Great list. This piece makes me want to travel AND visit a music shop (while they still exist). I'd recommend Ruben Blades for anyone traveling the Panama - NYC conduit and beyond. I like how on his myspace page, he includes some of his older salsa tracks side by side with his recent work with bagpipe musicians.

Great piece, Lola. You put power-grid dependency in perspective when you can take the "daily power outage" in stride. I'm cheering for the van hangers-onners (hanger-onners?).