Pianist Billy Taylor died yesterday at age 89, leaving a lasting legacy as America’s consummate jazz advocate.

Soon after getting his degree in Music Education, the Washington D.C.-raised Taylor became the house pianist at New York’s legendary Birdland, where he stayed throughout the ‘40s and ‘50s, playing with Bird, Dizzy and Miles and solidifying his role as a fixture and statesman in the city’s jazz scene.

But Taylor is perhaps best known as this country’s premier jazz educator, among the first to declare jazz “America’s classical music.” His long-running Jazzmobile project has produced concerts and educational programs throughout the American Eastern seaboard for 45 years.

Taylor was also the first to bring jazz thought and theory to mainstream American radio and TV. He was the jazz correspondent on CBS News Sunday Morning and on NPR.

But before all that, as the McCarthy era faded and Jim Crow was on its last gasp, Taylor was music director on an NBC show called The Subject is Jazz, which ran in 1958.
 

 
After the jump: Watch Nina Simone sing the Taylor-penned Civil Rights movement anthem “I Wish I Knew How It Would Feel to Be Free”…

A young Mazatec girl grinding Salvia divinorum.
 
The viral video of Miley Cyrus smoking Salvia Divinorum has brought a lot of attention to this formerly little known psychoactive plant. I doubt that all the media hype will result in positive results on any front. It’s LSD and MDMA all over again.

Salvia has a long tradition of being used and revered by Mexico’s Mazatec shamans for its vision-inducing properties. In recent years, a new generation of researchers have been exploring this magical plant. Salvia has become increasingly available outside of Mexico to anyone who has a desire to try it. But, because Salvia is an unpredictable and powerful hallucinogenic, it hasn’t been the drug of choice for party people. With the publicity arising from Cyrus’s video, that could change. As someone who has experimented with Salvia, I would caution anyone with the intent of trying it to approach Salvia with caution and great respect. It can be an ally or an enemy, depending on the dose you take and the setting in which you take it.

The Salvia experience is short but intense. Unlike LSD, Saliva induces actual hallucinations. With acid, you see objects in a new way, but you don’t see stuff that isn’t there. With Salvia, you see things that are not present in the so-called “real” world. In that respect, it shares some of the same qualities as Peyote. My Salvia trips have been overwhelming out-of-body experiences that were as mystical as they were frightening. In one experience, I was visited by Salvia’s Mescalito: a giant talking green carrot. While the carrot didn’t speak a language I was familiar with, it did manage to communicate on a psychic level a message of harmony and love. The carrot looked scary and its voice was a low intimidating roar, but ultimately the carrot had a good vibe - a psychedelic Jolly Green Giant. The whole experience lasted only a few minutes, but during those minutes I was completely incapacitated. I cannot stress the importance of having someone nearby in case you need some assistance.

I shared some Salvia with a woman friend of mine and she experienced an astral trip that took her to her childhood home on Long Island. She was loving it. But, while she was running across green grass somewhere in the suburbs, I was busy trying to keep her from leaping off the bed and running through the apartment. This is not unusual while tripping on Salvia. People have been known to walk into walls, furniture and human beings while under the plant’s influence. As my friend told me later, she could feel the grass on the front lawn of her home, smell the chlorine in the swimming pool and hear distant children laughing. As she was joyously reliving her past, I was her body’s caretaker.

Salvia is hot right now. Websites selling Salvia are trying to exploit the Miley Cyrus connection to make a quick buck. Thousands of unsuspecting people are going to take a casual approach to Salvia and end up having “trips” that are more than they bargained for. It is a mighty plant that imparts certain knowledge and insight to those ready to receive it. Salvia has the potential to be a teaching tool and a facilitator for spiritual insight. But, based on my experience, one thing it definitely is not is a recreational drug. Granted, I took strong concentrations of Salvia, but according to everything I’ve read and heard, Salvia even in low doses can knock you for a loop. So, be careful. As I said, approach this plant with respect.

The following documentary is a glimpse into the world of Salvia Divinorum. Not very scientific, but fascinating.
 

 
I met the artist David Mach in 1995, when he was building an installation out of newspapers called Whirl, at the Summerlee Museum, in Coatbridge, Scotland. We met for a short documentary I was making about his work, and spent the day filming him as he ripped up old copies of the Daily Record and tiered them into undulating sweeps that slowly filled out the space. It was incredible to watch and the resulting work was breath-taking.

Mach’s always had that ability to make something beautiful out of the mundane - sculptures from matchsticks (Elvis), coat-hangers (Gorilla), magazines. Being a sculptor informs all Mach does, as he once said:

“Being a sculptor leads everything I do. Every project I take on starts from that point. I believe that an artist must be an ideasmonger responding to all kinds of physical location, social and political environments, to materials, to processes, to timescales and budgets. I also believe that sculpture just about encompasses everything - a painting can be a sculpture, a TV ad can be a sculpture, a dance, a performance, a film, a video - all of thse kinds of art and many more can be sculpture.

When I have ideas I want to make them, and not just some of them, but all of them. As a result of that my sculpture covers a multitude of sins. I like to work in as many different materials as possible. It’s no understatement to say I am a materials junkie - jumping from highly-painted realistic cast fibreglass pieces to sculpture with coathangers, to a thatched barn roof laced with fibre-optics to designs for camera obscures (or at least the buildings to house them) and layouts for parks.”

It was 1983 when he first came to national prominence with Polaris, a submarine constructed out of 6,000 tires, built on the South Bank of the River Thames, at London’s Royal Festival Hall.

Polaris proved highly controversial with some, as Mach described the work as a protest against the nuclear arms race, which was then a hot-love-in between Tory Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and President Reagan. It also led certain journalists, who really should have known better, feigning outrage and getting paid to write tedious column inches about “What is Art?”  Things reaced a tragic height, when one disgruntled (though arguably mentally ill) individual, decided to destroy Mach’s sculpture by setting fire to it. Unfortunately, he set fire to himself and later died in hospital.

In 2008, Mach reconstructed Polaris as part of his Size Doesn’t Matter show in Haarlem, Holland. This short film follows Mach through the construction process to the finished work.
 

 
Bonus pix, clips and interview with David Mach, after the jump…
 

 
“Telephone” by Austin, TX-based group, The Black Angels. From their third album, Phosphene Dream.

Via Monkey Picks

 
As someone who shot a lot of Super 8 film back in the day, I must say, I was quite impressed by the new 8mm Vintage Camera app for the iPhone and iPod touch.

It used to be that the “vintage” effects packages for treating digital video were lacking whatever that ineffable quality is that can make something digital look like an authentically retro celluloid format. Just adding a bit of screen jitter here and there with some “scratches” didn’t cut it. I was never able to get the effect I was looking for, but, wow, this app is done right.

The app comes with 25 different retro looks, five different kinds of “film,” five “lenses,” retro filmstock color palettes, light leaks, random flickering and jitters. And best of all, the effects are seen “live” in the viewfinder. With the “old skool” celluloid version you never knew what was going to come back (admittedly part of the fun) but now that variable has been removed.

From Nexvio, it’s priced at just $1.99. The only bummer is that it doesn’t output HD video. How much longer will it be before an effects package like this becomes standard issue with video cameras?
 

 
Via Retro to Go

 
As if there is any doubt posed by the question “Are we slouching towards Idiocracy?” what else can a sane person conclude when confronted with headlines like “Conservatives Split Over Oppposition to Anti-Obesity Campaign” (WHO would be PRO-obesity aside from a politically astute moron like Sarah Palin? Surely the morbidly obese must make up a large percentage of her supporters) and “Kentucky Creationist Museum to Feature Dragons, Unicorns.”

Aside from a similar accident of birth on the North American land mass, I don’t perceive myself as having ANYTHING in common with someone who believes that dinosaurs and unicorns were on Noah’s fucking Ark (or Sarah Palin supporters for that matter)! Do you? Where is the commonality when IQs have become this stratified? And where is this mess headed when the stupidest people in the country are the only ones reliably voting? It’s really getting frustrating to read the news these days. I feel like there is a new low reached almost daily. The dumbness used to be a little more spread out.

Truly, it’s undeniable at this juncture that “the dumbs” are really starting to take over and if these shit-for-brains types are allowed to continue dominating the conversation, then all bets are off for the future of the American republic. I can’t help but to feel we’re about to reach a tipping point towards some serious bad craziness. If you can convince a man that dinosaurs and unicorns were on Noah’s Ark, you can convince this man of ANY darned thing (like millionaires and billionaires pay too much in taxes or that Sarah Palin is qualified to be president).

Reblogging this from Barefoot and Progressive:

I asked Answers in Genesis if there will be dinosaurs on their Ark. They said yes.

I’ve since asked if there will be fire-breathing dragons on their Ark.

My visit to the Creation Museum last week told me that the answer is a strong “probably so.” Digging through the AiG archives this morning, I now see that Ken Ham says the answer is an emphatic “yes”:

Being land animals, dinosaurs (or dragons of the land) were created on Day Six (Genesis 1:24–31), went aboard Noah’s Ark (Genesis 6:20), and then came off the Ark into the post-Flood world (Genesis 8:16–19). It makes sense that many cultures would have seen these creatures from time to time before they died out.

There will be dragons on their Ark. [What about Godzilla or Ghidorah, the Three-Headed Monster? Will non-American “dragons of the land” be considered for inclusion?—RM]

But here’s one more question for you: Will there be unicorns on the Ark?

According to Ken Ham and AiG, the answer is yes.

“Some people claim the Bible is a book of fairy tales because it mentions unicorns. However, the biblical unicorn was a real animal, not an imaginary creature.”

“Modern readers have trouble with the Bible’s unicorns because we forget that a single-horned feature is not uncommon on God’s menu for animal design. (Consider the rhinoceros and narwhal.) The Bible describes unicorns skipping like calves (Psalm 29:6), traveling like bullocks, and bleeding when they die (Isaiah 34:7). The presence of a very strong horn on this powerful, independent-minded creature is intended to make readers think of strength.”

“The absence of a unicorn in the modern world should not cause us to doubt its past existence. (Think of the dodo bird. It does not exist today, but we do not doubt that it existed in the past.). Eighteenth century reports from southern Africa described rock drawings and eyewitness accounts of fierce, single-horned, equine-like animals. One such report describes “a single horn, directly in front, about as long as one’s arm, and at the base about as thick . . . . [It] had a sharp point; it was not attached to the bone of the forehead, but fixed only in the skin.”

“To think of the biblical unicorn as a fantasy animal is to demean God’s Word, which is true in every detail.”

There will be unicorns on the Ark. So this is what we’re left with:

Thanks to [Governor] Steve Beshear, Kentucky is no longer just known as the state whose governor endorsed and gave $40 million in tax breaks to people who want to tell children that science and history explain that a 600 year old man herded dinosaurs onto a big boat 4,000 years ago.

No, Kentucky will now be known as the state whose governor endorsed and gave $40 million in tax breaks to people who want to tell children that science and history explain that a 600-year-old man herded dinosaurs, fire-breathing dragons and unicorns onto a big boat 4,000 years ago.

But Steve Beshear wasn’t elected to debate religion, he was elected to create jobs…

Ouch! I just want to pull the covers over my head when I read something like this, don’t you? Obviously, requesting a unicorn chaser would not really be appropriate here…
 

 
If Modern Humans Are So Smart, Why Are Our Brains Shrinking? (Discovery)

 
It’s not like I’m some phone book enthusiast or anything, but these vintage designs over at Old Telephone Books are pretty great. The site touts being, “Possibly the world’s largest online collection of phone books.” I believe them. 
 

 
See more vintage phone book designs after the jump…
 

 
Jamaica has finally distinguished itself a bit in the global animation community. It’s easy to see why JA animators Allison and Anieph Latchman’s five-minute Cabbie Chronicles: Drive Thru Drama short won the Best Caribbean Animation Award at this year’s Animae Caribe Animation and New Media Festival. It’s some straight-up homegrown Kingston street satire.

Don’t get it twisted—Jamaicans have been doing animation for a minute now—for example, Coretta Singer’s fantastical 3-D work has been shown out in the global animation circuit for a couple of years now. And folks can point to the cutting-edge Ninjamaica, but that was a Canadian production. Cabbie Chronicles is straight from yard, and hopefully one of a long-running series that sets the tone for an era of great ‘toons from the island.
 

 
After the jump: check an interview with the screwfaced Cabbie himself…

 
For the past few days, I’ve been reading Lorre Rackstraw’s fascinating book, Love as Always, Kurt: Vonnegut as I Knew Him. Rackstraw’s lovely, intimate look at the great American novelist, humorist and moralist is chock full of letters from Vonnegut which sparkle with wit, advice on the craft of writing (they met when Rackstraw was a student of Vonnegut’s at the Iowa Writer’s Workshop in 1965) and Vonnegut’s bittersweet, world-weary views on the human race. Although I’m loving the book, it makes me incredibly sad that we no longer have his voice with us today. I can only imagine what Vonnegut would be making of the likes of Sarah Palin, Glenn Beck and the know-nothing Tea party-types.

Above a delightful letter posted at the terrific Letters of Note blog.

June, 1998: Kurt Vonnegut writes a light-hearted letter to Avatar Prabhu - pseudonym of the author Richard Crasta - in response to Crasta’s controversial novel, The Revised Kama Sutra, being dedicated to the Slaughterhouse Five novelist. Vonnegut closes the missive by amusingly taking a swipe at Salman Rushdie who, whilst in hiding years previous, had written a less-than-glowing review of Vonnegut’s 1990 novel, Hocus Pocus.

 
On September 23, 1966 The Rolling Stones played Royal Albert Hall. It was their first gig in England in more than a year. During their opening number, “Paint It Black,”  several hundred teenyboppers went apeshit and rushed the stage. A few broke the police barricade. A mini-riot ensued. Footage from the chaotic concert was used in the 1967 promo video for “Have You Seen Your Mother, Baby, Standing In The Shadow?”

The following video begins with raw footage of the Royal Albert Hall fan frenzy followed by the promo for “Have You Seen Your Mother,Baby, Standing In The Shadow?”