Speechless

“The bride and groom should eat first. It’s not like the Prime Minister of Canada is here or anything…”

Those were the very words of the Master of Ceremonies from the most recent wedding reception that I deejayed at. It was said more as a joke since, Stephen Harper and family were actually sitting in the front row. I was given the task of DJing a wedding reception, with no prior mention that Canada’s leading family were related to my client!

This is the stuff of legend! How many times in your life will the Prime Minister or President of a country, “just show up” at your party? So I jumped on the opportunity to sneak in a magic show for the Harpers. Between the thought of performing for one of Canada’s most well-known figures and the 20 some secret service guys watching, I was nervous. I also wanted to perform two of my most eye-catching effects. They involved fire and sharp silverware; Fear of being group tackled by black suits was at an all time high.

Everything went superbly well. The paper-to-flame-to-coin effect, followed by mental fork bending with the show’s star, Miss Rachel Harper, were well received. Mr. Harper tried to untwist the mentally-mangled fork and was unable to do so. I finished with my message of being able to achieve impossible goals by focusing your mind. Later on I made some balloon animals for all the kids.

There is now a twisted fork touched by the Canadian PM now selling on eBay for  $20,000! Just kidding! Unfortunately, I forgot to have him sign the fork….

That’s the story. Did magic for Canada’s leading man, deejayed a wedding with lots of country music and had an Extra Ordinary night. Here are some pictures for your enjoyment! Look out for more posts coming soon!

Extra…Ordinary,

-Eric Fairlie

Eric performs metal bending for the family of the Right Honourable Prime Minister of Canada, Stephen Harper

Eric performs metal bending for Rachel Harper

Eric performs metal bending for Rachel & Stephen Harper

Let your brain chew on this…. Thank you to my friend jujubes121 for this very thought provoking article. Its a little deeper than what I think most of us are used to reading. Why don’t you tell us your true identity? How do we know you are really human?

This post is originally from http://jujubes121.tumblr.com/post/3034290515/inequality-in-accesing-archives-prove-your-human

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We have all seen this flash before our computer screens before. Most of the time, it’s a security check to make sure that there is human on the other side that is able to respond to the generated tests.

It’s called a CAPTCHA – Completely Automated Turing Test to Tell Computers and Humans Apart!

Google It!

Captcha’s are used to ensure the response is done by a human and NOT a computer. There is a trivial response, where you type in the letters of the word and voila! your instantly lead to the website. Captcha’s rely on visual perception and needs a human to respond to it. It contains distorted text because a human can understand it!

Why should we care about this?

After reading about archiving and the ideas around the “digital divide”. It is clear that contemporary society has a vested interest for acquiring and more importantly selling information in the capitalist marketplace.

The vast array of new media technologies are allowing for “new possibilities” of how information is being governing in virtual archives. The gap between rich and poor is inevitable within our capitalist society. Will that gap magnify to the virtual world? I believe that it will and its already starting to happen.

THINK ABOUT IT …

Archives now are in public spaces and are readily accessible especially on user-generated websites, but what about other websites? Information can now be considered a hot commodity on the market, because it can become “governed by algorithms” that can easily be manipulated to a level of sophisticated intelligence depending on the “economic” value of information.

Captcha’s are then powerful because captcha’s are interpreted by humans to ensure that computers/robots can’t automatically generate / access accounts. It seems easy now to type in a distorted word, but what if captcha’s were manipulated in such a way that only a specific subset of the population could solve them? After all. they are tests … right?
Now it’s not just … Prove that you are human … it’s prove that you have a high intelligence in order to access this level of information in the archive.

or this?

or try this?

Or what if the captcha doesn’t even make sense at all? This has already started to happen … so does that just mean we can’t get that information? It’s just locked away until someone can crack it or attempt to fix it? It’s now lost in the digital archives!
Accessing information / digital archives seems easy right now! But the ways in which we take hold of certain knowledges is increasingly being enmeshed with priviledge to new media technologies and the level at which we can access them.

How we can use them, manipulate them and control the information that is on the internet today. IS paving the way for the gap (Digital Divide) to become magnified in the digital age as these algorithms can be created and configured almost immediately.

The scope for intelligence of new media technologies is becoming more and more sophisticated and priviledged to the people who posses the knowledge and the access for this information.

#bp


This past year I`ve have the amazing experience of discovering the music of a man named Brian Transeau aka BT. He is what I believe to be the greatest musician of our age. A true prodigy. How many musicians can say that they can:

  • Play 6+ instruments (I lost count on how many BT plays)
  • Master piano before age 10
  • Invent new instruments
  • Sing incredibly well
  • Write lyrics
  • Create music in the styles of classical, jazz, hip-hop, electronic, and dance.
  • Score music for films
  • Engineer completely new sounds
  • Invent the `Stutter Edit`
  • Written songs for big pop bands like N`Sync
  • etc, etc, etc….

Over the past 20 years he has humbly pushed the bounds of music into places never heard. His music when listened to (with a quality set of headphones) comes to life vividly, creating a world that can almost be seen around you. He is the holder of a a Guiness World Record, and likely the first musician (that I`m aware of) to compose his music in 5.1 surround sound.

BT is not N`SYNC when it comes to popularity, but he is the humble genius in the background. There is so much depth to learn about this man. So much to learn in the small details. Earlier this week, he was nominated for a Grammy. He is an inspiration to all performers working for innovation, complexity, depth and a mastery of their fields. I raise a toast to you BT. I wait to hear your next move knowing it will always be more brilliant than your last.

-Eric

————————————————-

My Greatest Honor

Posted: 15 Dec 2010 04:00 PM PST

This story begins on February 26, 1985. Music and images from the Grand Shrine auditorium in sunny Los Angeles California flickered to life, flying by primitive means from antennas through the airwaves to set-top boxes across the United States. Small resonant frequencies bouncing through the air to a family television with rabbit ears, in a small town nestled in the suburbs of Maryland; a town named Rockville.

The temperature was in the lower forties that day and raining. I was a hopeful, bright, awkward thirteen-year-old student of the arts. In those first thirteen years of my life, I’d been avidly devoted to the study and practice of music. I’d played innumerable Chopin Etudes (my favorite still being Op. 25 No 7 in C#) and studied composition and theory under the guidance of Setirios Vlahopolis at the Washington Conservatory. Each summer I mowed lawns to buy my first synthesizers and drum machines. As a very young boy, my love of music absolutely consumed me. From the age of four onwards, I was devoted completely to unraveling the complexities and beauty of anything my ears could hear. Music was (and still is), my safe place, my first love, my awe and wonderment and my silence.

On that foggy evening 25 years ago, a spark was lit in my thirteen-year-old heart that I carry with me to this very day. I saw four modern masters of my instrument, using the most cutting edge technology of the times, innovating and propelling the medium forward in a single, monumental push. I watched this monolithic event in awe. Those men are Herbie Hancock, Howard Jones, Thomas Dolby and Stevie Wonder. That performance, sandwiched just before a commercial break, sculpted an entire universe of possibility and hope in my adolescent heart. It is the moment that made me believe it is possible to be embraced and honored for accomplishment and innovation, and better yet by a group of your peers. At that moment, anything became possible.

I returned to the halls of Tilden middle school the next day with an ineffable spark that remains in me still.

It’s amazing how we all have defining moments such as these, that shape the very topography of our person. It’s also amazing that it sometimes takes years to see the beautiful lines of elevation, longitude and latitude that we have become manifest and connect from such simple things.

Flash forward a few years. I studied earnestly, forfeiting a social life for arduous practice and devotion to all things music. I was accepted to the Berklee School of Music at the age of fifteen. Not long after, I got a one-bedroom apartment in L.A.’s San Fernando Valley. With a mattress on the floor and a diet consisting solely of packaged ramen noodles, I made my demo tapes and submitted them all over town. I was shot down a thousand times by record labels and A&R people that didn’t understand, or if they did, didn’t care.

But I did. And I stayed the course.  Even in the mid-90s, when finances forced an L.A. sabbatical and return to my parent’s house in Maryland, I did not quit. Putting blinders on to the reality of my daily life, I poured myself into music. I attended lectures and read Keyboard as though it were a sacred text. I built instruments in my bedroom, studied coding, practiced Hannon exercises and kept my ear to the ground with anything happening in modern music. As far as career, however, nothing was happening.

Then something did. On blind faith, I sold my clunker car and started a record label with my childhood friend Ali Shirizinia. I made a record called Embracing the Future, and that record found its way across the waters to England where people were actually interested. I met DJ Sasha who was playing my records across the U.K. and began to began to visit there, returning several times to record and perform, until eventually I got my first record deal in 94’ signing to Warner Music in the UK. By this time, my first album IMA was completed. IMA was primarily an instrumental album containing protracted and elongated compositional forms that were described as “lush and dense” and “dripping with years of study”. But audible to me were also the years of hope and deliberation that were finally beginning to bear the first buds of fruit.

By 1999,  desire to compose music for motion pictures landed me back in California. I landed a big Hollywood manager and scored film after film and produced project after project, the months becoming a blur of marathon work sessions. Steadily over time, the projects became bigger and more influential. Almost all of the money I earned was reinvested it into my work; creating new technologies, proprietary software, hand made instruments and the like. While scoring films was fine, my great and ongoing desire was (and still is) to push forward the use of electronics as a medium for human expression into the mainstream to be appreciated by all. I longed to be additive.

Then in the middle of all this, something beautiful and unexpected happened. I found out I was going to be a father. It was then I made a very conscious and life changing choice. I chose to return to Maryland and raise my daughter in a simple place, where she could flourish and be a child. At the height of my “climb” I left the fast track of Los Angeles. After almost fifteen years of purposeful work and diligent innovation, I walked away.

I left to be a dad.

It is not to say my work did not continue, it did. It was just now crammed into the wee hours of the night, after my little girl was fed, bathed and read to, and finally sound asleep. For those sleepless years and through a period of incredible personal heartache and conflict, the themes and meaning in my work deepened. My heart grew in a way I did not know was possible at that time. My life and my work became an expression and devotion to my daughter, and to the idea that hope and perseverance have meaning. I also developed a deepening compassion for the human condition. I began to see that music is one of the few voices that soothes all our common struggles. I wrote from that place.

While I lived in Los Angeles I proudly served for NARAS on the board of governors. I pushed hard to forward the acknowledgement and understanding of electronic music and culture. I petitioned the board for a Best Electronic Album category. I wrote a thesis about it, met with my peers and friends, and with pride and enthusiasm I worked to convey why our music and community matter. I employed bands and artists to submit their works. Through those years of prodigious effort and struggle, that hope in me never died. As the years went by however, the prospect for acknowledgement by my peers waned and eventually after many years grew silent.

On Thursday December 2, 2010 at 6:50am (UK time), I landed in London. Prior to my flight it had been a long day of school runs and I couldn’t for the life of me figure out if I was supposed to get the shrimp for the teacher conference or not. Did I remember to pack my daughters ballet slippers for Nutcracker rehearsal? I didn’t know. My psoas and left shoulder were killing me (as they usually are after twenty years of flying) and I couldn’t imagine how I would manage to perform in India for the next 4 days. I was deeply exhausted and overwhelmed.

When we touched down, I quickly turned on my phone to call my daughter, but my phone was going haywire. It was like every text message in the world had mistakenly come to my phone. They were too fast to read, hundreds filed in, one after another. I finally interrupted them and saw a message from my best friend (of over twenty years now).

It said, “Brian, you did it. You’ve been nominated for a Grammy!!”

There are some moments that are impossible to explain and the next hour after this moment is kind of a blur. What I do remember, I will share here.

Silence and then inconsolable tears.

I wept from the place of that thirteen-year-old kid with a dream. It was as if all of the years of work and struggle, hope and diligence had converged in to this one moment. I felt as though my peers had joined in quiet solidarity to tell me Son, your work has value.

My nomination for Best Electronic Album seemed to resonate with a place in me that hadn’t been opened since I was a child. It was, and is, the greatest professional moment and honor of my entire life. Ever.

Well, they had to help me off the plane. Everyone was saying, “Is he okay?” By the time I was able to get the words out “I’ve been nominated for a Grammy” the entire plane erupted into applause. It literally was nearly as powerful as watching my daughter be born. In some ways more so, just different, very different.

I wouldn’t be truthful if I said I didn’t want to win. I’d also be lying if I said I hadn’t picked out a spot on our little mantle that I could look at a Grammy every day. But, that being said, this is the finish line.

My album These Hopeful Machines, has been nominated for the 53rd annual Grammy Awards for The Best Electronic Album. I proudly accept this nomination as the greatest win of my entire life.

Thomas, Herbie, Howard and Stevie, thank you for providing this one kid from suburban Maryland with a dream. Thank you for innovating and for inspiring me to do the same. Thank you from the bottom of my thirteen-year-old heart.

Brian Transeau
_BT

 

To read more go to:

http://www.btmusic.com/brian-transeau/press/bt-direct/285-my-greatest-honor.html

Late this past Saturday night following a DJ show, my smartphone buzzed indicating a new e-mail message. It was related to a posting I’d placed with Kijiji advertising my services as a wedding DJ.

However, the message I received indicated that I should take my place at the altar and not the DJ booth. It read:

 

Hello Love,

I came across your contact  while browsing through www.kajiji.ca and I decided to contact you.

Really I am here  to look  for  that lovely,  great and  ideal man to love.  Honey remember that distance, age and race are not barriers to a true love. However, I am a single and lovely young lady who wants to be dated with love and passion.  And I will appreciate if you can reply me. I am 24 years of age, 5.37 in height, 64 kg, and never married. I  will appreciate if you can reply my mail.

To enable me send you my pictures and more information about myself.
And while waiting for your lovely and positive reply,
I remain your lovely

Benita

I just have to laugh. Getting married is not a service that I offer!

I can only imagine my parents asking me how I met “Benita”.

 

-Eric Fairlie
Eric Fairlie is an entrepreneur, marketing consultant, illusionist, and wedding DJ based in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. He is the founder of Quicksilver Entertainment, an event management and live entertainment production agency specializing in offering magic, DJs, and variety entertainment. Eric invites you to check out www.quicksilvershow.comand can be reached by e-mail at blog@ericfairlie.com.

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