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Circus Artemis

Circus Artemis

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Attended an all-female circus on Friday night.  It was quite good.  The circus is actually put on by a school that teaches (believe any gender) folks how to do amazing acrobatic feats in a converted warehouse.   This particular show consisted only of women and girls who were of all skill levels.  Everything from musicians playing on stilts to amazingly acrobatic straps and trapeze.

Circus Artemis performers have trained with instructors from Cirque Du Soliel and the Ecole Nationale de Cirque in Montreal, taught at the renown San Francisco Circus Center, performed nationally and internationally – and keep Portland entertained while working locally with Do Jump! Extremely Physical Theater, A-WOL Dance Collective, The Nomadic Theater Company, Flamebuoyant Productions

www.a-woldance.org

  

Star Wars – The Live Orechestral Show

Star Wars – The Live Orechestral Show

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Ugh – so many choices last night.  It’s dead most of the week, but last night there was no less than 4 great things happening at the exact same time in town:

  1. Sarah Vowell reads from her new book.
  2. KMFDM concert
  3. Butthole Surfers Concert

  4. Star Wars – live orchestral concert

I ended up choosing the Star Wars concert because it was earlier (and I was tired that day), and scored tickets at the last minute for super-cheap.  The show had a full orchestra playing the music, while scenes from all the movies was shown.  My friends did the Surfers concert and much fun was had there too.  The Star Wars show was live narrated by the character that did the acting and voice for C3P0.  Overally, very well done show and I was super-happy I went.  Was amazed at how many kids went and seemed to have a great time.  If I’d had kids, I would have loved to take them as well.  The foyer of the Rose Garden was full of original props from the movies: Original Darth Vader costume, Chewbaca, helmets, weapons, and an original score written and signed by John Williams.

Royale Deluxe does it again – in Germany

Royale Deluxe does it again – in Germany

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I love the shows these guys put on.  I must admit that I liked the Sultan’s Elephant much better; but apparently they were so sick of cities asking for them to come and do that show that they actually destroyed the elephant so everybody would stop asking.  Anyway, here was there germany show about a diver trying to find his daughter.

The shows are fantastic because they go on over DAYS of action.  At night the marionettes fall asleep with mechanical breathing, they change clothes during the show, walk through the cities, etc. Amazing.

Story/pic link

Some pics:
 

Quick video (just browse around on youtube for more):

Animation on the side of buildings

Animation on the side of buildings

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NuFormer is a company in the Netherlands that creates amazing, 3D projection displays on buildings. Basically they manage to sync up the projected image with the building just so, and then they can make it look the building is collapsing, like water is flooding down the roof, like ghostly lights are dancing in the windows or twirling around the columns.What’s unique is how really well it’s done – and they’re using newer 3D technologies – like radiosity lighting.

Give it a look:

Mexican bomb hammer party

Mexican bomb hammer party

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Be sure to watch to the very end.

Strap explosives to the business end of a long hammer and bang it hard on the ground. That’s the basic idea of this strange celebration in the town of San Juan de la Vega in Guanajuato, Mexico.

“This event occurs every year during February in the tiny town of San Juan de la Vega, Guanajuato, where people re-enact a 400+ year-old battle in honor of a local farmer recognized as the “Mexican Robin Hood.” Expect to see the battle take place by the church, men arriving on horseback with banners and flags, and of course the sledgehammers.”

 Metafilter user aetg also adds some details:

OK, so the reasons for doing so may be a little vague, but in any case, they’re exploding ‘artisanal’ explosives of a potassium chloride and sulphur base with big hammers. Apparently 17 people had minor wounds seen to by medics in 2007, and 50 in 2008, mostly due to being hit by explosive fragments, etc. That’s not so bad given that there are 10-20 thousand people that come for the celebration. There are actually authorities supervising everything that’s going on.

Englightening

Englightening

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This is a graph of the ‘majority’ faith of each county in the US as of 2000.  According to the chart, a ‘majority’ religion can claim more than 50% of the county’s population.  I didn’t realize how Catholic most of the country is.  I’m also surprised there aren’t more gray counties where it’s split between 3 or nobody has a ‘majority’.

I happen to know the Oregon numbers seem strange.  The local paper listed Catholics as only 35% of the general population (statewide).  Yet it is still the largest denominational church attended in Oregon by a wide margin.  Why?  Because more than 50% of the population don’t profess to belong to any denominational faith.  Hence  I was expect more grey squares.

I think a lot of folks (especially the average person in the pew) do not realize how powerful and how much they can influence things in our country.  With voter turnout averaging less than 50% in a good number of elections, 50% of the country isn’t being represented.  So in essence, each person that is voting is getting 2 votes (one for the guy that didn’t vote).  Seen in that light, it’s no wonder our president and our congress have such amazingly low approval ratings (you did know congress has a lower approval rating than Bush right?)

Are we in a spiral?  We’re dissatisfied with our public leaders so we don’t think our vote will matter – so we vote less.  This makes our public leaders elected by fewer, more active/vocal voters who likely do not represent us or our values well. Wash, rinse, repeat?

Yet the cure is very simple – get out there and vote.  Participate in the process, and it will start reflecting you.

The Sultans Elephant

The Sultans Elephant

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I heard about this earlier, but then didn’t see anything until again recently. Back in the spring of 2007, a spectacle of sorts took place in London. First, a large wooden egg/ship/whatever ‘crashed’, then a little girl (about 50″ tall) emerged a few days later to be greeted by a 3-4 story fully animated wooden elephant. Over the course of the next few days, it walked through the city – run by puppeteers – and was called The Sultan’s Elephant. It was run by Royal de Luxe – a gang of street performers. All I can say is amazing.

One of the things that I think we miss out on in our modern society is spectacles of giant scale like this. In some background research, it looks like the troupe took about 5 years to get this together (while doing other things of course).  But spectacles of this sort are still rare in our time.  The closest we usually come until now has been big-stadium games or arena concerts – maybe the Apollo rockets of the 70’s. But things that are done on a large scale like this have a much different and more impactful experience than I ever expected. I remember seeing the Sharon Apple concert sequence of Macross Plus and being absolutely floored (still one of the most amazing Anime sequences ever shot) at the time (early 90’s). But as increasingly amazing/unreal generated images are shown every day via tv and movie – I think we are slowly becoming accustom to this level of fantastical-ness. But to see something real like the Sultan’s Elephant, larger than life, and mind blowing – is something really unique still – and powerful.  Those that can do this, and with amazing skill/artistry – win big.  Witness Cirque du Soliel success – but also the fountains of Las Vegas’ Bellagio, the collection of folks that participate in online viral marketing, etc.

Makes me as where are our ‘7 Wonders of the World’ today.  For the pinnacle of our human technology and knowledge, we don’t seem to be making as many as our past.  Ones that really pull together the best of the best of our technology and artistry on a grand scale to leave a real mark on history. We’re not doing it because we can’t – but because we aren’t. Now I’m not a big fan of dumping money into huge pits – but we are the most technologically advanced generation that has ever existed, but yet we don’t do things like the ancients did with far less.  But I feel that is ripe for change. If people are no longer wowed by the effects they see on screen or on TV – it’s time to pull them into reality and really amaze.

The finale is here:

O holy cr*p!

O holy cr*p!

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This has apparently been floating around the internet for a bit, but this should be the shock and awe of the Christmas season.  I present to you: the absolute worst singing of O Holy Night ever done by man (or woman):

http://mattfife.net/special/oholycrap.mp3

Update:

20 years later, Steven Mauldin has been confirmed as the singer. He brings the original music track, the documentation of the recording session, re-creates the entire story, and signs it again: