Bob Marley’s Legacy Continues at a Reggae Music Festival

by Jamie Rhein on

Bob Marley’s birthday was February 6th. Even though that date has passed, it’s not too late to celebrate his life and music legacy by taking in a Ragga Muffins Festival. This festival pulls in top reggae artists from around the world. There are three different locations with several of the artists performing at each one. The first is in Long Beach, CA, February 17-18. Then it moves to Santa Cruz, CA, February 22-23 and San Francisco, February 24.

Steel Pulse, Benny Wailer and Midnight are just a few of the performers making three separate appearances. The festival in Long Beach is more than a concert. Deemed one the best international reggae festivals, according to this article that I came across in the LA Weekly, it includes “North America’s largest international crafts and food fare.” That certainly caught my attention.

If you can’t make it to one of the festivals you can enjoy samplings of the artist’s music on the festival’s website. It seems that these are perfect times for remembering Marley’s work towards human rights and world peace.

New York on One Page

by Erik Olsen on

I posted a while back about the terrific all-new New York City guide by Lonely Planet. The book offers pretty much all you need to get by in the Greatest City on Earth. But what if you don’t want to spend the money on a whole guidebook and all you really want is just a basic run down on each of the many neighborhoods that make up the city. I’m talking about a page you can print with no restaurant listings, hotels, or any of that stuff. Perhaps you already have a place to stay or a favorite restaurant.

For me, this page over at TripAdvisor offered that very thing. A quick and dirty thumbnail guide to the city and some of the key areas you will ant to visit. Each paragraph offers a few juicy tidbits about the neighborhood and what’s there, as well as a few (perhaps not enough?) useful links should you want more info. If you’re coming to the city, even if just for a day, this might be something you print out and stuff in your pocket. I just did exactly that. And I live here.

Chinese Army Heads to London. You Can Hang With Them!

by Willy Volk on

Though you might be thinking about heading to China to check out the Great Wall, dozens of Chinese soldiers are heading to London. Okay, so the soldiers are part of the famed Terracotta Army, and their destination is the British Museum, but they’re still coming.

For those who don’t know, the Terracotta Army was discovered in 1974 by farmers seeking water. Imagine their surprise when they overturned the soil, and the face of an ancient warrior glowered back at them. So far, about 1000 terracotta figures have been unearthed; experts believe there may be 7000 more buried under ground. (Can’t picture what thousands of clay warriors look like? Check out this pano of them in an exhibition hall.)

The army attacks London in September, and in addition to the warriors, the exhibition will include bureaucrats, musicians, and acrobats. Wait — bureaucrats?! According to Jane Portal, the museum’s curator, “Since China is famous for inventing bureaucracy, it is appropriate that the First Emperor felt the need for officials in his afterlife.” Apparently, the figures are thought to be bureaucrats because they wear no armor, and because they carry knives and knife-sharpeners for scraping off and erasing mistakes. Despite thousands of years, it appears the role of the bureaucrat hasn’t changed much.

Banff Mountain Film Festival – New York City

by Erik Olsen on

Although I’ve only been once…to the one in Santa Monica, CA…I think that the Banff Mountain Film festival is one of those must-do events for outdoors enthusiasts. The event tours the country and Canada, showing off the best independent climbing, skiing and adventure films made today. Of course, the best one to go to is the one in Banff itself, where you can hobnob with the filmmakers and adventurers…which I suppose you can still probably do at some of the more local showings. But you won’t be in Banff.

Anyway, I was very pleased to see that the festival is coming to New York City and I will do my best, dear gadling readers, to attend. The festival will take place in NYC on Tuesday, March 6 and Wednesday March 7, 2007 at the Peter Norton Symphony Space Peter Jay Sharp Theater at 2537 Broadway at 95th Street, New York.

The film schedule can be found here. Most interesting to me are the films Asiemut, a film about a 2005 cycling expedition 8000 kilometers across Asia by Olivier Higgins and Mélanie Carrier and Patagonia – A Travel to the End of the World, a film with Børge Ousland about the first unsupported traverse of the Southern Patagonia Icecap. Gotta love anything about Patagonia.

If you’re curious whether there will be a showing near you, here is the Banff Calender

Dirty Ganges

by Erik Olsen on

Two and a half years ago or so I took a trip through India. I found it to be one of the most amazing trips I’ve ever taken. Like so many who make a trip to this massive subcontinent, I wish I could have stayed for a year or more. There was so much to see and do. One of the most fascinating places I visited was the city of Varanasi, said to be the oldest living city on earth. it is hard to describe Varanasi. The city is old, but it is also very much live, very dirty, but also beautiful. It sits on the Ganges and is the place where thousands of Indians come every week, literally, to die.

I did a video on my experience in Varanasi that ran on Al Gore’s Current TV. The Ganges is the lifeline of the country, it’s spiritual spinal cord. But it is also a filthy, highly polluted body of water. I came across this article just now while browsing around that reveals just how dirty it is. And things for the most part are not getting better. Scientists, in fact, say that sewage and pollution have devastated the 1,550-mile river, which spills from a Himalayan glacier and cuts through India’s plains before flowing into the Bay of Bengal. There are places near Varanasi with a fecal bacteria count nearly 4,000 times the World Health Organization standard for bathing.

I like to see that people are calling attention to the state of the Ganges, because the Indians are in need of help turning things around.