Erin McKeown, who is one of my favorite artists, has a series of webcasted live concerts called Cabin Fever.
The first four episodes of Cabin Fever were done in conjunction with the release of her latest album, Hundreds of Lions. She lives in a cabin and performed each of the episodes at various places on her property. My favorite was the episode where she performed acoustic covers of songs about water from the middle of her river. Seriously.
The thing that I admire most about McKeown is her fearless, DIY approach to making music. She self-released her first record, Monday Morning Cold, and toured to promote it without the help (financial and otherwise) of a major label. Hundreds of Lions, McKeown's sixth studio album, was released on Ani DiFranco's label, Righteous Babe records, and McKeown used Cabin Fever as a way to help pay for the record.
Fast forward to SuperBowl Sunday.
McKeown announced that she would be doing a fifth installment of Cabin Fever, this time with a sports theme. And it was awesome. She started with the National Anthem (done a billion times better than Xtina, btw) that was followed by a ridiculously awesome cover of Kurtis Blow's Basketball.
Cabin Fever V lasted for about 50 minutes and featured appearances by several guests including Carrie Rodriguez, Scott McCaughey, and Ryan Montbleau. Montbleau's song about the four most hated players in the NFL was both awesomely performed and seriously funny. You can watch it here. And you should.
McKeown closed the show with her own version of the hip hop hit Green and Yellow. It was about the most adorable thing I'd ever seen. You can see it on her blog. And you should.
All in all, Cabin Fever V was a great way to kickoff SuperBowl Sunday. All of the Cabin Fever episodes, including this one, are available for viewing.
ps--If you live in the StL, you can see Ms. McKeown along with Carrie Rodriguez and Mary Gauthier on Feburary 14th at the Old Rock House as part of the Acoustic Cafe Tour.
Monday, February 7, 2011
Friday, February 4, 2011
Book news a-go-go
Two book-related things worth mentioning:
First:
Do you own an ereader? I do. The Dude cashed in a bunch of AmEx points to buy me a Nook in a a Gift of the Magi-esque turn of events for which I am forever grateful to him.
I spent a lot of time considering what kind of e-reader I wanted. I rarely buy books anymore since I can get most of what I want to read through MPOW. I sometimes have to wait to read a just-released book, but there are very few books for which this is a deal breaker. So when I was thinking about buying an e-reader, I knew that I would want to have one that was compatible with Overdrive books which do DRM management through Adobe Editions.
This blog post at ProfHacker caught my attention because it talks about Calibre, a piece of software which allows you to convert ebooks from their native format to whatever format your e-reader requires. As long as the title in question passes the DRM sniff-test, you're good to go.
Second:
NPR Books is doing a virtual books club with Unbroken, Laura 'Seabiscuit' Hillenbrand's new book that they're calling a "a book-club-meets-social-media experiment."
Virtual book clubs aren't new--the Onion AV Club does a really cool one. What sets this apart, though, is that the author is involved with this one. Hillenbrand is doing interviews, Q&As, and a live chat through the course of the month.
If you're interested in jumping into the chatter, you can get all the details here. This post gives you everything you need to get started and directs you to the NPR Books' Facebook page and Twitter hashtag so you can start chatting.
I'm going to pick up Hillenbrand's book today so that I can be part of the awesomeness.
First:
Do you own an ereader? I do. The Dude cashed in a bunch of AmEx points to buy me a Nook in a a Gift of the Magi-esque turn of events for which I am forever grateful to him.
I spent a lot of time considering what kind of e-reader I wanted. I rarely buy books anymore since I can get most of what I want to read through MPOW. I sometimes have to wait to read a just-released book, but there are very few books for which this is a deal breaker. So when I was thinking about buying an e-reader, I knew that I would want to have one that was compatible with Overdrive books which do DRM management through Adobe Editions.
This blog post at ProfHacker caught my attention because it talks about Calibre, a piece of software which allows you to convert ebooks from their native format to whatever format your e-reader requires. As long as the title in question passes the DRM sniff-test, you're good to go.
Second:
NPR Books is doing a virtual books club with Unbroken, Laura 'Seabiscuit' Hillenbrand's new book that they're calling a "a book-club-meets-social-media experiment."
Virtual book clubs aren't new--the Onion AV Club does a really cool one. What sets this apart, though, is that the author is involved with this one. Hillenbrand is doing interviews, Q&As, and a live chat through the course of the month.
If you're interested in jumping into the chatter, you can get all the details here. This post gives you everything you need to get started and directs you to the NPR Books' Facebook page and Twitter hashtag so you can start chatting.
I'm going to pick up Hillenbrand's book today so that I can be part of the awesomeness.
Wednesday, February 2, 2011
Resolved: You're not sunk. Yet.
If you're into making New Year's resolutions, the beginning of February is, historically-speaking, a time to pat yourself on the back or to sound the death knell on your dreams of a life transformed.
According to two really interesting blog posts (one is health related; one comes from the Harvard Business Review) I read today, you might want to hold off on declaring those resolutions dead if you're truly interested in transformation.
MizFit suggests that we take our Big Hairy Audacious Goals for the year and break them down into bite-size pieces. She points out that doing that makes them seem less scary and, thus, more attainable. She also lays out an example of how to do it.
The Harvard Business Review piece suggests that we think about our Big Hairy Audacious Goals more specifically. How exactly will we change that thing that needs changing and how will we know when our work is done? The piece also suggests that we use a technique called mental contrasting which, essentially, makes us all warm and fuzzy (what cool things can we expect as a result of reaching our goals?) while making us think realistically about what it will take for us to achieve our goals.
The New Year is a good time for making resolutions, but I know that not everybody does it that way. I feel like the concepts in these two pieces are good no matter when you decide to pursue a change in your life.
The two take-away points for me are this:
1. Just because you didn't make huge strides on your resolutions doesn't mean you can't regroup and start over. There's nothing wrong with adjusting your plans after figuring out why you haven't been able to make progress on your goals.
2. Good goals are concrete and measurable and have mini-milestones along the way. Knowing the ways in which you wish your life were different is a good starting point for change. As un-glamorous as it seems, building in markers for assessment makes it easier to figure out when you've met the goal and whether you're moving closer to it. Celebrating mini-milestones is one thing I need to be better about, especially when a goal will take a long time to achieve.
What about you? Are you doing well on keeping your New Year's resolutions? Got any tips?
According to two really interesting blog posts (one is health related; one comes from the Harvard Business Review) I read today, you might want to hold off on declaring those resolutions dead if you're truly interested in transformation.
MizFit suggests that we take our Big Hairy Audacious Goals for the year and break them down into bite-size pieces. She points out that doing that makes them seem less scary and, thus, more attainable. She also lays out an example of how to do it.
The Harvard Business Review piece suggests that we think about our Big Hairy Audacious Goals more specifically. How exactly will we change that thing that needs changing and how will we know when our work is done? The piece also suggests that we use a technique called mental contrasting which, essentially, makes us all warm and fuzzy (what cool things can we expect as a result of reaching our goals?) while making us think realistically about what it will take for us to achieve our goals.
The New Year is a good time for making resolutions, but I know that not everybody does it that way. I feel like the concepts in these two pieces are good no matter when you decide to pursue a change in your life.
The two take-away points for me are this:
1. Just because you didn't make huge strides on your resolutions doesn't mean you can't regroup and start over. There's nothing wrong with adjusting your plans after figuring out why you haven't been able to make progress on your goals.
2. Good goals are concrete and measurable and have mini-milestones along the way. Knowing the ways in which you wish your life were different is a good starting point for change. As un-glamorous as it seems, building in markers for assessment makes it easier to figure out when you've met the goal and whether you're moving closer to it. Celebrating mini-milestones is one thing I need to be better about, especially when a goal will take a long time to achieve.
What about you? Are you doing well on keeping your New Year's resolutions? Got any tips?
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