#Dallas Road shoreline

[wolfnowl]

#SilentSunday

[jayhawksofficial]

Random Archival Dig 8 (1-26-23)

More from The Jayhawks Archive HERE

The Jayhawks have shared bills with so many great artists over the decades. Here are a few posters from some of those shows:

With Los Lobos - March 28, 2003 - The Fillmore Auditorium - Denver, CO.

With Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers - April 30, 1995 - Shoreline Amphitheatre - Mountain View, CA & May 1, 1995 - Cal Expo Amphitheatre - Sacramento, CA.

With The Sadies - November 14, 2003 - La Zona Rosa - Austin, TX. Over the next decade after this show, Gary Louris would work with The Sadies many times, producing and playing on their albums, and performing with them in concert (check out their fantastic In Concert Volume One 2006 live release). Sadly, Dallas Good from The Sadies passed away in February 2022. He will be greatly missed.

The "Mystery Demos" are a key part of early Jayhawks history. Over two sessions in 1992, Gary Louris and Mark Olson sat down and recorded stripped down versions of an amazing 44 original songs that were unreleased at the time. A few of these had been performed live by The Jayhawks in 1988-1992 but most had not. These essentially served as the earliest demos for what would become The Jayhawks landmark 1995 album Tomorrow The Green Grass. The 2011 2CD Legacy Edition of TTGG contained a whole disc featuring 18 of The Mystery Demos (now sadly out of print; the songs are available via streaming platforms). One of the key buried treasures was "Turn Your Pretty Name Around," which was eventually unearthed after Olson and Louris reconnected and started touring together in 2005. They performed it live and a studio version was recorded for the 2009 Olson/Louris album Ready For The Flood, along with several other Mystery Demo songs. Here's a lyric sheet circa 1993.

Here's a song list from 1994 during the pre-production period for Tomorrow The Green Grass. Note Turn Your Pretty Name Around in the "short list" column.

The bulk of this list consists of Mystery Demo songs. Several of these MD songs that weren't used for TTGG did finally see the official light of day on the TTGG reissue (marked by # below), although most remain unreleased.

-- Pictures (Pictures of the Family) -- Violets (She Picks the Violets, released later by Olson) # -- Won't Be Coming Home (released later by Golden Smog on Down By The Old Mainstream + a non-MD Jayhawks demo was released on the 2009 Music From the North Country compilation) # -- Berlin -- Follow Me Now -- Everywhere I Turned -- No Place # -- Scarlet Light -- Hold Me Close # -- 5 Cornered Blues (popped up again in 98/99; a couple of fascinating demos were cut, one of those was released on the 2014 Smile reissue) -- My Gospel (aka My Gospel Song For You, released later on Ready For the Flood) -- Rain Rain (aka Rain Fall a Little Harder) -- White Shell Road (released later by Golden Smog on Weird Tales) # -- 5 AM -- Whispering (aka Whisperin' You'll Do Right) -- Ranch House (aka Ranch House in Phoenix) # -- Beggars Lie -- First Wednesday

Many of these MD songs were demo-ed again in 1993 and 1994 in the long run up to TTGG.

Other notable rarities on this list: -- Mission (aka Mission on 2nd) & Stone Cold Mess (both released on the Music From the North Country) -- Mother Trust You to Walk to the Store & Warm River (pre-MD recordings of both were released on the Hollywood Town Hall reissue) -- Nightshade (aka Little Nightshade, a pre-MD demo was released on the 2003 Blue Earth reissue) -- Darling Today (showed up on the Blown Away soundtrack in 1994, on a European b-side in 1995 and also on Music From the North Country).

The band had a LOT of material to choose from during this time.

Here's the original 1992 Mystery Demo recording of "Turn Your Pretty Name Around."

Here's a live Olson / Louris version from 2009 in St. Paul recorded for The Current.

More info about The Mystery Demos: Extensive blog article HERE Liner notes from the TTGG reissue HERE

Various Jayhawks crossed paths in the teeming Minneapolis music scene in the years before the band formed while they were members of bands like Safety Last, Stagger Lee, Schnauzer, The Ranchtones and The Neglecters. That tradition continued into the early 90s. Here's a City Pages calendar listing for a June 1990 Jayhawks show at The Cabooze in Minneapolis. One of the openers is The Leatherwoods, recently arrived from Kansas, featuring future Jayhawk Tim O'Reagan. The Leatherwoods were short lived but put out a magnificent album in 1992 on Peter Jesperson's Medium Cool label, Topeka Oratorio, a true lost classic that is well worth searching out.

Note the reference to "Take Me With You (When You Go)," described here as a "paralyzing sobber" by long time Twin Cities music scene vet Jim Walsh. Many of the songs from Hollywood Town Hall were premiered live during 1990, but Take Me With You started showing up in Jayhawks setlists in late 1989, almost three years before its eventual release on HTH and one of the first songs from that album to be performed live.

The Leatherwoods Return, previously posted on Tumblr

The Leatherwoods (Todd Newman & Tim O'Reagan)

The Leatherwoods - Topeka Oratorio (Medium Cool, 1992)

More on Topeka Oratorio HERE

[wunderlass]

Coda

I hate how it ended for Echo. Here's how I fixed it without them having to spend any more time on the final scene. Thanks, as always, to @maxortecho for the beta work.

The desert air is cold and sharp on Liz’s cheeks, adding to the sting of tears clinging to her skin. She hates how they cloud her vision as she takes in what will be her last sight of Max for nobody knows how long. It could be weeks. Months. Forever.

Dallas is already on the other side of the portal, surrounded by unearthly structures in gleaming crystal. Waiting patiently for Max to join him, for their work to begin.

Max is framed by the stone archway of the portal, dark hair lit by the glow of the strange light filtering through from Oasis. She ought to be fascinated by what’s on the other side of it, but she can’t bear to tear her attention away from Max. He’s stoic, but she sees the sorrow in his eyes. It feels like he can’t look away from her either.

“Guess we have to wait a little bit longer for that road trip,” she whispers, the words hoarse and stricken around the knot in her throat.

He nods, his mouth tight in that way she knows signals that he’s trying to keep his emotions inside. He’s trying to be strong for her sake. “When I get back. We’ll go to the ocean then,” he promises.

The console hums behind them, a warning that its fuel will soon run out. And yet Liz can’t bear to let go of the moment. Of Max. Not yet.

“Do you think there are oceans on Oasis?” she asks, as if her words will slow time and keep Max here with her. “If you’ll get to see those.”

“I guess I’ll find out,” he whispers, and there’s no enthusiasm to it. She understands why. He’s not going to Oasis to explore, to discover what the planet has to offer, the way she would. He can’t do that without her by his side, because he has to come back to her as soon as he can. If Liz was there, they could take their time. They could stand on the shoreline and marvel at pink or yellow or silver water.

Her breath hitches. She’s momentarily stunned by her own cluelessness. Why hadn’t she thought of this before? 

“I could come with you.” The words are out before she has chance to fully think them through. “I could find out with you.”

It’s as if a light has switched on behind his eyes, and his own response is breathless. “Are you sure?”

It doesn’t take a moment to think about it. Beyond that simple idea, the simple resolution of still being able to be with Max, of not being separated by galaxies and light years – there’s all the discovery to be made. A new planet, uncharted by humans. Unvisited and unseen. With him.

“I’ve never been more sure of anything,” she says, then adds on, as if Max might need persuading. “I could help. I wouldn’t just be tagging along.”

But Max needs no persuading, his face splitting in a broad smile. “This could be our road trip,” he says, reaching out for her.

She reaches back without thinking, clasping hands. A moment ago they’d been saying their goodbyes, but now both their gazes turn to the portal. It doesn’t need any further discussion. Nothing has ever felt more right to her, except perhaps the moment she’d kissed Max for the first time.

“Ready?” she asks him anyway, taking her first step towards the portal. His mouth lifts in a giddy grin, and she wipes away the remnant of her tears with her free hand.

“Ready,” he agrees. There’s a beat, a silent rhythm between them, then they take that step together, crossing the threshold into another world.

See this is how you make a super quick tweak to the ending and make it happy, if you aren't a complete hack.

[bubblesandgutz]

Every Record I Own - Day 736: Little Feat Sailin’ Shoes

Today we’re going to talk about my favorite song.

Back in September 2017, SUMAC went into Robert Lang Studios in Shoreline, WA to record our third studio album, Love In Shadow, with Kurt Ballou. I was still living in New York at the time. At the end of every day’s session, the other guys would drive back down to Seattle and catch a ferry out to Vashon to crash at Aaron’s house. Meanwhile, I would drive a few miles north to stay at my parent’s house in Mukilteo. It just so happened that my folks were out of town at the time, so I had the house to myself.

It was a weird time. I don’t know how else to describe it. Russian Circles were going to go out on a B-market tour with Mastodon immediately following the recording, so I was looking at two months of being away from home. My parents had only recently moved to Mukilteo, so staying at their house didn’t feel like a homecoming. 

I wasn’t used to so much alone time at night. I would get back to the house, make a small late-night meal, have a beer, and sit on the couch listening to music on my phone until my brain quieted down, then I’d go to bed.

There was one night where my bandmate Nick decided to stay at the house instead of trekking down to Vashon. We got to talking about music and started playing songs on our phones. I listened to a lot of Necrot’s Blood Offerings and Blood Incantation’s Starspawn during that trip, but somehow we got on the topic of roots rock, and Nick suggested I check out Little Feat. He played a few songs off their debut album and encouraged me to check out their song “Willin’” off the Sailin’ Shoes record at some point. So the next night, when I had the house to myself again, I gave “Willin’” a spin.

And then I listened to it again. And again. And I sat on the couch and listened to the song on repeat for the rest of the night. I couldn’t get enough of it. It was so simple, yet so perfect. In the span of less than three minutes, it tells a story with a bunch of twists and turns, and every line resonated with my life.

Against a backdrop of acoustic guitar, Little Feat’s Lowell George tells a story:

I've been warped by the rain, driven by the snow I'm drunk and dirty, don't you know And I'm still, willin'

And I was out on the road late at night I seen my pretty Alice in every headlight Alice, Dallas Alice

I could already identify with the song. It’s a story about a musician on the road missing his partner. I could feel that. I’d been there. I was there. But then...

And I've been from Tucson to Tucumcari Tehachapi to Tonopah Driven every kind of rig that's ever been made Driven the back roads so I wouldn’t get weighed

Oh... so this isn’t a song about a musician. This is a song about a trucker. Okay... I can still appreciate the sentiment. But then...

And if you give me; weed, whites, and wine And you show me a sign I'll be willin', to be movin'

Damn. For being an early ‘70s folk rock tune, it gets a little gutsy in the lyric department. This guy is smoking weed, doing trucker speed, and drinking on the job? And it’s a ballad? Bold choice, but okay... I can still relate. And then...

Well I've been kicked by the wind, robbed by the sleet Had my head stoved in, but I'm still on my feet And I'm still, willin'

I smuggled some smokes and folks from Mexico Baked by the sun every time I go to Mexico And I'm still...

Holy shit... the song is about a smuggler?? I mean, I can still relate. How many times have I squirreled away boxes of merch in the back of a trailer so that customs won’t tax us on a bunch of t-shirts? But still, it’s kinda crazy to have a little folk ballad bait-and-switch you into thinking you were sympathizing with a tired, lonely musician only to find out you were identifying with a criminal. Then again, Americana has a long tradition of celebrating outlaws and Robin Hoods and folks living on the fringes of society. 

This is what great art does: it makes you empathize with others, even people you didn’t think you could align with. It makes their stories relatable. And Little Feat pulled it off in two short verses. I listened to the song every day on the subsequent Russian Circles tour.

And a week after I got home from that tour I went to Europe for another RC tour with Mastodon. I’d spent almost no time at home that fall. On our first night in the UK, someone clipped the lock to our trailer and tried to make off with some of our merch, though they were thwarted by hotel security. The next day we found out that someone broke into one of Mastodon’s trucks too, but the story was a lot darker. 

It must have happened at their last gas stop around an hour outside of Calais, France, because when the truck approached the immigration checkpoint before the Chunnel to the UK, an officer’s dog started flipping out. They checked the back of the truck to find a busted lock. And inside the truck was a family of Syrian refugees hiding on top of the equipment. Apparently it wasn’t an uncommon occurrence at the time. People were desperate, and folks were staking out fuel stops near the crossing so that they could break into these big rigs and help refugees flee to the UK. It was heartbreaking. There was only another week of tour left, but the rest of the trip felt shrouded in sadness. 

It had been a long year, and though I felt a little defeated towards the end of it, I was still willin’. So much so that I got home and got a tattoo of a clipped lock with “Still willin’” written above it. 

It’s a tough world out there, and “Willin’” always reminds me that everyone is just doing what they have to do to get by. 

[anisanews]

Texas Fairytale Home Is Fit For Royalty

Fairytale home or boat?

Adam Musiel

It’s becoming known in national real estate parlance as “the Golden Triangle” — the invisible lines connecting New York City, L.A., and Austin, Texas. That’s where, demographic experts tell us, everyone is moving.

So when Stuart and Rebecca Parsons decided to build a home ten years ago, they planted it in Lake Whitney, a bluffy part of central Texas midway between Austin and Dallas —- right in that triangle —- known as the “Gateway Capital” to the Texas Hill Country.

Like many who start building private homes in land-spacious Texas, they were never planning on creating a “fairytale castle”. Nor even a plain castle. They wanted the water access, spacious views and privacy.

But a castle, on a cliff, is what they got.

119 Private Road Drive, Clifton

Adam Musiel eXp Realty

First, Stuart found a lovely piece of land overlooking Lake Whitney. Like most of the lakes in Texas, Lake Whitney is man-made, a flood control reservoir on the main stem of the Brazos River in Texas. In recent years, rural and vacation home communities have sprouted along the 225 miles of shoreline. The jewel of both Bosque and Hill Counties, Lake Whitney covers 35 square miles with its crystal-clear water, providing a cherished destination for boaters, fishermen, and water sports lovers of all kinds, as well as a vacation getaway about two hours from Dallas.

Lake Whitney

Texas Parks & Wildlife

“We started to build, and when we got to the fourth story, everyone told us the house looked like a wedding cake, much to my surprise,” Rebecca said. “We added the front porch, and then we realized it as well. That’s when it began to evolve.”

When Stuart started researching castles, the real fun began. Working with Waco architect Sterling Thompson, a full-on fairy tale castle was created, complete with a drawbridge and moat. Two ponds, on either side of that drawbridge, are in the shape of hearts, of course!

119 Private Way, Clifton

Adam Musiel eXp Realty

Rebecca and Stuart have built plenty of homes together, and Rebecca had a distinct vision for the castle. She knew what people wanted to see as they walked over the drawbridge and through the grand doors. The wow factor had to be the stuff of fairy tales, especially the chandelier. “I drove to Dallas and scoured the Market Center and eventually found 90 percent of what I wanted on the Internet, including that perfect chandelier!”

119 Private Way, Clifton

Adam Musiel eXp Realty

She also knew the home could be a perfect setting for young brides.

The Parsons decided to live on the third floor, and conduct all of their design experiments there. Rebecca understands brides. “I wanted something neutral so a bride could have hot pink or turquoise as her colors, and it would work inside the castle. So, we worked out the right tones and textures on our floor.

It took a decade, but when the doors of Parsons Castle swung open, the parties began, and they have not stopped.

119 Private Road, Clifton

Adam Musiel eXp Realty

119 Private Road, Clifton

Adam Musiel, eXp Realty

119 Private Road, Clifton

Adam Musiel, eXp Realty

119 Private Road, Clifton

Adam Musiel, eXp Realty

119 Private Road, Clifton

Adam Musiel, eXp Realty

119 Private Drive, Clifton

Adam Musiel, eXp Realty

119 Private Drive

Adam Musiel, eXp Realty

119 Private Road

Adam Musiel, eXp Realty

119 Private Road

Adam Musiel, eXp Realty

The five-story, 11,500 square foot, ten-bedroom, fourteen (14!) bathroom castle has been the setting for every function you can imagine.

But of course, weddings are the heartbeat of this fairy tale castle.

With seating for 250 in the grand ballroom, 1,000 on the lawn, and the ability to sleep up to 50 guests, it’s at the top of most bridal wish lists for a perfect venue. The location can’t be beaten. It’s in that golden triangle of Dallas, Fort Worth, and Waco and only two hours from Austin. You’ll know it’s Texas, so everywhere is just down the road apiece.

“Seeing the joy in the faces of these young couples is the reward,” Rebecca said. “The most special day of their lives begins here, and you cannot replace that. We are going to miss being a part of that.”

The house is on the market, because the Parsons are ready for their next project: we can’t wait. Meanwhile, if you are ready for a fairy tale adventure, Addison, Texas-based listing Adam Musiel has this “fairy tale castle” ready for a prince or pauper. Asking price for the 11,500 square foot castle at 19 Private Road in Clifton, Texas. Listed for only 6.5 million!

119 Private Road, Clifton

Adam Musiel, eXp Realty

from Anisa News https://ift.tt/3dZ0Gmz

[fuckyeahffm]

Evanescence announce Summer 2018 tour with Lindsey Stirling

What a pairing this could be! Evanescence will return to the road this summer, bringing their “Synthesis” tour, complete with orchestral backing, to fans. Joining them for this run will be another queen of strings, violinist Lindsey Stirling, who will open the shows. Evanescence / Lindsey Stirling 2018 Tour Dates July 6 – Kansas City, Mo. @ Starlight Theatre July 7 – St. Louis, Mo. @ Hollywood Casino Amphitheatre July 9 – Detroit, Mich. @ DTE Energy Music Theatre July 10 – Highland Park, Ill. @ Ravina July 12 – Noblesville, Ind. @ Ruoff Home Mortgage Music Center July 14 – Cincinnati, Ohio @ Riverbend Music Center July 17 – Camden, N.J. @ BB&T Pavilion July 18 – Mansfield, Mass. @ Xfinity Center July 20 – Charlotte, N.C. @ PNC Music Pavilion July 21 – Raleigh, N.C. @ Coastal Credit Union Music Park at Walnut Creek July 24 – Bristow, Va. @ Jiffy Lube Live July 25 – Uncasville, Ct. @ Mohegan Sun Arena July 27 – Toronto, Ontario @ Budweiser Stage July 28 – Saratoga Springs, N.Y. @ Saratoga Performing Arts Center Aug. 10 – Holmdel, N.J. @ PNC Bank Arts Center Aug. 11 – Wantagh, N.Y. @ Northwell Heath at Jones Beach Theatre Aug. 14 – Simpsonville, S.C. @ Heritage Park Amphitheater Aug. 15 – Atlanta, Ga. @ TBD Aug. 17 – Tampa, Fla. @ MIDFLORIDA Credit Union Amphitheater Aug. 18 – West Palm Beach, Fla. @ Coral Sky Amphitheatre Aug. 20 – Jacksonville, Fla. @ Daily’s Place Aug. 22 – New Orleans, La. @ Bold Sphere Music at Champions Square Aug. 24 – Dallas, Texas @ Starplex Pavilion Aug. 25 – Woodlands, Texas @ Cynthia Woods Mitchell Pavilion Aug. 28 – Albuquerque, N.M. @ Isleta Amphitheater Aug. 29 – Phoenix, Ariz. @ Ak-Chin Pavilion Aug. 31 – Chula Vista, Calif. @ Mattress Firm Amphitheatre Sept. 1 – Irvine, Calif. @ Five Point Amphitheater Sept. 5 – Mountain View, Calif. @ Shoreline Amphitheater Sept. 7 – Auburn, Wash. @ White River Amphitheatre Sept. 8 – Ridgefield, Wash. @ Sunlight Supply Amphitheatre Use code HILO18 for presale VIP packages. Presale starts today at 10am at Live Nation.

[concretingprosdallastx-blog]

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[tlatollotl]

Matthew Des Lauriers got the first inkling that he had stumbled on something special when he pulled over on a dirt road here, seeking a place for his team to use the bathroom. While waiting for everyone to return to the car, Des Lauriers, then a graduate student at the University of California, Riverside, meandered across the landscape, scanning for stone tools and shell fragments left by the people who had lived on the island in the past 1500 years.

As he explored, his feet crunched over shells of large Pismo clams—bivalves that he hadn't seen before on the mountainous island, 100 kilometers off the Pacific coast of Baja California. The stone tools littering the ground didn't fit, either. Unlike the finely made arrow points and razor-sharp obsidian that Des Lauriers had previously found on the island, these jagged flakes had been crudely knocked off of chunky beach cobbles.

"I had no idea what it meant," says Des Lauriers, now a professor at California State University (Cal State) in Northridge. Curiosity piqued, he returned for a test excavation and sent some shell and charcoal for radiocarbon dating. When Des Lauriers's adviser called with the results, he said, "You should probably sit down." The material dated from nearly 11,000 to more than 12,000 years ago—only a couple thousand years after the first people reached the Americas.

That discovery, in 2004, proved to be no anomaly; since then, Des Lauriers has discovered 14 other early sites and excavated two, pushing back the settlement of Cedros Island to nearly 13,000 years ago. The density of early coastal sites here "is unprecedented in North America," says archaeologist Loren Davis of Oregon State University in Corvallis, who joined the project in 2009.

The Cedros Island sites add to a small but growing list that supports a once-heretical view of the peopling of the Americas. Whereas archaeologists once thought that the earliest arrivals wandered into the continent through a gap in the ice age glaciers covering Canada, most researchers today think the first inhabitants came by sea. In this view, maritime explorers voyaged by boat out of Beringia—the ancient land now partially submerged under the waters of the Bering Strait—about 16,000 years ago and quickly moved down the Pacific coast, reaching Chile by at least 14,500 years ago.

Findings such as those on Cedros Island bolster that picture by showing that people were living along the coast practically as early as anyone was in the Americas. But these sites don't yet prove the coastal hypothesis. Some archaeologists argue that the first Americans might have entered via the continental interior and turned to a maritime way of life only after they arrived. "If they came down an interior ice-free corridor, they could have turned right, saw the beaches of California, and said, ‘To hell with this,’" says archaeologist David Meltzer of Southern Methodist University in Dallas, Texas.

Matthew Des Lauriers transforms a beach cobble into a type of stone tool used by people who lived on Cedros Island nearly 13,000 years ago. These people lived near freshwater springs but relied on the sea, dining on fish, sea mammals, and seabirds.

The evidence that might settle the question has been mostly out of reach. As the glaciers melted starting about 16,500 years ago, global sea level rose by about 120 meters, drowning many coasts and any settlements they held. "We are decades into the search for coastal dispersers, and we're still waiting for solid evidence or proof," says Gary Haynes, an archaeologist at the University of Nevada in Reno, who thinks the first Americans likely took an inland route.

The hunt for that evidence is now in high gear. A dedicated cadre of archaeologists is searching for maritime sites dating to between 14,000 and 16,000 years ago, before the ice-free corridor became fully passable. They're looking at the gateway to the Americas, along stretches of the Alaskan and Canadian coasts that were spared the post–ice age flooding. They are even looking underwater. And on Cedros Island, Des Lauriers is helping fill in the picture of how early coastal people lived and what tools they made, details that link them to maritime cultures around the Pacific Rim and imply that they were not landlubbers who later turned seaward. "All eyes are on the coast," Meltzer says.

On a sunny June day, Des Lauriers crouches in a gully here, bracing himself against the wind blowing off the ocean. He leans over to examine what could be a clue to how people lived here 12,000 years ago: a delicate crescent of shell glinting in the sun. A few centimeters away, a sharply curved shell point lies broken in two pieces. Des Lauriers knows he's looking at the remains of an ancient fishhook. He has already found four others on the island. One of those, at about 11,500 years old, is the oldest fishhook discovered in the Americas, as reported this summer in American Antiquity.

Des Lauriers wasn't planning to collect artifacts on this trip, but the shell fishhook is too precious to leave to the elements. His team scrambles for anything they can use to package the delicate artifact. Someone produces a roll of toilet paper, and Des Lauriers scoops up the fragments with his trowel and eases them onto the improvised padding. Each fragment is wrapped snuggly and slipped into a plastic bag.

Twenty years ago, most archaeologists believed the first Americans were not fishermen, but rather big-game hunters who had followed mammoths and bison through the ice-free corridor in Canada. The distinctive Clovis spear points found at sites in the lower 48 states starting about 13,500 years ago were thought to be their signature. But bit by bit, the Clovis-first picture has crumbled.

The biggest blow came in 1997, when archaeologists confirmed that an inland site at Monte Verde in Chile was at least 14,500 years old—1000 years before Clovis tools appeared. Since then, several more pre-Clovis sites have come to light, and the most recent date from Monte Verde stretches back to 18,500 years ago, although not all researchers accept it. Genetic evidence from precontact South American skeletons now suggests that the earliest Americans expanded out of Beringia about 16,000 years ago.

Not only were the Clovis people not the first to arrive, but many researchers also doubt the first Americans could have made it by land. Glaciers likely covered the land route through western Canada until after 16,000 years ago, according to recent research that dated minerals in the corridor's oldest sand dunes. Another study showed that bison from Alaska and the continental United States didn't mingle in the corridor until about 13,000 years ago, implying that the passage took at least 2000 years to fully open and transform into a grassland welcoming to megafauna and their human hunters.

That makes the coastal route the first Americans' most likely—or perhaps only—path. It would have been inviting, says Knut Fladmark, a professor emeritus of archaeology at Simon Fraser University in Burnaby, Canada, one of the first to propose a coastal migration into the Americas back in 1979. "The land-sea interface is one of the richest habitats anywhere in the world," he says. Early Americans apparently knew how to take full advantage of its abundant resources. At Monte Verde, once 90 kilometers from the coast, archaeologist Tom Dillehay of Vanderbilt University in Nashville found nine species of edible and medicinal seaweed dated to about 14,000 years ago.

On Cedros Island, artifacts suggest that people found diverse ways to make a living from the sea. That isn't a given because 13,000 years ago, the island was connected to the mainland, hanging off the Baja peninsula like a hitchhiker's outstretched thumb; early sites cluster around freshwater springs that would have been several kilometers inland back then. But Des Lauriers's work reveals that the Cedros Islanders ate shellfish, sea lions, elephant seals, seabirds, and fish from all sorts of ocean environments, including deep-water trenches accessible only by boat.

In addition to making fishhooks, the island's inhabitants fashioned beach cobbles into crude scrapers and hammers—"disposable razors," as Des Lauriers, a stone tool expert, calls them. Such tools are best for scraping and cutting plant fibers, suggesting that the islanders were processing agave into fishing lines and nets. Researchers have found a similar suite of tools at other early sites along the Pacific coast, hinting that fishing technologies were widespread even though the organic nets, lines, and boats likely decayed long ago.

Certain tool types found here suggest even more distant connections. Des Lauriers often finds stemmed points, a style of spear point found from Japan to Peru and perhaps used on the island to hunt sea mammals and native pygmy deer. The shell fishhooks even resemble the world's oldest known fishhooks, which were crafted from the shells of sea snails on Okinawa in Japan about 23,000 years ago.

Although the evidence of a widespread, sophisticated maritime way of life along the ancient Pacific coast—what Meltzer calls "Hansel and Gretel leaving a trail of artifacts"—is provocative, it can't prove the coastal migration theory, he says. The oldest sites on Cedros Island are younger than the first Clovis spear points used to bring down big game on the mainland.

But older coastal sites are beginning to turn up. This year Dillehay announced the discovery of a nearly 15,000-year-old site at Huaca Prieta, about 600 kilometers north of Lima. Its earliest residents lived in an estuary 30 kilometers from the Pacific shoreline but still ate mostly shark, seabirds, marine fish, and sea lions, and their artifacts resemble those at other coastal sites. "I was stunned how similar [the tools of Huaca Prieta] were to [those of] Cedros Island," Davis says.

Still, pinning down the coastal migration theory will take a string of well-dated sites beginning before 15,000 years ago in southwestern Alaska or British Columbia in Canada and extending through time down the coast. To find them, archaeologists will have to take the plunge.

Loren Davis tries to stay steady as he makes his way into a laboratory aboard the research vessel Pacific Storm. The archaeologist was desperately seasick in his cabin for 2 days in late May as the 25-meter-long ship fought rough seas more than 35 kilometers off the Oregon coast. With Davis laid low, his team members scanned the ocean floor with sound waves.

They are seeking the now-flooded landscape ancient maritime explorers would have followed on their journey south, when today's coastlines were dozens of kilometers inland. Some coastal travelers did eventually turn landward, as shown by early inland sites such as Oregon's Paisley Caves, which yielded a 14,200-year-old human coprolite. But the earliest chapters of any coastal migration are almost certainly underwater.

Sixteen thousand years later, it's tempting to envision such a migration as a race from beach to beach. But as people expanded into the uninhabited Americas, they had no destination in mind. They stopped, settled in, ventured beyond what they knew, and backtracked into what they did. So the first step for archaeologists is to figure out where, exactly, those early mariners would have chosen to stick around.

The decision likely came down to one resource: freshwater. "Water is the lifeblood of everything," Davis says. So he has been painstakingly mapping the probable courses of ancient rivers across the now-drowned coastline, hoping that those channels are still detectable, despite now being filled with sediment and covered by deep ocean.

As team members pulled up early results to show Davis during May's cruise, a black line representing the present-day sea floor squiggled horizontally across the screen. Then it diverged into two lines, a gap like a smile opening across the image: An ancient river channel lay below the modern sea floor, right where Davis's model had predicted. "If I hadn't been so sick—and if there had been alcohol on the ship—that would have been a champagne moment," he says. "We can [now] begin to visualize where the hot spots [of human occupation] are probably going to be."

This summer, Davis's colleague Amy Gusick, an archaeologist at Cal State in San Bernardino, used one of his maps to take the first sample from another probable hot spot: a drowned river off the coast of California's Channel Islands. Terrestrial sites on the islands have already yielded 13,000-year-old human bones as well as characteristically coastal stone tools. But since then, the rising sea has inundated 65% of the islands' ancient area. Gusick and her colleagues are confident that submerged sites, possibly even older than the ones on land, exist off today's coast.

In June, she used a 5-meter sampling tube to pierce what Davis's map told her was the ancient riverbank. The muck she collected will reveal whether ancient soil, perhaps including plant remains, pollen, animal bones, or human artifacts, can still be recovered from deep underwater. Eventually, Gusick hopes to understand the drowned landscape well enough to pick out anomalies on the sonar map—possible shell middens or houses—and target them for coring that might bring up artifacts and the organic material needed to date them. A date of 15,000 years or older would show that before the ice-free corridor fully opened, adept mariners had explored the Channel Islands, which were never connected to the mainland and could be reached only by boat.

"This is the biggest scientific effort to move us down the road to answering this question" of how and when people settled the Americas, says Todd Braje, an archaeologist at San Diego State University in California, one of the leaders of the coring project. "Those submerged landscapes are really the last frontier for American archaeology," says Jon Erlandson, an anthropologist at the University of Oregon in Eugene who has excavated on the Channel Islands for decades and also is part of the project.

All the same, to make a definitive case for the coastal route, researchers must find pre-Clovis coastal sites in the doorway to the Americas itself: on the shores of southwestern Alaska or British Columbia. Luckily, archaeologists working there may not even have to go underwater to do it.

Researchers tracking ancient coastal dwellers found 13,200-year-old human footprints on Calvert Island in British Columbia (left) and the Americas' oldest fishhook (right) on Cedros Island.

About 13,200 years ago, someone strolled through the intertidal zone just above the beach on Calvert Island, off the coast of British Columbia, leaving footprints in the area's wet, dense clay. When high tide rolled in, sand and gravel filled the impressions, leaving a raised outline. Layers of sediment built up over the millennia, preserving the barely eroded footprints under half a meter of earth.

Daryl Fedje, an archaeologist at the University of Victoria (UVic) and the Hakai Institute on Quadra Island in Canada, spotted that outline while excavating on the beach in 2014. Since then, he and his UVic and Hakai colleague Duncan McLaren have documented 29 of those footprints beneath Calvert's beaches. A piece of wood embedded in a footprint's fill provided the radiocarbon date. "It raises the hairs on the back of your neck," says McLaren, who in April presented the footprints at the annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology in Vancouver, Canada.

Such an intimate view of early coastal Americans is possible on Calvert Island because of a geological quirk. The melting ice sheets flooded coastlines elsewhere. But when the coasts of British Columbia and southwestern Alaska were suddenly freed from the weight of the nearby glaciers, parts of the underlying crust began to rebound, lifting some islands high enough to largely escape the flood.

To maximize their chances of finding ancient sites, McLaren, Fedje, and their UVic colleague Quentin Mackie have spent decades mapping the local sea level changes along the coast of British Columbia. On Calvert Island, where the footprints were discovered, sea level rose only 2 meters. Around nearby Quadra Island, local sea level actually fell, stranding ancient shorelines in forests high above modern beaches. There, "potentially the entire history of occupation is on dry land," Mackie says.

The painstaking work required to identify and search those ancient coastlines is paying off with a march of increasingly older dates from the British Columbia coast. The remains of an ancient bear hunt—spear points lying in a cluster of bear bones—in Gaadu Din cave on the Haida Gwaii archipelago date to 12,700 years ago. The Calvert footprints stretch back 13,200 years. And a cluster of stone tools next to a hearth on Triquet Island is 14,000 years old—the region's oldest artifact so far, according to radiocarbon dates from the hearth's charcoal. Although reports about the footprints and the Triquet tools have yet to be peer reviewed, several archaeologists say they are impressed by the British Columbia team's approach. "They're looking in exactly the right place," Erlandson says.

Despite the proliferating evidence for the coastal route, not everyone is ready to discount the ice-free corridor entirely. The region has barely been studied and is ripe for "interesting surprises," says John Ives, an archaeologist at the University of Alberta in Edmonton, Canada. For example, the corridor may not have been a welcoming grassland until 14,000 years ago, but Haynes says it is naïve to assume that people couldn't have ventured into the corridor as soon as the ice was gone. Before grass took root, "the inland corridor route would have been full of freshwater sources, seasonally migrating or resident waterfowl by the millions, and large and small mammals exploring new ranges," he says. "Eastern Beringia's inland foragers of 14,000 years ago were descendants of expert pioneers and could have traveled far south on foot."

And so the hunt continues. Before breakfast one morning on Cedros Island, Des Lauriers spreads out satellite images of the island's southern edge. Most of the land appears as brown pixels, as one would expect from a desert island. But here and there, clusters of blue pixels appear—signs of moisture in the ground. Find the springs, Des Lauriers knows, and he'll find the people.

Davis and the rest of the team pile into the back of a pickup truck, and Des Lauriers follows a dirt path to a spring he hasn't visited before. The patch of green lies at the bottom of a steep-sided arroyo, which is otherwise bone dry. Algae cover the surface of a meter-deep pool. The dark soil is rich with organic matter, unusual for arid Cedros Island and possibly indicating an ancient settlement. Stone tools characteristic of the earliest islanders dot the surface. "There's a lot of stuff here, Matt," Davis calls to Des Lauriers. "It's punching all the boxes."

Interspersed with the recognizably early tools are things neither of them has seen on the island before: large, striated scallop shells belonging to a species known as mano de león (lion's paw). Today those scallops live in lagoons east of here, on the coast of the Baja peninsula. Des Lauriers says he suspects that similar lagoons connected Cedros Island to the mainland before 13,000 years ago. Were people here early enough to visit such lagoons? Could those shells be hinting at a phase of settlement even older than the one signaled by the Pismo clams 13 years ago?

To find out, Des Lauriers will have to wait until the team excavates and takes samples for radiocarbon dating. He records the site's GPS coordinates and then, just as people have done here for millennia, sets off up the arroyo in search of the next source of freshwater.

[jambo-tanzania]

The Tanzanites Down Under

March 12 - 28, 2019

Photo credits - Thanks to all those who contributed photos to this blog post - especially Christian Pantke and Al Prior.

Well it only took me 52 years, but I finally made it to Australia. I’ve wanted to go my whole adult life, and Oz did not disappoint!

Looking back on it now, I don’t know how we did so much in so little time. Every day was utterly packed, and for good reason. Two weeks just isn’t enough time to get it all done.

The thing that struck me most is how quickly the vistas change in the space of just a few miles. Rocky coastlines, lush rain forests, sandy beaches, sprawling vineyards ... all within a short drive of the urban centers of Melbourne or Sydney. It’s almost too much to take in.

Tuesday - Arrival Day

There is one down side about any trip to Australia, of course, and that’s the getting there part.

Oh. Holy. Hell.

Dallas to Sydney is seventeen hours. Seventeen very looooong hours that for me commenced at 10 pm Dallas time on Sunday. By the time I checked into my hotel in Melbourne around noon on Tuesday, I’d essentially been awake (I don’t sleep on airplanes) something like 36 hours. Nothing to do at that point but POWER THROUGH to a respectable bedtime!

Christian & Claudia arrived shortly before I did, so Al (our host) came and collected us for a preview of the city.

The first thing I noticed about Melbourne is the varied architecture ... magnificent Victorian structures right next to modern skyscrapers right next to 1930s art deco buildings. Much like the country itself, Melbourne crams a lot of diversity into a relatively small space.

Birgitte had arrived several days earlier and was off on a driving tour, but she joined us for an early dinner at Chin Chin - one of my favorite restaurants of the whole trip.

Wednesday - Melbourne Walking Tour & Queen Vic Market

Our first full day in Melbourne was a walking tour of the Shrine of Remembrance and the Royal Botanic Gardens, both of which were stunning.

The Shrine of Remembrance was built to honor Victorians who lost their lives in World War I. It’s one of the more thoughtful and impressive monuments I’ve seen anywhere.

The Royal Botanic Gardens cover 89 acres of public space in the middle of Melbourne and rival such privately-funded botanical gardens as the Dallas Arboretum.

Dinner that night was at Queen Victoria Market, where a multitude of vendors sell their crafts and international cuisine.

Al’s girlfriend Hope and his - now our - friend Kellie joined us for dinner, which was a little of this and a little of that.

I was introduced to a delicious Australian dessert called pavlova, which I highly recommend trying next time you’re down under.

Christian bought himself a Crocodile Dundee hat (as one does).

Thursday - 12 Apostles & Rain Forest #1

Our first road trip took us about three hours southwest of Melbourne to The Twelve Apostles, a spectacular section of eroded shoreline near Port Campbell that forms 12(ish) stacks that somehow came to be known as the apostles.

Birgitte decided to get up close & personal with the apostles in the front seat of a helicopter!

On the ride back to Melbourne, we drove along the Great Ocean Road, stopping in Lorne for a glass of wine, and a little further on, a stroll through the rain forest.

Friday - Wine Day

Friday was our first of several wine tastings, this one on the Mornington Peninsula. I was surprised at how many wineries there are, and I was particularly surprised at how GOOD Australian wine is, given that the only Australian labels we know of in the US are Barefoot and Yellow Tail (which incidentally can hardly be found in Australia)!

The drive back to Melbourne took us to Dromana for a stroll along Safety Beach.

This was also my first introduction to beach boxes - tiny little empty huts along the beach with no electricity or running water that people pay upwards of AUD $100k for. (And I totally get it, given the setting!)

Saturday Morning - Prahran Market

For our final morning in Melbourne, we started at Prahran Market, where I would be myself every Saturday morning if I lived in Melbourne. It’s basically Central Market on steroids. I’ve never seen anything like it. Fresh vegetables, meat, seafood, and prepared dishes as far as you can see.

We met up with the Melbourne crew for brunch at Gramercy Social before heading to the airport for a quick flight to Sydney.

Saturday Evening - First Night in Sydney

Like Melbourne, Sydney is very much a walking city. The evidence of this can be found on my iPhone, which registered in excess of 25,000 steps on just one day. I even lost a couple of pounds on this trip despite eating many meals that looked much like the one pictured above.

So as in Melbourne, day one was a walking day. Sydney is all about Queen Victoria, for whom the state is named. Victorian influences can be found everywhere - in the architecture, the street names, and the monuments.

Dinner that night was at Phillip’s Foote, a former Sailor’s bar, where one goes to cook one’s own steak on the barbie.

After dinner, we walked down to Sydney Harbor, where the postcard photos I’d seen since I was a child came to life. It was an especially poignant evening to be there, as the horrific shootings at Christchurch had happened just the day before, so the Opera House was illuminated with a silver fern, a national symbol of New Zealand.

As if on cue, the fireworks started the moment we arrived.

Sunday - A Good Day to Be Indoors!

Almost as an afterthought, I purchased a poncho just before I left Dallas. On Sunday, I was VERY glad to have done so! The skies opened up in the morning and it rained virtually the entire day.

So what better day to do museum and cathedral tours? We started at The Australian Museum, which is more or less a natural history museum, then walked through St. Mary’s Cathedral, and finally The Art Gallery of New South Wales.

I enjoyed the Australian Museum, but St. Mary’s and the Art Gallery of NSW were my favorites.

I especially enjoyed the aboriginal exhibit, created by artists from Australia’s indigenous community.

Another favorite was this painting called Holiday Sketch at Coogee (1888). Saro pointed it out because she knew we’d be standing in more or less the same spot a couple of days later.

And sure enough ...

The sun never really came out that day, but the rain let up enough to enjoy walking around and gawking at the incredible trees found all over Sydney, which look like they would be more at home in a sculpture museum than a city park.

Monday - Alarming Start to a Great Day

Nothing like waking up to a fire alarm! No need for panic, it turns out. One of our fellow hotel guests decided to do a little laundry and hang it from the fire sprinkler. (What could go wrong??) Turns out - the sprinkler system can flood the elevator shaft and cause the hotel staff to have to relocate EVERY SINGLE GUEST to a nearby hotel.

Evacuations and relocations notwithstanding, Monday was a good day. We did a nice walking tour, taking in more of the architecture and public spaces.

Monday night was opera night! A highlight of the trip, to be sure! The performance was Salome. It was - in a word - GRAPHIC. (And also a bit different than depicted in my childhood Sunday School lessons.) I thoroughly enjoyed it, though, if only for the venue.

Tuesday - Beach Walk & Bridge Climb

On Tuesday, I logged 24,962 steps (not including the 1,400+ steps it took me to walk up and down the Sydney Harbor Bridge).

The day started with a long and scenic coastal walk from Coogee Beach up to Bondi. In just a few miles, you come across one sandy beach after another ensconced in craggy, rocky shorelines.

Another HUGE highlight of the trip was climbing the Sydney Harbor Bridge. Radka and I were supposed to do it together, but she had to cancel her trip at the last minute because her mum was ill and died just a few days before our trip. They were on my mind the whole time, though, and they climbed with me in spirit.

The bridge climb was FANTASTIC! Don’t go to Sydney without doing it! It’s not cheap, and it takes several hours of your time, but it’s well worth it. The views are incredible, and the tour guides tell great stories about the history of the bridge.

Wednesday - Wildlife Park & Blue Mountains

Wednesday was another road trip.

First we visited the Featherdale Wildlife Park.

From there we Headed up to Katoomba for a visit to the Blue Mountains.

I was again astounded by the panorama and the fact that you could go from mountaintop to rain forest in under two minutes.

Thursday - More Wine Tastings & Nelson Bay

Another road trip - this time up to Nelson Bay, with a stop at Tyrell’s Wines.

Friday - Last Night in Sydney

We got back from Port Nelson on Friday and enjoyed a final, casual night in Sydney. We started out at The Glemore Hotel for happy hour. This is a great place to see a bat show, notable because the bats are the size of ... I don’t know ... CONDORS ... as opposed to the bats we get in Texas, which are essentially the size of sparrows.

For dinner, Al took us to Myung Jan for Korean BBQ, which incidentally is NOTHING like Texas BBQ (just so you know).

Saturday - Farewell to Sydney

We started the day at Paddington Market, a great place to buy textiles and souvenirs.

We said goodbye to Birgitte, who had to get back to real life, and Christian and Claudia, who were moving on to Tasmania.

Then there were three.

Al, Hope, and I took a ferry to the iconic Manly Beach for a lazy last afternoon in Sydney.

Apparently there’s a VW bus club that meets at Manly, which only made the place even cooler.

Dinner Saturday night was cocktails and hamburgers at a crazy-loud joint in Newtown called Mary’s, which at various points in its history was a Greek sporting club, a women’s sanctuary, a Masonic hall and an STD clinic.

Sunday through Tuesday - Port Douglas

Sunday afternoon we flew to Cairns, then rented a car and drove down to Port Douglas, a quaint little beach-side community which is also a gateway to the Great Barrier Reef.

The main reason for going to Port Douglas was to go SCUBA DIVING!! I spent many hours getting my PADI certification for this very reason, and the experience was everything I’d hoped it would be! What a perfect capstone to an unbelievable trip!

Wednesday and Thursday - Final Goodbyes

Wednesday we drove back to Cairns for lunch, then I flew back to Sydney for one night before my return flight to Dallas.

Thursday afternoon I got on my SIXTH Qantas plane in less than three weeks. I have no idea what happened to the previous sixteen days. I just know they went really fast.

This was one of the greatest adventures of my life - one that would never have happened if it weren’t for the IBM Corporate Service Corps. I remain astounded at all the ways that my CSC experience has changed my life, and I look forward to all the reunions yet to come.

As for this one - many thanks to those and shared it with me and those who made it happen - Saro Yeo and Alastair Prior.

[wolfnowl]

Heading Home

[sightsoundmusic]

Slipknot Announce ‘KNOTFEST ROADSHOW’

Slipknot are finally taking their historic event KNOTFEST on the road. This summer Slipknot will be joined by Volbeat, Gojira and Behemoth all across North America. The event will host the Slipknot museum which will include “An immersive exhibit from throughout Slipknot’s history complete with instruments, memorabilia, wardrobe and personal never-before-seen items.” Check out the dates for the trek below. Tickets go on sale Friday, March 8th at 10:00AM local time. Each ticket sold will include a digital copy of Slipknot’s new album due out in August.

https://www.knotfestroadshow.com/

7.26 - Shoreline Amphitheater - Mountain View, CA

7.27 -  San Manuel Amphitheater - San Bernadino, CA

8.01 - USANA Amphitheater - Salt Lake City, UT

8.03 - Isleta Amphitheater - Albuquerque, NM

8.04 - Ak-Chin Pavilion - Phoenix, AZ

8.06 - Pepsi Center - Denver, CO

8.08 - Pinnacle Bank Arena  - Lincoln, NE

8.10 - Iowa State Fair - Des Moines, IA - Slipknot & Gojira Only

8.11 - Hollywood Casino Amphitheatre - Chicago -  Tinley Park, IL

8.12 - DTE Energy Music Theatre - Clarkston, MI

8.14 - Veterans United Home Loans Amphitheater - Virginia Beach, VA

8.16 - Ruoff Home Mortgage Music Center - Noblesville, IN

8.17 - Providence Medical Center Amphitheater - Bonner Springs, KS

8.18 - Hollywood Casino Amphitheatre - St. Louis - Marlyand Heights, MO

8.20 - Budweiser Stage - Toronto, ON

8.21 - Saratoga Performing Arts Center - Saratoga Springs, NY

8.23 - KeyBank Pavilion - Burgettstown, PA

8.24 - The Pavilion at Montage Mountain - Scranton, PA

8.25 - Darien Lake Amphitheater - Darien Center, NY

8.27 - Xfinity Center - Mansfield, MA

8.28 - Northwell Health at Jones Beach Theater - Wantagh, NY

8.30 - PNC Bank Arts Center - Holmdel, NJ

8.31 - BB&T Pavilion - Camden, NJ

9.01 - Jiffy Lube Live - Bristow, VA

9.03 - Verizon Amphitheatre - Alpharetta, GA

9.04 - MIDFLORIDA Credit Union Amphitheatre - Tampa, FL

9.06 - Austin360 Amphitheater - Austin, TX

9.07 - Dos Equis Pavilion - Dallas, TX

9.08 - Cynthia Woods Mitchell Pavilion - The Woodlands, TX

[onecountrycom-blog]

Chris Young Announces Raised on Country Tour 2019

Tour season is kicking off and Chris Young is among the many country stars hitting the road with a possé of pals for the first leg of the Raised On Country Tour 2019. Named after his newest single, the Raised On Country Tour 2019 will kick off on May 16 in Alpharetta, Georgia, crisscrossing the United States before wrapping on September 14 in West Palm Beach, Florida. Along the way, pals like Chris Janson, Dylan Scott, LoCash, and Jimmie Allen will be joining the velvet-voiced singer. ] “Last year on the road was incredible and I’m crazy excited to get back out there with new music and the ‘Raised On Country Tour’ and to have Chris Janson, Dylan Scott, Jimmie Allen and Preston and Chris from LOCASH join me on tour,” Chris said in a statement. The 28-day trek will make stops in Charlotte, Boston, Philadelphia, St. Louis, Indianapolis, Dallas, Phoenix, and Las Vegas. Chris released his single, “Raised On Country,” on January 28 to an enthusiastic response from radio. The raw and rockin’ tune name-checks some of the singer’s biggest musical influences and the format’s greatest icons, including Merle Haggard, Willie Nelson, Joe Diffie, George Strait, Alan Jackson, and Hank Williams Jr. Chris has also teased that a music video for the boot-stompin’ song will soon follow. Tickets for the tour go on sale February 15. Raised On Country Tour Dates: May 16 - Alpharetta, GA - Ameris Bank Amphitheatre^^ May 17 - Charlotte, NC - PNC Music Pavilion^ May 18 - Bristow, VA - Jiffy Lube Live^ May 24 - Darien Center, NY - Darien Lake Amphitheater^ May 25 - Saratoga Springs, NY - Saratoga Performing Arts Center^ May 26 - Holmdel, NJ - PNC Bank Arts Center^ June 13 - Syracuse, NY - St. Joseph’s Health Amphitheater at Lakeview^ June 14 - Boston, MA - Xfinity Center^ June 15 - Hartford, CT - XFINITY Theatre^ June 21 - Scranton, PA - The Pavilion at Montage Mountain^ June 22 - Philadelphia, PA - BB&T Pavilion^ July 11 - St. Louis, MO - Hollywood Casino Amphitheatre+ July 13 - Indianapolis, IN - Ruoff Home Mortgage Music Center+ July 18 - Southaven, MS - BankPlus Amphitheater at Snowden Grove# July 19 - Rogers, AR - Walmart AMP~ July 20 - Dallas, TX - Dos Equis Pavilion~ Aug. 8 - Mountain View, CA - Shoreline Amphitheatre~ Aug. 9 - San Diego, CA - North Island Credit Union Amphitheatre~ Aug. 10 - Irvine, CA - FivePoint Amphitheatre~ Aug. 15 - Albuquerque, NM - Isleta Amphitheater+ Aug. 16 - Phoenix, AZ - Ak-Chin Pavilion+ Aug. 17 - Las Vegas, NV - MGM Grand Garden Arena++ Aug. 22 - Virginia Beach, VA - Veterans United Home Loans Amphitheater at Virginia Beach~ Aug. 23 - Raleigh, NC - Coastal Credit Union Music Park~ Aug. 24 - Burgettstown, PA - KeyBank Pavilion~ Sept. 12 - Jacksonville, FL - Daily’s Place+ Sept. 13 - Tampa, FL - MIDFLORIDA Credit Union Amphitheatre+ Sept. 14 - West Palm Beach, FL - Coral Sky Amphitheatre+ ^^with special guest Dylan Scott ^with special guests Chris Janson and Dylan Scott +with special guests Chris Janson and LOCASH ++with special guest LOCASH #with special guest Chris Janson ~with special guests Chris Janson and Jimmie Allen Read the full article

[johnmanciniwrites]

The Art of the List

On Parallel Order and Design

__

The well-organized list is a thing of beauty. There are days when I wonder if I would get anything accomplished without one. The list organizes the mind so that the body can follow. And at the end of another messy day the list allows you to take stock of what you have accomplished, assume some sense of control.  

Whether one of accomplishments, future goals, favorite songs, or just plain old groceries—when it comes to lists, order and design matter. The writer lists the world, piling detail upon detail, searching for the better word, the more precise image that will bring the world into sharper focus. 

The pharmacy was a small two-story building attached to another building that housed a hardware store and small grocery store.

Take a close look at the space around you, catalog the ten thousand things of the Buddhists, the infinite multiplicity of the material world. Or look at the spaces you see in your head, make a list of what is there, strange and unusual things that might attach themselves to your character in interesting and unexpected ways.

...as though the world were his secret, tires rumbling softly beneath him and the light emerging through the early fog, the brief sight of the bay off to his right, then the pines, tall and slender...

But listing goes beyond the concrete. For instance, your character is involved in a process of some kind. What are the steps in that process, the train of thought? Along the way there will be smaller processes, baby steps, wheels within wheels. Rituals, which have a way of working magic on us, if we let them.

Each morning Henry parked in the back by the large metal bins, and then entered the pharmacy’s back door, and went about switching on the lights, turning up the thermostat, or, if it was summer, getting the fans going. He would open the safe, put money in the register, unlock the front door, wash his hands, put on his white lab coat. The ritual was pleasing, as though the old store—with its shelves of toothpaste, vitamins, cosmetics, hair adornments, even sewing needles and greeting cards, as well as red rubber hot water bottles, enema pumps—was a person altogether steady and steadfast. And any unpleasantness that may have occurred back in his home, any uneasiness at the way his wife often left their bed to wander through their home in the night’s dark hours—all this receded like a shoreline as he walked through the safety of his pharmacy.

                                                        --from Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout 

See Henry begin his day. He is a pharmacist. There is no doubt about that, for this passage oozes with verisimilitude. How about those hot water bottles, the detail there? How much you include depends on how much it matters to character, on striking a balance of voice and dramatic emotion. Be selective. Some things just won’t make the list. Think of the cities you’ve known, what you remember about them, what it all means.

But as with them all, the same hopeful differences—the tall, hot white glassed buildings of Dallas; the tree lined streets of Hyde Park in Chicago, with the wooden stairs behind each apartment (he had loved those, especially); the neighborhoods of West Hartford, where it looked like a storybook, the houses, the perfect lawns—they all became places that sooner or later, one way or another, assured him that he didn’t, in fact, fit.

Unlike the safety of Henry’s pharmacy, Kevin’s cities, all the remembered details, only bring regret. The list needs specificity, and the specificity shows significance. But we have to look for it. And the character’s emotion colors the list. 

You could make a list of verb phrases that might help you build a paragraph. Action verbs, words pairing up and rubbing against each other, drawing together like magnets, poetry. The point is to start writing, and sometimes the easiest way to do that is to start a good old fashioned list. After all, that which we do not have words for is lost. And days without a list seem filled with the potential for disaster. But the art of list-making is not hard to master. Just ask Elizabeth Bishop:

One Art

The art of losing isn’t hard to master;

so many things seem filled with the intent

to be lost that their loss is no disaster.

 _

Lose something every day. Accept the fluster

of lost door keys, the hour badly spent.

The art of losing isn’t hard to master.

_ 

Then practice losing farther, losing faster:

places, and names, and where it was you meant 

to travel. None of these will bring disaster.

_ 

I lost my mother’s watch. And look! my last, or

next-to-last, of three loved houses went.

The art of losing isn’t hard to master.

_ 

I lost two cities, lovely ones. And, vaster,

some realms I owned, two rivers, a continent.

I miss them, but it wasn’t a disaster.

_ 

–Even losing you (the joking voice, a gesture

I love) I shan’t have lied. It’s evident

the art of losing’s not too hard to master

though it may look like (Write it!) like disaster.

From keys to hours to places and names and continents and lovers lost--loss accumulates in seriatim, that is, in a series. Of course you may list as many details as you like, but finding meaning in them is something else. Lydia Davis, that MacArthur genius of microfiction, reflects on loss in a circular way.

Lost Things

They are lost, but also not lost but somewhere in the world. Most of them are small, though two are larger, one a coat and one a dog. Of the small things, one is a certain ring, one a certain button. They are lost from me and where I am, but they are also not gone. They are somewhere else, and they are there to someone else, it may be. But if not there to someone else, the ring is, still, not lost to itself, but there, only not where I am, and the button, too, there, still, only not where I am.

In “The Outing” Davis uses the art of the list to create a one-sentence story that briefly sketches what appears to be the end of a relationship, a list of parallel phrases subtly pushing the narrative forward.

The Outing

An outburst of anger near the road, a refusal to speak on the path, a silence in the pine woods, a silence across the old railroad bridge, an attempt to be friendly in the water, a refusal to end the argument on the flat stones, a cry of anger on the steep bank of dirt, a weeping among the bushes.

[alwayssummerblog]

Florida Georgia Line’s Stylish Tour Secret

Ever wondered why Brian Kelley and Tyler Hubbard of Florida Georgia Line rocked such styling threads? Well it all has to do with hitting up the best vintage clothing shops when they aren't tearing up the stage on tour!

The talented duo will soon be embarking on their 2017 Smooth Tour with road mates hip-hop star Nelly, Boy Band The Back street Boys and fellow country singer Chris Lane. While the group of performers may be unconventional for a country tour, there’s no lack of excitement from fans when these guys roll into town, kicking off June 2 in Austin, Texas. With the upcoming mega-tour, FGL’s Kelley and Hubbard were sure to have some fun tour secrets and we just had to find out!

Learn how the country sensations remain so styling while cruising the road in the exclusive clip below:

For more exclusive content on Florida Georgia Line, check back into megacountry.com and don't miss the boys on their upcoming 2017 Smooth Tour, with tickets available here!

Florida Georgia Line's Smooth Tour dates:

6/2 – Austin, TX @ Austin360 Amphitheater 6/3 – Dallas, TX @ Starplex Pavilion 6/15 – Wantagh, NY @ Northwell Health at Jones Beach Theater 6/16 – Darien Center, NY @ Darien Lake Performing Arts Center 6/17 – Philadelphia, PA @ BB&T Pavilion 6/24 – Indianapolis, IN @ Klipsch Music Center 6/25 – St. Louis, MO @ Hollywood Casino Amphitheatre 7/21 – Raleigh, NC @ Coastal Credit Union Music Park at Walnut Creek 7/22 – Hershey, PA @ Hershey Park Stadium 7/23 – Saratoga Springs, NY @ Saratoga Performing Arts Center 7/27 – Tulsa, OK @ BOK Center 8/3 – Charlotte, NC @ PNC Music Pavilion 8/4 – Virginia Beach, VA @ Veterans United Home Loans Amphitheater at Virginia Beach 8/5 – Bristow, VA @ Jiffy Lube Live 8/10 – Bethel, NY @ Bethel Woods Center for the Arts 8/11 – Cleveland, OH @ Blossom Music Center 8/17 – Holmdel, NJ @ PNC Bank Arts Center 8/18 – Hartford, CT @ Xfinity Theater 8/19 – Pittsburgh, PA @ KeyBank Pavilion 9/7 – Anaheim, CA @ Honda Center 9/8 – San Bernardino, CA @ Glen Helen Amphitheater 9/9 – San Diego, CA @ Mattress Firm Amphitheatre 9/10 – Phoenix, AZ @ Ak-Chin Pavilion 9/14 – Wheatland, CA @ Toyota Amphitheatre 9/15 – Concord, CA @ Concord Pavilion 9/16 – Mountain View, CA @ Shoreline Amphitheatre 9/21 – Kennewick, WA @ Toyota Center 9/22 – Missoula, MT @ Adams Center 9/23 – Bozeman, MT @ Brick Breeden Fieldhouse 9/29 – Salt Lake City, UT @ USANA Amphitheatre 9/30 – Denver, CO @ Pepsi Center 10/1 – Albuquerque, NM @ Isleta Amphitheater 10/6 – Seattle, WA @ White River Amphitheatre 10/7 – Portland, OR @ Sunlight Supply Amphitheater 10/12 – Jacksonville, FL @ Jacksonville Veterans Memorial Arena 10/13 – Tampa, FL @ MIDFLORIDA Credit Union Amphitheatre 10/14 – West Palm Beach, FL @ Perfect Vodka Amphitheater 10/19 – Birmingham, AL @ Oak Mountain Amphitheatre 10/20 – Alpharetta, GA @ Verizon Amphitheater 10/21 – Alpharetta, GA @ Verizon Amphitheater

[snarkyoracle]

This year, the hardest touring company in comics is upping the stakes with more dates, more conventions, and more opportunities to meet your favorite creators than ever before!

Valiant is proud to unveil its first round of dates and destinations for the VALIANT 2017 CONVENTION TOUR – a months-long, cross-country comics roadshow coming soon to a town near you! Kicking off this March with multiple exciting events, Valiant’s touring convention crew is charging through from west to east throughout the spring and summer with stops in Chicago, Dallas, Denver, Los Angeles, and many more along the way:

Thursday, March 2nd – Friday, March 5th Emerald City Comicon Washington State Convention Center Seattle, WA

Saturday, March 25th – Sunday, March 26th SC Comicon TD Convention Center Greeneville, SC

Friday, March 31st – Sunday, April 2nd WonderCon Anaheim Convention Center Los Angeles, CA

Friday, March 31st – Sunday, April 2nd FanExpo Dallas Dallas Convention Center Dallas, TX

Saturday, April 15th Fried Pie Con 2nd & Charles Broomfield, CO

Friday, April 21st – Sunday, April 23rd C2E2 McCormick Place Chicago, IL

Saturday, April 22nd – Sunday, April 23rd L.A. Times Festival of Books University of Southern California Campus Los Angeles, CA

Friday, April 28th – Sunday, April 30th Planet Comic Con Bartle Hall Kansas City, MO

Friday, May 12th – Sunday, May 14th Comicpalooza George R. Brown Convention Center Houston, TX

Saturday, May 13th – Sunday, May 14th Tidewater Comicon Virginia Beach Convention Center Virginia Beach, VA

Saturday, May 20th – Sunday, May 21st Five Points Festival Pier 36 New York, NY

Thursday, May 25th – Sunday, May 28th Phoenix Comicon Phoenix Convention Center Phoenix, AZ

Saturday, June 24th – Sunday, June 25th ID10T Music Festival and Comic Conival Shoreline Amphitheater San Francisco, CA

Friday, June 30th – Sunday, July 2nd Denver Comic Con Colorado Convention Center Denver, CO

* Stay tuned for more dates to be announced all year long!*

Next stop: The entire Valiant team is heading to Greenville, SC for SC Comicon 2017! From Saturday, March 25th to Sunday, March 26th, get up close and personal with Valiant’s brightest stars at the TD Convention Center for an action-packed weekend bursting with exclusive releases, special guests, panels, and more!

Swing by the Valiant booth all weekend long, and dive into the most acclaimed superhero universe in comics with a complete collection of trade paperbacks and hardcovers featuring Valiant’s critically acclaimed line of titles, including  BLOODSHOT REBORN, BRITANNIA, DIVINITY, FAITH, NINJAK, X-O MANOWAR, and more!

Then, prepare for war as Valiant teams up with Greenville’s own Borderlands Comics & Games for the X-O MANOWAR #1 BORDERLANDS EXCLUSIVE VARIANT, featuring the raw pencil artwork of explosive artist and SC Comicon special guest Lewis LaRosa (Bloodshot Reborn)! The year’s biggest superhero sci-fi epic begins here with the FIRST ISSUE of the EPIC NEW ONGOING SERIES from New York Times best-selling writer Matt Kindt (Divinity, Mind MGMT) and Valiant-exclusive rising star Tomas Giorello (Bloodshot Reborn, Batman and Robin) that will push Aric of Dacia beyond the farthest limits of our galaxy…and into the brutal opening salvo of the ultimate X-O Manowar tale ever told! Available only at the Borderlands Comics & Games booth!

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Plus: Be sure to visit the legion of extraordinary Valiant talent that’s storming into SC Comicon all weekend long, including:

Meghan Hetrick (Artist, Faith) Lewis LaRosa (Artist, Bloodshot Reborn, Savage) Brian Reber (Colorist, Bloodshot U.S.A., Savage) Rafer Roberts (Writer, A&A: The Adventures of Archer & Armstrong, Harbinger Renegade) Robert Venditti (Writer, Wrath of the Eternal Warrior, X-O Manowar)

Plus: Valiant is offering portfolio reviews for aspiring artists all weekend long! Have Valiant’s acclaimed editorial team review your work and give you the inside track on what it takes to make it in comics. Individual portfolios reviewed on a first-come, first-serve basis.

Then: Celebrate the silver anniversary of Valiant’s number-one hero at the VALIANT: 25 YEARS OF X-O MANOWAR panel presentation on Saturday, March 25th! This March, Valiant celebrates 25 years of its most enduring comic book icon as best-selling writer Matt Kindt and a rotating cast of powerhouse interior artists launch a stunning new beginning in the all-new X-O MANOWAR #1! Now, right here at SCCC, join a blockbuster roundtable of Valiant’s greatest talents for an in-depth discussion of X-O Manowar’s landmark place in comics history…and a special look forward at the must-read new series of 2017!

Finally: Witness the future that lies ahead for your favorite heroes and antagonists with VALIANT: THE ROAD TO HARBINGER WARS 2 panel presentation on Sunday, March 26th! The road to Valiant’s biggest, most ambitious and most impactful comic book event of all time starts right here at SCCC with a superstar cast of Valiant creators and staff! Jump on board here to find out what the future holds for HARBINGER RENEGADE, X-O MANOWAR, BLOODSHOT, FAITH, DIVINITY, NINJAK, and the rest of Valiant’s most powerful heroes…and how the coming of HARBINGER WARS 2 will soon be felt across the entire Valiant Universe with all-new news and artwork!

We’ll see you in the Palmetto State!

For more information, visit Valiant on Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, Instagram, and ValiantUniverse.com.

For Valiant merchandise and more, visit ValiantStore.com

Valiant 2017 Convention Tour Schedule This year, the hardest touring company in comics is upping the stakes with more dates, more conventions, and more opportunities to meet your favorite creators than ever before!

[wigmund]

From NASA Earth Observatory Image of the Day; February 4, 2017:

Houston at Night

Houston, Texas, is about to become the center of the football universe.

Since September 2016, professional U.S. football teams have been vying to advance to the annual championship game. Two out of 32 teams remain, and on February 5, 2017, the New England Patriots will line up against the Atlanta Falcons at NRG Stadium for Super Bowl LI (51). It marks the third time that the National Football League has selected Houston to host the event.

The city lights of Houston, including the stadium, are visible in this photograph shot by an astronaut on August 9, 2014. At the time, the stadium had just recently been renamed NRG (previously Reliant). The names reflect the major role of energy resource industries in the city. Stadium lights will still shine even after a Super Bowl winner has been declared. The NFL’s Houston Texans play there, and it is the site of other sporting events, concerts, and a rodeo.

Lights also shine from Johnson Space Center, a permanent hub of NASA’s universe. On February 1, 2017, two American astronauts on the International Space Station called down to Johnson to welcome fans to Super Bowl festivities.

Elsewhere around the city, lights are especially noticeable along the Buffalo Bayou, which flows east through the city to Galveston Bay. The waterway is Houston’s main drainage corridor, and has played an important role in the city’s industrial and economic growth. The river itself is barely visible in this image; it is primarily discernable by the absence of light between dense clusters of light from refineries and other industrial sites along the shoreline.

City lights also reveal the geometric patterns of the city’s roadways. Beltway 8 rings the city with 134 kilometers (83 miles) of pavement. Interstate 610 is the smaller loop that passes just south of NRG stadium. Major roads radiate like spokes from the central Houston, connecting the patchwork of business districts with urban and suburban areas.

References and Related Reading:

The Center for Land Use Interpretation (2009) A Tour of Houston’s Water and Oil. Accessed February 3, 2017.

The Dallas Morning News (2014, March) Houston’s Reliant Stadium renamed NRG Stadium. Accessed February 3, 2017.

NASA Blogs: Space Station (2017, February 1) Astronauts Welcome Super Bowl Fans and Explore Gut Microbes.

NASA Earth Observatory (2010, November 15) Reliant Park Area, Houston, Texas.

NASA Earth Observatory (2010, March 22) Houston, Texas at Night.

SB Nation (2017, February 2) Super Bowl host bids: Big game will be held in Houston for 3rd time. Accessed February 3, 2017.

Astronaut photograph ISS040-E-90959 was acquired on August 9, 2014, with a Nikon D3S digital camera using a 200 millimeter lens, and is provided by the ISS Crew Earth Observations Facility and the Earth Science and Remote Sensing Unit, Johnson Space Center. The image was taken by a member of the Expedition 40 crew. The image has been cropped and enhanced to improve contrast, and lens artifacts have been removed. The International Space Station Program supports the laboratory as part of the ISS National Lab to help astronauts take pictures of Earth that will be of the greatest value to scientists and the public, and to make those images freely available on the Internet. Additional images taken by astronauts and cosmonauts can be viewed at the NASA/JSC Gateway to Astronaut Photography of Earth. Caption by Kathryn Hansen. Instrument(s): ISS - Digital Camera