4:20 4/20

"'420' began its sub-rosa linguistic career in 1971 as a bit of slang casually used by a group of high school kids at San Rafael High School in California. '420' (always pronounced "four-twenty," never "four hundred and twenty") came to be an accepted part of the argot within that group of about a dozen pot smokers, beginning as a reminder of the time they planned to meet to light up, 4:20 p.m." snopes

The DCist blog explains 420

Terrastock

KFJC will be broadcasting the entire weekend's worth of music.

The following are scheduled to play:
Avarus (Finland)
Bardo Pond
Black Forest / Black Sea
Bridget St John
Brothers of the Occult Sisterhood (Australia)
Charalambides
Cul de Sac
Damon and Naomi
Fursaxa
Ghost (Japan)
Glenn Jones
The Green Pajamas
Kemialliset Ystävät (Finland)
Kinski
The Kitchen Cynics (Scotland)
Sharron Kraus (England)
Landing
Larkin Grimm
Lightning Bolt
The Magic Carpathians Project (Poland)
Major Stars
Marissa Nadler
MV&EE with the Bummer Road
Paik
P.G. Six
Tom Rapp
Jack Rose
Salamander
St Joan (England)
Spacious Mind (Sweden)
Spires that in the Sunset Rise
Tanakh (Italy)
Thought Forms (England)
Urdog
Windy & Carl

Margot's Easter Message

Green Line to Greenbelt

by stereogab

Sunday in the Park

by tomcakuls

DRS, Russell Crowe and Ravi Shankar

"IF APRIL 7 IS YOUR BIRTHDAY: Because you're dynamic and energetic, you approach life with much physicality. You're enthusiastic about whatever you like. Your success is due to your belief in yourself. People often come to depend on you. (You don't mind this.) Privately, you're quite spiritual. The year ahead is full of exciting, fresh new beginnings. Open any door!"

Seahorse Staircase Gets a Review!

The Spring 314 Green letter featured a review of our Planetarium show by our friend Phong; it's now on roeshad. thanks phong!

Happy Birthday!

Happy Birthday Stereogab!

You share this day with
Astrud Gilberto
Vincent Van Gogh
Paul Verlaine
Eric Clapton
Warren Beatty
and M.C. Hammer

God Save Ray Davies

I first heard the Kinks on the radio. "All Day and All of the Night" and "You Really Got Me". Those songs rocked. I wanted more, so I went to the local Caldor and bought "The Kinks Are The Village Green Preservation Society". It sounded totally different. I was a bit disappointed, but still intrigued. Then my cousin sent me a copy of "Arthur". That was more like it. A few years later I picked up "Face to Face". My friend Lars, a diehard Kinks fan, gave me "Soap Opera" for my birthday. So over the years I grew to appreciate the width and depth of The Kinks's work. From "Fancy" to "Apeman" to "Low Budget".

So last night, we trekked to the 9:30 Club to join the many faithful to hear Ray Davies. It was a funny crowd- parents with their children, parents with their parents, fortysomethings on dates, DC hipsters- and not a single cell phone ring or loud conversation to interrupt the show.

The set was an array of tunes from all eras of The Kinks, from "You Really Got Me" to "Days" to "Picture Book" to "Dead End Street" to "Oklahoma USA" to "Lola". Over the course of the show he took the crowd through many moods- quiet, loud, sad, happy, serious and silly. He looked like he was having as much fun as we were.

Vernal Equinox Thoughts

Today is the vernal equinox, which means the first day of spring for those of us inhabiting the northern hemisphere. The equinox is the only day when the sun is above the horizon for the same amount of time that it is below the horizon. People around the world celebrate the equinox but here in Washington DC it's just another day. This isn't a city that's connected to nature. But cities are the culmination of human's efforts to control nature, so I guess it's not realistic to expect them to acknowledge nature, other than spring sales, easter candy, and asparagus in the grocery stores. But then again, there is a certain energy on the street that wasn't there a month ago. Not just the birds are singing different songs.

Leafy Green

The Ides of March

Today is the day Marcus Brutus stabbed Julius Caeser. Once I visited Rome and saw the steps to the Capitol where he was murdered. Caeser's tomb is nearby. People still leave flowers and offerings there. Up the hill from the tomb is the Forum, where Marcus Antonius addressed the citizens after the murder. In Shakespeare's version, he says the following:

Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears;
I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him.
The evil that men do lives after them;
The good is oft interred with their bones;
So let it be with Caesar. The noble Brutus
Hath told you Caesar was ambitious:
If it were so, it was a grievous fault,
And grievously hath Caesar answer'd it.
Here, under leave of Brutus and the rest--
For Brutus is an honourable man;
So are they all, all honourable men--
Come I to speak in Caesar's funeral.
He was my friend, faithful and just to me:
But Brutus says he was ambitious;
And Brutus is an honourable man.
He hath brought many captives home to Rome
Whose ransoms did the general coffers fill:
Did this in Caesar seem ambitious?
When that the poor have cried, Caesar hath wept:
Ambition should be made of sterner stuff:
Yet Brutus says he was ambitious;
And Brutus is an honourable man.
You all did see that on the Lupercal
I thrice presented him a kingly crown,
Which he did thrice refuse: was this ambition?
Yet Brutus says he was ambitious;
And, sure, he is an honourable man.
I speak not to disprove what Brutus spoke,
But here I am to speak what I do know.
You all did love him once, not without cause:
What cause withholds you then, to mourn for him?
O judgment! thou art fled to brutish beasts,
And men have lost their reason. Bear with me;
My heart is in the coffin there with Caesar,
And I must pause till it come back to me.

Ali Farka Toure R.I.P.

Every summer the Smithsonian Museum here in Washington DC holds a Folklife Festival on the Mall. The festival features the arts and culture of a region of America as well as that of a few countries. Different ones are selected each year. In 2003 it was Mali. One night Ali Farka Toure showed up to play. It wasn't really publicized, but the tent was packed that night. The folks from Mali sat up front to see their main man. We stood in the back. It was really hot, we were dripping sweat and guzzling water until it ran out. Farka Toure played for hours. He was sweating too, and women from the audience would jump up onstage to slap paper money on his sweaty skin. Everyone was having a blast. His guitar playing was psychedelic; it was African; it was the blues; it was everything that night. He had a couple percussion players and maybe a rhythm guitar. Not a whole band. He was dressed in black, he looked like a star. And he was. Here's his obituary.

Film: The Station Agent

The Station Agent (2003) is a charming movie. It's one of those movies that does a good job telling a story visually. There are lots of nice shots, lots of summertime green trees and golden light. There are three main characters and they all seem to be different sides of the same problem. The pacing and camera work reminded me a bit of George Washington (2000).

Memo From The Sex Pistols

The Sex Pistols declined an invitation to join the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame with a hilarious dead-on memo. The Hall of Fame, the Grammys, Hard Rock Cafe, and other manifestations of the "rock and roll establishment" serve only the executives and accountants who profit from the products they foist on consumers whose idea of music is a ring-tone. Just as McDonalds is anti-food, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame is anti-music.

Great God Pan

The Great God Pan blog is a good source for super-obscure California hippy culture past and present.

Dada

When I was 15 I realized that life was absurd. I guess my viewpoint hasn't changed that much because Dada looked just as disturbing and fun yesterday at the National Gallery exhibit as it did when I was a 15 year old checking out library books on Dada and Surrealism. Every era needs its agitprop. Even ours...

Neal Cassady Recording

Good News Regarding Belle and Sebastian

Their new album is sooo good. Good hooks, good songs, good recording, and if you buy the deluxe edition with the DVD, good packaging. It is better than "Boy With the Arab Strap". I thought they were as done for as a deep-fried Snickers bar but they are back in full glory and life is good.

Snowstorm

Well I listen to the weather
And he's changed his tone of voice
They can see it on the radar
Only seven hours away

"Snowstorm" Galaxy 500

Babylon System is a Vampire

The District of Columbia requires that all adult residents who have not been convicted of a felony in the past ten years serve five weeks on a Grand Jury. All cases that go in front of a trial jury (a.k.a. Petit Jury) must first appear in front of a Grand Jury. The Grand Jury must vote to issue an indictment for the case to proceed to jury trial. This might be old news to those of you who watch Law and Order. Thanks to my Grand Jury experience, I now know what a pimp circle is, and what smoking boat means, and a host of other things I'd rather not know.