Virtual Shakespeare Consortium

Posted by jerry on April 11th, 2008 — Posted in Journal, New media, Technology, Writing

The Virtual Shakespeare Consortium is a consortium of individuals and organizations dedicated to bringing Shakespeare and his culture to the Internet and beyond.


View my page on vShakespeare

Partly it’s about bringing together people from all over the world – virtually – to perform his plays in virtual worlds, like SecondLife.

Shakespeare’s sonnets are often forgotten in such ventures, but I think the richness of their imagery and of their conceits would lend themselves to creative treatment in SL, along with sonnet readings in-world.

This venture will celebrate the polyglot nature of Shakespeare’s language – he emerged after all, at a pivotal point in the development of the English language, benefiting from the three major language groups that made up English, in a context in which new words were being coined daily and entered the language with the kind of speed not seen again until the birth of the internet.

I look forward to see how this develops

Cheers
Jerry

Turner to Monet exhibition – Canberra

Posted by jerry on March 29th, 2008 — Posted in Journal

The Turner to Monet exhibition at the National Gallery of Australia in Canberra is visually sumptuous and well worth a visit.

The exhibition traces the rise of landscape painting from the late 18th to the late 19th centuries into impressionism and post-impressionism.

Monet waterlilies
Monet – Water Lilies – photo: Everard – Musee d’Orsay, Paris

The website is fantastic – if you skip the soap-commercial intro – and get to the Director’s introduction and views of the works themselves. I thought the days of the deep masculine voice-over and images of a young anglo woman stunned by the sublime works of art were long gone. That is not the way to sell an exhibition. The works are quite strong enough to stand as sufficient advert for the display.

Ok rant over – this exhibition is about how an inherited tradition was transformed by the plein air painters to show the landscape in new and dramatic ways – usually with some sense of humanity’s insignificance in the face of nature.

As the exhibition moves into the impressionists you can see how the play of light and colour made the paintings glow as though backlit on screen – it must have been at once amazing and shocking to the 19th century audience, and still has immense power today.

If you get the chance this is an exhibition well worth seeing

Cheers
Jerry

Barrett’s steam volkswagon for sale

Posted by jerry on March 27th, 2008 — Posted in Journal, Steam, Technology

The late Peter Barrett’s experimental steam car is up for sale – currently at US$20,000 (my guess would be a UK bid from Jeff Theobold – one of the few who could make real use of this amazing vehicle.
The car uses two cylinders of a converted VW engine and is mounted in a fibreglass kit car. It is reported to have been run at 80mph. The car comes with full design notes – Peter Barrett was a meticulous engineer and every aspect is documented. It would be great to see this car go to someone capable of understanding the system and getting it on the road as a modern turnkey steam car.
Some of Barrett’s notes are here, so you can see the kind of work that has gone into this.

Barrett Steam Car

If it sells for less than US$50,000 the buyer will have quite a bargain – with 20 years of documentation. This is an outstanding opportunity for the right buyer. (why can’t I just win lotto now?).

Cheers
Jerry

National Folk Festival Canberra 2008

Posted by jerry on March 24th, 2008 — Posted in Journal, Music

I have returned from the National Folk Festival here in Canberra with a notebook full of tune names and a camera full of images. Great session, great concerts and a fabulous meeting of old friends – some of whom I hadn’t seen in twenty years!

Highlights were:

  • the Vin Garbutt, Genticorum and Trouble in the Kitchen concerts;
  • getting up close and personal with a nyckelharpa
  • playing sessions with Bob McInnes and Scott and Louisa Wise and Chris Duncan
  • my Full Circle concert at the Merry Muse (maybe they’ll hire us next time?)
  • playing a Dave Guscott violin – and buying Octave Violin strings
  • the positive reactions I got to my pochette fiddle; and
  • playing music with such wonderful people and meeting old friends

You can read the full write-up on my other blog – Fourstrings

Full Circle at the Merry Muse, National Folk Festival Canberra 2008

Cheers
Jerry

Full Circle Band – St Patrick’s Day 2008

Posted by jerry on March 19th, 2008 — Posted in Journal, Music

Being on a Monday, St Patrick’s Day was potentially going to be quiet, I thought as I packed my fiddle and loaded the van. At least the set-up would be easy – no pushing through the crowds… Okay, so how wrong can you be?

The set-up for the first show was amidst a lunchtime crowd who were in no mood for going back to work. And they were even less inclined to go back to work once we started playing.

St Patricks day - Full Circle at PJ O'Reilly's

We played a long set and then it was time for the Irish dancers who did some great dances to some not altogether traditional Irish tunes!

St Patricks day - Full Circle at PJ O'Reilly's

Then two short sets and we were packing up ready for the next show – at Filthy McFadden’s in Kingston. We had the other sound system pre-set up so I just needed to set up the lights and mic stands and we were ready for another three and a half hours.

St Patricks day - Full Circle at PJ O'Reilly's

By now the crowd was leaving work and arriving in droves – quickly filling the pub to bursting where they stayed until late. We finished up about 9.00pm exhausted after seven hours of playing and singing – but it was a good high energy show and the time fairly flew by.

St Patricks day - Full Circle at Filthy McFadden's

We certainly had a great time and made loads of new friends 🙂

See you all at the National Folk Festival!

Cheers
Jerry