the pod bay door

.: Another new term begins this week at universities and colleges around the world. Tomorrow, I teach my first research skills class to ~175 second-year students in chemical and materials engineering. I have more classes later this month, for which I need to prepare new presentations or revise older ones. I look forward to it all with a mix of excitement and trepidation, with the campus about to increase in population by about 35,000, as the students descend upon us once again.

This is the time of year when summer seems to recede each day with a little more urgency. The leaves on some of the trees in my cul-de-sac have turned yellow or red, and are beginning to fall, and you can feel the cool evening air each night. It was a relaxed Labour Day weekend for the most part, mixed in with my usual anxieties. I didn’t get a bike ride in this weekend, despite encouragement from Tony, who has had better luck with MT 3.2 than did I. I saw The Constant Gardener on Sunday, one of the two best movies I’ve seen this year, the other being Crash. I also had dinner on Saturday night and tonight, at the homes of good friends.

I’m exhausted, all the time. There is always too much to do, with not enough time to do it. The only constant is the number of hours in the day. In the past two weeks, I wasted spent too much time wrestling with Movable Type 3.2. One reason I switched to WordPress (for now, anyway), is that our internal blogs at work have migrated to WP as well. It is open source, which my colleagues support in a big way, and so far, it’s working fine.

Sleep now, I think.

.: As I continue working on a new site format, I have been viewing quite a few WordPress themes on this site. The current theme at the moment is Wuhan Black Letterhead

Eventually, I will migrate the previous PBD entries.

A migration from Movable Type 3.2 is taking place, albeit slowly. Please be patient with me. 🙂

A new test post using MT 3.2, installed this evening.

.: I have been playing with WordPress 1.5.2, and after the usual weeping and gnashing of teeth, was able to download and install it here; note that the default template out of the box is based on the Kubrick template – cool. At the same time, Moveable Type 3.2 was just released, along with a new set of style templates, and I need to upload it and see if it makes any difference to my existing sites.

It’s my understanding that WordPress has great spam comment protection. I wonder if it has improved on Moveable Type. Recently I had comments submitted to STLQ refused because of “questionable content” or something similar. Turned out that the commenter used “analysis” in his comments, and my MT-Blacklist of entries included the substring “anal”. Wonderful. So I had to switch the entry from “Block” to “Moderate”, and to date, of the 169,975 comments sent to my sites, which were blocked by MT-Blacklist, 6,369 of them had “anal” in the text. 169,975 spam comments? I wonder what part of “get a life” these morons don’t understand. We need a new word for spammers, something like spidiots, or spassholes. What about spuckwads?

Regardless, PBD is overdue for a tuneup and retooling, and the opportunity now presents itself accordingly. Stay tuned.

I am scheduled to be in NYC from 7-16 October, ostensibly to attend Jessica‘s wedding on Oct 15th in Summit, but as most know, NYC is my favorite destination, so I’m stretching the trip out to nine days.

.: .: Last weekend, I participated in my 14th consequtive Edmonton Folk Music Festival as a volunteer. I was blessed with the opportunity to work with one of my musical heroes, Johnny Clegg. Clegg and Sipho Mchunu formed the seminal South African band Juluka in the late 1970s. Their song, “Scatterlings of Africa”, is an all-time favorite.

Clegg and his band rocked the festival during the Sunday (Aug 7) 2:00 pm mainstage show, and later in the evening, at the after-festival party. At the party, I planted myself in front of the stage, a few feet away from Johnny, and danced to his music for 75 delirious, joyful minutes. For both shows, Johnny and the current version of Savuka played a tight, melodic and joyful show, showcasing many of Juluka and Savuka well-known songs, and mixing in many different dance steps, which I assume were based on Zulu tradition in many cases.

I was thrilled when I learned Clegg was playing our festival. He is one of those artists I have always wanted to watch in performance, and to have experienced such an amazing show twice in less than twelve hours was a gift from God. I don’t know how else to describe it.

Johnny Clegg and Sipho Mchunu defied apartheid authority in their early musical collaborative days in South Africa. Because Clegg was white and Mchunu black, they were subject to police harrassment, threats, and abuse. The continuing development of their unique sound, which led to the formation of their band, Juluka (Zulu for “sweat”), was in defiance of the cultural segregation laws at the time. With their music largely ignored in their home country, they played live performances on the street and at private functions. Word of mouth continued to spread, and Juluka’s reputation grew, eventually leading to a record contract, and international recognition. Further details are available on the biography page on this site.

What makes Clegg’s music so appealing to me is his ability to mix traditional Zulu musical structure (about which I know next to nothing, frankly) and Western melodies and rhythms. He also mixes Zulu and English lyrics. Regardless of how he does it, it is music that radiates and bleeds celebration and joy in the midst of world that can be terrifying and unforgiving.

Clegg and Savuka (“We have risen”) are in the midst of an extensive world tour. If you get the chance, see his show, you will not be disappointed, and if you are new to his music, you will experience a sound that you have not heard before, pure auditory pleasure. I’m still smiling.

Here is the set list from the party, which mirrored the 2:00 pm afternoon show as well:

1. Jongosi
2. Take My Heart Away
3. Africa
4. Giyani
5. I Call Your Name (Ngibiza Igama Lakho)
6. Tatazela
7. Malonjeni
8. Kilimanjaro
9. Great Heart
10. Scatterlings of Africa
11. Cruel Crazy Beautiful World
12. Asimbonanga (Mandela)
13. Dela (I Know Why The Dog Howls At The Moon)

At the party, we wouldn’t stop clapping until the band returned for an encore. I did not catch the name of that song. At the party performance, he added one extra song, between Great Heart and Scatterlings.

Mention must be made of his excellent band, the current Savuka lineup, featuring Brendan Ross on sax and keyboards, Mandisa Dlanga on vocals, Concord Nkabinde on bass, Andy Innes on guitar and mandolin, and Barry Van Zyl on drums.

In February, 2005, Johnny held a braai (barbeque) at his home for as many surviving people that played for him in his career as could make the event. This photo features members of Juluka and Savuka throughout the years. An extensive discography is available here, and includes albums, singles, DVDs, books/press, lyrics, songs index, discs index, and more.

Thank you, Johnny, thank you again. 🙂

Also posted to Blogcritics.