Give someone a token of your affection for the Holiday run with this pure silver wearable token commemorating the 2010-11 NYE shows by Vermont artist and jewelry maker Jennifer Kahn.

The token is available in an archival coin display holder for $25, a pendant on black waxed cotton cord (16" or 18") with sterling ends and a sterling lobster clasp for $35, or on a sterling chain for $45.

In addition to the commemorative fish and apple, and "NYE, NYC, MSG", all three show dates are inscribed among the lines on the edge. A limited edition of only 100 tokens will be made to order.

Ordering details from the cashortrade.org website here. Jennifer is generously donating 10% of her sales of this commemorative token to the Mockingbird Foundation.

MMMMMMMMmmmmmmm….soup!

In this case, Potato Cheddar Chowder soup from the upcoming PhanFood cookbook, by the “Healthy Hippie” newsletter’s Taraleigh Weathers, ”PhanArt Pete” Mason and dozens of contributors.

Here’s the recipe.

PhanFood is available for pre-order for $19.95 from the its publisher, the State University of New York (SUNY) Press (yes, SUNY Press, way to go Taraleigh and Pete!).

Click on the photo or this link to pre-order or for further information about the book.

There will be also be a book release party with free admission from 7pm to 9pm followed by music from Dopapod until 2am on Saturday, December 11th at Nectar’s Restaurant, 188 Main St, Burlington, VT. For further details contact Pete at PhanArt.

Credits: Recipe by Lindsay Jones. Photo and recipe reprinted by permission, from PhanFood: From the Kitchen Pot to the Tour Lot edited by Taraleigh Weathers and Pete Mason, the State University of New York Press ©2010, State University of New York. All rights reserved.

DeMuri said he knew they got the boulder right when [rock climber and biopic subject Aron] Ralston visited the Sugar House set. He looked at the boulder and was surprised that it was a copy. “He said, ‘You see these indentations right here? This is what I chipped away with my multitool.’ Danny looked at me and winked. I knew we got it right.”

That fidelity extended to the costume design, Larlarb said. She tracked down the manufacturer of Ralston’s shoes and even outfitted Franco with the same brand of headlamp.

She made one small change, finding a different Phish T-shirt (Ralston’s favorite band) because the band’s name was too prominent on the one he actually wore during his accident. “If I had used that shirt, we would have read the word ‘Phish’ for 90 minutes, and that would have been incredibly detracting,” Larlarb said. “I went through the Phish back catalog of concert T-shirts, and I found one that was a little more abstract, but in keeping with what he wore.”

One of the best things generally about Phish's covers of other bands' music, and the Halloween "musical costume" tradition in particular, is how much great music of other bands you can discover in the process of being a "Phish phan".

Other than 1994's Beatles' "white album" choice, which most in the audience knew by heart owing to the Beatles' near universal popularity, most of Phish's later Halloween albums choices tended to reflect Phish's influences in somewhat more obscure choices that many in the audience were mostly unfamiliar with, something of a risk for Phish that its audience would share the band's enthusiasm for their own influences.

This year's choice, Little Feat's 1978 double album "Waiting for Columbus" is within that mold and perhaps is the closest to Phish in all of the choices of recent Halloweens.

As Bob Lefsetz pointed out, Little Feat was a band that toured endlessly in the early and mid 1970s but could gain no radio traction or hit songs, save for its near hit, "Dixie Chicken". But their music was really innovative for the time, they had a committed fan base (at a time when the Grateful Dead were basically on hiatus from touring), and they had a kickass, tight live show.

So, in 1978, that band released a double LP vinyl album of two live shows in London and Washington, edited together into as much would fit on 4 LP sides which each side couldn't go much beyond 20 minutes, and when recording a live show was a big deal, requiring trucks parked outside with bulky studio tape deck consoles, and snaking cables into a theatre.

Which brings me to this year's reissue of a remastered edition of Waiting for Columbus by the famed audiophile company, Mobile Fidelity Sound Labs. MFSL reissues select CDs from iconic artists like Frank Sinatra and the Beatles where the master tapes are available, and uses proprietary mastering techniques and 24 karat gold CDs which are individually pressed from the master in a limited, numbered "collectors edition".

On the 10/31 setlist review page, Phish.netter @BarkleyMoo mentioned that MFSL had released a remastered WfC in a limited gold CD edition and recommended it to fans, and I went bought one immediately from the MFSL/Music Direct website here. It was $39.99, and about $6 ground shipping.

I received it two days ago, copy 000429 out of 500, and it hasn't been off my Apple TV, iPod boom box or car stereo much since. It is a terrific recording of a great couple of shows.

Without taking away anything from Phish's masterful imitation of Little Feat two weeks ago, the original performances at the height of the Lowell George period in 1978 are jawdroppingly tight, like Phish playing their own music when "the hose" of a "legendary" performance is happening. Like Phish, Little Feat sought to make these recorded gigs special, by adding the horns section from the Tower of Power, a blues band of the day.

If you enjoyed the Halloween performance and want to hear a formidably impressive recording of a formidably impressive, although overlooked band of the 70s era, you will run, not walk to snag one of the presumably less than 70 available copies left of this CD from the Music Direct link above.

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A mermaid themed chandelier in the Boardwalk Lobby of the AC Convention Hall, taken on my iPhone during setbreak last Saturday.

Atlantic City casino revenues are down again this month ...

Gaming revenues at Atlantic City casinos dropped again ...

Atlantic City casinos took another hit ...

For years, headlines like these - driven by monthly casino-revenue figures - have been unrelenting: The amount of gambling money Atlantic City casinos take in has continued to slide.

But the problem is, too few people have been looking at all the numbers. The focus on the monthly casino take has overshadowed a bright spot that Atlantic City needs to focus on.

Yes, fewer people are coming to Atlantic City, but they are spending more money on nongaming activities such as hotel rooms, meals and entertainment, according to a study by Spectrum Gaming of Linwood. The amount of money lost gambling in Atlantic City fell 23 percent since 2007, but spending on hotel rooms is up 21 percent and food and drink is up 6 percent, Spectrum found.

Many casinos have been decreasing comps. Yet people are still spending - and spending more, even in these tough times - to stay, dine and be entertained in Atlantic City.

What does that mean? First, it means the resort is clearly on the right track with the kinds of events it hosted last weekend. The wildly popular Phish concerts completely sold out 14,100 seats for three nights at Boardwalk Hall. That's 42,300 tickets. Many of those fans stayed in the casino hotels, ate at restaurants, shopped at stores and visited nightclubs. The same weekend, Harrah's Entertainment's "Out in A.C." event reached out to the lucrative gay tourism market, while Bally's Atlantic City hosted more traditional Atlantic City entertainment Saturday night - a boxing match.

These are the kinds of weekends that need to happen more often. Sure, some of the people who packed the city gambled. But that's not what brought them to Atlantic City. That's not what will keep them coming.

And Atlantic City's future growth area probably won't be gambling.

"We're still the second-biggest gaming market in the country, but when you lose a billion dollars of revenue that's not coming back, you have to change your business model," said Don Marrandino, Harrah's Eastern Division president.

I'm not a phish fan, in fact I'd never listened to their music before this weekend. Let me say that I have never met a more friendly, excited and happy group of people in Atlantic City than the phish fans. I thought their positivity was infectious. They were a joy to be around while I was there and I would welcome them back in a heartbeat. If what this article says is true, I never saw the tiniest hint.

In an Artsblog post, Annie Burkhart writes, "Phish has a fanatic following, so much so that it’s normal for tickets to sell out three minutes after they go on sale. The possibilities to mobilize the massive community are awesome, and that is just what the founders ofThe Mockingbird Foundation have done. A foundation organized by Phish fans, The Mockingbird Foundation, funds music education programs for children, especially in communities touched by Phish tours. This past weekend, the foundation donated $1000 for instruments to the Atlantic City High School. It’s their mission to grant access to music, but they strongly support programs that integrate student interaction with music. Music is a Phish fan’s fuel; it would be silly to keep it confined to music halls and venues.

Even though we get really pumped over songs with lyrics about running antelopes and possums, we do what we can to spread the groove into communities, and I couldn’t be happier to be a morsel of that culture."

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You see every Halloween Phish plays an entire classic album. And rumor was it was gonna be Zeppelin, so the Phearless Phoursome dropped some classic Zep into their set the night before, the 30th. But on the holiday, the album they covered was WAITING FOR COLUMBUS!

HUH?

I bet most of you have never heard of this double live album, when two vinyl discs didn’t even add up to the length of one CD.

What do you do when you don’t break through? RECORD YOUR GREATEST HITS!

Well, Little Feat only had one. But they had all that great music in their catalog that so many people had never heard. And they were big in England. And if you think "Waiting For Columbus" took hold in America, you’re rewriting history. Sure, dedicated music fans now knew who the band was, but still most people knew no tracks. Although as years passed, "Dixie Chicken" became a standard. That’s what perseverance will do for you. Concentrate on cutting something great, not what people want, and you might end up with a cut that lasts, one that truly strikes a chord.

Still, it’s not like Little Feat is the Doors, there’s been no mass renaissance. So it’s utterly AMAZING that Phish played this live album in its entirety Sunday night.

But it’s even better than that. They even employed a horn section, just like the original band, featuring Michael Leonhart of Steely Dan’s band. This was no casual effort, this was a tribute to their forgotten heroes, this was musicians who had to get it RIGHT!"

Phamily Classic, benefitting the Mockingbird Foundation

ZZYZX ponders his next move as the Phamily Classic Poker Tournament gets underway in Atlantic City at the Tropicana Casino today

The current Weekend Poker Update for Atlantic City's Real Deal includes the Mockingbird Foundation's own Phamily Classic among the events to witness, and notes both that it's sold out and that it's for charity.

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If you don't have a ticket, don't come. This is real. This is first a music concert, not a free-for-all party. ... Many of the people without tickets have no responsibility or obligation to our scene. They don't give a shit. They act like idiots. They think it's just a party to get as trashed as possible at. We're supposed to be about higher consciousness, not drunken stupidity. ... They can only get away with this crap if you let them. The old slogan is true: if you're not part of the solution, you're part of the problem. ... Listen to the rules, and pressure others to do so.