Month: August 2008

Black Moses

“I ain’t go anywhere in the United States of America and see another black man and give him a power shake…and there’s unity there. There’s a beauty there that I can communicate with this brother…”

Right on.


(via on-point.be)

I’d seen this video (which is part (13/14) of a very nice documentary on? the Wattstax festival) two weeks ago while searching for more Blaxpoitation content. It also features Isaac Hayes who sadly passed away this last sunday.

As much as I hate posting (ready-made) multimedia content on my blog, this documentary and the ability to just enjoy it via YouTube et al makes me happy. Besides, the above mentioned Belgian on-point blog is a very nice resource for such and other – really cool – content.

While I would like to do a little obituary for Isaac at this point, I honestly don’t where to start – his legacy and influence on the contemporary world of “cool” + “style” is just so ginormous.

@Isaac: now at least you have enough time to jam with Fela Anikulapo Kuti and give us a nice SoulFunkAfrobeat-mashup. :-)

(p.s.: I really like that power handshake sequence. So true…even among white Mal d’Africains!)

Blackberries

Talking about (urban) alottment gardens the other day, one of the advantages of living in downtown Frankfurt am Main is that there’s this special park in the neighbourhood which used to be a nursery a looooong time ago. After it had closed many years ago, the biggest part of the garden was turned into a public park, the other part into a *wilderness* with lots of small paths and a diverse flora & fauna.

In other words: there’s this public shamba next door that delivers free food for those who just don’t see a green wilderness but instead an ideal source of natural ingredients for the afternoon tea healthy drinks!

Because just like Ishtar, I also prefer fresh food! :-)

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After picking a bag full of fresh blackberries, we decided to use half of them to create a milk-shake. And since I like to try out new stuff, I also added oats and some leaves of fresh lemon balm:

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Now, what do I do with the other half? A blackberry-pancake? Blackberry sorbet? Blackberry salad with lovage (from the garden)? Blackberry cake?

[edit: I eventually mixed the remaining blackberries with an apple, some milk (rice) pudding and some shots from a French & evil almond cognac.]

IPR & envy

This (quote from an article by Rebecca on the new M-Pesa online payment gateway):

Intellectual property is another challenge identified by Mulamba, where software developers who work for a company realize they can offer similar services.
“Safeguarding intellectual property is a challenge; people thrive on stealing other people’s ideas and that is why there is a high turnover of software developers in many companies,” said Mulamba. “One is forced to work with a smaller team of trusted people and take a longer time, instead of a larger team that would have taken a shorter time to complete the project.” (source)

…reminds me of an e-mail I’ve received two weeks ago:

“To be sincere I do not like dealing with Kenyans when it comes to jobs or something professional, not that I hate my people but because sometimes I know how they feel about other people´s success.”

Mchonga mwiko hukimbiza mkono wake?

Furahiday roundup

1. Apple fun: “I Am Rich was a $999.99 app that did nothing“. Muahahahaha…..

vfeo5

Dear Apple disciple, please explain this to me:

You want Apple to CONTROL the market for you?

Besides, for that special *one-click shopping pleasure* there’s also CNR. Click, pay, install. I know you’ll like that.

2. Nerdpol

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I LOVE THIS!

It’s a cartoon from a popular German site called nichtlustig.de. Found this in their newsletter this morning. It says: “Guys, we have a visitor. This is my cousin Hubert. He’s from (the) NERDPOL” (Nordpol = North Pole).

3. There’s no 3rd.

Sure, I could link to this funny video (with regard to a choleric Michael Arrington :-), but then….funstuff on the inet is just so….2005.

Have a relaxed weekend, will ya?

Ndanka ndanka mooy japa golo chi nyaay

Ndanka ndanka mooy japa golo chi nyaay is a Wolof proverb meaning “slowly slowly (it) catches the monkey in the bush” (~ no hurry in Africa).

Ndanka ndanka…also is a running gag between my colleague Abdoulaye and me – and it somehow describes my pleasant anticipation for the really good stuff out there on the internet: passionate music collectors (aka connaisseur de l’art) that have somehow managed to share their secret passion for the good old & rare tunes with a much bigger audience through regularly updated blogs & even full documentaries. Actually, this is what collecting music is all about. Sharing and enjoying all those stories behind artists who never really made it to the *official* (mainstream?) Hall of Fame.

(via)

Frank actually reminds me of Duncan Brooker – another crazy DJs who spends his life chasing old “plates”. If you like sites like VoodooFunk, AwesomeTapes from Africa, Benn loxo du taccu, AfroFunkForum, Akwaaba Sound System and Analoge Africa (to name just a few popular ones) and if music ethnology is part of your various interests, then these films are just for you. Enjoy!

“In some cases I’m the first person to talk to these guys about their music in thirty years … I’ve seen incredible things, heard extraordinary stories. In one instance I heard about people looking for a place to live be cause things have gotten so shitty in some of these places , that they would just go into the vaults of recording studios and just grab all the tapes, and pressing plates and old acetates and just burn it all just to make room for a place to sleep. It began to dawn on me that if I didn’t try to save this music no one would. I decided to build an archive and rather that just bootleg the music, like others often do, I’d start trying to get the license and see what more I could discover.”
– Duncan Brooker

THANK YOU, FRANK & DUNCAN!

(I’ve mentioned Legends of Afrobeat three years ago and am still hoping for a release soon. Ndanka ndanka…)

And finally, another interesting documentary, this time on (contemporary) musicians in Kinshasa:

“It’s all here…this (cultural) wealth”. – But do I say? :-)

The Finger 5

I was actually browsing our favourite pop archive YouTube when I came across this:

fingafife
[“The Japanse Jacksons“]

A Japanese band from the 1970s (1967-1978) called Finger 5. Makes me think I should cover more Japanese content on this blog.

Now that’s the kind of undefinable material you come across when your plans actually included blogging some more Blaxpoitation stuff and forwarding your readers to this wonderful documentary.

So maybe I’ll only show you the following trailer this time around – which will hopefully also provide an answer to last week’s “wapi?“! :-)

High Capacity Solar Charger Battery by Chinavasion

chinvasion-CVSBT-5504-7-computerx

 

Chinavasion has this new “High Capacity Solar Charger Battery for PC Laptop + Mobile Phone” for sale which looks quite promising in terms of it’s 20.000 mA/h accu – enough to feed your laptop’s battery.

Recharging the internal battery of cells (yeah! :-) is said to take around 3h @ AC and 8-10h through the use of the solar panel. What irritates me a bit is that on their website they are talking about a monocrystalline solar panel type, although it obviously is a polycrystalline type? Anyhow, an interesting alternative for ~ 96,- EUR. Let’s see when this will hit the European market (soon?).

I am still dreaming about a foldable solar panel that I can put on the cover of my 15,4″ HP nx8220 laptop and that will recharge a 2nd battery pack in an unused space, e.g. the media bay that currently hosts the DVD burner. Unless someone comes up with a much better (slimmer) rechargeable battery system, I am currently more interested in devices that generate power instead of just storing it (mechanical, solar, …. devices vs. NiMH/LiOn/…battery storage systems).

A sustainable power supply + decent bandwidth = JKE happy :-)