I’ve always enjoyed this song, but never knew what the lyrics translated to.

The video above contains four short video clips I recorded from my Canon SD750 on February 6th, 2010 in & around Dupont Circle in Washington, DC. The video clips show the what the snowball fight looked like when I arrived, a dance party, a fallen tree on New Hampshire Avenue, and an SUV pulling a snowboarder. The camera is rather beat up and there is a noticeable dark spot on camera lens– sorry!

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This is my favorite video of the snowball fight. It was filmed from a building overlooking Dupont Cirlce:

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At least there were no guns.

Today I received the two calendars I ordered last week. I decided to make this short video to show prospective buyers what the calendar looks like when printed out. In the video above I simply hang the calendar on the wall and flipped through each month of the Color Edition of my 2010 Cartographic Calendar. Its a somewhat simple method of showing the maps in the calendar, but I think it helps to visualize what a 17″ x 11″ calendar would look like on your wall.

On August 5th, 2008 I made the first version of this mashup, East Meets West and with the newly created contraflow bicycle lane on 15th Street NWDC, I decided to make the second version, North Meets South.

The two videos were taken from one continuous video recording that I conducted while riding on my bicycle from U Street & 15th Street to Massachusetts Ave & 15th Street and back. At home I split the videos into North & South and used the crosswalks as the starting & ending points. The object of this video mashup is to find the exact time when the two recordings pass each other on opposite sides of the street.

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A few notes:

I accidentally came across this footage from the MSNBC cable show “Morning Joe” with Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski. It was recorded back in February of this year on the morning after the Senate voted to approve the District of Columbia Voting Rights Act of 2009. After a short discussion, it turns out that Pat Buchanan prefers being a Colonist with taxation without representation.

I was looking on Google Maps to see what businesses had been listed on their newly updated maps. To my surprise, I found that at the end of my block is the Washington, DC office of the Oromo Liberation Front.

The Oromo Liberation Front, or OLF, is an organization established in 1973 by Oromo nationalists to promote self-determination for the Oromo people against what they call “Abyssinian colonial rule“. It has been designated a terrorist organization by the Ethiopian government, but I have been unable to find what the United States Department of State considers this organization. Aside from an office down the alley from me in Washington, D.C., they also operate an office in Berlin where their Amharic and Afan Oromo radio stations broadcast.

I recently purchased the Fort Knox Five’s The New Gold Standard #2 [iTunes Link] and have enjoyed listening to all the tracks. The one song that really stands out in my mind is the final track on the album “One World Sovereignty” by Nappy Riddem. The YouTube music video above features a live performance of the song at Earthdance 2009 in Laytonsville, California overdubbed with the original studio recording of the song.

Last summer I was invited to attend the taping of Al Jazeera English’s show “Changing Channels” and enjoyed the format and the discussion. Last week I was invited to attend the taping of Avi Lewis’ show Faultlines concerning the topic of the war in Afghanistan. I found the discussion was quite interesting and I am glad I attended the taping.

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Watch part two:

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This Friday, November 20th at 3pm, Al Jazeera English is hosting another town hall forum on race and the recession at the Newseum:

This short video documents my temporary photo installation called “Welcome to my room.” for FotoweekDC 2009. The installation consists of about 24 random photographs that I had doubles of in my archives. They were stapled to the temporary wooden walkway on the west side of 14th Street near the intersection of T Street, NW, Washington, DC. The building for which the temporary walkway was constructed will become the chain department store called Room & Board. So welcome to my Room, I hope you are not Bored. Please add your own photos to the walkway and make the room ours. Send me photos of your additions.

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UPDATE – I’m pleased to say that in the week since I installed the photographs, they’ve all been removed. Every other day I walked by the exhibit to see how many were remaining, which were mixing with the leaves on the sidewalk, and by yesterday they were all in the urban ether. The installation was never meant to be permanent nor really even a serious photographic exhibit, just an experiment, and since the photographs were all duplicate photos from 1992-2002, their sacrifice totally was worth it!

Gogol Bordello is a multi-ethnic Gypsy punk band from the Lower East Side of New York City that formed in 1999. I was first introduced their music a few years ago by a friend and have seen them perform a couple times.

Sometimes when the rain gets me down I enjoy listening to this song. It was filmed at the 2006 Leads Festival in the United Kingdom and is the only decent quality version I could find on-line. Of unfortunate note, the graphic displayed at the beginning of the video incorrectly lists the song as Start Wearing Purple, which is one of Gogol Bordello’s break-through hits.

Below are the lyrics to the song: