Recently at 11pm on a saturday night, a group of us found ourselves in the City at the 200% more-expensive-than-the-rest club: Ruby Skye. It’s a pretty cool place… if you like trance… it turns out the majority of the crew wasn’t a big fan but they all said they had a good time. “It was good to do something different” and “It was good to see you have so much fun jumping around” they said. That’s good enough for me. :)

Anyway, I was reading this About.com interview with Paul Van Dyk, number 1 DJ in the world for 2006 according to DJ Magazine and number 2 at the DJList.com, about his latest album “In Between” which is scheduled to come out on August 14th. He said this about title:

The music came together over a period of two or three years. There have been all these changes - the whole globalization thing, the climate change, and just as much me growing up. This is why it’s called In Between – as in between phases. Every single track has its own little story, and since I traveled all around the world through the timeframe of producing the music, the influences are from all over the world.

I’ve always been a fan of the smooth-sounding beats and incredibly-flowing transitions of trance. This album, I’m sure, will be just as good. Trance music, as expressed by this artist, now reflects some of the changes that this world is going through, that this world is in between phases… It’s so true.

History thus far, with the greed of man at its forefront, has led us to an organization of humans where billions are in poverty and a few thousand have the vast majority of the wealth. At the same time, we’ve seen in the last 50 years huge technological advances. How do we better the world with all this knowledge?

Baha’u'llah has said:

The world is in great turmoil, and the minds of its people are in a state of utter confusion. We entreat the Almighty that He may graciously illuminate them with the glory of His Justice, and enable them to discover that which will be profitable unto them at all times and under all conditions.

Shoghi Effendi, the great grandson of Baha’u'llah, said:

Beset on every side by the cumulative evidences of disintegration, of turmoil and of bankruptcy, serious-minded men and women, in almost every walk of life, are beginning to doubt whether society, as it is now organized, can, through its unaided efforts, extricate itself from the slough into which it is steadily sinking. Every system, short of the unification of the human race, has been tried, repeatedly tried, and been found wanting.

He also said elsewhere:

This will indeed be the fitting climax of that process of integration which, starting with the family, the smallest unit in the scale of human organization, must, after having called successively into being the tribe, the city-state, and the nation, continue to operate until it culminates in the unification of the whole world, the final object and the crowning glory of human evolution on this planet.

Disintegration to integration… Good thing we are optimists. :) For more discussion, join us this Sunday at my place at 7pm.

Together As One 2007 at the Los Angeles Sports Arena had an amazing line up of DJs including Paul Van Dyk (the current number one DJ), Deep Dish, Christopher Lawrence and Marco V.

My aunt’s friend got us some free tickets so she, my friend Nina and I all went to the Trance Concert. Due to her grandmother look at 50+ years old (she is a happy grandmother of 3), she got a ton of hugs and high fives from many of the young people at the concert as they interrupted her jumping up and down while she waved her glowstick with the music. She had a lot of fun and so did Nina and I. It was my second time at TAO (last year, Ves and I went).

Here is a little video I filmed with my digital photo camera:

I also filmed the countdown to 2007, which I might upload later. If you go to the youtube page for this video though, you will see many other countdown videos associated with it.

I also have a small flickr photoset up (I was having troubles taking pictures with my Canon SD550 in that rapidly changing light environment, any tips?) Nina took some really cool photos.

Last night, a small group of us went out to a San Francisco Symphony performance at the the Davies Symphony Hall. I had a really good time specially because it was something I’m not used to doing. Usually its a movie and more recently salsa… but last night was a bart ride from Berkeley to the City, walk around in the City a bit, the Symphony, bart back and grab some food. At the Symphony, the main piece was Ravel’s Boléro and my other favorite was a piece by Vaugn Williams. Mozart’s was ok (sorry to all the fans out there) and the fourth piece had an 11-year-old boy soprano, which was the only cool part. Anyway, I definitely recommend trying something different by going to the Symphony. I might be on a new wave of trying different things now: opera, art museums… we’ll see… cause salsa is still the bestest :).