My favorite all-time music documentary is The Last Waltz, Martin Scorsese’s film about The Band’s last concert in San Francisco.

   Just last week I saw two very different music documentaries that I’d rate right up there along with The Last Waltz:

1. The Inside Llewyn Davis Concert Film, which took place in New York this September, songs from the movie, which is just about to open, curated by T-bone Burnett. All acoustic, an incredible and wonderful concert. Look at the lineup. It was on Showtime.

Click here.

2. Blues And The Alligator: The First Twenty Years Of Alligator Records (2011) I found this in Amazon Prime by typing in “music documentaries” in the search window. (I find a lot better music of this nature in Amazon Prime than in Netflix.) The trouble with most music documentaries is that they’re heavy on the talk and light on the music. Not so here. So good. Koko Taylor, Lonnie Brooks, Hound Dog Taylor,  archival footage of Sonny boy Williamson, a charming bunch of 10-year-old kids singing the blues in a classroom…“Blues is a healing music!”, (Blues Iglauer) explains, “and as long as there’s a need to be healed, the Blues will live on.” PLUS, the photography is brilliant. Hail to Jim Downing, the creator! I just ordered the DVD.

Click here.

“The Wheel House, New Zealand
Not all tiny homes are built from the ground up; the unique Wheel House near Kerikeri, New Zealand is actually an 85-square-foot cabin salvaged from a historic steamboat called the Minerva, and remodelled into a welcoming space with a double bed, fridge, plus other amenities that are just a short stroll away through the garden.… ”

Click here.

“In 2007 Christoph Rehage, a German native studying in China, came up with the grand scheme of walking back home from Beijing to Bad Nenndorf (Germany). He calls it ‘The Longest Way’.

   Christoph embarks on this mission taking a picture every day while growing a beard. And it results in a mighty kickass beard.
Although he only made it one-third of the way from Beijing to Urumqi, he went back home to get his degree, he did accomplish something extraordinary…”

Click here.

From E. L. Walker

CDPH Warns Consumers Not to Eat Sport-Harvested Bivalve Shellfish from Monterey Bay and Inner Tomales Bay 
Date: 12/13/2013 
Number: 13-058 
Contact: Anita Gore, Heather Bourbeau (916) 440-7259 
SACRAMENTO 

The California Department of Public Health (CDPH) is advising consumers not to eat recreationally harvested mussels, clams or whole scallops from Monterey Bay or inner Tomales Bay in Marin County. The latter includes the area between Millerton Point and Cypress Point. Dangerous levels of paralytic shellfish poisoning (PSP) toxins have been detected in mussels from these regions. The naturally occurring PSP toxins can cause illness or death. Cooking does not destroy the toxin.



Read More …

“The climate crisis is not an environmental problem. It is a human problem. Humans have caused it and only humans can act to avert catastrophe. Yet many of us continue to live as if this crisis isn’t happening. Even those who accept the science, and care a lot. The time has come to go beyond the science, to a place of heart. The time has come to tap our deepest sources of moral courage and commitment.

https://vimeo.com/80328134

Mike W”