quick signal boost, holiday update

Support rape crisis centers and enter to win an Advance Copy of Red Hood’s Revenge, by Jim C. Hines.

Jim C. Hines is doing a not-raffle to raise money for RAINN and local rape crisis centers. Click the image above for more information on how to participate.

~*~

In unrelated news, I’m still on holiday.

Last night we ended up at a dueling piano bar, which was for my uninitiated self, pretty much mind-blowing. Partly this was because the four musicians working the stage (generally in at least a pair, sometimes as a full ensemble) simply did not stop. They took requests, went from song to song, traded instruments (two pianos, a guitar, a bass guitar, a keytar, an electronic drum kit, and a few other odds and ends), and generally rocked the house.

I spent the whole time thinking about Outliers, and wondering where these four are going to be in ten years’ time. (By crazy coincidence, one of them went to college with one of the people I was with, which she only noticed because she recognized him from a production of “Fiddler on the Roof.”)

After that, a group of us went a few blocks over to see the new Clash of the Titans film in 3-D. I’ll spare you spoilers, but if you’re aware of Greek mythology (and the fact that Greeks are not Romans), or you enjoyed the 1981 Harryhausen classic of the same name, the new Clash of the Titans is two hours of “er, what now?”

Or, you know, if you’re literate. Because wow. It doesn’t bother with the source material in any meaningful sense. Which, okay, I can defend but as a friend pointed out, it sets the wrong expectations.

It’s pretty, and I enjoyed the rumblevision effect of the theater’s sound system, but I left unmoved.

This post has been mirrored from Christian A. Young's Dimlight Archive. To see it in its original format, visit dimlightarchive.com

Alan Watts: A Conversation With Myself (with Dance Mix)

Many of you know that part of my religious/philosophical background comes via Buddhism. It's still a big part of my life and my view, even though I don't necessarily consider myself an active Dharma practitioner.

Anyway, someone passed a set of YouTube links to me of a programme Alan Watts did called "A Conversation With Myself." And I keep not-archiving that e-mail because I keep thinking, "I would like to share this because I think it's cool."

So here it is:

A Conversation With Myself
- Part 1
- Part 2
- Part 3
- Part 4

And then somebody made a song out of it called "The Real You" and made a video (which you can find here). Alan Watts dance mix! Well, okay, it's sort of a mellow, loop-based thing more than a dance mix per se, but wow. How much do I love this? THIS MUCH.

I <3 the Internets.