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Music as it Should Be: Depeche Mode at Optimus Alive 2013 in Lisbon

I have posted before about one of my reasons for loving Portugal — access to music of all kinds and genres, classical, traditional fado, international superstars, innovative festivals, bands large and small, old and new, intimate venues, outdoor venues — the range is incredible from Rock in Rio every two years in Lisbon to the classy Music of the World every summer in Sines.

In the summer months, the large beer and mobile phone companies ply for our trade, and the kudos of hosting international pop and rock acts over the long weekends in June, July and August.

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Jersey City Heights Riverview Jazz Festival, Year One

It was over 90 degrees in the shade yesterday, but that didn’t stop Janna and me from walking up to Riverview Park in Jersey City to spend a day listening to some great live music during the very first Jersey City Heights Jazz Festival.

The show started off a bit slow with a confused, and noisy, performance that had big problems with the microphones and speakers — everything was painfully distorted and muddled and just plain too loud — and so we decided to take a little walk around the neighborhood and try again in an hour.

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Sing for Hope with 88 Pianos in New York City

Street theatrics are the ultimate form of an Urban Semiotic, and this Summer, in the five boroughs of New York City, you can place your hands on 88 pianos dotting the city core and open your throat in song to light up the neighborhood with your shared joy:  Sing for Hope!

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Chris Brown’s Urban Semiotic Problem

I’m not a big fan of singer Chris Brown.  I don’t like how he treated his girlfriend, Rihanna, but I do appreciate the pressure he’s feeling from his neighbors over an invented Urban Semiotic problem that he’s deeply invested in on a career angle.  No, I’m not talking about his Graffiti album, I’m talking about his driveway.

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The Rhythm of Writing

When you’re in the midst of writing something, you settle into a natural rhythm.  The words set the backbeat and the fingers follow the melody in your mind.  Yesterday, when I sat down to write about the sun, there was a lot of racket outside my window as four corners of an intersection were being torn up to replace the sewer drains.  I decided to put on my closed-ear headphones, crank some iTunes music to drown out the heavy machinery, and write my article.  I discovered, to my dismay, that something had changed as my natural writing manner was out-of-sync with my eye.  My fingers couldn’t find the melody.  My words had no natural backbeat.

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Stephen Stills Carries On

Stephen Stills is one of those rare musicians who not only forms the cultural sound and comprehension of a decade or two, he also divines the definition of the spirit of its people.  Stills’ career has arced over a half-century of our lives from Buffalo Springfield to Crosby Stills & Nash (and sometimes Young!) to Jimi Hendrix diving into a fine solo career.

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Banishing the Monday Morning Blues

It is a grey day here in Portugal — the sun has temporarily deserted us hidden behind layers of cloud. I have a day full of chores ahead after a weekend of relaxation. Cleaning, laundry, changing cat litter — all the mundane things I love to “hate” but know have to be done. Mr P is already fielding phone calls, organizing international transports from France to Portugal via our usual third-party who just happens to be in Brazil this week — the usual Monday mediocrity.

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Bob Dylan is Not a Man of Arts and Letters

When I passively heard news reports Bob Dylan had been voted into the “prestigious and elite” Academy of Arts and Letters, I was surprised, and immediately recalled famous Groucho Marx quote, “I refuse to join any club that would have me as a member.”  Bob Dylan is no hoity-toity academic — he’s a measured man of depth and magnitude.  What was going on?

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Total Failure of the ASL-Only “Switched at Birth” Episode on ABC Family

Last night was supposed to be the premier of the penultimate “American Sign Language Only” episode of ABC Family Channel’s teenage soap opera, “Switched at Birth.”  Janna and I urged our ASL students to watch the episode because we believed the hype and the PR that this would be an episode to remember.  It was not.  The show was a tremendous disappointment and I’ll tell you why.

The one bright spot in the show was this “Deaf Power” banner that struck a long-ago memory in Janna when one of her teachers at the Iowa School for the Deaf said that action was forbidden on campus because it was was rude and disrespectful.  For Janna to see one hand covering an ear and the other hand raised in a fist filled her with both terrible regret at believing a repressive Hearing teacher, and terrific pride that, in the end, the Deaf will own their own place in the world.

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Reviewing the Bryan Ferry Jazz Age

Bryan Ferry has always been a magical, musical, mind — and the evidence of that genius can today be found in his new “The Jazz Age” album packed with his current hits, re-performed as 1920’s Jazz standards.  Yes, the idea is confounding — making new music sound old in practice and performance  — but, in the ear, everything is ultimately pleasing in the effort and effect.

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