Drinking Beer Can Make You a Better Guitarist

Lots of guitarists think they play better after a couple of beers, but Lori Linstruth writes that a couple of brews can make you a safer strummer.

Guitar tech Hans Nagtegaal of Utrecht advises you to chug a couple of swing-top bottles of Grolsch, take off the red rubber gaskets, and use them to lock the guitar strap on your axe. Drink more than two beers and you may falll down, but your guitar won’t.

 

Hear Lori Linstruth Play Like a Girl.

Image by Mike Licht. Download a copy here. Creative Commons license; credit Mike Licht, NotionsCapital.com

Comments are welcome if they are on-topic, substantive, concise, and not obscene. Comments may be edited for clarity and length.

 

Anatomy of a Blogger

Once again the desperate dinosaurs of the failing mainstream media ape the innovations of the Blogosphere:

– On March 21st, while riding through the millionaire-infested Hamptons, celebrity stunt journalist Matt Lauer of NBC’s Today Show dislocated a shoulder falling off his bicycle after dodging a deer.

– On March 23rd, fading sports star Lance Armstrong, desperate for publicity, crashed into the news by bumping his bike into the spandex-clad speedsters of the Vuelta Ciclista Castilla y León in Spain.

NotionsCapital.com gets the Yellow Jersey, though, having dislocated a shoulder a full month ago. We did not resort to using $9,000 custom-fitted Trek Madone 6.9 Pro bicycles to do it, either. In deference to the current economic downturn, we followed the lead of DC’s thrifty contingent workers and took a header on Metro station tiles (cost: $1.65). Given such enormous differences in operating costs, the conventional corporate media are clearly doomed.

 

Image (Anatomy of a Blogger, from Encyclopédie, ou dictionnaire raisonné des sciences, des arts et des métiers) by Mike Licht. Download a copy here.Creative Commons license; credit Mike Licht, NotionsCapital.com

Comments are welcome if they are on-topic, substantive, concise, and not obscene. Comments may be edited for clarity and length (Note: we already know that Matt Lauer’s late father was a bicycle company executive and that Lauer and Armstrong were wearing helmets and the deer was not).

Macon The Most of Cherry Blossom Season

Washington’s National Cherry Blossom Festival® begins this weekend, but today marks the end of  “The Pinkest Party on Earth,”  the International Cherry Blossom Festival in Macon, Georgia.  Unlike the crass commercialism of DC’s event (“Brought to You by Target“), the spring observance in Macon preserves many of the serene, graceful, and contemplative customs of traditional Japanese hanami (blossom-viewing):  the Bed Race, the Sea Lion Splash, Pink Pancake Breakfast, Lawnmower Races, Pink Tutu Ballet, Amazing Animal Athletes, all your old-time Asian faves.

Macon also has poodles. Pink poodles.

DC Buys Bronze Bobbleheads for Billionaires

As part of its economic recovery effort, the DC Government commissioned $700,000 worth of sculpture for billionaire Theodore Lerner and his family. DC already built $611 million Nationals Park for the Lerners, who own the local Major League Baseball franchise, and the government wants to decorate it to suit the wealthy tenants. Who knows, this might even encourage the Lerners to actually pay rent on the stadium.

You can admire the artistic gifts your tax dollars bought for the Lerners at 11:00 AM on Wednesday, April 8th, when the sculptures will be dedicated. RSVP to Deirdre Ehlen at the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities (DCCAH) by email or phone (202-724-5613). The event is free, so go see the art you paid for before you have to buy Nationals tickets to do it.

Forbes estimates the personal wealth of Theodore  N. Lerner at $2.5 billion, but why spend your own money on art when the taxpayers will commission it for you?  The DC Government dead- panned that the baseball art belongs to DC and is only on loan to the Lerners, an assertion worthy of a Larry Neal Award for fiction.  The sculpture  is site-specific, so saying the art is on loan is like saying you don’t own the fillings in your teeth, you only rent them.

Save DC Public Property — March 30th Meeting

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Empower DC is holding a forum on  District of Columbia  laws about the sale and other disposition of District public property at  6:30 PM to 8:30 PM on March 30, 2009 at 1419 V Street, NW (U Street/Cardozo Metro).  For more information or to RSVP, contact Parisa Nourisa, parisa@empowerdc.org or (202) 234-9119

 Bill 18-0076,  the Public Land Surplus Standards Amendment Act of 2009,  introduced by Councilmember Harry Thomas, Jr.and co-sponsored by Councilmembers  Michael Brown and Phil Mendelson, will be a focus of the discussion. Read it here for a head start on the meeting.

 

 Image: Empower DC/People’s Property Campaign.

Meaty News

Somebody give me a cheeseburger!
– Steve Miller, Living in the USA (1968)

What real American doesn’t like burgers? Hell, even lessmeatarian Mark Bittman’s pals Daniel Meyer and Ed Schneider like burgers! So what could be better? BIGGER burgers!

Forget those Mickey Dee puny-pounders. There’s major news from the minor leagues. This season the West Michigan Whitecaps of Grand Rapids will offer the 4,800-calorie Fifth Third Burger to manlier meat-eaters. The ‘Caps play in a ballpark named after Fifth Third Bank so, as Michael Zuidema explains in the Grand Rapids Press,  the burger’s builders balance five third-of-a-pound beef patties,  five slices of American cheese, salsa, nacho cheese, Fritos, lettuce, tomato, and sour cream on a big bun. The  jalapeño peppers are optional.

Zappa Returns to Baltimore, Via Vilnius

Hey! What’s new in Baltimore?
Better go back and find out.
– Frank Vincent Zappa, “What’s New in Baltimore?”

Musician and composer Frank Zappa (1940-1993) was born in Baltimore, and spent boyhood years in a Park Heights Avenue row house and at nearby Edgewood  Arsenal. His family moved to California in 1952, but Charm City plans to honor its native son with a statute from Lithuania, which will be placed somewhere in Fell’s Point.

Lithuania? Did Mr. Zappa visit that Baltic land or have kinfolk there? Nope. It turns out that young revolutionaries in the capital city of Vilnius adopted the music of FZ as a symbol of freedom:

We never saw Zappa, but nobody ever saw God, and they still go to church. Lithuania is a nation of mythology, legends and fairy tales. Everything is mystified. People believe really quickly, and one of the myths is that independence is good for everyone, with no exceptions. That’s why, in such an environment, the Zappa seeds were so successfully planted.
– Vytautas Kernagis, Lithuanian musician, quoted by Adam B. Ellick in Rolling Stone.

After the fall of the USSR, grateful Lithuanian patriots erected a statue of the inspirational Mr. Zappa in the hip Užupis neighborhood of Vilnius which, except for a medieval monastery or two, seems a lot like today’s Fell’s Point. 

The statue, a representation of Frank Zappa’s head by sculptor Konstantinas Bogdanas, is on a tall thin column. A duplicate of this 15-foot-tall artwork, purchased by Lithuanian admirers, will be shipped to Baltimore, (the city will pay for crating, shipping, and installation).  The sculpture looks a bit like a huge parking meter, the kind Fell’s Point is phasing out. The exact site for the statue has yet to be determined.

Blogs With Bite

Blogs with Bite is an occasional omnivorous sampling of food blogs and sites we find particularly tasty. Follow the trail of bread crumbs back to earlier editions, starting here.

Today’s serving of Blogs with Bite:

New York City Food Museum– Big Apple food of yore.  Public markets, pushcarts, oyster barges, breweries, eateries. You got a problem wit dat?

Eat me daily — Commentary, criticism and features on food, media, and culture. “Aggregation of links deemed important, irreverent, redeeming, absurd, or plainly awesome.”

Rachel Laudan– “A Historian’s Take on Food and Food Politics.” Tasty, thoughtful writing by this Mexico-based food authority.

World Carrot Museum –  What’s up, Doc? Carrot Museum curator John Stolarczyk knows. And how.

Offal Good– Cooking with “those parts of a meat animal which are used as food but which are not skeletal muscle.”  Unique, authoritative site and blog by Chris Cosentino. Not for the faint of heart, queasy, or Vegan.

Endless Simmer – Is that a great name or what?  A kitchen cabal led by Brendan Spiegel and Stefanie Gans writes this group blog. Festures, news, recipes, restaurant reviews, and commentary on food and drink of all types. Knowledgeable but unpretentious.

Readable Watchable Edible Potable – “Food and Drink in Books and Film.”  Recipes and culinary color, especially as found in international crime fiction.

Ron Carter at Bohemian Caverns

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Last chance, DC. Legendary double bass master Ron Carter will finish his stand at U Street’s Bohemian Caverns tonight. Tickets are pricey ($40) but this is Ron Carter.

Go. City Paper‘s Michael J. West explains why you must.

 

Dan Ouellette‘s authorized biography, Ron Carter: Finding the Right Notes, was financed through ArtistShare, and is now available.

Comments are welcome if they are on-topic, substantive, concise, and not obscene. Comments may be edited for clarity and length.

Spring Break Surfin’

College students: Spring Break is a good time for reflection, especially in the hours after your hangover lifts but before your parents wire your bail money. Take this moment to reconsider your life goals. The economy is at low tide, and who knows what jobs (if any) will be available when you graduate? Fight despair and follow your waves of passion. Declare a new major: surfing.

Giving fresh meaning to the phrase “college boards.” the folks at Surfline have hit the beach with a list of the ten best colleges for surfers.

The rankings: