Dresden Dolls in San Francisco

chrisla, tyrsalvia, veleda and xanadumalion caught the Dresden Dolls show at Bimbo's 365 Club in San Francisco last night, which was absolutely fabulous, nearly equaling the April 2005 show at the Great American. Once again, the Dolls were supported by the acrobatics of Vau de Vire Society, as well as their own Dirty Business Brigade.

tyrsalvia and I performed in the Brigade as an organ grinder with his friendly dancing gorilla (I was the grinder, Autumn was the gorilla) using a electronic "crank organ" that chrisla cooked up; photos of our performance are forthcoming.

You can see some more of my show photos here .

tyrsalvia and I are also going to their show tonight, and yes, we will be up to our monkey business with the Brigade again tonight.

Imagine Earth without people

12 October 2006
New Scientist Print Edition.
Bob Holmes

Humans are undoubtedly the most dominant species the Earth has ever known. In just a few thousand years we have swallowed up more than a third of the planet's land for our cities, farmland and pastures. By some estimates, we now commandeer 40 per cent of all its productivity. And we're leaving quite a mess behind: ploughed-up prairies, razed forests, drained aquifers, nuclear waste, chemical pollution, invasive species, mass extinctions and now the looming spectre of climate change. If they could, the other species we share Earth with would surely vote us off the planet.

Now just suppose they got their wish. Imagine that all the people on Earth - all 6.5 billion of us and counting - could be spirited away tomorrow, transported to a re-education camp in a far-off galaxy. (Let's not invoke the mother of all plagues to wipe us out, if only to avoid complications from all the corpses). Left once more to its own devices, Nature would begin to reclaim the planet, as fields and pastures reverted to prairies and forest, the air and water cleansed themselves of pollutants, and roads and cities crumbled back to dust.
( Read more... )

From issue 2573 of New Scientist magazine, 12 October 2006, page 36-41