Design for change

Check out this inspiring TED presentation from a young woman whose non-profit approach to design is reshaping education in the poorest county in rural North Carolina.

Emily Pilloton is using grants, her own persistance and supportive educators to give students a design-centric educational environment that not only teaches important life skills but leaves lasting evidence of those lessons for the community as a whole to see and cherish.

It's pretty heady stuff to think a young woman can drive this kind of change amid such poor conditions. It shouldn't be surprising, given her TED bio that reads, in part:

"At graduate school, people were starting to talk more about sustainability, but I felt it lacked a human factor," she said. "Can we really call $5,000 bamboo coffee tables sustainable?" Convinced of the power of design to change the world, at age 26 Pilloton founded Project H to help develop effective design solutions for people who need it most.

 I was once told the best design is design you don't see but which makes your life better, easier, more rewarding. This would seem to fit that bill.

Recommended reading -- for punks

I snagged a promo copy of Rise Against's 2006 album "The Sufferer and the Witness" at a recent Californian "sale for charity" (we sell promotional items that companies to the newspaper and donate the proceeds to a local charity). 

I loved Rise Against's fury and intelligence whenever I heard them on XM but I never pulled the trigger on buying a full album. So getting "The Sufferer" for $3 and benefiting a good cause was a no-brainer. 

I'm still wading through all the music (a video of "The Good Left Undone" from the album is above) but I was struck by something I caught at the tail end of the liner notes: recommended reading from the band.  

Halloa?

So, check out Rise's Against's recommended reading list:

• "Brave New World" by Aldous Huxley
• "People's History of the United States of America" by Howard Zinn
• "The Fountainhead" by Ayn Rand 
• "Lies My Teacher Told Me" by James W. Loewen
• "Slaughterhouse-Five" by Kurt Vonnegut 
• "Ishmael" by Daniel Quinn

One might argue with the politics of those choices -- the band is named Rise Against, after all -- but isn't it nice to see a band promoting reading and intelligent thought instead of simply rattling off thanks to friends and equipment suppliers? 

Breaking down Girl Talk

I've been listening to Girl Talk's latest release, "All Day," which was made available for free download earlier this week. 

The famed DJ/remixer, aka Greg Gillis, is alarmingly good at "mashing" disparate songs and musical styles into one seamless sound. I first got into his work with 2008's "Feed the Animals," which crammed 322 song samples into 14 dance cuts. It was often chaotic but surprisingly smooth and comfortable.

"All Day" isn't growing on me as quickly. Perhaps it's because I've already been exposed to Girl Talk's over-the-top skills. I'll give it more time, but I still find myself amazed at his ear for picking the right songs to layer on top of one another. 

His song "Steady Shock" is just one example, mashing 19 songs in under 6 minutes (including one short segment when five different songs become one). An fun site called All Day Samples not only streams the new album but IDs the samples the moment they are introduced into the song (Wikipedia has a text list of all samples for every "All Day" song as well). 

Girl Talk mashes 19 songs into "Steady Shock," including five disparate songs at one pointHere are the songs used in Girl Talk's "Steady Shock":

• "Lil Freak" by Usher featuring Nicki Minaj
• "Go Shorty Go" by Travis Porter
• "Don't Fear the Reaper" by Blue Oyster Cult
• "Bird Walk" by Soulja Boy
• "Moving in Stereo" by The Cars
• "Fire and Ice" by Rihanna featuring Shy Ronnie
• "Dancing in the Dark" by Bruce Springsteen
• "Everyone Nose (All the Girls STanding in the Line for the Bathroom)" by N.E.R.D.
• "Flex" by Party Boyz
• "Alright" by Supergrass
• "1st of tha Month" by Bone Thugs-n-Harmony
• "Over" by Drake
• "Shine" by Collective Soul
• "Flagpole Sitta" by Harvey Danger
• "I Ran (So Far Away)" -- A Flock of Seagulls
• "B.O.B." by OutKast
• "Aneurysm" by Nirvana
• "Who Run It" by Three 6 Mafia
• "1901" by Phoenix

What I find amazing with Girl Talk is his ability to "hear" a song and match it with something completely different, all while keeping the beat steady (he makes his living as a DJ, so beat is of prime importance). 

Some of his songs warrant only one listen, while some I go back to repeatedly. And there's the ongoing argument whether what he's doing is illegal when it comes to the law of the land or the spirit of creativity. The bottom line is what he's doing is polishing a very different art form that warrants attention. 

Parental advisory: As with many of Girl Talk's creations, there is some foul language in "Steady Shock."