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joncrawford · 5 years ago

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Best of COVID-2019: (Late) 2019 End of Year Wrap-up

Even though we’re well into 2020, most of us would probably swallow a pill that makes us forget the year so far. With a new job, I got too busy to do an end-of-year wrap-up of my picks for the best albums, movies and shows of 2019, so assuming you’ve swallowed your Hindsight Pill™ (get it?, cause hindsight is 20..ok, fair if you stop reading now) here’s my take on the best music, movies and shows of 2019. Maybe you’ll find something to make the rest of quarantine a little better.

ALBUMS

Remind Me Tomorrow by Sharon Van Etten on Spotify

It’s hard to find a better album this year. It’s heartfelt, gentle in places / wild in others, it pushes her sound forward from her more folky records of the past and gives us the opportunity to gaze into this sensitive she-hulk of an artist’s soul.

Favorite Track: Jupiter 4 - Jupiter 4, a song by Sharon Van Etten on Spotify

Lux Prima by Karen O on Spotify

This concept album by Karen O (“Yeah Yeah Yeahs”) and Danger Mouse (“Broken Bells”, “Gnarls Barkley”) can best be described as a record composed by badass feminine superhero from the future who has a nostalgic fascination with soundtracks from 70s European love story films. It’s phenomenal. The chord progressions are unusual and interesting. The vibe is consistent throughout. It’s a great record to listen to intentionally or a perfect soundtrack to a day outside with friends.

Favorite Track: Nox Lumina - Nox Lumina, a song by Karen O, Danger Mouse on Spotify

Lana Del Rey - “Norman F*ing Rockwell“ (censored for my mom)

I get it. You stopped following Lana after “Summertime Sadness”. She’s not your jam. She’s vapid. There’s something about her appearance that you don’t like (Didn’t she get her lips done?). She doesn’t make serious music. Here’s the thing though: You’re f*cking wrong (censored for mom). LDR is one of the most prolific songwriters and performers we’ve got. This artist has evolved with each album and the songwriting keeps improving. This is her best album to date. The lyrics take on deeper themes than her prior records and any ego on previous submissions seems to have been replaced by a general comfort in herself and the discomfort of her experiences and relationships (fictional or not). This is also her release with the lightest touch. She’s not pushing the LDR persona anymore, she’s being herself — take it or leave it. It’s her, your little Venice B!tch (censored for mom). Hi, mom!

Favorite song: Venice Bitch, a song by Lana Del Rey on Spotify

Phoenix by Pedro The Lion on Spotify

This is my favorite artist’s first studio album in 15 years. (!!!) It’s not technically fair to say that because he released several color records in the interim. As a largely one-man show, the DNA was very much the same. But this is a true return to form for the the man known as David Bazan that I’ve been following carefully for 20 years and have seen live too many times to count.

This is a concept album (most of them are) about his experience growing up in Phoenix, AZ. But it’s more about growing up than about Arizona. I got goosebumps and watery eyes the first time I listened carefully to the lyrics of “Yellow Bike” which tells about the experience of getting your first bicycle as a little boy around 1990. For me, this was the apex of my childhood. Absolute freedom and the ability to easily join any pack of desperado bike kids.

The album hits hard with the catchy hooks, introspective lyrics, challenging topics and excellent production & instrumental performances only using standard rock staples like guitar, bass and drums (with a couple quick appearances of an organy synth).

Lyrics, melody & a great beat. This is a fantastic rock album.

Favorite song: Yellow Bike, a song by Pedro The Lion on Spotify

WHEN WE ALL FALL ASLEEP, WHERE DO WE GO? by Billie Eilish on Spotify

Much has been written about this wunderkind. You know her. It’s a great album. She has a promising career ahead of her.

Favorite song: when the party’s over, a song by Billie Eilish on Spotify

SOUND & FURY by Sturgill Simpson on Spotify

This album slays. It’s a badass rock album. If you don’t know Sturgill Simpson, he’s technically a country act… BUT! He’s entirely rejected the conventions of modern country with its shallow lyrical content, right-wing dog whistling and computer-assisted faux harmonies. He sings about psychedelics, his problems with religion and also covers 80s synth-pop in country ballad fashion. Well, forget all that for this record. It’s a banger. This record sounds like Waylon Jennings was cloned 100 years in the future and brought back just to record a ZZ Top album. Major leap for this artist. One of the best of the year.

Favorite song: Make Art Not Friends, a song by Sturgill Simpson on Spotify

ANIMA by Thom Yorke on Spotify

We’ve had a complicated relationship with Thom Yorke’s solo work. As the lead singer of Radiohead, we’ve had to give deference to literally anything with his name on it. But his prior solo works have waded into the avant-garde and we’re entirely listenable in a casual way throughout. This has changed. This record is a masterwork. In fact, it demanded a beautiful short film directed by Paul Thomas Anderson (“The Master”, “There Will Be Blood”) released on Netflix earlier in the year featuring no dialogue and Thom and his wife is choreographed love affair starting during a mundane commute. My favorite track is the most peaceful and introspective on the album.

Favorite song: Dawn Chorus, a song by Thom Yorke on Spotify

Fear Inoculum by TOOL on Spotify

It’s TOOL’s first album in 13 years. WHAT. It’s fantastic. Worth the wait? Hell no because that’s too long to wait for almost anything. There are people with Snapchat accounts that weren’t alive when “10,000 Days” came out (2006). 728,000,000 people (presumably, all TOOL fans) died since their last album. I can’t, in good conscience, condone the deprivation of 3/4 of a billion people like that. But it’s SO good. This is metal for people that don’t like metal (I don’t really like metal).

Favorite song: Pneuma, a song by TOOL on Spotify

Screamer by Third Eye Blind on Spotify

I may be literally this bands only fan still paying attention, but I don’t care. They’re still writing fantastic tracks. This was one of my heavy-hitter bands in high school. I learned every song from their first two albums on the guitar. Then I stopped paying attention for like 13 years. In 2016, I ran across a new single by the band and went in with a lot of trepidation. Most bands from your high school years should probably leave it there. There's nothing worse than a band desperately trying to stay relevant with weak ass releases well beyond their shelf life (cough Goo Goo Dolls –– They've put out 4 albums in the last 10 years. 🤦‍♂️) But then I heard Third Eye Blind's pro-Black Lives Matter track “Cop vs. Phone Girl, a song by Third Eye Blind on Spotify” released in 2016. Go back and listen to that one. It's not only catchy as hell, but it's got a gut punch of a message about how shitty is it to be a well-meaning black student in a white-dominated power structure that's supposed to be a safe place like school.

Well 2019’s “Screamer” doesn’t disappoint either. It’s all the same energy and hooks of the band’s early sound with an updated feel and sensibility that still feels like a relevant rock album. All the same things you came to Third Eye for in the past is right here waiting for you on “Screamer”. I know I’m gonna get some flack for this one, but…shut up.

Favorite song: Ways, a song by Third Eye Blind on Spotify Bonus points if you catch the “Outside Lands” ref.

i,i by Bon Iver on Spotify

Short review for people who know how to pronounce the name correctly: It’s a Bon Iver record. Listen to it.

Longer review: It’s pronounced “Bone ee-VAIR” based on the French bon hiver, meaning “good winter”. If this is news to you, here’s a nugget from an interview where the main figure in the band explains it:

When I was living up north I wrote a letter. I’d come across a story about this Alaskan town that the people, the first snow of every year, they come out of their houses and gather in town square. They hug and kiss each other and they say “Bon Iver.” I was like, “whatever that is, that’s cool!” … Then I found out how it’s spelled and it was sort of disappointing. I didn’t like how it looked. It didn’t have any emotion. Looking at it didn’t make any sense. I wanted to look at it and feel something. It was sort of a compromise. I sorta wanted it to be like “Bon Iverre,” sort of like how I saw it, but that didn’t look good either, so I just decided to chop off the “h.” Bon Iver | Pitchfork

OK, now that you’re caught up. I guess you haven’t been paying attention, but Justin Vernon or Bon Iver (DBA) is one of the luminaries of the music industry. This grammy-winning dude-band has collaborated with Kanye, Jay-Z, James Blake, Travis $cott, Poliça, Ani DiFranco, Vince Staples, Eminem, Bruce Hornsby and more. But if you need me to explain any of this to you, do yourself a favor and go back and listen to his other 3 studio albums. Every one of them is treasure.

Favorite Song: Hey, Ma, a song by Bon Iver on Spotify This song makes the top 5 of all the tracks he’s released.

MUSIC - Honorable Mentions

Amyl and The Sniffers by Amyl and The Sniffers on Spotify

Two Hands by Big Thief on Spotify

I vs I by Alex Ebert on Spotify

Face Stabber by Thee Oh Sees on Spotify

Infest The Rats’ Nest by King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard on Spotify

MOVIES

Hail Satan? (Hulu)

JustWatch

Hilarious look at a group trying to make Free Speech really free.

youtube

Once Upon a Time in Hollywood

Duh. Also I got low-key obsessed with cults after I watched this.

MONOS

Incredible Spanish language drama about child soldiers in South America. Great acting by unknowns.

youtube

Green Book -Duh

Duh. Won an Best Picture.

Parasite

Duh. Won Best Picture.

Joker

Duh. Won life.

Greener Grass

JustWatch

The weirdest movie I saw all year. Bizarre and hilarious. Written by the two actresses who star.

Apollo 11

INCREDIBLE documentary about the first moon landing mission featuring a ton of footage I’d never seen and assembled into such a magnificent narrative. You feel like it’s happening in real-time today. The last time mankind was united around one hope.

youtube

SHOWS

The OA - Season 2 (Netflix)

This was one of the most beautiful creations I’ve seen. Epic followup to the first season which seemed like an impossible act to follow. Netflix canned the show, but there’s still hope it will get a resurrection through another venue.

Watchmen (HBO)

This is a sequel to the critically acclaimed graphic novel from the late 80s. You should read the novel first. As stated two sentences ago, this is a sequel set 34 years after the events of the novel.

The Boys (Amazon)

This is the first realistic superhero story. Why have we always assumed that those with superior or supernatural powers would be intrinsically good and seek to served mankind? Regular humans don’t even act like that toward each other. In this world the soops are like paid athletes and are secretly total pricks. Well made and begging for a second season.

Chernobyl (HBO)

Haven’t seen this? What is wrong with you? It’s in the top 5 highest rated shows of all time on IMDB. One thing I’ll note is that it did a good job separating the characterization of the soviet people from the soviet government. The everyday soviet people in the story came out looking like heroes while the government lived up to its reputation. It made me a lot more curious about soviet history which has led me to other movies, books and Wikipedia rabbit holes. Watch this for the historical value, at a minimum. It’s not as gory as you might be afraid it is.

Love Death + Robots (Netflix)

I love sci-fi and I love weird animation so this just brought it home for me. The episodes are often short and sort of feel like Twilight Zone episodes, each with their own mini narrative or moral lesson. Each episode is made by a different creator or team, so the variety is part of the curb appeal. Great binge material.

#lateMusicReviews musicReviews

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guapo-t-w · 7 years ago

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Local Tidewater VA Beer Festivals

Upcoming Local Beer Fests:

Fri, Oct 6 - October First Friday, Hosted by Downtown Norfolk, 5 - 8:30 pm, 300 Block of Granby Street, Downtown Norfolk. Downtown Norfolk's favorite Friday night street party is back for its fifth season! Each First Fridays event runs from 5-8:30 pm and features music (this week Fleet Forces Rock Band and DJ CanRock), food and merchandise vendors and a beer and wine garden all in an authentic downtown setting. Get ready to grab some friends & have some fun!

Sat, Oct 7 - The Noblemen present Oktoberfest 2017, 1 - 5:00 pm, Hunt Club Farm, 2388 London Bridge Rd., Virginia Beach. The BIGGEST and BEST Oktoberfest Celebration in Hampton Roads! All you care to drink eat, Craft Beers, Wine and Food. There will be fun for the whole family all day long including: Authentic German food; Large variety of micro brews; Live music featuring "Cover This" 3-5 pm; Kids area including: inflatables, bounces, petting zoo and hayrides. Tickets are all inclusive: (includes all you can eat / drink, entertainment and parking). Adult Tickets - $50 in advance and $60 at the gate. Children's Tickets - $15 in advance and $20 at the gate. Family Ticket Package - (includes 2 adult and 2 children's tickets) - $110. VIP Package - (includes 10 tickets, a private / enclosed area for you and your guests, 10 x beer steins filled with goodies, waitress service from the Bierfraus, access to the VIP bar - $1000. Tickets on sale now at: www.thenoblemen.org

Sat, Oct 7 - Crawlin' Crab 5K and Craft Brew Fest, 8:30 am - 11:00 pm, Hampton Roads Convention Center, 1610 Coliseum Dr., Hampton. Celebrate your 5K and Half Marathon finish this year at a Craft Brew Fest / Post Race Party on Saturday, October 7th and Sunday, October 8th immediately following your race outside the Hampton Roads Convention Center. Enjoy live music, delicious Kickin' Corn and Crab Chowder from Baker's Crust and ice cold brews. More details coming soon! http://crawlincrabhalf.com/

Sat, Oct 7 - Chelsea West Fest 2017, 12 - 6:00 pm, On the street 600 Claremont Ave, Norfolk. Meet us in Chelsea, Norfolk's newest beer, food, retail and fun district for Chelsea West Fest October 7, 2017. Chelsea West Fest, hosted by and benefiting Hope House Foundation, will be a full-day celebrating what makes this region great: local crafters, talented local musicians, local beers and brews, and the unique eateries just steps away from the festival. Gates open at noon!

Thu, Oct 12 - 2017 Kiwanis Harbor Party & Seafood Fest, Hosted by Kiwanis Club of Norfolk, 4 - 7:00 pm, Town Point Park, 201 Waterside Dr., Norfolk. The 25th annual Harbor Party, presented by Kiwanis Club of Norfolk, is three fun-filled hours at a beautiful venue on Norfolk's Waterfront filled with seafood, craft beer and wine, live music, friends, and networking. The money raised will be donated to local children's charities, from CHKD to the Edmarc Hospice for Children. Tickets are $35 in advance. Admission includes all-you-can-eat seafood, barbecue and beer and wine. Click here to purchase tickets: https://harborparty.org/get-tickets/

Sat, Oct 14 - 2017 YSC Fall Beer and Wine Bash, Camp Pendleton, 12 - 5:00 pm, Virginia Beach. Join us for the 2017 YSC Fall Beer and Wine Bash! We will be serving beer, wine, barbeque, chicken, chili, gumbo and our famous crawfish boil. All you can eat and drink. Live entertainment by Little Country and Family Tree. Cornhole players, get there early and sign up for the cornhole tournament. First Prize wins 2 tickets to our Spring event. All for only $55.00*! All proceeds go to fund children's charities in Hampton Roads. You must be 21 to enter the party and there will be a 100% ID check to enter Camp Pendleton. *The $5.00 per ticket convenience fee will be waived for online purchases made before September 15th.

Sat, Oct 14 - Chic's Beach Fall Festival - Blues & BBQ, Hk on the Bay, 12 - 8:00 pm, 4600 Lookout Rd., Virginia Beach. Tickets will be $25 each and will include entry into the festival, a really sweet commemorative 16oz Chic's Beach Festival cup and FOOD! Upon entry you will be given your commemorative Festival Cup and ONE (1) food ticket per person, to be redeemed at any point during the festival. (should you lose your food ticket or would like to purchase another plate, there will be a $10 fee for another food ticket). Hk on the Bay is teaming up with Mike Clifford from CXB BBQ AND EATS to provide you with some of the best BBQ & fixins on the east coast! (there will be veggie options). We have partnered with Speedy's Hot Sauce - Jimmy Miller to bring you THE BEST damn hot sauce in VA to Chic's Beach Festival. It is our absolute pleasure to announce that our great friends from Young Veterans Brewing Company will be out in full force pouring their beers! **stay tuned for the draft line up. In addition to Young Vets beer, we will be serving crafted cocktails from Woodford Reserve, Sailor Jerry & Tito's Handmade Vodka. Also attending Chic's Beach Fall Festival is our bros at the oceanfront, Three Ships Coffee & North End Bag Co. & The Stockpot.

Sat, Oct 14 - 3rd Annual Cogans Pumpkin Beer Fest, Cogans North, 1:00 pm, 4311 Colley Ave., Norfolk. Come join us for our Third Annual Pumpkin Beer Fest. We'll have: 10+ Breweries; 20+ Pumpkin Beers; 12+ Seasonal Beers! Tasting Tickets: $15 Advance/ $20 @ Door. Live Music by 'Snicklefritz Scheme '. Family Friendly and $8.99 All Day Pizza Buffet. Proceeds Benefit the Norfolk Police & Fire Museum.

Sat, Oct 14 - Craft Beer Bash at War Memorial Stadium, 1 - 5:00 pm, 1889 W Pembroke Ave., Hampton. Our Second Annual Craft Beer Bash presented by Jungle Gym Strength and Conditioning LLC. Join us on Saturday, October 14th for an afternoon of great beers at the ballpark. This is a charity festival with proceeds from every ticket purchased going to the Boys and Girls Clubs of the Virginia Peninsula. Your ticket includes unlimited craft beer tastings, a souvenir pint glass, and every ticket sold benefits the Boys & Girls Club of the Virginia Peninsula. There will also be food trucks, music, yard games, and many vendors. https://warmemorialcraftbeerbash.eventbrite.com/

Sun, Oct 15 - Treasure Chest Beer + Food Fest - Virginia Beach, Green Flash Brewing Co. Virginia Beach, 12 - 5:00 pm, 1209 Craft Lane, Virginia Beach. The annual Treasure Chest Beer + Food Fest is back for a 4th year in Virginia Beach with all festival proceeds benefiting Susan G. Komen Tidewater! Enjoy exclusive Green Flash, Cellar 3, and Alpine beers (including one-off keg and cask creations), served alongside plates from our wonderful Virginia restaurant partners. In addition to the delicious beer and food, we've got live music, games, Behind-the-Craft demonstrations and more! The tropical Hawaiian Luau theme is back by popular demand so grab your best Tiki attire! Hawaiian shirts, grass skirts, and retro-inspired island kitsch apparel is encouraged. All tickets include unlimited beer tasting, 10 food tastings commemorative glass, and festival experience: Over 20 options of rare beer, cask, and barrel-aged creations from Green Flash, Cellar 3, and Alpine Beer Co. with unlimited tasting; Food pairings prepared by some of our favorite local restaurants; Behind the Craft: culinary demos and bonus tastings taking place throughout the event; Photo booth; Vendor village

Thu-Fri, Oct 19-20 - The NEON Festival 2017, Neon District, Norfolk. Save the date! The *third* NEON Festival is coming back to NFK Thursday, October 19 and Friday, October 19, 2017! This free festival welcomes everyone to experience the NEON District through art exhibitions, local and national performances and mural tours. Highlights of the 2017 celebration include: Third Thursday at the Chrysler Museum and Glass Studio and d'Art Center, 5-10 pm; The Plot Beer Garden and entertainment Friday evening, 6-10 pm; Norfolk Public Art Commission ribbon cutting Friday at 5:30 pm. Visit this page for updates on all the performances, entertainment, food & drinks and public art that will ignite the district. It's going to electric! www.facebook.com/events/107208306622133/

Fri, Oct 20 - Fourth Annual Tidewater Builders Association (TBA) Shucked in the Park, 24th Street Park, 3 - 6:00 pm, the Ocean Front, Virginia Beach. Join your friends and colleagues for great food, cold beverages and live music at TBA's fourth annual Shucked in the Park event, at Virginia Beach's 24th Street Park. Proceeds will benefit TBA's Building Trades Academy. Movement Mortgage is the event's Presenting Sponsor. Tickets go on sale soon! www.facebook.com/events/1350836898364124/

Sat/Sun, Oct 21/22 - Virginia Beach Craft Beer Festival, 31st Street Park, 1 - 6:00 pm, Atlantic Ave., Virginia Beach Oceanfront. Over 50 craft beers from over 25 breweries will be available for sampling at the Virginia Beach Craft Beer Festival. Tickets include unlimited sampling, a commemorative cup, and live entertainment. A limited number of tickets will be available each day. It is not recommended that children attend this event. It is designed to be a 21+ festival. https://www.beachstreetusa.com/festivals/virginia-beach-craft-beer-festival

Sat, Oct 21 - Partake 'N Portsmouth, Hosted by Portsmouth Partnership, 5 - 9:00 pm, 3321 Tyre Neck Rd., Chesapeake. Bring your family and friends to sample some great new restaurants and breweries. Advance tickets $40 available until October 13th. $50 at the door. Ticket proceeds support our mission promoting economic development, education, and leadership in the City of Portsmouth. https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_s-xclick&hosted_button_id=CVNGB92RU7AVN

Sun, Oct 22 - 2017 GIVE A SHUCK, Hosted by Little Neck Circle of the King's Daughters, 4 - 8:00 pm, Leaping Lizard Cafe-Shore Drive, 4408 Shore Dr., Virginia Beach. 2017's event includes live music by Bennett Wales, a full dinner and oysters provided by Leaping Lizard, wine, beer truck and much, much more! Proceeds will benefit LNCKD's 2017 Absolutely Giving, providing personally shopped-for, wrapped, and delivered holiday gifts to many local children who may otherwise go without, CHKD, the CHKD Mobile ICU and other deserving organizations throughout Hampton Roads area! Online ticket sales are now open!! Purchase your 2017 Give a Shuck tickets in advance through the LNCKD online store: http://store.lnckd.org/

Fri, Oct 27 - Masquerade in Ghent, 6 - 10:00 pm, Colley Ave., Norfolk. Ghent's largest Halloween street party and costume contest - Masquerade in Ghent will take place in the heart of Ghent on Colley Avenue between Shirley Avenue and Brandon Avenue. Show off your Halloween costume at the annual Costume Contest Parade. The parade starts at 6:30 pm and judges will award cash prizes for "Best In Show," "Best Family or Group," and "Best Adult." Prize packets will be awarded to "Best Pet Costume," "Best Young Adult" (male & female ages 13-18 years old), "Best Child" (male & female ages 5-12), "Best Infant." Register for free online at: ghentnorfolk.org by Wednesday, October 25. There will be a $25 registration fee for entries submitted after October 25. ViewItDoIt will be streaming the parade live! Your out-of-town friends and family can see all of the fun. And, you will be able to provide live testimonials! After the parade, get ready for a monster mash with live music by MBMA Plus, there will be activities for kids, refreshments and adult beverages. Masquerade in Ghent is free and open to the public. Ample parking can be found along the streets and parking lots. Don't miss the frightfully, fun-tastic time at this year's Masquerade in Ghent!

Sat, Oct 28 - Party in the Park, Hosted by The Princess Anne Garden Club, 1 - 4:00 pm, First Landing State Park, 2500 Shore Drive, Virginia Beach. Mark your calendars for Saturday, October 28th for this fun event, Party in the Park! Enjoy live music while sipping on wine or beer. Explore the silent auction offering fabulous gift baskets, art, vacation homes, etc. Dine on delicious BBQ and chicken chili! Tickets $40 pre-sale and $45 Day of Event.

Sun, Nov 5 - House of Blues, Brews, and Stews, presented by Atlantic Shores, Virginia MOCA, 1 - 5:00 pm, 2200 Parks Avenue, Virginia Beach. Enjoy casual camaraderie at the Blues, Brews, and Stews, while listening to headlining act 'Love Canon' with opening act 'More Perfect Jones'! All the stews and blues you can handle | cash bar with craft brews | souvenir beer cup and wine glass | access to the Boardwalk Art Show silent auction | admission to MOCA's current exhibitions, including "Wayne White: Monitorium". **VIP EXCLUSIVE: Stews and blues with the VIP experience | Lounge in the tent next to the stage | 3 drink tickets | private bar gourmet grub by the Chefs at Atlantic Shores. Purchase Tickets: Early bird - $30 | $45 VIP; After Oct 16 - $40 |$55 VIP; At the door - $50 | $65 VIP. Children are welcome to attend, too! Ages 6 and under FREE, ages 7-12 are $15.

Sun, Nov 5 - 8th Annual Virginia Roast & Toast, Hosted by Hermitage Museum and Gardens, 3 - 6:00 pm, 7637 N Shore Rd., Norfolk. It’s a staple of the season! The Hermitage Young Associates Board presents the 8th Annual Virginia Roast & Toast. All-inclusive tickets include mouth-watering Virginia oysters and barbeque, our favorite local craft beers, wine, live music on the gorgeous shoreline, and the chance to bid on exclusive auction items from local businesses. All ticket buyers will receive free museum admission and the opportunity to see our outdoor Stickwork installation by artist Patrick Dougherty. $55.00 Hermitage Members; $65.00 Non-Members. All proceeds support the Hermitage’s year round schedule of one of a kind programs and exhibitions! Online tickets go on sale Monday, September 11th - this event has sold out 7 years in a row!

Sat, Nov 11 - Virginia Living Museum Oyster Roast Fundraiser, 3 - 6:00 pm, 524 J Clyde Morris Blvd., Newport News. Enjoy all-you-can-eat fresh local Rappahannock Oysters, fried seafood, chowder, dessert buffet, craft beers, wine, full bar, DJ/live music, commemorative glass, raffles & more at the Virginia Living Museum’s sixth annual Oyster Roast! Voted Best of the 757 Gold for Outdoor Festivals four years in a row by Coastal Virginia Magazine, this event is always a sell-out. Food will be provided by Mathews Lions Club and Waypoint Seafood & Grill. Desserts by Stratford University Culinary Students. New this year, the Virginia Living Museum has partnered with St. George Brewing Company to brew an exclusive Oyster Stout! Enjoy live music by Louis Vangieri and Phil Poteat. All proceeds benefit the Museum’s award winning educational programs and animal care needs. Tickets go on sale September 1. Tickets: $50, $60 week of event, Age 21 and up. Tickets include commemorative glass and two beverage tickets for beer or wine! https://thevlm.org/events/museum-events/oyster-roast/

Sat, Nov 18 - Oyster & South Festival, Hosted by Greenbrier Farms, 1 - 5:00 pm, 225 Sign Pine Rd., Chesapeake. Just as it is every year, Oyster & South will be held on the Saturday before Thanksgiving! We have found this date perfectly sets a "thankful" tone, that brings family, friends, and the community together to celebrate our heritage & lifestyle, and gladly "giving-back" to those who really need our support! This event is an amazing opportunity for you to create awareness, introduce or just re-affirm your business' community connection. If you are looking to connect with "salt of the earth" people, then this is your festival. It is only through the support and generosity of our community that we are able to produce Oyster & Southfestival each year and give back so much to great charities! See you on the farm!

Drink Happy - Be Safe

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reneeacaseyfl · 5 years ago

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Siggraph 2019 offers a sneak peek into what’s next for AR, VR, and CG

It’s hard to believe that the computer graphics conference Siggraph is celebrating its 46th birthday this year, but the annual event certainly doesn’t show any signs of middle age. Held this week at the Los Angeles Convention Center, Siggraph 2019 is all about the future of 2D and 3D digital worlds, attracting everyone from luminaries in pre-rendered CG to budding AR developers and VR artists.

Siggraph’s exhibition area opens today, adding to educational sessions that have been in progress since this weekend, and an “experiences” area that opened yesterday. I had the opportunity to attend the show’s official media preview and go hands-on with a bunch of this year’s most exciting innovations; here’s a photo tour of some of the best things I saw and tried.

Biggest wow moment: Il Divino – Sistine VR

There’s no shortage of sophisticated mixed reality hardware at Siggraph, but I was most impressed by a piece of software that really demonstrated VR’s educational and experiential potential. Christopher Evans, Paul Huston, Wes Bunn, and Elijah Dixson exhibited Il Divino: Michelangelo’s Sistine Ceiling in VR, an app that recreates the world-famous Sistine Chapel within the Unreal Engine, then lets you experience all of its artwork in ways that are impossible for tourists at the real site.

The app begins with a modestly impressive ground-level recreation of the Chapel. Epic’s Unreal Engine lets you see realistic marble barriers and ceramic floor tiles if you look closely, and you’ll have no trouble making out the individual paintings as you approach them, though you won’t confuse the faux wall curtains or other elements with reality. Even so, Il Divino’s developers provide an impressive audio and lightly visual guided tour through the space, making the most of an interface that’s largely about teleporting from place to place within a large box, and looking at art.

But everything changes when the app opens up access to a mechanical lifter and wooden scaffolding that elevate you to the Chapel’s ceiling. All of the sudden, you can control your up-close views of the paintings, and experience Michelangelo’s masterpiece Creation of Adam from the same perspective as the painter himself. The developers use VR — including your own fatigue after a comparatively brief session — to suggest how difficult the act of painting for hours (and months) on end must have been, while offering insights into the pacing and order of the works.

There are thousands of eye-melting VR experiences out there, and an equal number of dull “educational” ones. Il Divino succeeds because it’s hyper-realistic in a different way, using virtual reality to both simulate and go past the original experience, enabling a form of education that feels more open to personal exploration. It will be available for free later this year from SistineVR.com.

Cinema, group and individual

It wouldn’t be Siggraph without an exhibition of computer-generated movies, and the VR Theater at this year’s show is worth seeing. Fifty guests at a time are welcomed into the venue to see a collection of five different realtime CG shorts developed by separate studios, most notably including Disney’s happy cartoon A Kite’s Tale, Faber Courtial’s impressively realistic space odyssey 2nd Step, and Baobab’s charming interactive Bonfire. Below, Disney’s Bruce Wright welcomes early visitors to the VR Theater.

Once inside, viewers are seated in chairs with individual VR headsets, headphones, and two controllers, collectively experiencing the five shorts over a roughly one-hour session. A bank of high-end PCs sits in the center of the room, powering and synchronizing the experiences, though there’s little ongoing sense of collaboration between participants. Instead, it’s a VR theater where everyone’s watching pretty much the same thing, albeit from whatever angle a specific head is on, and — in some cases — with differences attributable to the shorts’ interactive elements.

In a smaller room elsewhere at Siggraph, New York-based Parallux is offering a more clearly shared experience. The company has developed a short story for group viewing that’s akin to watching a Broadway show with friends, but you could be watching it from anywhere.

Here, Parallux CEO Sebastian Herscher gestures towards a table surrounded by Magic Leap AR headsets, which seated viewers use to watch Mary and the Monster, a unique spin on Mary Shelley’s creation of the Frankenstein story. Strong voice acting and solid motion capture bring the animated experience to life within a diorama-like stage setting. Magic Leap wearers can use their controllers as magnifiers to zoom in on the individual actors, akin to opera glasses.

Each viewer sees the play-like performance appearing on the same table, and it’s synchronized across all of the headsets at once; it can also be watched using VR headsets, and can be scaled to fairly large local or remote audiences. This is a glimpse into what could be the future of plays, experienced holographically and from any seat in the house you prefer.

Apart from the examples above, most of the VR displays I saw at Siggraph were focused on individual experiences. One interesting exhibit, MIT Media Lab’s Deep Reality, used live heart rate, electrodermal, and brain activity monitoring to create an intensely personal relaxation and reflection experience. After someone lays down and dons a VR headset, Deep Reality uses “almost imperceptible light flickering, sound pulsations, and slow movements of underwater 3D creatures [to] reflect the internal state of the viewer.” Who wouldn’t love to kick back and relax to something so personally attenuated at home?

Next-generation AR eyewear

Two of Siggraph’s most notable hardware exhibits were Nvidia’s new prescription AR eyewear and foveated AR headset — both still in research stages, but available to test with prototypes. The prescription AR glasses offered a vision-corrected, see-through AR display solution, including a demo of how the lenses let viewers see optically sharp projections that appear to float within the real world.

In the prototype form, the glasses had small, clear ribbons that displayed projected virtual images such as colored bottles or an Nvidia logo in front of the lenses. They didn’t require cables, and were as lightweight as modern, inexpensive plastic glasses are today.

A separate demo showed off Nvidia’s work on a Foveated AR Display, which the company suggests will use gaze tracking to enable multi-layer depth in AR images. In the image below, you can see how a specific small gaze area tracked by the headset becomes sharper to your eye as the background becomes softer and less detailed.

Nvidia is touting the Foveated AR Display as a “dynamic fusion of foveal and peripheral display,” and releasing a research paper to accompany the project. It’s unclear when the technology will actually appear in a shipping product, but interesting to see Nvidia diving deeper into the AR world at this stage.

Next-generation haptics and immersion

Some of the other innovations at Siggraph are wild, if not crazy. For instance, Taipei Tech is showing off LiquidMask, a briefcase-sized face haptic solution that lets your face feel hot and cold liquid sensations in VR.

LiquidMask can deliver feedback and temperatures between 68 and 97 degrees Fahrenheit, potentially useful for underwater VR experiences — assuming, of course, that you’re willing to hook yourself up to something as large as this to experience those sensations.

Another company was taking steps towards a very different type of future with a gigantic prosthetic tail — something that one wouldn’t have expected to find at Siggraph. The tail can be used to augment someone’s existing sense of balance with a third stabilizing limb, or disrupt their balance for exercise or other purposes.

The prototype tail uses pneumatics, relying on a separate cabled air tank for motion, so there’s no need to worry about an imminent attack by The Lizard or Doctor Octopus. If it can be made portable (and quiet), it might wind up being useful for people with physical disabilities or motor limitations.

More small steps for Magic Leap

Magic Leap is offering two main demos at Siggraph’s “experience” area. Long lines were forming to try Mica, a demo of the company’s AI assistant, which presently can’t do much. Mica looks like a pixie-haired human woman, and at some point, will supposedly be able to speak with and guide headset wearers.

In the demo, you can look at her as she looks back at you, then silently follow her gestures to make an artistic collage together. It’s not particularly exciting stuff at this stage, but in a world where digital assistants such as Siri can spend years delivering hit-and-miss experiences, Magic Leap may well beat Apple to delivering a more compelling, fully-formed alternative.

Magic Leap’s other new demo, Undersea, lets users interact with a nearly photorealistic coral reef that appears within any room you choose, and a picture-sized portal window into the ocean on the wall. In addition to letting you walk around and view a piece of coral and small collection of fish, the demo lets you hold out your hand to generate bubbles and hold a fish in your palm, albeit with so-so tracking.

While the Siggraph demo is designed for a two-minute experience (and isn’t especially compelling), a full version of Undersea with more settings and depth has just been released for Magic Leap users. Regardless of how many or few of the $2,300 Magic Leap headsets have been sold, it’s clear at Siggraph that the company is working to actively push the platform forward.

Best of the rest

One of Siggraph’s greatest strengths is the diversity of computer-generated art it brings into focus for attendees. You mightn’t love all of it, but even some of the most basic concepts are thought-provoking.

John Wong’s RuShi interactive art exhibit above uses your birthdate and birth hour to generate, through some unspecified mechanism, a moving and colorful AI-based data flow that is presented on the central screen while prior users’ data appears on adjacent screens. It’s supposed to make you consider the amount of data about you that’s already being processed by AI in the real world, and whether that processing has any value.

A Siggraph-wide new focus on Adaptive Technology includes multiple Microsoft adaptive controllers, a touchscreen presentation of different adaptive technologies, and 11 sessions/talks on the subject.

Last but not least, David Shorey’s booth demonstrated the use of 3D printers to create real-world physical clothes that looked like they were straight out of video games and fantasy settings, including dragon scale-like fabrics that could be used for cosplay. His techniques yielded an incredible collection of different textures, surface treatments, and end products that look set to merge the worlds of CG and real-world fashion.

The future’s already here

My biggest takeaway from Siggraph 2019 is that the CG future some of us were expecting a decade or more ago is already here — if you know where to look. VR and AR aren’t ubiquitous at this point, but it’s obvious from this show that there are lots of smart people working to evolve CG from its early 2D roots into genuinely immersive, interactive 3D.

Attendees could spend nearly a week at Siggraph without fully grasping everything that’s underway with huge companies such as Disney and tiny groups of researchers across the world. Scenes like the one below, where a group of people are all sharing a computer-generated entertainment experience in VR, have become table stakes for VR as of 2019.

The question is “where does it go from here,” and there’s not just one good answer. If anything, Siggraph shows how many directions CG is heading in, and the reason is simple: hugely talented and creative people are now heavily invested in the futures of these technologies. At this point, the challenge is to polish and spread their ideas to as many people as possible, bringing what’s currently in the Los Angeles Convention Center out to everyone’s homes and public spaces.

Credit: Source link

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0 notes

velmaemyers88 · 5 years ago

Text

Siggraph 2019 offers a sneak peek into what’s next for AR, VR, and CG

Biggest wow moment: Il Divino – Sistine VR

Cinema, group and individual

Next-generation AR eyewear

Next-generation haptics and immersion

More small steps for Magic Leap

Best of the rest

A Siggraph-wide new focus on Adaptive Technology includes multiple Microsoft adaptive controllers, a touchscreen presentation of different adaptive technologies, and 11 sessions/talks on the subject.

The future’s already here

Credit: Source link

The post Siggraph 2019 offers a sneak peek into what’s next for AR, VR, and CG appeared first on WeeklyReviewer.

0 notes

weeklyreviewer · 5 years ago

Text

Siggraph 2019 offers a sneak peek into what’s next for AR, VR, and CG

Biggest wow moment: Il Divino – Sistine VR

Cinema, group and individual

Next-generation AR eyewear

Next-generation haptics and immersion

More small steps for Magic Leap

Best of the rest

A Siggraph-wide new focus on Adaptive Technology includes multiple Microsoft adaptive controllers, a touchscreen presentation of different adaptive technologies, and 11 sessions/talks on the subject.

The future’s already here

Credit: Source link

The post Siggraph 2019 offers a sneak peek into what’s next for AR, VR, and CG appeared first on WeeklyReviewer.

0 notes