ecopolis

Just A Souvenir : beautiful and funky synth/clavichord organic work.
Squarepusher moves into improvisational, jazzy, progr and effected bass slaps over barely comprehensible vocoder blurbs “this album started as a daydream about watching a crazy, beautiful rock band play an ultra-gig.” http://squarepusher.net/justasouvenir/
Just A Souvenir is currently available as a digital download (in FLAC as well) from bleep dot com.

Germany was ruled by the Nazis since 1933, and Hitler wanted to capitalize on the Olympic Games to present Germany as an open-minded and peaceful nation to prove that the “Aryan race” was superior to all other “races” in all aspects of life, including tollerance of (inferior) diversity and sports.

But the Nazis had not counted on Jesse Owens’s talent and his determination to win: he managed to win four Olympic gold medals (100m, 200m, long jump and 4×100m relay): No other athlete had ever won four medals at the Olympic Games. That feat was performed again only by Carl Lewis at the Olympic Games in Los Angeles 1984.

The audience was enthralled by his performance and Jesse Owens became the celebrated hero of Berlin. Jesse Owens had won the heart and mind of Germany and the world.
In the streets, children “played” Jesse Owens, and the “Führer’s” radio sports reporters had a hard time explaining how an African-American had managed to relegate the sure, prospective and “white” winners to second places. Everybody could see how upset Hitler was about this success. And Jesse Owens did not get a handshake.

But when Jesse Owens returned to the USA, even the US President, Franklin D. Roosevelt, ignored the top athlete and did not invite him to the White House: Roosevelt was campaigning for his re-election and he feared protests in the Southern States if he welcomed and honoured Owens publicly.
Owens remarked later that he felt insulted by Roosevelt rather than Hitler.

In this moment of analogization of the digital, or as you want of revaluation of the “retro”, there’s a growing interest for mechanical machines: the exhibition of Sonar Matica 2008 was all about recovering different kinds of pre-cinema technologies, GOGBOT 2008’s theme is Steampunk and on 12 th of july there’ll be Mechanicrawl in San Francisco.

Mechanicrawl is realized by the Long Now Foundation. The attractions involved are: The USS Pampanito, SS Jeremiah O’Brien, Musée Mécanique, San Francisco Maritime National Historical Park, The Long Now Foundation, and The Exploratorium.

Alexander Rose introducing Mechanicrawl.