Buckminster Fuller
I’ve always been fascinated with architecture and design, especially Frank Lloyd Wright and Buckminster Fuller. Fuller especially caught my interest with his novel approach for his Fuller Projection map, shown above, which has the Earth on a polyhedron and unwrapped. It doesn’t show the distortion as the typical northern hemisphere weighted ones still used today. It also helps I’m a map whore.
But something I am interested in seeing it a new exhibit at the Whitney: Buckminster Fuller: Starting With the Universe, on view till September 21, 2008.
One of the great American visionaries of the twentieth century, R. Buckminster Fuller (1895-1983) endeavored to see what he, a single individual, might do to benefit the largest segment of humanity while consuming the minimum of the earth’s resources. Doing “more with less” was Fuller’s credo. He described himself as a “comprehensive anticipatory design scientist,” setting forth to solve the escalating challenges that faced humanity before they became insurmountable.
The NYTimes has an article on the show also, Fixing Earth One Dome at a Time.
The Ting Tings
Another great show on the 18th was The Ting Tings. I wasn’t quite sure what to expect since I really only knew their most popular song, Shut Up and Let Me Go, but I was pleasantly surprised they put on a really good show. This is impressive since there are only two of them in the band, but they both had tons of energy and worked the crowd well. The Fratellis still put on a better show (they also have more material), but both shows were packed with a good crowd, and I look forward to see how both bands develop.
They are another band catapulted from an iTunes commerical.
The Fratellis
A little late in reporting on this one, but went to see The Fratellis on the 13th, and as of this moment they hold the record for putting on the most lively show I have seen in NYC. These Scots really know how to jam. I’m also a fan of the “Rosie the Riveter” WWII type design on their Costello Music album, and you can now buy a t-shirt.
It has to be a pretty good show when you feel the floor bounce to the music. The Fretellis have a very upbeat and unique sound, and I especially like what I will describe as Skat since I can’t think of a better comparison at the moment.
There was also added flavor that a Certic rugby team was having a great time near us.
Band web site and Myspace. As always, more photos in my Live Music Set.
Their most popular song, Chelsea Dagger:
Ikariam
So evil Joe has introduced me to another time sink, but one right up my alley. Ikariam is a free web-based empire building game, I just started and it looks like a lot of fun. The best part is that it doesn’t look like it takes a ton of time, just a few minutes to catchup and you can ignore it for a few days without much going wrong.
TGISource did a good review of the game:
Essentially, the game is empire-building. You register an account, choose a world (server) to play on, and then you’re plopped down on a random island. A big part of the game involves building up your town, doing research, and managing resources. Which, of course, ends up being pretty fun. Harvesting of materials and research is automatic, and the only decision to be made is how many citizens to devote to each (citizens without specific tasks will generate gold).
The big test will be time and if my interests keep up with the game. Of course, the first time my butt gets kicked might also have an impact.
The Sons & Heirs
On May 22 (Morrissey’s birthday), I got to see The Sons & Heirs in Brooklyn’s Union Hall. It was totally random that MSV and I even saw they were going to be playing there. We had not heard of this Smiths & Morrissey tribute band, but since we both are huge fans we gave it a shot.
I was not expecting much for a Smiths cover band, but wow was I impressed with them. They really put on a great show and are an excellent Smiths band. The lead singer, Ronnissey (taking it all the way!), has a great Morrissey voice and has the mannerisms down. Totally a great show and worth the price of dealing with drunks and girls and guys jumping on the stage. Photos didn’t turn out great given the bands lack of standing still.
Thankfully no injuries occurred from the violent flower throwing!
ThePlanet Pain
Boom went the DNS hosting facility. Looks like my email and site were caught in the current ongoing drama over at ThePlanet.com. I only had my DNS routed through them but that was enough to take it all down. I’m not as concerned since DNS has a nice way to catching up once the NS server is back up, which as of a few minutes ago it was for me. Pretty scary to think of a explosion taking out a few walls though.
Disqus
I’m officially done with dealing with comment spam on this blog, and have moved comments to use Disqus. It helped that AVC once again mentioned the company right when I was thinking about what to do. Disqus was very easy to install on Wordpress, it took all of two steps and 5 minutes.
BeerMenus.com
I have a new favorite way to drink fine beer in NYC, BeerMenus.com. The site is very clean and easy to find exactly where good beer is at, especially the hard to find ones like my favorite, Grimbergen Brown. I submitted my new favorite bar in Brooklyn right now (Grimergen on tap!), Bar Tabac (on Yelp), so I’m curious how long the brothers take to approve.
The site was founded by two brothers who were frustrated by bad beer selections… I feel their pain, especially when out with my Dive Bar Friends (you know who you are).
My request would be an iPhone version of the site to allow for easy additions of new bars!
They are also having a launch party on Saturday, May 24, 2008, at Blind Tiger Ale House. See Facebook event for details and RSVP.
The Long Blondes
The Long Blondes put on a fantastic show at the Bowery Ballroom last night. I will be listening to more from this band, since I had heard but a few songs before last night. Long live Brit Rock and thanks MSV!
My Live Music photo set.
