20 years ago I fell in love with the Italian New Wave group, Violet Eves. They only released 3 albums from 84 to 88 or so. All that I have in my possession is an old cassette tape that definitely sounds its age. Anyway, I’ve tried to find their music over the years, including diligent treks though miles of discs on every trip I’ve made to Italy. Hell, I even looked for them once in Germany, just in case. A few years ago I found a vinyl album by them on an Italian music site. I was thrilled and purchased it right away.

So, yesterday, on a whim, I looked them up again and found a new compilation CD release of Violet Eves recordings. Can you say STOKED!!?!!

(For some reason, a few of the English sites erroneously list them as “Violet Eyes” which could have been hindering my search in the past.)

Maya Angelou starts around 3:11

I am so privileged to have the opportunity to vote
I am so pleased with my country tonight
I am so proud of my President elect.

The Economist does not have a vote, but if it did, it would cast it for Mr Obama. We do so wholeheartedly: the Democratic candidate has clearly shown that he offers the better chance of restoring America’s self-confidence.

“In terms of painting a brighter future for America and the world, Mr Obama has produced the more compelling and detailed portrait. He has campaigned with more style, intelligence and discipline than his opponent. Whether he can fulfil his immense potential remains to be seen. But Mr Obama deserves the presidency.”

“She’d be even better with a little discrimination in ‘er, ya’ know what I mean?”

UPDATE: new link should work now

I agreed with Andrew Sullivan, when last December he wrote:

At its best, the Obama candidacy is about ending a war—not so much the war in Iraq, which now has a mo­mentum that will propel the occupation into the next decade—but the war within America that has prevailed since Vietnam and that shows dangerous signs of intensifying, a nonviolent civil war that has crippled America at the very time the world needs it most. It is a war about war—and about culture and about religion and about race. And in that war, Obama—and Obama alone—offers the possibility of a truce.

I’ll take the risk of hope over the certainty of fear.

Godspeed and Great Peace
Thanks for all the joy, love, wonder and “boots”.
You will be missed.

From the BBC
[regarding the protests in Lhasa]

“As I have always said, unity and stability under brute force is at best a temporary solution. It is unrealistic to expect unity and stability under such a rule,” the [Dalai Lama] said.

A friend of mine took an excellent picture of butterfly last week.

It may be merely another brand statement (and of course it is ironic in that regard), but I can relate:

Because there is complexity in purity.
Elegance in plainness.
Intricacy in streamlining.
Richness in reduction.
Depth in minimalism.
Surprise in uniformity.
Innovation in re-use.
Cool in the avoidance of cool.
And there is true sophistication in simplicity.

Muji from Japan