Best of 2007 Weed Reviews

Late in 2007 LAist began weed reviews, a sporadic column featuring a different variety of marijuana while presenting it as though it were a wine review, and of those different kinds of pot 3 stood out as superior to the rest.

#1 Weed of Los Angeles: Sour Diesel.
This pot is a consistent crowd pleaser. We liked it so much we reviewed it twice. Its that kind of stuff that you would smoke even if pot didn't get you high, just for the taste. It's a great strain and comes highly recommended.

#2 Weed of Los Angeles: OG Kush
OG Kush is the best of all the kush sub-strains. Forget bubba, master, hindu and all the others... OG wins. And its because its the most consistent, most pungent and knocks you off your ass the hardest. OG Kush truly is the original gangster of kushes.

#3 Weed of Los Angeles: Trainwreck
Our #3 is the most appropriately named of the bunch. You feel it all right in your face, as though you had your block knocked off by a freight train. Makes sense, eh? It is also uniquely pungent, and like OG and Sour-D can be found at your local weed outlet or stoner friend's living room.

Honorable Mentions in no particular order go to: Odyssey, Super Silver Haze, Pot of Gold, Afgooey, and Skunk #1.

link

Source: Zep Reunion Tour To Launch This Summer

Seventies supergroup Led Zeppelin will, we can reveal, re-form for a tour following their triumphant one-off reunion gig this month at London’s O2 Arena.

A new, unconfirmed report claims that Led Zeppelin are indeed planning to mount a reunion tour. According to a well-known musician said to be good friends with the bandmembers, a lengthy Zep trek will "kick off at [England's 2008] Glastonbury [Festival] after [singer] Robert Plant has finished touring with American country star Alison Krauss." Glastonbury is scheduled for June 27-29. Rumors of a Zeppelin tour have snowballed since the rock legends announced that they would be performing at the Ahmet Ertegun Tribute concert, held Dec. 10 in London.

link

MERRY CHRISTMAS ANYWAY!

Who's working today? I may work some tonight, too. My daughter and my son are both working today. He's almost through and she just went in to work 3P - 11P. She still works for Virgin Mobile over at Sitel Corp (which used to be called Client Logic). Everybody in Asheville has either worked for Client Logic or knows someone who has.

So to everyone and especially those working, I wish you a Merry Christmas, and all the other pertinent holiday greetings today.

FRIDAY RANDOM 10 -

Shuffle 'em up and show us your ten.

Marissa Nadler - Fifty Five Falls
Stephin Merrit - Walking My Gargoyle
Devotchka - The Winner Is
Rio En Medio - Heaven Is High
The Finches - The House Under The Hill
Feathers - Come Around
Margot & The Nuclear So & Sos - Jen Is Bringing The Drugs
Andrew Bird - Banking on a Myth
Fursaxa - Alone In The Dark Wood
Tankah - Over Your Consistency

What? Oh, today's Monday?

Hope you have a scintillating Solstice
A delightful Yule
May your mirth be multi-orgasmic
Your visions vibrant
Your glee glorious
Your festivities fulfilling
And your halls decked with Love and Peace.


Christmas Links

It's A Wonderful Internet! - via: zefrank (who still happens to have some of the best timewasters around)

Holiday-O-Matic - Create a delightfully random holiday greeting.

Showing Off those Christmas decorations.

Live Christmas lights Cams - See after 4:00 pm Mountain Time (3:00 pm Pacific, 6:00 pm EST)

Winter Solstice at Stonehenge - a photoset on Flickr

Ugly Christmas Lights

Xmas in Frisko: SomaFM's wacky and eclectic holiday mix. Not for the easily offended.

RECENT PLAYLIST
(Now) Buck's Ducks - Silent But Deadly Night
13:01:19 Eva Moon - Light The Fucking Candles
13:00:14 Anote you - Shotgun For Christmas
12:58:01 Dean Martin - Blue Christmas
12:55:17 Rockapella - Like Christmas
12:52:34 Bob Rivers & Twisted Radio - White Trash Christmas


In the midst of winter I found there was within me an invincible summer. ~Albert Camus

Buddhism Art Dance (Thien Thu Thien Nhan)


From the video:

"This is the Chinese Disabled Performing Arts Troupe (they are deaf). I got this from my grand-ma. I found it very beautiful & interesting. She told me it took them over 10 whole years to get to such a high level of perfection."

link

The Green Fairy Returns

On the first day that the legendary alcoholic drink absinthe went on sale in the United States legally in about a century, hundreds of people lined up outside an Alameda warehouse to get their hands on the stuff.
An Alameda distillery was given the green light by the Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau to sell its version of absinthe. St. George Spirits is the first American distillery to sell absinthe since it was banned in 1912. Their first production run officially went on sale Friday at both the distillery's tasting room and other Bay Area locations.

link | Read more about absinthe.

Could you use a cube makeover? Read Fantastic Fixes Help Your Sad, Pathetic Cubicle on Wired.

Soma and offerings in Hindu and Buddhist Tantra

In certain plates of the secret visions of the fifth Dalai-Lama (the “great fifth”), a skull is used to contain the burnt parts of the lingam, the modelled or paper figure accused of evil, which is ritually burnt, and the skull hidden in the ground.

Soma itself is a sacred drink, which sometimes becomes the god Soma. Its composition has given rise to many interpretations. It is sometimes sarcostemma viminale or asclepias acida, and can lead to divine exhilaration, perhaps with added hallucinogenic substances such as hemp. The composition varies according to the type and place of the ritual. Some rituals require plants to be ground up during the ceremony, indicating that they were collected locally.

Certain Siva traditions consider sperm as soma. A fair number of hymn texts describe Siva or Indra ejaculating into the mouth of Agni, the god of fire. Representations of this episode are to be found, notably, on bas relief of the 8th century at the temple of Bhubanesvar in Orissa. In hymn no. VI of the Rig Veda, section eight, are the lines:

"O Agni, the burnt offering has been hurled into your mouth, as the ghrita is poured into the spoon and the soma into the sacred vase. Give us great and glorious opulence, to assure us of abundance, renown and power."

[Read More »]

Led Zeppelin O2 Arena UK

Led Zeppelin - O2 Arena UK - 2007 PARTE 1 (85 MB)
Led Zeppelin - O2 Arena UK - 2007 PARTE 2 (85 MB)
Led Zeppelin - O2 Arena UK - 2007 PARTE 3 (85 MB)
Led Zeppelin - O2 Arena UK - 2007 PARTE 4 (85 MB)

via: jamin78 | via: julie

Under-Age Marriage Picture Wins UNICEF Prize

It shows Mohammed, 40, with his new 11-year-old wife, Ghulam. Taken by US photographer Stephanie Sinclair, it was named Unicef Photo of the Year yesterday.

The image hardly fits our idea of the happy couple's wedding picture - but this haunting photograph taken in Afghanistan graphically captures life for millions of girls given in marriage while under age.

Absolutely revolting. Click on the graphic for larger view. The fear in the girl's eyes is so disturbing. (via: Shakesville)

THE SIMPSON'S MOVIE

You can watch "The S*mps*n's M*vie" online and it doesn't cost you anything. Go to this website and scroll half way down and click on the "Play External Video Content" which brings up a new window.

Watch Video

RELATED:
* Firefox has a theme for The Simpson's Movie.
* The Reality Sandwich has a worth-reading post on "The Simpsons Shamanic Movie" by Morgan Maher.
* The name of this website, "Easy Bake Coven", was taken from a bit on The Simpsons.

"I work best in a kind of trance state where the influence of light, color, image, and rhythm comes out intuitively. Whack the machine till the ghosts pop out of it. These psychoactive effects you noticed in my work are particularly effective when viewed on the internet—as a medium it allows me to access an audience that is usually relaxed and at home, and more open to a hypnotic state.

Something I like about using computers to make art is they can be used like an alchemical device—you put a piece of media into it and then burn it, dissolve it, expose it to some warped code, and see what remains. Maybe in the future I'll be able to download my visions directly into peoples' brains."

Larry Carlson talks to Ry Fyan - link

KASHMIR by Led Zeppelin
December 10, 2007 - London

my old poster from the first time I saw them in 1969

Victim: Gang Rape Cover-Up by US, Halliburton/KBR

Jones, who told her story to ABC News as part of an upcoming "20/20" investigation, said an examination by Army doctors after the incident showed she had been raped "both vaginally and anally," but that the rape kit disappeared after it was handed over to KBR security officers.

Jamie Leigh Jones, now 22, says that after she was raped by multiple men at a KBR camp in the Green Zone, the company put her under guard in a shipping container with a bed and warned her that if she left Iraq for medical treatment, she'd be out of a job.

"Don't plan on working back in Iraq. There won't be a position here, and there won't be a position in Houston," Jones says she was told.

Read More »»

From the "You can't be serious" file:

"Plastic replica of an 11-12 week old fetus, 3″ long, holding a firearm in its precious little hand, with an assortment of other military paraphernalia, encased in a translucent plastic ornament, with a patriotic yellow ribbon on top. Includes a metal ornament hanger. If only a womb were this safe, attractive and reasonably priced!

"Show that you support the 'culture of life' by buying and proudly displaying one of these patriotic unborn Americans.

"Also available in a 'Brown' model"

For the car-ribbon stickered dittohead war-on-Christmas knee-jerk mouthbreather in your life!

via: maru | via: we love america

Go on. You know you want one. How about Lock 'n' Load Jesus?

LED ZEPPELIN REUNION TONIGHT

David Cheal reviews Led Zeppelin at the O2 arena - View Photo

Led Zeppelin just finished their concert a few hours ago. Go read about it on NME magazine's site.

"At 9 pm GMT, when Led Zeppelin take the stage for the first time in 19 years, NME will be bringing you a live song-by-song account as the gig takes place ."

NME | Telegraph

Santacon!
Every December for the last 14 years, Cacophonous Santas have been visiting cities around the world, engaging in a bit of Santarchy as part of the annual Santacon events.

Above photo is from Portland, OR, taken by Squid Vicious. Some of the cities that have been targeted for a Santarchy invasion in December 2007 are listed at the Santarchy site.

link | new flickr photos | more »

Pierre et Gilles


The Pierre et Gilles style has known nothing but success since their first meeting and the beginning of their collaboration in 1976. Their photographs embellished with paint (these are unique works) have imposed this singular iconography inspired by images of pop, mythological, enchanting, burlesque, religious and erotic natures.

Pierre et Gilles create portraits and self-portraits which they address with provocation, irony, tenderness or gravity. "Self-portraits have determined our work from the start. It is a ritual, which allows to double ourselves like looking in a mirror; they reflect us and show us such as we are. They are also experiments, very personal research that we can only create with ourselves."


Read more about Pierre et Gilles | Buy latest book at Amazon

December 8, 2007

It's Bodhi Day in some Buddhist traditions.

According to Buddhist tradition, Siddharta Gautama finally abandoned years of rigorous fasting and asceticism by accepting milk and honey from a young woman (2500 years ago). He then sat down beneath the Bodhi Tree and vowed not to move until he attained enlightenment.

After 49 days of concentrated meditation and several battles with Mara (illusion), Siddharta became the Buddha, the "Enlightened One."

SANTA'S GHETTO

In a creative bid to boost Bethlehem's sagging economy, Banksy has brought his seasonal "Santa's Ghetto" exhibition to this Palestinian town that has seen few tourists in recent years.

The infamous stencil artist joined several others in creating over a dozen works on the concrete wall surrounding the town, turning a hated symbol of Israeli occupation into an massive open air art gallery. Another dozen or so works are on display in a former chicken shop in Manger Square.

In pictures: Banksy returns to Bethlehem

More info can be found at the Santa's Ghetto website.

Carrie Fucile´s How To Melt My Heart

On display at the Art Now Fair from December 6 - 9. She cast 17 molds in ice from a human-sized heart model - one for every day of the show.

Every day, one is hung from the chain in the middle of the gallery and melts onto a new sheet of paper under which is a contact microphone connected to an amplifier. Every time a drip hits the sheet of paper, the sound is amplified throughout the room.

link | via

The genesis of The Mars Volta's new album The Bedlam in Goliath is one of the weirdest stories in the history of modern music, a tale of long-buried murder victims and their otherworldly influence, of strife and near collapse, of the long hard fight to push "the record that did not want to be born" out into the world. More...

Wax Simulacra, the first single from The Bedlam in Goliath (coming 1/29/08 from TMV) is currently available for download at iTunes.

Download it Here or Watch the Video and others right here.

link

The DCTO (Dreams Come True Object) project is the collectable art figure designed by CHOCOLATE SOOP’s Dacosta Bayley.

It is a modern interpretation of an ancient Japanese Zen doll known as a Daruma doll. This curiously limbless, traditionally red-cloaked figure with unpainted eyes is used for personal dedication to a new venture such as starting a business, beginning a new path in life, or given as a gift for celebrations like New Years, weddings, and birthdays.

Painting in DCTO's left eye shows commitment to a goal; once the goal is achieved, you then paint in DCTO's right eye. DCTO (dik-toe) is designed to right itself when it is knocked over, reflecting the Japanese saying, 'Nanakorobi yaoki' "fall 7 times, rise 8 times".

The online shop is now open just in time for the Holiday Season. So energize those New Year goals with a whole lot of Zen power. Just click the ‘Shop online’ to find your Zen.

link

Designer toys are fun. I found this at My Plastic Heart. StrangeCo is another favorite designer toy website although many of them are already sold out.

V E N U S W E P T

Beautiful conceptual art and fashion and print photography by Allan Amato.

Palpitating Remains by Gregory Jacobsen

New Paintings: Nov. 30 - Jan. 5 Zg Gallery, Chicago

High Concept from 666 Photography