Category: artistic things!

Electric Light Orchestra, the early days

There’s a reason why Electric Light Orchestra was so popular, and it wasn’t because they made standard music like all the other groups were making in the 70’s, Jeff Lynne and the group knew how to rock, and rock hard! The fact they could go from classical music to classic rockabilly in one go, and bring undiluted energy to both, that is what made them one of the biggest rock bands ever!

Here is a video of them performing Grieg’s “Hall of the Mountain King” and Jerry Lee Lewis’ “Great Balls of Fire.”

The guy rocking out on the bass or cello or whatever is manic! Oh, and this is before Jeff Lynne started wearing the shades, it’s strange to actually see his eyes!

Enjoy!

J-Pop, old school – Hitomi Ishikawa

Surfing through some Japanese videos on Youtube, I found some videos by a J-pop singer from back in the 80’s who’s still performing (and still looks very nice, even if she doesn’t look like a high-school girl anymore) named Hitomi Ishikawa (石川ひとみ). She started out (looks like) when she was in high school in 1976, winning a Fuji TV singing contest. She had one big hit in 1978, she was a voice actress on an anime, but her career came to a halt when she contracted Hepatitis B in 1987. She recovered and started performing again in 1988, got married in 1993 (dang it!) and still performs on TV. She has a fantastic voice, even when she was just starting out.

Anyway, here’s a compilation video of some of her songs, and video clips of her performing them through the years.

From the Youtube page, here’s the playlist of songs:

♪ 1．くるみ割り人形
♪ 2．夢番地一丁目
♪ 3．Blue Dancing
♪ 4．ハート通信
♪ 5．君は輝いて天使にみえた

Enjoy!

Science is AWESOME!

Here’s a neat demonstration of vibration, frequency, standing waves and a whole lot of cool images, using nothing but salt, sound, a board, and an audio generator! I prefer this version with the music, but there’s a link on the page to the version with just the tones at the frequencies used.

Enjoy!

Nerdtour 2012 quickie: Artistic Tokyo Station

So, I thought I’d try to be a little artistic with another one of my photos from Japan. I see all kinds of “art” photos where the photographer uses grainy black and white, so I thought I’d do the same with one of my more-or-less “artistic” photos, converting the nice clean crisp color photo to this B&W thing. This is a shot of one of the platforms at Tokyo Station. I was headed to Yokohama for the day, and it was well past rush hour so there was hardly a person there. “Crowded Tokyo” is very selective in its appearance.

I don’t know if this works as “art” or not, since I’m not an artist, but here it is anyway! I guess it kind of looks like an old photo, or something…

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Coolest. Astronaut. Ever!

Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield has been using his time on the International Space Station to show that space is not just for scientists, but also for artists and creators. He’s been posting some beautiful photos of the Earth from space, and now he’s made a music video of his cover of David Bowie’s “Space Oddity” with a few revised lyrics! He apparently recorded the video and audio of his song on the station, which the producers on the ground mixed with the music track and edited together into this video. He recorded this with new lyrics having to do with his return from the ISS, which you can tell he’s going to miss. It’s really a great job that he’s done, and I hope others get to follow the musical and artistic trail he’s blazed!

Now, by definition (mine), astronauts and cosmonauts are cool people, but I have to say that, after the Apollo astronauts, Chris Hadfield is on my list of The Coolest Astronauts Ever!

Enjoy!

Finally, a new book!

After many years of dithering and dawdling and otherwise procrastinating, I finally have a new book out! Hopefully the first of many, its photos cover one morning and early afternoon at the Kiyosumi Garden in Tokyo, Japan, on my first full day there.

In case you’re interested, I have both print and ebook versions available, although not through the Apple iBookstore. I’m using the software and website of Blurb.com, which is a print-on-demand service that provides book composition tools, as well as a marketplace and promotion utilities (such as the preview below) to help people create and sell books. Their model is quite reasonable, they establish a base price for paper quality, number of pages, and size of book, and the creator (me!) adds a small amount of markup, to keep once the book sells (hopefully!). I want to take more of the photos that I took on my Nerdtour 2012 trip and make books from them, because I saw and photographed some interesting sights and activities in the Tokyo area, as well as in the Touhoku region of Japan.

I named this book “Kiyosumi Garden Tour” and it’s basically a walk-around through the park, in pictures, with some occasional explanatory commentary in captions. The ebook version can be previewed and ordered here, while the print version (much more expensive, but batteries not required!) is available here.

If you want you can preview a few pages in this viewer (click on the “view fullscreen” icon to see a larger version:

Look for more books during the upcoming year!

Nerdtour 2012 quickie: Kiyosumi Garden

Here’s a photo from the “star” of my upcoming book, Kiyosumi Garden! I went there on my first full day in Japan in 2012, and even though it was a mixture of sun and rain during the hours I was there, it still managed to be very beautiful, quiet and serene, even in the heart of Metropolitan Tokyo.

Enjoy!

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It’s a book thing!

So, I finally have a few tools to help me with the workflow, the process of making a photo book. I decided to work on a few books from my Nerdtour 2012 excursion, one each on a different place, topic, or a single day. I took so many photos that it was hard to work on them individually, selecting each one, adjusting lighting, selecting which to use and not use. Fortunately technology has kept advancing and getting more affordable, so now with Adobe Lightroom and Blurb BookSmart I think I can start creating the books I want to write! Of course, the hard part will now be writing up stuff in the books, the photo part was easy! By the way, the first book will be about the Kiyosumi Garden in Koto Ward, Tokyo, which just happened to be a couple of miles from my apartment, and one brief subway stop away!

Here’s a couple of screenshots of the “work” in progress:

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