You Should Hear This … Sabali by Amadou and Mariam

My man Caleb turned me on to Amadou and Mariam a few months ago, and I just got my hands on this song from their Welcome to Mali album. It takes a while, but the bass drops in at 01:37 and kicks from there. Can’t get that beat out of my head.

Sabali by Amadou and Mariam

UPDATE: Adam sent me the info about a mixtape by Theophilus London sampling this track — I’ve uploaded it here: Grey X Sage by Theophilus London.

I played photo association (like word association) while listening to it and pulled these three out of the archives (as always, click on any image to enlarge it, and click one side of it to advance):

Check out the album review here.

Tilt-Shift Photography on the Cheap PART II

After going back to look at some of the better tilt-shift photos, doing some reading, and checking out this Photoshop tutorial, I decided to try again, this time in Photoshop. I think these came out much better.

Brazil’s Chapada Diamantina National Park Burning

I just learned the disturbing news that fires are raging out of control in Brazil’s Chapada Diamantina National Park. While the mainstream media doesn’t appear to be reporting the story in Brazil or elsewhere, reports from Brazil’s environmental service indicate that 50% of the park has burned. Independent reports indicate that the fires were originally started by ranchers seeking to clear their land.

I visited the park in May 2005 while living in Salvador da Bahia and I vividly remember climbing to the top of the Fumaca Waterfall — one of the tallest in the world at over 1,200 feet –and surveying the lush, green valley below.

Without many reports to go on, it is unclear exactly what is happening in the remote park. Hopefully the fires will subside and with time the local ecosystem will recover.

A few photos of the park above/below; click any of the photos for an expanded view.

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