False Positives

• Free ebooks appear to boost sales | Blog | Futurismic - There has been a lot of criticism of the practice by some writers and lots of praise from other corners. At the moment, it looks like the practice works.

- Books ebooks business

• Put Not Your Faith In Ebook Readers - Frankly, book reading just isn’t important enough to qualify for priority treatment in that marketplace. Meanwhile, handheld game consoles, phones, and other multipurpose devices have found their way into the hands of people from every walk of life. (is

- ebooks future hardware literature Books CoryDoctorow Culture Amazon

• Seth Godin gives good advice to the music industry - Boing Boing - transcript of a fantastic talk he gave to some music execs about the future of the music industry and the Internet. This is some good straight-shooting insight about what the music industry will never succeed at (suing fans) and what they could do instead

- economics music MusicBiz business Startup

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in the video category:

• Evolution, the Dove Self Eesteem short film - that exposed the manipulation of the female image in the media. (advertising)
• Die Hard - Music Video (YouTube) The story of John McClane (Yippie Kah Yay Motherf**ker!) and an updated with 4th verse for “Live Free or Die Hard”
• Sex and the City / Matrix parody - A spoof short film showcased in 2000 MTV Music Awards, performed by comedian Jimmy Fallon.
• Musica Globalista via Bruce Sterling OMG “Imagine that you are an endearingly bonkers 21st-century Brazilian female pop artist who wouldn’t hesitate to make a total YouTube spectacle of yourself with some handheld video cams and a production budget of maybe five bucks”. A tribute to the Discovery Channel?
• Diaper Wars! - The baby version of Star Wars!

For Web Tech stuff

• and incomplete list of Top Web Apps in Canada, startups that are reaching the global market.
• and Dispatches From the Hyperlocal Future - Bruce Sterling riffs from 2017 : with ultra Mobiles, geotagging, social broadcasting, and all those black-and-white barcode “nano to astro”. Nothing that far fetched. There is also a “cool” demo of a iphone++ gizmo in honour of iday

under culture we have :

• via Boing Boing: Yo Yo Girl Cop, Dasepo Naughty girls and New York Times :Asian Cinema, Swimming in Crime and Cuteness we have theNY Asian Film Festival 2007, which inculde youtube trailers for most of its films and the awesome NY Asian Film Festival 2007 festival trailer
• Will was busy :Word & Phrases Shakespeare Invented - In all of his work Shakespeare uses 17,677 words. Of those 1,700 were first used by Shakespeare. By far the most important individual influence on the development of the modern English that we speak today.
• Where On Earth Was Middle-earth? : the map of Middle-earth overlapped with one of Europe, - The Shire is in the South-West of England; The Grey Havens are situated in Ireland. â�¢ Eriador corresponds with Brittany. â�¢ Helmâ��s Deep is near the Franco-German-Swiss border tripoint, Mordor is situated in Transylvania, with Mount Doom in Romania.
• SF Signal: SF/F Writers Who Blog - SFSignal maintains a useful and expansive list of science fiction and fantasy writers’ blogs

And under optimistic Space we have

• a vehicle powered by a so-called Mach-Lorentz Thruster. too good to be true?

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David Virelles Quintet’s debut jazz album “Motion” is out! He is again playing at this years Montreal Jazz Festival, after winning the 2006 Grand Prix de Jazz.

Update : Form The Toronto Star we have a review :

DAVID VIRELLES
Motion (Justin Time)
This disc is the result of Cuban-born pianist Virelles winning the grand prize at last year’s Montreal jazz fest. It’s very impressive, very original, a swirl of creative activity within all eight tunes (seven by him) that emphasize the album title. Bandsmen Luis Deniz (alto sax), Devon Henderson (bass), young drummer Ethan Ardelli and percussionist Luis Orbegoso are willingly complicit in this urgent, sophisticated fusion of contemporary jazz and Latin elements both modern and traditional, notably in the muscular and multiple layered rhythms. Tenor sax guest Mark Turner adds heft on three tracks, but all the music is dominated by the dense-yet-fleet configurations and passionate expressiveness of the leader, who also shines on Fender Rhodes and synthesizer. The long closer “Patakin” is fascinating, “Sueño” bustles, “Mercedes” sparkles with life, but “Laberintos” is a curiosity, a ballad with Cuban singer José Aquiles’ voice taped in Havana. It matters little. Top track: The complex “Lo Mas Sublime” with its irresistible, swaggering momentum and nifty tenor contribution.

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In Canada, Falcon Beach is about to show the last 2 episodes of the second season (whereas the first season is wrapping up, and the second season starts in April in the USA on ABC Family).

Watching the second Season, you notice it has showcased a lot of established and upcoming Canadian Indie music (and even had one band featuring in Episode 206 - “The Music Video” : Winnipeg’s Paper Moon). From the Opening Theme song (Holly McNarland’s Beautiful Blue) on it is full of music (including some people even I’ve heard about: Bedouin Soundclash, Neko Case) and more new stuff. At least some of the music is discovered in a “Calling All Indie Bands” Music Search. Sounds like a win/win for the bands and and the show, since the demographics are bound to be similar.

The Falcon Beach web site (www.falconbeach.ca) has a neat feature. (url’s hidden behind the flash) Under the “Music” header, for each seasons episode it has the music for that episode : what was the song and who is the musician, and some back ground if you click on the “more link” - plus for season one they had a brief intro when the music played (Episode 112 : Tanya spills drinks in the Sunset Bar. The song is “The Young and The Guest List” by San Francisco band The Paradise Boys); in season two they are not doing this but they are linking to the bands wet site. It’s a nice feature to discover music (Nice tune, I wonder who did that…). Question : How many Band Sites are linking back the Falcon Beach, and is the information on the FB site indexed by Google?

It a related move: on Saturday, March 24th, 2007 2-4pm at Sam the Record Man (Toronto) there are band performances by The Bicycles, The Golden Dogs, and The Miniatures, and autograph sessions with Falcon Beach cast members : Steve Byers (Jason), Jennifer Kydd (Page), Jeananne Goossen (Courtney), Morgan Kelly (Lane), and Peter Mooney(Dr. Adrian). (Press Release)

I wonder if I could start a cat fight if I asked for “Page’s” autograph?

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Following up on my recent jazz post, we saw the David Virelles Quintet at the Toronto Beaches International Jazz Festival. You can check a bit of it out yourself

You can always checkout their myspace page : David Virelles Quintet, but I know of 2 upcoming Toronto gigs are at the Lula Lounge (Sepmeber 3rd) and Glenn Gould Studio (October, 19). Also I had hear (confirmed) that The David Virelles Quintet won the 2006 Grand Prix de Jazz General Motors at the Montreal Jazz Festival. (So DV, when when are you and JT comming over for some BBQ?)

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Toronto Beaches International Jazz Festival presents David Virelles Quintet playing on the MainStage KEW Gardens at 11:30 AM (seen a few time since last year a the Rex). (Yes that’s the My Space page of the David Virelles Quintet. Go listen to some tracks! )

Beaches International Jazz Festival: July 29- 30, at the KEW Gardens, Toronto, Ontario, Canada . Prior to the events at the Kew gardens main stage there is also the Beaches StreetFest: July 27- 29, at the Queen Street East between Coxwell and Victoria, Toronto, Ontario, Canada

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St. Stephen’s Community House is agian running The 4 th Annual Global Divas Gala Concert, on Thursday March 30, 2006 at Kool Haus, 132 Queen’s Quay East.

St. Stephen’s Community House is a unique, community-based social service agency that has been serving the needs of Kensington Market and surrounding neighbourhoods in downtown West Toronto since 1962.

This years Line up looks (and sounds) exciting : Jane Bunnett; Muna Mingole, “The Blue Flame of Cameroon”; Tanya Tagaq Gillis, Inuk throat singer; Amanda Martinez ; Kellylee Evans; and Zaki Ibrahim.

The fourth annual Global Divas concert begins at 8:00 p.m, doors open at 7:30 p.m. Concert admission tickets are $30.00 and can be purchased by calling Ticketmaster at (416) 870.8000 or online at www.ticketmaster.ca. Concert tickets can also be purchased in advance by calling the Global Divas Info Line at (416) 925.2103, ext. 238, by email at: development@ststephenshouse.com, or at Toronto Women’s Bookstore (73 Harbord St.), Pages Books & Magazines (256 Queen Street West), Soundscapes (572 College St.), and Edward’s Record World (2283 Yonge St.). Gala tickets, which include reception, fine dining, the Globe Trotter’s Market and concert are also avaiable.

For a good time and a good cause.

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Today’s Ney York Times Magazine (feb 26, 2006) has a article Guided by (Many, Many) Voices, looking at Toronto band Broken Social Scene (It’s more like a network, or, as Emily Haines, a sometime BSS’er and lead singer of the Toronto band Metric, put it, “somewhere between a tribe and a cult.”) and other aspects of Toronto’s extreme independent music scene known to some as “Torontopia”.

It’s definitively worth hearing BSS, and other bands from Arts & Crafts label, as well as non-label label’s (okay “Co-operative”) Blocks Recording Club, and D.I.Y. Toronto non-label Consumption Records.

I knew of BSS and a few of A&C’s other bands, but there is a bunch of new stuff there (I don’t get out as much), of course, it’s always a thrill to read or see “My Home and Native Town” mentioned my those from some distant land. I usually learn something, if only about the perceptions of others. In this case, I learned more about a music scene I no longer heavily follow (and consume), but still brush up against occasionally, and listen. Now, Excuse me while I spin some bits….

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Cuban folk musician José Aquiles is performing at Toronto’s Brazilian-inspired Caju Restaurant (Queen & Shaw in the West Queen West part) on August 4st. Tell them False Positives sent you.

Having heard José Aquiles at the Free times Cafe last Thursday along side his son, and Jazz Pianist, Davide Virelles (hinted about here), we are looking forwarded to more.

del.icio.us Tags: music toronto ; Technorati Tags: music toronto

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Saturday Night we had a chance to heard the excellent Davide Virelles Quintet at Toronto’s The Rex Hotel Jazz & Blues Bar, lead by Cuban-born pianist David Virelles (and including Quinsin Nachoff (Sax); Luis Denis (Sax); Devon Henderson (Bass); Ethan Ardelli (Drums) ). Most enjoyable. Davide was “discovered” by Jane Bunnett (Listen to her Cuban Odyssey album), and is destined to be a major jazz pianist. But then, I might have biased motives.

also there should be some related music at the Free Times Cafe on July 28th

del.icio.us Tags: Toronto Music ; Technorati Tags: Toronto Music

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