eveninghawk’s links

Two items today struck me as particularly noteworthy.  First off, treehugger has a great post on a couple of Al Gore videos, talking about making An Inconvenient Truth, and how to effectively get a message on climate change out and about in the public’s eye.

Oh, I hear Leonardo DiCaprio was on Oprah this week, and he talked about climate change as well.  If you’re interested in his short online films on the topic, you can find those at  leonardodicaprio.org.

The second item of interest to me is an article about a house made using materials leftover from Boston’s Big Dig.  The recently completed 4,300-square-foot home in Lexington, Massachusetts incorporates 600,000 pounds of recycled materials.

I know I’ve been stuck on music for the last few posts, but it’s the media most in my life at the moment since I listen all while I’m at work, I sleep to it, and otherwise I’m running around to various beer events (hrmm… I should probably add a beer category on here so that I can talk about that…).

Imogen Heap is incredible. She’s got a great voice, she puts together electronic components in a way that has me floating around the office, and she manages to capture emotions and events in a way that can be both disturbing and beautiful at the same time, which is the way the world is. I have heard stuff she did as FrouFrou, which was a lot of fun, but this is a whole other realm, in my opinion. I picked up Speak For Yourself while out in Baltimore a month ago, after having first heard Hide and Seek on WERS.

Lately I’ve been struck by another song from this album “The Moment I Said It.” If you’ve ever been in an emotional fight with someone, then you will get this, and the song has all the beauty and pain of what goes on in that. It’s a great snapshot of an experience in lyrics and sound.

I know what you’re thinking
but darling you’re not thinking straight
sadly things just happen we can’t explain
It’s not even light out
But you’ve somewhere to be
no hesitation
I’ve never seen you like this
and I don’t like it, I don’t like it at all.

I’ve been feeling angsty about things like relationships and people, and it’s made me rather cynical today even though I’m in a generally good mood. This is both frustrating and odd since I’ve been having a great day, but I guess malcontent is not a prerequisite for a bad mood. While listening to a random mix up of music Eve 6 managed to make me feel a bit more connected to humanity with their lyrics:

I would swallow my pride I would choke on the rhines
But the lack thereof would leave me empty inside
I would swallow my doubt turn it inside out find nothing but faith in nothing
Want to put my tender heart it in a blender
Watch it spin round to a beautiful oblivion
Rendezvous then I’m through with you

I was listening to the Police’s 1979 tune “Message In a Bottle,” and thinking about two things… I really like the song, and I really like the message that loneliness is something we all complain about, but something we all share. It’s a great message, and it’s a great way to present the message. We’re not alone in our little boxes, even though people are prone to think that way.