By The brainwavez.org Team

Posted: 22 December 2009

View Comments

Another year has flown by but it's been a great one - lots of hectic, stressful deadlines; monster articles; and new contributors adding to the fun and mayhem. Here's a quick roundup of some of the highlights and a bit of what's in store for 2010.

2008 was a slow year for brainwavez.org, with everyone distracted by demanding jobs that took up all of our time, but we bounced back in 2009 with renewed vigour and fortitude and this year has been a great one for the site. We've posted some of our most in-depth reviews and features so far (for a full list see the 2009 archive page - lots of good stuff there) and have had fantastic support from companies in South Africa, especially Penguin Books South Africa and African Cream Music, both of whom have been supplying lots of review products (no conditions attached, of course - our opinions, whether positive or negative, are our own), which has been a great help to us as most things we review we have usually paid for ourselves. A number of reviews of books that Penguin sent have already appeared on the site, and many more will be following in 2010. We haven't posted the reviews of African Cream Music back-catalogue CDs yet, but expect to see them start appearing from early 2010, along with reviews of books from other publishers.

This year we've also had new contributors writing for the site. Some contributed fantastic one-off articles that we are honoured to have been able to publish, such as "Highs And Lows Of Réunion" and "Photo Essay: Behind The Scenes At The South African Music Awards", and we are hoping that others will be staying with us as long-term contributors to help with the load, as there's always more to write about than we have time for. (By the way, if you are interested in contributing, contact myself or Jase Luttrell or leave a note in the comments - we are always looking for contributors and would like to see more representation from other parts of the world; at the moment Jase is flying the US flag solo.)

Last year the Cappuccino Quest quietly went into hiatus, partly by accident and partly because Jase and I both received training in the art of cappuccino making (thanks to the very awesome David Donde for my introduction) and learnt that for the most part we were evaluating too kindly (which led to additional frustration for me as I began to realise just how badly most cappuccinos are made). We also need to tweak our evaluation procedure and this is still in progress as I feel that I need a bit more training, which I will be getting next year, so we are looking forward to resurrecting the Cappuccino Quest in 2010, and we hope you'll enjoy reading about our new cappuccino adventures then.

We jumped into Twitter at the end of 2008 as an experiment and started using it fully in 2009 for new-post announcements and the odd extra bit of fleetingness. It has proven to be a great tool and is the best way to keep up to date with what's happening at the site, so we encourage you all to follow us (@brainwavez) and say hi (and retweet your favourite articles!).

On behalf of all the contributors at brainwavez.org I would like to wish you a happy festive season and all the best for 2010. We're all on holiday for the next few weeks but most of us already have long lists of items to review and write about so we'll see you back here early next year!

Mandy J Watson
founder and co-editor
Cape Town, South Africa


2009 is nearly over. You won't have to listen intently to hear the collective sigh of relief from the world at large. It seems that most people I know had one hell of a year. For brainwavez.org, it hasn't been all bad, but since I'm a natural pessimist, I'll focus on the glass-half-empty things first, ending with the positive pieces of 2009.

2009 was certainly a difficult year for me, personally. I resigned from my job in Salt Lake City, Utah, USA to make the big move to Portland, Oregon. I had a job offer at a trendy little bakery, so I felt I was finally fulfilling my dream of becoming a baker. Unfortunately, the experience quickly soured, and I left the job with no other immediate prospects for the future. Five months later, I was offered another job which I'm actually quite enjoying! But these five months had quite an impact on brainwavez.org: I wasn't able to buy CDs or books, attend a lot of festivals, or explore the city and surrounding area. Therefore, I had very little to write about! And once I took my current position, I became too busy to write about the things I had intended writing about, which included the Portland International Beer Festival, the Oregon Brewer's Festival, and two entries for the Music To Note category: Butterfly Boucher's "We Don't Have A Clue" and Stephen Kellogg And The Sixers' "My Old Man." Hopefully, I'll be able to write about these things in the near future, which brings us to the reviews I actually did accomplish in 2009.

I took more of a backseat to the writing aspect of brainwavez.org in 2009 and focussed on a lot of proofreading and editing. The few articles I did contribute to the site are pieces that fill me with some pride. The North American Organic Brewer's Festival was an exceptional festival and had some great beers that I've never tried before. A big focus in 2009 was District 9, of which I contributed articles for both the Alive In Joburg short and the feature film, which gave us the opportunity to present two cultural perspectives on the same work. Finally, my experience watching Vaux's Swifts is easily the most memorable from the year, since the experience had an obvious connection to nature and the physical world, and helped me to feel grounded throughout all of my employment issues. It's also highly memorable as it was a complete pain in the ass for both Mandy J Watson and I to figure out how to upload the video without demolishing bandwidth.

Like most people, I want to focus on the things to come for 2010. This is the part where I get to feel a little more optimistic and positive. I am excited to continue the projects I've started in 2009 (currently all top secret!), I look forward to reviewing books as part of brainwavez.org's connection to Penguin Books South Africa, and, of course, any and all upcoming beer festivals in the state of Oregon!

Here's to a happy and successful completion of 2009, and all the best for 2010. Thanks for visiting brainwavez.org, and please come back soon!

Jase Luttrell
co-editor
Portland, Oregon, United States

 Speak Your Mind

blog comments powered by Disqus