Spirit Freed

Up In The Air

Ryan Bingham loves his work, though most of us would find it deplorable. His job is to fly from city to city around the US and fire you from your job. Of course there's a sophisticated terminology for this kind of profession and Bingham is the first to remind us that he's a "transition specialist", not an executioner. The euphemism is not lost in Jason Reitman's "Up In The Air". Indeed, as Bingham, played to perfection by George Clooney, expertly and efficiently traverses the corporate American ...

Foray in the Far East

It’s been a while since I updated this, but only because things have been ridiculously busy (in a good way). Earlier this month I was able to spend 8 days in China and see a part of the world that is rapidly becoming a cultural and economic powerhouse. The trip was partly due to recent progress with the development of our shower product, which we were able to make further headway on as we visited several plastics manufacturers near Hong Kong and Shanghai. Our trip started in Hong Kong, with its ...

Andrew Bird’s Noble Beast

Most works of western tonal music are characterized by the regular recurrence of rhythmically patterned pulses. Andrew Bird's eccentric cross-pollination of gypsy ballad violin and folk infused art-rock is defined by it. The importance of meter and repetition is clear on Noble Beast , even thematically, as whistled motifs emerge in defiant contrast to already established themes. Noble Beast is Bird’s fourth solo album and it made its debut this past January as a live stream on NPR....

Everything That Happens Will Happen Today

You know how when you want to see a movie before anyone else has the chance you go on opening night at your local theater? Afterall, it’s the only place you can see it, and you’ve got to be the first... This windowed model of exlusivity is rapidly becoming a new form of early distribution for artists hoping to capitalize on an alternative way to deliver their art to fans who care intimately about a direct connection with the musicians they love. It’s also the latest distribution method used by B...

The Exhausted West?

On Sunday, Nobel Laureate Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn died at age 89. His more famous works include One Day In The Life Of Ivan Denisovich and the Gulag Archipelago, which documented the Soviet forced labor and concentration camp system using primary research material as well as Solzhenitsyn’s own experience from a Gulag camp. Indeed, Solzhenitsyn is most famous for his role as an outspoken critic ...