Hey NYC Buffistae. My band, the Lothars are returning to New York City for the first time in over seven years!

Next Tuesday night, December 5, at 8:30PM, The Lothars will be performing at the Galapagos Art Space, providing the soundtrack to the 1929 Soviet silent film "Man With a Movie Camera" ("Chelovek s kinoapparatom"). "Dziga Vertov's masterpiece is an application of 'life as it is lived.' A cameraman travels around a city with a camera slung over his shoulder, documenting urban life with dazzling inventiveness. This playful film is at once a documentary of a day in the life of the Soviet Union, a documentary of the filming of said documentary, and a depiction of an audience watching the film. Even the editing of the film is documented. It makes the cameraman the hero, and is one of the most dynamic experiments with montage; the film also uses trick photography, animation, slow motion and speeded-up shots."

The Lothars are a theremin-based improvisational ensemble which includes hammered dulcimer, log drum, electro-flute, prerecorded samples, and at least two theremins (a word not often seen in its plural form). What better soundtrack for a 1929 Soviet silent film than a band featuring an instrument invented 10 years earlier by a Soviet scientist? It's a match made in Heaven! Or a Socialist Utopia, as the case may be....

The Lothars last performed their soundtrack to this film in June, 2003, at the Coolidge Corner Theater in Brookline, MA. Don't wait another 3 1/2 years for your next chance to experience this melange of sight and sound!

The Galapagos Art Space is at 70 N 6th Street in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. Tickets are $8. Visit http://www.galapagosartspace.com for directions and other details.

I hope some of you can make it!

My latest post is up at the Gristmill Blog

You can't conduct an orchestra with an invisible hand

linked fixed

In honor of World AIDS Day you can go to www.lighttounite.org and light a candle for Bristol Myers-Squibb to donate $1 to the World AIDS fund.

Announcing the Buffista Stationary Exchange, with me as moderator.

I brought up the idea a while back, then spent a lot of time tryiing to figure out the best way to do it. It then occurred to me to ask the participants, so I've created a poll:

Stationary Exchange

Poll is up until midnight Wednesday, EST.

If you've posted or emailed that you're interested in participating, expect an email in a few days. If you haven't let me know, send an email to my profile addy.

New post up on Gristmill

Carbon trading: a carbon tax, blindfolded and handcuffed, with its shoelaces tied together

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"Mommy, where do carbon offsets come from?"

"Well, you see sweetheart, when a major polluter and a consultant love money very, very much, they express that love in a special way. Nine months later, the consultant produces an extremely large paper packet." ---------------------------------------------

In theory, carbon taxes and carbon trading yield similar results.(Carbon taxes raise the price of fossil fuels by taxing it. Permits raise the price of fossil fuels by requiring people to buy permits for each unit burned) So why do so many people who support carbon taxes oppose carbon trading? Because in practice they differ catastrophically, something we have good reasons to expect.

Read the rest on Gristmill [link]

Today (December 6), Planned Parenthood locations in various cities across the country (NOT all locations, however) are offering FREE Plan B emergency contraception.

At the bottom of this page is a list of the locations that are participating.

Feel free to pass this info on to others far and wide.

Slacker Secret Santas: all of you who e-mailed me should have an e-mail with a giftee name and snail-mail address. Please let me know if there's any problem. Thanks for playing!

Not-so-tiny Jewish not-Santa.

Really only of practical interest to Somervillains (i.e. that they could actually take advantage of it):

Jonathan Coulton will be appearing at Pandemonium Books on December 12th, for a one hour appearance at 5 pm. He will perform for about half an hour, then be available for questions, signing, and meeting and greeting until 6pm (when he must be whisked off, superstarlike, to his soundcheck for his appearance at Johnny D's).

I've been told that he'll have box sets of Thing a Week available for purchase & signing.

This just occurred to be in reading a story about gift cards.

Advice on mailing gift cards:

When I did post office customer support, we got lots of complaints about greeting cards arriving with one end of the envelope slit open and the gift card inside missing. Heaven only knows where in the entire mail handling chain the crook grabbed the card.

So, consider taping the gift card to the greeting card itself. Also, mail the card in an envelope that's not so obiviously a greeting card--this also applies to birthday cards.

F2F Poll!

We've gotten proposals for Atlanta and Durham. Information is at Hil R. "F2F 4: Too Much Candy, Never Enough Mojitos." Dec 11, 2006 3:07:41 pm PST , and the poll is at [link] . It will stay open until Sunday night at 9 eastern time.