Concert Of 250 Guitars

Each year in March, there's an event here in Spain, celebrating the Festival of Guitars. I attended only one, the 20th edition, on my birthday 4 years ago, to me a rather impressive concert with 250 professional guitarists & advanced students, playing in popular as well as classical concerts. Not in the scale of that other event in Germany or Japan (can't remember which) when there were nearly 2000 people playing the electric guitars together, like 'Smoke on the water' or 'Deep Purple'. That Mecca concert of unusual formation was in L'Auditori, Barcelona, to inaugurate the 20th Festival of Guitars. The nucleus is the 'Orquesta de Guitarras de Barcelona' (OGB), founded and directed by Sergi Vicente in the 2nd part. The 1st was be to pay homage to the famous Cuban guitarist and composer, Leo Brouwer, also to celebrate his 70th birthday. With the cost of €900,000 and organised by 'Project', the musical promoter, that edition presented one of their most ample and extended programme. With styles from Flamenco to pop, including jazz, blues, rock, and songs of authors, in the epigraph of the festival of the phrase 'the other chord', in which the guitars did not have a specific or traditional function. Precisely because of that some die-hard traditional & classical musicians objected and criticised for days before and afterwards, but the huge success reflected by public attendance and media reports were decidedly positive. If people forever hold on to their views and rejects any kind of change, nothing new or better would ever be discovered & our world would never progress. Tags:guitarconcert

Current Mood: Artistic

The Parrot

A man walks into a pet shop to buy a parrot. There are 3 in the shop. The man points to the best looking one, with beautiful plumage in very attractive colours and asks: "How much is this one?" he asked. "€ 500." said the owner. "That's rather expensive for a bird." The man says. "Ah, this one speaks good English" "Well, it's too much for me." He points to the 2nd one, a little smaller, not as brilliant and colourful as the other. "How much is this one then?" "€ 1,000" says the owner. "But he is smaller and not as pretty, yet he costs more?" "This one speaks Spanish as well as English though." says the proud owner. The man is impressed but definitely can't afford that one, so he looked at the last one; small, scrawny, scruffy looking with rather dull and uninteresting colours. Not at all what he would like but, out of curiosity he asked the price of this one too. "This one is €1,500" says the owner. "What? The smallest and the least attractive one costs so much more? How many languages does he speak?" he asks. "No idea. I have never heard him utter a word." said the owner, "But the other 2, one calls him Master and the other calls him Boss." Don't ever judge anyone by appearance. Tag:parrotboss

Current Mood: Amused

The Invention Of A Painless Machine

The time had arrived for Moshe to take his wife Leah to hospital to have their baby delivered. Upon their arrival, the doctor told them that he had invented a new machine that would transfer a portion of the mother’s labour pain to the father. He asked if they were willing to try it out. They were both very much in favour.

The doctor set the pain transfer dial to 10% for starters, explaining that even 10% was probably more pain than Moshe had ever experienced before. But as the labour progressed, Moshe felt fine and asked the doctor to go ahead and bump it up a notch. The doctor then adjusted the machine to 20% pain transfer. Moshe was still feeling fine. The doctor checked his blood pressure and was amazed at how well he was doing. At this point they decided to try for 50%.

Moshe continued to feel quite well. Since it was obviously helping out Leah considerably, Moshe encouraged the doctor to transfer ALL the pain to him. Leah delivered a healthy baby with virtually no pain.

Leah and Moshe were ecstatic. When they got home, they found their milkman dead at their front door.

 

Tags:painlessmachine

Current Mood: Amused

Mission One - Motorcycle Craze

Born in a garage in the acclaimed Silicon Valley, from an idea of a group formed by students of the MIT, old employees of Intel, passionate and enthusiastic aficionados of motorcycles. This electric motor was then about 3 years back, the fastest, or claimed to be, in the world, capable of reaching 240 kilometres per hour. 140 horsepower, mounted on a light chassis of aluminium.

The top speed can be achieved practically instantly, without having to wait for the traditional revolutions of the motor of combustion, with which, in the acceleration, there are no rivals.

The design is work of Yves Behar. What is most noticeable is the absence of the exhaust pipe, because this ingenious machine does not contaminate the environment. It runs on batteries of lithium of the latest generation, the size of which no bigger than a football. To charge them it takes the same time as charging a portable computer, a couple of hours.

The first range of models were available in 2010.

Mission One: €52,000

Do we really need even higher speed?

Tags:missionone

Current Mood: Awake

Thirty Six Meters Of Melancholy

Jack Kerouac wrote 'On the road' in a roll of paper that's used in Architecture projects. It was found in his apartment in Manhattan, on which ran one of the most emblematic novels of the 20th century. There are more than 36 meters of typewritten manuscript reached a record sale in an auction, in 2001 in New York. James Irsay, proprietor of the football team American Indianapolis Colts, paid €2.8 million for it.

In the United States alone an average of 100,000 copies are sold annually. In Spain, Anagrama has been editing it since 1986, and since then each year they re-edited it. For the version in the original scroll there's a new translation, by Jesus Zualika. Coppola, proprietor of the rights for the film, has put it in the hands of Water Salles.

Very few books have preserved so intact the power of infectiousness as 'On the road'. A book converted in the symbol of the identity of millions of men that found in Kerouac the overwhelming answer to their melancholy.

Written in 1951 and first published in 1957 'On the road' continues being the Bible of so many who searched - and still searching - the route of 'the mad and the crazy', for sense of life, for life itself ...The scroll is, has been, as famous as the book written on it. I have never heard of this writer before, nor this amazing scroll, and I doubt I ever will, not unless I got millions in my pocket to wait for my chance. Have to admit I am dead curious about both.

Tags:scroll melancholy

Current Mood: Artistic