The latest estimates indicate that 20 million people have been affected by the floods, which have swept away or damaged 1.2 million houses. Rushing water has also destroyed roads, bridges, and supplies of food and clean water. The death toll is now thought to be 1,539 people, and 2,055 have been reported injured.

Oxfam and our partners have launched a rapid-relief effort to reach more than one million people with essential aid. Despite major damage to the region’s transportation and communication systems, we are installing latrines and water-storage tanks and delivering clean water by truck to prevent deadly waterborne diseases from sweeping through communities of displaced people.

Text OXFAM to 25383 to donate $10 to @oxfamamerica’s flood relief and recovery efforts in #Pakistan.

Donate to @OxfamAmerica’s flood relief efforts in #Pakistan. $20 will buy a hygiene kit for a family.
http://bit.ly/PakistanRelief

17.2 million people affected by the #Pakistan floods, TWICE the population of L.A. Donate to @OxfamAmerica at http://bit.ly/PakistanRelief

#Pakistan #flood victims > ‘05 Pakistan earthquakes, ‘04 tsunami & ‘09 Haiti earthquake victims combined. http://bit.ly/PakistanRelief

So much cool stuff happening with this instrument. Hard to absorb it all.

But anyway, their self-title debut has been at the top of my lists of records I’ve wanted on wax for awhile. So after that conversation, I checked out eBay. Two years ago, they were going for $50-75. Now, it’s hard to find one under $200. Ridiculous that a record would cost that much, in my opinion. But, one chilled-out Sunday morning, I put in a bid on an auction just as it was ending, and to my surprise… I won. $22.43 later, it just arrived. I have to nominate for Steal of the Year.

If you haven’t heard these guys, you should. Seriously. Highest recommendation.

Quitting smoking has been tough. I can’t even definitively say that I’ve quit, because I’ve broken down and bummed a cigarette more times than I can count on two hands in the last month. But one of the things that has helped cut down 90% of my smoking has been this electronic cigarette I bought on a whim. Here is a short video from YouTube if you haven’t seen one.

Basically, it works just like a normal cigarette. You suck in, the end lights up, you inhale the vapor, get your nicotine (some vapor is nicotine-less), and then you blow out the vapor. It’s pretty realistic. Moreso than a patch or a piece of gum anyway.

I’ve realized that there were cigarettes that I wanted, and then ones that I needed. The needed made up most of my habit — the ones I didn’t think about, didn’t enjoy, but smoked mindlessly. Those cigarettes (with my coffee, after my coffee, morning break, before lunch, after lunch, in traffic, etc etc etc), I’ve successfully replaced with this mechanism.

The FDA hasn’t approved any of these mechanisms to be “safer than cigarettes,” FYI. Don’t know what the hold up is, but to me it seems like a no-brainer here (even if they’re bad for you, they can’t be as bad).

Like I said, I’ve broken down a number of times — after gigs seems to be the hardest time for me — so the e-cig isn’t a smokeless messiah. In the end, I know that this is temporary and that I need to quit 100%. But, as demeaning as it is for me, for now I’m content smoking this laser-pointer. For anyone who has smoked for as long as I have, this may be the replacement that helps you kick the habit. If so, good luck. All of us need it.

Happy vaping.

Alarm Press record of the week review »

Expand fits Douglas’ catalog, but it goes a little further than usual, and there’s even a moment or two that sounds like a twisted video-game or circus (like the end of “Observer”). And with no shortage of hard beats and head-nodding potential, Expand should especially appeal to fans of jazz fusion and acid jazz.

Washington City Paper record review »

There’s a sense of slowly dawning wonder in the music, as if a reanimated corpse or a reinspired everyman were rediscovering the world, moving through the electronic chirping and trumpet fragments as if wading through water.

Luis Bonilla — if you’re out there — gotta get one of these for next tour.

via Lost in Bonkers:
So you’re lulled into thinking that maybe what you have here is a case of softcore Dixieland. Nice, I tell myself. A good way to ease myself into the atmosphere for 4 days of nonstop jazz. And then. Then they hit you with the understanding that this is not your grandmother’s brass band. A complex, gritty, layered sound, that made the visuals image in my brain explode.

There’s a clinic with Dave today (with the time difference, probably happening as I type), and tomorrow, their second and final performance at the Hall. Showtime 11:30PM.

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Brass Ecstasy @ The GLM Store
Spirit Moves :: CD+DVD | CD | digital
On Stage (live) :: digital-only

It wasn’t just the great performances of Audra McDonald, Nathan Lane, Idina Menzel, Elaine Stritch, Karen Olivo, Tonya Pinkins, Brian d’Arcy James, Marvin Hamlisch and Chad Kimball, or the spirited gyrations of the students from the Joy of Motion Dance Center and the Duke Ellington School of the Arts performing “You Can’t Stop the Beat” — it was the whole big, rich stew. African-American singers and Hispanic-American dancers belting out the words of Jewish and Irish immigrant composers, accompanied by white musicians whose great-great-grandparents came over on the Mayflower for all I know — all performing for America’s first black president whose middle name is Hussein.

The show was so full of life, no one could begrudge Elaine Stritch, 84, for getting a little carried away and saying to Mr. Obama, seated in the front row: “I’d love to get drunk with the president.”

Feeling the pulsating energy of this performance was such a vivid reminder of America’s most important competitive advantage: the sheer creative energy that comes when you mix all our diverse people and cultures together. We live in an age when the most valuable asset any economy can have is the ability to be creative — to spark and imagine new ideas, be they Broadway tunes, great books, iPads or new cancer drugs. And where does creativity come from?

Friedman cites a recent Newsweek article:

To be creative requires divergent thinking (generating many unique ideas) and then convergent thinking (combining those ideas into the best result).

I’m a big fan of Broadway because the music is so good. OK, maybe I’ve always had a crush on Elaine Stritch, too. But I often wonder why American culture travels so well all over the globe. Why is South Park, or Hannah Montana, or The Apprentice so popular in places that would seemingly have no reason to be interested? Friedman continues:

And where does divergent thinking come from? It comes from being exposed to divergent ideas and cultures and people and intellectual disciplines. As Marc Tucker, the president of the National Center on Education and the Economy, once put it to me: “One thing we know about creativity is that it typically occurs when people who have mastered two or more quite different fields use the framework in one to think afresh about the other. Intuitively, you know this is true. Leonardo da Vinci was a great artist, scientist and inventor, and each specialty nourished the other. He was a great lateral thinker. But if you spend your whole life in one silo, you will never have either the knowledge or mental agility to do the synthesis, connect the dots, which is usually where the next great breakthrough is found.”

I like this. And even though it’s kind of a no-brainer, it’s worth keeping in mind as the meaning of being an American is increasingly up for debate. What is of intense value is the collision of ideas. Allowing divergent views to be voiced and heard, to influence, does not mean abandoning core principles. Open debate and tolerance, curiosity for the other, spurs creativity, growth, and vitality. That has to be at the core of what makes American culture so resonant and captivating.

Grandma’s Arepas
Bringing divergent ideas together in order to create something new also makes for a great arepa.

UPDATE FROM SARDINIA: The chef who created those beautiful arepas requests a name check. She is none other than Marietta Drummond, ballet pianist, former manager of Old and New Dreams, one-time arts programmer at St. John The Divine, among so many, many other things. Thanks for all of that and more.

via TwentyFourBit: We knew that a live album wasn’t the only recording Jack White and Conan O’Brien put to tape back in June, and now the latest release from Team Coco-White has been unveiled: “And They Call Me Mad?,” an “improvised take on the Frankenstein legend” by the former Tonight Show/Late Night host, is now available for pre-order at Third Man Records and will ship out next week.

Seems vinyl is the preferred release method for a lot of folks too. Good thing we pressed a few.