onfocus

Here's a view of posts that mention "sxsw" from this blog in chronological order. (why? because I can... ;)

I'm going to miss not going to sxsw music this year. I've been going for quite a while. Every year I see some amazing shows and hang out with geographically dispersed friends. Here are some of my favorite shows that I experienced through the years:

• George Clinton and the P-Funk All Stars at Austin Music Hall '95 - Amazing. It seems like every musician in Austin for SXSW joined the P-Funk on stage that night. I remember that Chuck D and The Fugees were really good. And the love. I remember the love.
• Soul Coughing at Austin Music Hall '97 - At the end of the show, M. Doughty said, Goodnight People of Austin and Jaded Music Industry F***s Alike. At one point the guitar tech came out on stange buck naked when he handed Doughty a new guitar. It just seemed to capture the spirit of the whole thing somehow. Oh, and the music was great as always.
• Tragically Hip at Liberty Lunch '94 - Gordon Downie was constantly creating automatic poetry between and during songs...pacing back and forth onstage.
• Gomez at La Zona Rosa '00 - You just have to see these guys live.
• Propellerheads at La Zona Rosa '98 - Super plus electronic fun. Who knew two guys with turntables, drums, and a bass could put out so much energy?
• Buffalo Daughter at Liberty Lunch '98 - This was a retro techno rockshow. They have a great groove, and I felt like I was hearing something completely new. Or something I've always heard in a new way.
• Posies at Waterloo Brewing Co. '95 - Because I like the Posies and the beer at Waterloo.

Each year I discovered at least one great band that became a personal favorite. Ahh well, there will be others.

I picked up an amazing book the other day, Une semaine de bonté by Max Ernst. He takes pieces of Victorian engravings which all have a similar look and reassembles them into surreal images. It's split into several sections, and each has a loose theme. Before each section are a few quotes from other surrealists. This is my favorite: "Enter he said and there was light no one had knocked." - Tristan Tzara.

Need another web application developer around the office? Look no further. I'm one of those...and more.

"Our mind is like a clear glass of water. If we put salt into the water, it becomes salt water; sugar, it becomes sugar water; shit, it becomes shit water. But originally the water is clear. No thinking, no mind. No mind, no problem." - Seung Sahn

"Only thought can resemble. It resembles by being what it sees, hears, or knows; it becomes what the world offers it." - René Magritte

someday I'm gonna climb that mountain.

Searching for geographic information about Mount St. Helena, I found this nifty panoramic.

One of the benefits of the relatively cold weather we've been having here in CA is the snow on the hills around Sebastopol. For about a week I could wake up in the morning and imagine I was in Utah or Colorado. And then I would imagine that I was a giant in those places because the mountains looked like hills. And I would lumber around the kitchen preparing tiny bagels and shouting, "I can't operate the controls of this toaster oven due to my giant hands!" For the past few days it's been too foggy to see the hills. And too warm for snow. But it was fun while it lasted.

snow on mt. st. helena