating because collectors usually like to know this kind of detail…especially when you come across unusual or different packaging of a release you think you know well.

That’s the case here with this three-LP set from 1971 of George Harrison’s “Concert for Bangladesh”.

Every copy I’ve seen to date comes in a hard cardboard box, with a lid that lifts off and looks like this:

The usual "Concert for Bangladesh" box

The box contains the three vinyl discs, and the white-covered 64-page book of concert photos, text and credits for the album. The rear of this box is plain and has no writing on it.

However, I have a copy in the collection that’s a bit different. Its a box, but made of soft cardboard that doesn’t have a lid. The front cover looks familiar enough:

Front cover "Concert for Bangladesh"

So far so good. But this release has flaps on the back which you pull out to get access to the records and book inside:

The flaps in the closed position

You flip open these flaps and the “box” looks like this:

"Concert for Bangladesh" open

From what I can tell the US, UK and Australian versions all have the lidded box, and not this top-opening, slide-out style box. Also the US and UK versions have dark khaki brown inner sleeves in which the records sit (the Australian release doesn’t have any paper sleeves).

Inside this box  though the LPs are in light yellow colored thin paper sleeves:

The LPs are in yellow paper sleeves

The place you can usually tell the country of origin is in the small print on the labels of the records themselves. This one has no hints – with no mention of a country of origin. However, it does have a lot more copyright information on each disc, located just near the record number information (see top the left-hand side in the pics below as compared to the Australian release):

The label of the "strange" version - with copyright info top left

Compare this to the official Australian release:

The Australian release label - note no copyright info

The final main difference is that the words “Sole Distributors, Gramophone Record Company, Ltd” are written on the labels and prominently across the back of the box. The image below is from the rear of the box:

"Sole Distributors, Gramophone Record Company, Ltd" printed on the rear of the box

So, a weird one.

Being a huge worldwide Apple release, this concert disc set would have been issued in a large number of countries. I have my suspicions that this one here could be either the New Zealand or the Indian release.  But I don’t have anything to prove that.

If anyone has any information on this release please let me know by submitting a comment. Cheers for now.

Some have heard of her. Few have met her. None truly know her. Sarod wizard Ustad Ali Akbar Khan said of her, she is ’simply great’. Pandit Ravi Shankar acknowledges her genius. Yet, none have heard her play. Mysterious, intriguing, she is like our own Greta Garbo, living in her own shadows, shutting herself out from the world in the cloistered confines of a city flat, seeking peace in an instrument her father taught her. She wants nothing from the world, from society. But if she decided to give of herself, the world would be a richer place.

Six floors up the elevator in a high-rise building, in one of the posh residential localities of Mumbai, lives this woman. No one sees her, not even her immediate neighbours. The board at the entrance of the building simply spells: Annapurna Devi. Another square board is nailed next to her doorbell. It reads :

1. The door will not be opened on Mondays and Fridays.
2. Please ring the bell only thrice.
3. If no one opens the door please leave your name and address.
~ Thank you very much. Inconvenience is regretted.

Annapurna Devi, who was born as Roshanara Khan in 1926 at Maihar in the state of Madhya Pradesh, India, is a maestro of Surbahar or the bass Sitar. Her father Ustad Allauddin Khan, who also happened to be her guru, was the founder of the famous Maihar Gharana or the Senia Maihar School and was regarded as one of the greatest instrumentalists of the 20th century. Sarod maestro Ustad Ali Akbar Khan was her brother and she married Pandit Ravi Shankar, also a pupil of Allauddin Khan, at a very early age. Annapurna Devi emerged as a proficient Surbahar maestro of the Maihar Gharana just within few years of taking music lessons.

Soon after she even started giving music lessons to some of the students of her father like Pandit Nikhil Banerjee and Ustad Bahadur Khan. Baba, as Allauddin Khan was called by his disciples, was a very strict man and his temper was well known. There were times when the boys were so petrified that they dared not approach Baba and the only person who had access to him was Annapurna. He taught her, and she in turn often taught the boys. The trio of Annapurna Devi, Ravi Shankar and Ali Akbar Khan, began a long and arduous journey, trying to plumb the depths of a 5000 year old tradition of Hindustani music.

Raga Kaushiki :  

Raga Manj Khamaj :  

Annapurna Devi’s marriage to Ravi Shankar was arranged with the suggestion of Uday Shankar, his celebrated elder brother. Annapurna Devi, who was only 14, wedded Ravi Shankar when he was 21 years old. Though a tumultuous one, the marriage lasted for some 20 years during which the couple gave birth to a son, Shubhendra Shankar. It could have been a fairy tale or an eternal duet between two maestros, but somewhere at the height of the glory something happened and the relationship snapped like a thin thread.

There were whispers, as they were bound to be, given the fame of the two musicians and given the fact that they were husband and wife. Many say, Ravi Shankar fell in love with somebody else, a woman known as Kamala. Perhaps the affair became too big and Annapurna was definitely hurt by the entire thing. This and her father’s subsequent death dealt a severe blow to her, something that she could never recover from. She became a recluse thereafter, totally cut off from the rest of the world.

During better times with Ravi Shankar :

Raga Yaman Kalyan (with Ravi Shankar on the Sitar) :  

By all accounts, Annapurna Devi’s only public concert was staged in the early 1950s, and no one has ever heard her play the Surbahar or Sitar in public or private ever since. Few have seen her, fewer still have heard her play. She has performed a total of 11 times in her life. Finding a recording of hers is like locating a needle in a haystack. Her students say that she imparts instructions through singing and not through playing her instrument, and she conducts her lessons only in the late hours of the night, more often after midnight. What is more, she has remained inaccessible and unapproachable even to her own students without prior consent and appointment. Neither does she make herself available on telephone, nor entertain any visitors. She is allergic to press reporters, critics and lensmen.

As a teacher, she has had many noteworthy students like Ustad Aashish Khan, renowned flautist Hariprasad Chaurasia and others. She has not recorded any music albums. But some of her performances, notably Raga Kausi Kanara, Raga Manj Khamaj and Raga Yaman with Ravi Shankar have been secretly taped from her earlier concerts, and are available but not commercially. In spite of her avoidance of media limelight, she continues to be thought of as a classical instrumentalist of the highest calibre in India. All the awards she has received, including the Padma Bhushan in 1977, Sangeet Natak Akademi Award in 1991 and the Desikottama Award (highest honour conferred by the Vishwa Bharati University, Shantiniketan) in 1999, have been accepted in absentia.

indianraga

Recently I had the opportunity, thanks to the British weather, to try out the common cold remedy published a couple of weeks back.

On Wednesday evening I consumed a pint of the elixir an hour or so before bed. Feeling a lot better upon waking and for the rest of that day I decided not to drink anymore. Well, to be honest I had ran out of Turmeric and it was raining heavily outside, the beginnings of a three day storm. Yes, I could have asked one of the neighbours but after hearing me play Ravi Shankars Chants of India at full volume for the previous few mornings I think they may have been very scared by this request.

Anyway, by Friday afternoon I began to feel the full force of the cold returning. Next day, braved the rain, bought the Turmeric and devoured three pints of the cure, morning, noon and night.

Today, nothing…

Two of the greatest musicians of the 20th century worked together and created a masterpiece. The album was called “Passages“, and the piece you’re listening to is called “Channels and Winds”. Tha composers,  Ravi Shankar and Philip Glass. The album’s content is a hybrid of Ravi Shankar’s signature sitar playing and Hindustani classical music and Philip Glass’s distinct American minimalist contemporary classical style.

Ravi Shankar and Philip Glass met in Paris in 1965, when Glass was a young aspiring composer and Shankar was confirming his place in the world’s classical canon. Shankar acted as an informal mentor to Glass, and their interaction inspired Glass to consider the possibilities of rhythm. By the time they joined forces at a New York City studio, in 1989, the two occupied a more level playing field.

PASSAGES differs from previous collaborations that Shankar had undertaken with Western musicians such as Yehudi Mehuhin, Jean-Pierre Rampal, and George Harrison. On four of the six pieces, the two don’t improvise together so much as refine each other’s material, while on the remaining tracks, each composer is entirely responsible for the final composition. Shankar’s lush orchestrations are most evident on “Prashanti” and the graceful “Ragas in Minor Scale,” while Glass’s repetitions manifest most hauntingly on “Channels and Winds.” But on the finest tracks, “Offering” and “Meeting Along the Edge,” their individual talents are subsumed into the collective experience.

ENJOYING 8 HOUR WORKDAY HOW?

The eight-hour day movement or 40-hour week movement, also known as the short-time movement, had its origins in the Industrial Revolution in Britain, where industrial production in large factories transformed working life and imposed long hours and poor working conditions. With working conditions unregulated, the health, welfare and morale of working people suffered. The use of child labour was common. The working day could range from 10 to 16 hours for six days a week.

Robert Owen had raised the demand for a ten-hour day in 1810, and instituted it in his socialist enterprise at New Lanark.  By 1817 he had formulated the goal of the eight-hour day and coined the slogan Eight hours labour, Eight hours recreation, Eight hours rest. Women and children in England were granted the ten-hour day in 1847. French workers won the 12-hour day after the February revolution of 1848. A shorter working day and improved working conditions were part of the general protests and agitation for Chartist reforms and the early organization of trade unions.

FIRST TO IMPLEMENT THE 8 HOUR RULE

In 1864, the eight-hour day quickly became a central demand of the Chicago labor movement. The Illinois legislature passed a law in early 1867 granting an eight-hour day but had so many loopholes that it was largely ineffective. A city-wide strike that began on May 1, 1867 shut down the city’s economy for a week before collapsing. In 1868, Congress passed an eight-hour law for federal employees, which was also of limited effectiveness.

In August 1866 the National Labor Union at Baltimore passed a resolution that said, “The first and great necessity of the present to free labour of this country from capitalist slavery, is the passing of a law by which eight hours shall be the normal working day in all States of the American Union. We are resolved to put forth all our strength until this glorious result is achieved.”

Source

Enwikipedia

BLOG IDEA: Narsinga Rao Salapu., BCA

Virgin Atlantic’s A340-600s will seat 311 passengers in total – 50 in Upper Class, 28 Premium Economy and 233 Economy. This represents a 25% increase in capacity per aircraft compared to the airline’s current A340-300 fleet, which will be replaced by the new aircraft. The aircraft will also have up to 40% additional cargo capacity. The wings for the aircraft are supplied by Airbus UK and the engines built by Rolls Royce.

The new aircraft has been granted the same pilot type rating as in-service A340-300’s, which reduces flight deck retraining and also provides the airline with increased revenue potential through higher capacity and reduced seat mile costs. The A340-600 has a range of 7,300nm/13,500 km and will be deployed on routes with growing passenger demand. This year the aircraft will fly between Heathrow and New York, Tokyo and Hong Kong. 

THE SPECIFICATIONS

Length – 75.3m (247ft)
Wing span – 63.4m
Range – 7200nm or 14 hours
Number of seats – 311 seats – 56 more than an A340-300
Crew – 15 cabin crew and between 2 and 4 pilots
Max Take off Weight- 368,000kg
Cargo capacity – 20,000kg
Engines – 4 Rolls Royce Trent engines

RCA BL-14557 – Germany – 1982

Its all about the smallest Airplane in the world now the Cri-Cri

 Check out this miniature airplane that’s suddenly showing up all over the Internet (even though it was designed in the 1970s). At 12.8-feet long and with a wingspan of 16.1 feet, the Cri-Cri is billed as the world’s smallest twin-engine airplane. The French-designed, build-it-yourself kitplane weighs just 375 pounds and reaches top speeds of 150 mph thanks to its dual AMT Olympus Engines

Documental realizado a finais dos 90 que narra partes da vida e a influencia do músico hindú máis popular de tódolos tempos: a lenda do sitar Ravi Shankar.

Inclúe entrevistas a George Harrison, a sua filla Anoushka Shankar e a él mesmo, entre outros, nun documental cun ambiente moi familiar.

VERSIÓN ORIXINAL

The Luna Yoga summer retreat last August at Spa Eastman was illuminating for many reasons, one of which had to do with a tidbit of information communicated to us by guest lecturer Eugénie Francoeur, a Radio-Canada reporter and meditation lecturer. She spoke to our group about the patterns of the mind, and to be more specific, the thoughts that jumble around in our minds. 85% of our thoughts are actually useless, which is to say that they do not provide insight, illumination or any help in planning on the path to accomplishing something. Instead of guiding us somewhere productive, these thoughts are spent worrying about what cannot be changed, mainly to do with what is in the past.

This statistic creeped back into the forefront of my thoughts yesterday when I was on my way home from my 2nd-to-last teacher training weekend. We were treated to another lecturer last night, Antoine Tinawi, a specialist in Ayurveda from The Art of Living, a volunteer-based foundation created by His Holiness Sri Sri Ravi Shankar. Antoine had many things to tell us, all delivered in an incredibly sweet and pure manner, à la Prabakar (one of the most memorable characters from my favorite book of all time, Shantaram, by Gregory David Roberts). He talked to us about the Doshas, about food, about body characteristics and the Gunas, but the thing that stayed with me the most out of everything I heard was, “We live as if we have all the time in the world to obsess over the past and the future.” I’m still recovering from that one. Occasionally I read or overhear a phrase or idea that is the manifestation of my being, something that I consider to be so ingrained in my outlook and life philosophy that to have it exist outside of my being leaves me reeling. That occurred last night, and I’m still thinking about it.

I’ve spoken and written about how I feel our society is moving away from awareness into ignorance through sense of entitlement. About how teenage boys and girls today absolutely need to know where the rights that are afforded to them in today’s world came from, and what it took to get them. Girls need to know who Gloria Steinem is. Gay, lesbian, and transgendered community need to know who Matthew Shepard was. I could go on and on…any sub-culture that has any visibility has had to shed blood, sweat and tears to get it, and the way of the Western world today seems like fewer people are asking questions about the journeys that have led to today. The danger that exists in this complacency is potentially frightening, because, as we all know, the proverbial pendulum doesn’t only swing to one side. What swings to the right will inevitably swing back to the left, and vice versa. What dictates how far it swings is the momentum of ignorance that has built up before it starts moving again.

We are so insanely lucky to live where we live in today’s society. To be afforded the freedoms we have to pursue happiness, regardless of sexual orientation, race, gender or age. To be able to grow up assuming that those freedoms constitute our rights…that we’re somehow entitled to opportunities, to be able to choose how, where and with whom we spend our lives. On a global scale, we are in the minority, and it’s imperative that we remember this. We need to take every opportunity available to us to be thankful for the lives we lead, for the bodies we have that allow us to follow our paths and for the people around us who provide our safety nets, our extended families. We need to start living in the now, to stop obsessing over what exists in our pasts, and to not put an overt amount of significance in the future. Don’t get me wrong, now…it’s obviously wise and practical to plan financially and otherwise for where we see ourselves in the future, but we must always keep in mind that the future is as uncontrollable as the past. Nothing ever ends up being what we thought it would be, and is we really pay attention to how many of our thoughts consist of harping on what cannot be changed or affected, we’d probably be a lot more focused and productive, a lot less physically and mentally exhausted, and probably more accepting and compassionate of each other.

All I’m trying to say is that we can’t go wrong by living each moment to the fullest instead of looking back at what could have been or focusing on how we’d like to manipulate the future into being what we think it should be. It’s about appreciating and being present, about loving and sharing that appreciation with everyone around us. People will not only gravitate towards that kind of energy, but will want to embody it as well to pass it on, because at the core of that energy is the Truth. About ourselves and the world we live in. Where we came from and where we’re going. If we absolutely have to think about the past, then let’s agree to credit ourselves with having been as conscious and aware as we could have been, as productive, loving and compassionate as we could have been. And let’s agree that that energy is what lies ahead of us. More of the same. We may not necessarily be entitled to it, but we deserve it.

Limousines are all about being noticed and that is certainly what Jay Ohrberg of Burbank California gets in his 100 foot limo.

Jay designed his monster limo himself and now hires it out through his car hire company. The limo has 26 wheels and can be driven rigidly or adjusted to bend in the middle around corners. This incredible car is currently in the Guinness Book of World Records as the longest car in the world and even has two driver’s compartments – one at each end – to help with reversing.

The longest car in the world is better equipped than many Hollywood mansions, including luxuries like a large Jacuzzi tub, a sun deck, a helipad, a swimming pool (with a diving board of course), a king sized bed and a satellite dish, just to name a few.

While the limo isn’t actually street legal, it is mainly hired out for exhibitions and to be used in movies. Could you imagine a 100 foot limo driving around your neighbourhood? Only in America!

Imagine a talk show where the host’s face is, often, momentarily obscured by a plume of smoke from one of his guest’s cigarettes. Or a boom mike quite obviously dropping into a stoned guest’s personal space so as to better capture his incoherent ramblings. Or the host, again, being caught off guard by an impending commercial and then making little attempt to hide his frustration about yet another interruption to his conversation; crankily, and through rings of smoke, he announces the show will return after a brief commercial message.

Nowadays such qualities in a show would be openly mocked by a media-literate audience. Any imperfections that do occur in the dozens of talk shows that now poison the airwaves are well-planned attempts by the host or producer to keep it “real” or to convey an air of spontaneity or off-the-cuffery. Perhaps that’s why the fall-back technique for most non-fiction programs is to illuminate the production flaws, thereby perpetuating the myth that what is being viewed has not been plotted with meticulous precision. It didn’t used to be this way. People who worked in non-fiction television didn’t always try to dupe their viewers.

Lest anyone suspect I’m about to launch into a nostalgic riff about the glories of live television, that era was well before my time. I’m referring to the Dick Cavett Show, which in its various incarnations aired on seven different networks, most memorably for five years on ABC starting in 1969 and then in a scaled down version on PBS from 1977-1982.

The talk show has been around since the earliest days of television. For as much as television has changed in the last 50 years the talk show has changed very little. Neither have TV executive’s admiration for it. The reason talk shows are held so dear by the suits is not because they are a more highly evolved form of entertainment. It’s because they’re cheap. The only major outlay is the salary of the host, which is not insubstantial, but it pales in comparison to the cost of shooting on location, where a cast and crew must be paid, fed, housed and insured. In a time when viewers of prime time network television are dwindling like a 401k it should come as no surprise that a popular host landed a gig at 10 o’clock five nights a week.

Even though hundreds of channels are now available for every imaginable niche group, as a format, the talk show remains much it like it did at its inception. There is an opening monologue, a sidekick, a desk (usually), a band and invited guests (who are paid a few hundred dollars for their troubles). The guests, generally, are actors, musicians or comics. Occasionally, politicians, authors or athletes find their way onto the seat next to the host. Other variables include skits, stunts, and conceits that invite audience participation.

Dick Cavett made every effort to reject these clichés over the course of a forty year career. 

I recall my mother watching the Dick Cavett Show during the PBS iteration, but I can’t honestly recall a specific episode or guest from that period. Later, I heard my mother draw a comparison between Cavett and Charlie Rose. Since I’ve always admired her taste in anything cultural, I put myself on notice for anything bearing his name.

In 2005 Shout! Factory released several theme-based multi-disc DVD sets of Cavett’s old shows. They include specials with blandish titles like “Hollywood Greats” and “Comic Legends.” I recently rented the three-disc “Rock Icons” set through my Netflix account and I expected that the discs would feature only music performances and interviews, but the shows are available in their entirety, with a brief introduction from Cavett himself. Presently, he writes semi-regularly for The New York Times website and often includes clips from his old shows in his column.

In all the clips I’ve seen of Cavett’s shows I can’t help but having the impression that the only reason he had a talk show to begin with was because it gave him an excuse to meet and chat with a lot of really interesting people. The opening monologues from the ABC shows are terrible. They are too often referring to events germain only to New York, which is where the show was shot; garbage strikes, the incompetence of Mayor John Lindsay and local weather are common topics. He had a bandleader/sidekick who he tried, usually without success, to engage in witty repartee. Cavett himself could barely conceal his distaste in these talk show tropes. The PBS version of his show suited him much better as it dispensed with bandleader banter (there was no band to lead) and the opening monologue was more of an introduction than a series of one-liners. Cavett is at ease in this format, a mood that was probably exacerbated by a very small audience as opposed to the large studio audience that greeted him on the ABC version. There’s little doubt as to which version Cavettheads prefer.

Nevertheless, the ABC show aired during what could be fairly described as the salad days of popular music in America. The first program on the Rock Icons disc aired the day after Woodstock. Jimi Hendrix was slated to appear but had back out since his performance had lasted into the early morning hours of the day of shooting. The guest appeared more or less together. Joni Mitchell, looking childlike, sang three songs, one of which was performed a cappella. She had declined an appearance at Woodstock in favor of preparing for her appearance on Cavett’s show. A scheduling faux pas that her career was able to overcome. The other guests were David Crosby, Stephen Stills and Jefferson Airplane, whose singer, Grace Slick, referred to Cavett as Jim. Crosby is his usual grating self, commanding attention through the quantity, rather than the quality of his thoughts.

What’s interesting about this show is neither the guests nor the now-classic music, it’s Cavett. He and the musicians are seated in a circle, on what look to be pillows. Cavett, ignoring his usual jacket and tie, briefly dons an ascot—which he tosses into the crowd, recognizing the absurdity of its presence around his neck—and opens at least two buttons on his shirt. He looks like a complete square—to use the parlance—yet the musicians see that his curiosity is genuine. Watching this scene, I tried to imagine fellow talk-show host (and fellow Nebraskan) Johnny Carson in such a setting. And this, really, was the essence of the difference between the two men. Carson, who had his beginnings as a game show host was a master at making his guests feel comfortable and the best way to do that was to exude an air of comfort himself. He had great timing as a comic, and his monologues expertly combined self-deprecation with Midwestern sensibilities. Mostly though, Carson loved the Hollywood-ness of being the host of The Tonight Show. Sure, occasionally a topical guest found a spot between him and Ed McMahon, but he loved talking to Jimmy Stewart and Buddy Hackett and Shelley Winters and Phyllis Diller, about their latest movie or vacation or pet or hilarious circumstance. Very few people, besides Tiny Tim, made news on The Tonight Show. Carson specialized in being familiar.

By contrast, Cavett was willing to step out of his comfort zone if it meant he could book non-traditional guests. While it’s possible this was for the sake of ratings, it’s more likely that he was fascinated by people like Salvador Dali and Ingemar Bergman. Not only was Cavett willing to rattle his own cage he was not above rattling his guest’s when he felt it was merited. He interviewed Lester Maddox and Angela Davis, until she was forced to cancel. A guest, Jerome Rodale, died on his show (it was never aired) and he talked bluntly about pornography. He had no reservations about playing a role in the “Symphony of Emotions.” Try to imagine Carson doing this.

The first disc of the “Rock Icons” series concludes with interviews of David Bowie and Sly Stone. I’ve never been much of a fan of Bowie, but his appearance with Cavett was mesmerizing. He’s probably high at the time of the interview and once seated, his frame is so lean his bones seem ready to burst through his suit. As Cavett questions him, he grips a cane for balance, emotional or otherwise. Whether it’s Cavett’s presence or the narcotic effect, Bowie is as forthright any rock star I’ve ever seen. His very British smile (cosmetic dentistry apparently was not among Bowie’s expenses at the time) reveals an air of uncertainty about his well-established career. It’s Bowie as raw as he’s ever been.

Of all the performances on the set, Sly Stone’s is the best. He and the Family Stone are vibrant, enthusiastic and utterly charming. Unfortunately, Sly seems to also be under the influence when chatting with Cavett, his beaming smile providing little clue to what was actually coming from his mouth. At one point, Cavett looks like he has no clue what Sly just said—a very un-Carson like loss of poise—but plows on, knowing that another musical number will render this lapse in coherence irrelevant.

The second disk is dedicated to Janis Joplin. As with Bowie, I’ve admired her music more than I’ve enjoyed it, but here she is heartbreakingly endearing. Of course, I know what fate awaits her, but Cavett, who has acknowledged his own battles with depression, senses that this is a woman worn out. Cavett tries to build her up through praise, but then Janis talks about the loneliness of the road. He sympathizes with her complaint about overly cerebral European audiences. He lights her cigarette. In one memorable sequence, seated among Douglas Fairbanks, Jr, and Chet Huntley, she and Racquel Welch talk about current events and overzealous fans. Try to imagine say, Lady Gaga, talking with, say Harrison Ford, Tom Brokaw and Kate Winslet. It would be impossible in today’s heavily regimented, self-promotion environment, where guests have been trained to speak only of themselves.

Later, Janis finds herself on the same set as Gloria Swanson. Cavett seems to make an effort to include her in every conversation like an older brother guarding his baby sister in her first days in high school. He wants to indulge her and protect her.

The final disk opens with Paul Simon performing, talking about songwriting and working out an early version of “Still Crazy After All These Years.” Once Simon departs Cavett himself is interviewed by three authors—Jerzy Kosinski, Barbara Howar and Anthony Burgess—on the occasion of the printing of his own memoir. The authors critique the book and  Burgess is wonderfully frank while Kosinski attempts, with moderate success, to penetrate Cavett’s psyche. In a moment of meta-media, Howar reminds Cavett that what he does on a nightly basis as a talk show will quickly be forgotten, having written a book will be a more permanent accomplishment. I wonder which sells more these days, the book or DVDs of old shows?

The next artist featured is the effervescent Stevie Wonder. Even when writing about inner-city violence and despair, he manages to remain bubbly. Here, Cavett is somewhat placating, he appears unsure of how to refer, if at all, to Wonder’s blindness. The format of the traditional talk show, demanding some sort of acknowledgement of the obvious, is something Cavett would rather ignore, and I got the feeling that there many questions that went unspoken.

Finally, the series concludes with the quiet Beatle, George Harrison (Cavett’s interviews with John Lennon and Yoko Ono comprise a separate series on Shout!). Harrison performs anonymously as a guitarist with Gary Wright. The interview with him is all-encompassing. He and Cavett talk about the Concert for Bangladesh (and what a hassle it was to manage the money), why the Beatles broke up (he was tired of his “quota” of one or two songs per album and wanted to perform his own material), drug use and Ravi Shankar. Harrison mocks the convention of talk shows by reading from the commercial cues before Cavett. Cavett groans at every station break like a child being told to go to bed on Christmas Eve. “Commercial??? Can’t you see I’m talking to George Harrison!!!”

Whatever his frustrations, he is clearly enjoying his time with Harrison (and later, Shankar) so much so that he seems sincerely disappointed when Harrison compares his appearance on the show to a performance. “Do you really look at this as a conversation or a performance?” he asks. When Harrison assured him it’s the former, I felt Cavett’s relief. And that really was why Cavett endured. He understood that smart people respond to other smart people and a smart audience would understand and appreciate that. While he never garnered the audience of Carson, the devotion of his fans has never faded.

Cet extrait fait partie du premier volet de la trilogie de Satyajit Ray “Le Monde d’Apu” qui date des annees cinquante. Dedans il y a des pluies diluviennes, des nenuphars, des chatons, des serpents, des forets et des villes tentaculaires, des maladies incurables comme l’amour et autres catastrophes, du khol sur les yeux des filles, une tres belle musique.

“Earth has not anything to show more fair…”

Hmm, okay. I’ve landed back in London to an absolute whirlwind, which so far has been mainly a whirlwind of sonnets, one way and another… my desk is a mountain of sonnet books, plastic folders full of old sonnets, opened bills, letters from various agencies telling me what they need (argh), piles of books (Wilde and James prominent, Ellman in gargantuan hardback, other books I thought might have sonnets in them), and scraps of papers with forlorn, scrawled to-do lists… Elsewhere, mounds of washing. Clean. I’m hoping tomorrow I’ll have a chance to catch up, but today I have five things to do, in different places, requiring different paperwork, portfolios, books, outfits, etc… and there’s no printer paper in the house at ALL. Feck.

But it is autumn! Saturday will be Halloween. And what could possibly be more autumnal than a nice sonnet? Eh? And who knows more about seasonal celebration than the author of this exultant, Whitmansesque tribute to autumn? Not really anybody. If you were in Connecticut you would totally know what he’s getting at with those gourds. I got out, but some people have to navigate that stuff year after year… little did the Pilgrims realise what they were starting.

So it made perfect sense when I came home and found Colin McEnroe on my Facebook wall, talking about sonnets. Why wouldn’t he be? McEnroe is one of the funniest guys in Connecticut. And also (it’s so often the way with funny people) one of the smartest. Else why else would he run an amusing chat show about sonnets? (Recently he did a show on memorising. And one about tea. You see?)

And thus, tonight – that is, at 1pm New York time – I will be on NPR radio talking to Colin on his new show.  I’ll be on the phone, of course, and Colin will be in the studio with the poet (and editor of Drunken Boat) Ravi Shankar, and the erudite and jolly esperantist Humphrey Tonkin. If you’re in CT, you know what to do. If not, or whatever, you can catch it afterwards on the WNPR website.

And now I have to go get ready for the first thing… I’ll be emailing people by phone today, I think.

“Welcome to Dartmouth.”

That was the gracious opening remark from a man who, himself, was actually the visitor on Tuesday night. But only in the most formal sense. As a performer on the world stage for over five decades, in truth Ravi Shankar’s name and music are as well known as even the most frequent visitors at the Hopkins Center’s Spaulding Auditorium.

He continued, “I will miss Anoushka tonight as much as you will miss her. We will do our best to make up for it as much as we can.”

It had just been announced that his daughter Anoushka had taken ill and would not be joining him on the stage that evening. That could have been a disappointment, but instead it turned instead into a very intriguing prospect: her absence allowed for his first live performance without her, in fifteen years.

The first half of the concert had been filled with a single raga, plaintive and rhythmic with Ravichandra Kulur’s  soulful solo flute taking the lead. Typical of North Indian classical music the textures were layered and transparent, the structure was patient to develop, gaining volume and speed even as each of the three instruments folded in to the mix. The first half ended in a breathless punctuation of synchronized voices.  Exciting!

After what seemed to be an extraordinarily long intermission (I didn’t time it, but it felt like a half hour or so) Ravi Shankar and the original three musicians took the stage: Kulur on flute, with percussionists Tanmoy Bose and Pirashanna Thevarajah, along with two younger players identified as Kenji (Shankar’s student) and Benjamin.

They played a long set of several ragas, and throughout the whole performance the one thing that struck me was what a bluesy sound Shankar  was able to make with his sitar. I’ve heard the instrument played in many different ways, in live settings and on recordings in all kinds of music. And I’ve heard a lot of Indian slide guitar, much like the lap steel of American blues music in both construction and sound. But I’ve never heard the sitar sound like a blues voice before Shankar’s performance.

So is that his legacy to the art? It’s certainly one of them, but with a professional and personal history so closely associated with the Beatles, the Indian music infusion of the ’60s, and a long past of humanitarian work – it’s only one of many.

One final thought – the Spaulding stage sits low, and the auditorium seating is at a very moderate incline. Since Indian musicians traditionally sit right on the  stage the situation made for difficult viewing at best.

Maybe a raised platform on the stage can be arranged for the next Indian concert?

Which reminds me, the next show: April 1st, 7pm, again at the Spaulding. One of the best Indian percussionists in the world, Zakir Hussain. Must see (hear!)

Tonight at Dartmouth College’s Hopkins Center: sitar legend Ravi Shankar and his daughter, Anoushka Shankar – a righteous sitar player on her own merits.

I’m going, but I just noticed today that the show has sold out. While I can’t do much about that for you I CAN let you know right now there are a couple of other hot shows coming along soon that will also likely sell out, and you’ll miss out if you don’t plan ahead to be there:

Sunday, Nov. 1st @ the Flynn -Dee Dee Bridgewater and her “Lady Day” tribute to Billie Holiday

Sunday, Nov. 9th @ Parima Thai Restaurant – Rupa & the April Fishes: With a signature blend of gypsy/Indian/Spanish/French influences, their energetic second release “Este Mundo” is due out later this month on Vermont’s own Cumbancha label.

Sunday, April 18 – Mali’s Rokia Traoré: The new recording (Tchmantché) fuses traditional instruments with blues guitar and Rokia’s powerful voice, furthering her reputation as one of Africa’s most eclectic and vibrant musicians.

There will be others, I know. Keep an eye out here. And if you hear of them before I do – let me know!