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Summer's getting closer every day my frenz! And my latest fave surf guitar find is an awesome studio project done mostly by two talented guys, Dan Standiford (Guitars, Basses, Mandolin, Keyboard, Percussion) and Michael Kramer (Drums, Percussion), plus some additional musicians brought in on some of the tracks (Organ, Trumpet, Pedal Steel Guitar, Theremin, Russian Dialogue). The group is named Jetpack and the CD is entitled Planet Reverb. Lookit, I don't care if you live in Svalbard pal, this CD will have you bakin' in the cosmic rays.

I'm starting to build a collection of surf music and this is one of the better first efforts I've run across so far. The cuts are varied in style, but all are executed precisely and the result is sweet. I knew I'd love this CD when I popped it into my player and the first cut, Motel Nowhere started up. It's got that beautiful far off, molten guitar shimmer that I've always enjoyed so much on The Aqua Velvets' CD, Nomad.

So many of the other songs are notable, especially the beautiful Pacifica, the pickin' 'n nosewalkin' Texas Longboard, and the cool, tribal chanting cover of Sound of Silence. Kick. Ass!

Check out what The Man Himself had to say about Jetpack (Phil Dirt's review of Planet Reverb).

I also love that the cut, Lunik2 is "dedicated to the men & women of the Soviet Space Program." Right the hell on! The Russians have accomplished more in space with far less than anyone else (Check out the links in previous JIMWICh pieces on the LK "Luniy Korable" Lunar Ship and the heroic MIR Space Station). I'm so jazzed that American, Dennis Tito is getting his $20,000,000 ticket to ride to the International Space Station along with the Russians this morning aboard a Soyuz rocket! I've really been bummed about how NASA has whined on and on about this. They should buy themselves a clue. Tito represents every blessed one of us who've ever dreamed of soaring to space! Go Dennis Tito! Go Russian cosmonauts!

Take along some guitars!
- posted by JIMWICh on 4/28/2001 12:43:54 PM

I know all you hepcats got your boots on, but so help me, this 1939 Cab Calloway Cat-ologue of swing slang is more than kopasetic. It's a mess!

Thanx to my jack, (evang).
- posted by JIMWICh on 4/27/2001 4:30:21 PM

Penned hastily over lunchtime today. I dunno, I guess I just have to say I see this one coming a mile away.
- posted by JIMWICh on 4/26/2001 1:35:17 PM

In 1982 when I was studying design at the Kansas City Art Institute, I'd often drive home to Sedalia on the weekends, sometimes taking Highway 50 east. On every trip I'd drive past this sign and marvel at its exquisite Jetsonian beauty. Justrite was a grocery store in Raytown, Missouri, a town on the eastern outskirts of Kansas City and probably best known as the setting of the über-annoying teevee sitcom, Mama's Family. I'd like to think that this was where they shopped.

At the time I'd just purchased a Nikon FE and was taking black and white shots for a photography class. I thought this space age sign would make a fitting subject.

Some time back I digitized the old photo and colorized it as I remembered the paint scheme. A year or so after I took this photo, the grocery store was changed to Cashsaver and the new owners painted the sign dark colors, which in my opinion ruined it. A couple of years ago when I was visiting home, I drove past this site and saw, to my disappointment, that the sign was no longer there. It made me glad I'd saved it for history.
- posted by JIMWICh on 4/26/2001 11:57:06 AM

Woohoo! JIMWICh the blog turned one year old yesterday! Wow, it's hard to believe it's been a year already. So much has happened over the past year. Miniature autos, geeky science, rural racing events, ice hotels, artists and sculptors, digital doodads, architecture, nature, handmade thingamajigs, awesome music, books, bizarre Japanese commercials, my brilliant friends, mutant snowflakes, and other issues that matter!

Tempus Fugit and all that, what a ride! Thanks to all you loyal readers out there and I look forward to an even better and more fun year no. 2!

I'd especially like to thank all the other great blogs out there who've been kind enough to point at, link to, and otherwise heave folks and their eyeballs this'a way.

I love the whole weblog revolution so much! So many creative and passionate and witty chroniclers out there. Y'all keep it up, ya hear?!
- posted by JIMWICh on 4/23/2001 10:58:32 AM

Cool! Look what was parked outside my office yesterday!

I was too busy to run outside and look it over closer, but it's an electric gizmo, manufactured by NEVCO, the Neighborhood Electric Vehicle Company of Eugene, Oregon. You can see the battery box underneath in the photo at left (click to enlarge). I wish I'd run out and taken some shots of its interior, because their website says it doesn't have a steering wheel, but rather "steering levers." With three wheels, the gizmo is licenced as a motorcycle.

I'm a huge fan of these types of vehicles (see JIMWICh features on Micromobiles and Tilting Three-wheelers). I really want one, especially for the type of around-town tooling about I usually do. Here's the gizmo FAQ and a list of specifications on the gizmo. Here's a few animated .GIFs of the gizmo out and about. The gizmo has a base price of $8650 plus shipping.

Here's a couple of shots of Glen Houston's gizmo. One shot of the front (nice wheels!) and one photo that sort of shows the gizmo's steering levers.

Rumors are that gas prices might skyrocket this summer, which is going to mean pain in the wallet for anyone with a thirsty SUV. Of course, if things get really bad and we have to fight for fuel Mad Max style, it might not be a bad idea to have one of these.

That's what I call a WUV (Warlord Utility Vehicle).
- posted by JIMWICh on 4/19/2001 12:01:04 AM

Ted Nelson visiting my office ©2000 Jim Leftwich

Most wonderful news! In a ceremony in Paris on March 3rd, my friend and hero, Ted Nelson received a medal and the title of "Officier des Arts et Lettres" (English translation) from the French Minister of Culture, Madame Catherine Tasca. In her speech, Madame Tasca called Ted, "a poet and a philosopher."

In bestowing this honor, France recognizes Ted's important contributions to the information age over the past four decades (English translation - interesting, in that it's essentially an untranslation of a translation!), including being the Father of Hypertext, Xanadu and the Xanalogical Structure (which preceded the World Wide Web by decades), Transcopyright, and Transpublishing, and also the important cultural and literary implications of his ideas. This is especially gratifying, as Ted's life and work has so clearly transcended the merely technological.

Since 1957, the Order of Arts and Letters has been presented to individuals achieving distinction in the arts and literature throughout the world. Ted joins a distinguished group of American laureates - Paul Auster, William S. Burroughs, Ornette Coleman, Dizzy Gillespie (whose Night in Tunisia is the official JIMWICh themesong!), Marilyn Horne, Jim Jarmusch, Richard Meier, Robert Paxton, Robert Redford, Beverly Sills, Susan Sontag, and Meryl Streep.

Ted is also one of the warmest and most wonderful human beings I've ever had the good fortune to become friends with. His exquisite storytelling, unmatched passion, and relentless ideation is truly a wonder to behold. Ted's originality, insistence on seeing his life as a whole and his remarkable journey of creativity and struggle is a light and inspiration.

Bien sur!
- posted by JIMWICh on 4/11/2001 12:54:39 AM

Vodoun (or Voodoo, Vaudou, Vodo, Vodun, Voudoux, etc.) is the religion of the Carribean nation of Haiti. Vodoun is derived from some of the world's oldest religions, stemming from the origins of civilization in Africa. Some have estimated these civilizations and religions at over 10,000 years old. Vodoun is the most familiar example of African syncretism in the Americas. Brought to Haiti during European colonization, Vodoun was born of the forced mixing of Africans from different ethnic groups. These groups included the Fon, the Nago, the Ibos, Dahomeans, Congos, Senegalese, Haussars, Caplaous, Mondungues, Mandinge, Angolese, Libyans, Ethiopians, and the Magaches. The spirits and rituals of the various groups were mixed and commingled, producing a fusion named after the West African word, Vodun, meaning "spirit."

In Vodoun, there is one, and only one God, Bondye. There are three categories of spiritual beings, the first being the Lwa (or Loa), the spirits of the major forces of the Universe, (Lwa families)which interact in peoples' lives. The Twins, which are mysterious forces of opposites or contradictories. And the Dead, which are essentially the souls of ones family and ancestors. Because of the Catholic influence over Hispaniola and the Carribean, much of Vodoun is infused with Catholicism.

A central feature of the Vodoun religion is the service, which generally takes place outside under a rough roof and around a central pole called the "poto mitan." Led by priests, either a Houngan (male) or Mambo (female), services involve a ritual of drumming and dancing, the purpose of which is to enable Loa to "mount" (possess) the human participants.

There are two primary forms of Vodoun: Rada is a family spirit Vodoun and the Vodoun of the relatively peaceful and happy loa. Petro (In some areas called Kongo) is a black magic Vodoun and the Vodoun of angry, mean and nasty loa. Dangerous things happen in Petro including death curses, the making of zombies and wild sexual orgies.

Contrary to the image conjured up in books and movies, and confirmed by scholarly study, Petro, or Black Magic, represents only a miniscule proportion of Vodoun rituals.

A selection of the numerous audio samplings of Vodoun ritual dance drumming (From the comprehensive work of Estelle Manuel, member of the society of "Le Péristyle de Mariani". ):

Oh okay, here's a list of zombie movies. Geez.
- posted by JIMWICh on 4/10/2001 12:03:15 PM

It was during some patent research I was conducting on Delphion.com that I unexpectedly discovered my fourth patent, US 6,151,059 - ELECTRONIC PROGRAM GUIDE WITH INTERACTIVE AREAS, was granted last November. Usually one finds out about a new patent via the postal deluge of commemorative plaque offers, but this time I didn't get any of those. And this one got filed under my name Jim, as opposed to my full name James, which can only be chalked up to my former client's inconsistency in filing multiple patents for systems I was developing. The plaque companies probably weren't able to cross-reference it with their mailing addresses.

My other three patents were granted in the past two years and all three were from development work I did for a former client, StarSight Telecast, now part of Gemstar: US 6,133,909 - METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR SEARCHING A GUIDE USING PROGRAM CHARACTERISTICS, granted in October 2000, US 6,075,575 - REMOTE CONTROL DEVICE AND METHOD FOR USING TELEVISION SCHEDULE INFORMATION, granted in June 2000, and US 6,002,394 - SYSTEMS AND METHODS FOR LINKING TELEVISION VIEWERS WITH ADVERTISERS AND BROADCASTERS, granted in December 1999.

It's particularly cool to see so many of the drawings I'd created in my design and development drawings turned into official patent illustrations. They followed my graphics pretty closely on this one, right down to the outlines of fonts and the programs in the interactive guide that I'd picked out. This led to an inadvertant, but most excellent permanent tribute in the patent archives to my favorite film of all time, Wim Wender's Wings of Desire!. Wow, that's excellent!
- posted by JIMWICh on 4/8/2001 12:04:53 PM

For years there's something I've wanted to do, but just never got around to it. It finally took a link on Mister Pants to inspire me.

This so deserves a real, honest to god studio production, but here it is anyway. Put on your puka shells and grab your .wav player, baby. It's Hawaii 5-O comin' at ya!

Tonight's episode: Surfin' Jack Lord's Bangs!
- posted by JIMWICh on 4/7/2001 12:00:19 AM

©1999 David C. Roy

David C. Roy creates beautiful and intricate kinetic wooden wall sculptures in his Ashford, Connecticut studio. He graduated from Boston University with a degree in physics, but the influence of his artist wife, Marji inspired him to start his studio, "Wood That Works" in 1975.

I really love the Wood That Works website! It features a very impressive set of very good Flash animations, animated GIFs, and QuickTime .movs of the various wooden mechanisms. The sculptures are powered by a brass negator spring, and their motion lasts from 1 1/2 hours up to 15 hours depending on the model. David's technique for developing sculptures is almost as interesting as the pieces themselves. He uses Adobe Illustrator, Working Model by Knowlege Revolution to develop the pieces, and Macromedia's Extreme 3D (now discontinued) to explore them as 3D animations.

The sculptures are made in signed and numbered limited editions of 24 up to 150.

Behold these magnificent and mesmerizing marvels from his portfolio:

- Serenade (Animated GIF Page with QuickTime Audio of chimes)
- Quark Cotillion pictured above (Flash Page, Animated GIF Page)
- Tandem Nautilus (Flash Page, GIF Page)
- Geppetto (Flash Page, Animated GIF Page)
- Ellipse (Flash Page, Animated GIF Page, QuickTime .mov Page)
- Tapestry (Flash Page, Animated GIF Page, QuickTime .mov Page)
- Pulsar (Flash Page, Animated GIF Page, QuickTime .mov Page)

David's work is available in through galleries across the country. Bravo!
- posted by JIMWICh on 4/6/2001 12:02:40 AM

A few hours ago, the sun (seen here in an enormous, but beautiful recent image) just let loose with an enormous coronal mass ejection. This ejection was the the largest observed in the past twelve years and the second biggest on record in twenty-five years.

You can download a very cool realtime sun image screensaver (Windows and Mac versions) that will automatically connect to the internet and download and display the latest realtime images of the sun to your screen. This, courtesy of the joint NASA and ESA (European Space Agency) Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO). There's even one page that's sorta like a dashboard for the sun.

These recent solar events have produced some unbelievably-stunning auroras. SpaceWeather.com has a gallery of recent photos from around the world.

The really spectacular auroral shows are still in the far northern latitudes, but the March events have resulted in their visibility much further south.

- 3/20/2001 - Leroy Zimmerman, Fairbanks, Alaska USA
- 3/23-24/2001 - Jan Curtis, Fairbanks, Alaska USA
- 3/19-20/2001 - Tom Eklund, Valkeakoski, Finland
- 3/20/2001 - John Russell, Nome, Alaska USA (Gallery)
- 3/20/2001 - Andre Clay, Fairbanks, Alaska USA
- 3/19/2001 - Jouni Jussila, Oulu, Finland
- 3/19/2001 - Petri Kekkonen, Oulu, Finland

When that Fat Old Sun...
- posted by JIMWICh on 4/3/2001 12:52:17 AM

Bruce Gray is a multi-talented artist and sculptor living in Los Angeles. Bruce makes an astonishing variety of cool things, including rolling ball and magnetic sculptures (one of his magnetic pieces appeared in Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me - QuickTime .mov of this sculpture), standing sculptures, wall sculptures, a wide range of unique art furniture, and paintings.

A lot of Bruce's work has appeared in movies and television.

I'm fascinated with kinetic sculpture and rolling ball devices. You may remember the JIMWICh feature on Mattias Wandel, who'd constructed a marvelous array of wooden rolling ball contraptions, among many other things. I think Bruce Gray's welded metal rolling ball pieces are perfect counterparts.

Here are some images and QuickTime .movs of Bruce's rolling ball pieces:

- Cheborgie #1 (pic & info, QuickTime .mov)
- Cheborgie #2 (pic & info, QuickTime .mov)
- Soundgarden (pic & info)
- Cheborgie #3 in progress (pic & info, QT .mov1, QT .mov2)

I also really love his art furniture, especially his whimsical animal pieces:

- Dead Dog Table
- Angry Dog and Shark Tables
- Pig Table
- Big Mouth Table
- posted by JIMWICh on 4/2/2001 12:01:25 AM

In a stunning technological breakthrough, Dutch researchers have announced a method for providing high-speed internet connectivity through ordinary household plumbing!

WaterNet is the name of the company cofounded in 1996 by Chairman and CEO Dennis de Boer. WaterNet's technology is still in beta. Their system relies on a proprietary client-side nozzle (CSN), which takes the place of a conventional modem. Any PC or computing device can then connect to the Internet via a regular household water faucet.

Data is sent through the plumbing to local municipal water authorities, where retrofitted aqueducts route traffic, utilizing conventional IP addressing protocols. Where the water network is non-contiguous, the network utilizes satellite forwarding from one water authority to another, providing seamless access and transfer.

Experts are already claiming that WaterNet will revolutionize internet access, and are already prepared for a massive rush of investors. Most impressive of all, WaterNet's tests prove that the technology offers nearly unlimited bandwidth. Their speeds range from:

- Dial-up/ISDN 128 Kbps
- Frame relay (T-1) and DSL (copper wire) 1.5 Mbps DSL (air interfaces)
- Ethernet (LAN)
- 1 Gbps Optical fiber (OC-192)
- 9.95 Gbps Optical fiber (OC-192 with DWDM)
- 318 Gbps WaterNet Unlimited
- posted by JIMWICh on 4/1/2001 1:46:39 PM

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