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Where, When, How Much, What Flavor.
No Saturday Morning Shards this week as I'm off to Ireland. i get back on Monday the 15th, jet-lagged and painted green. Oh and a year older. On Aug. 7, I turn 31 years young.
See you soon.
What Kind of Elitist Are You?
brought to you by Quizilla (via Bookslut)
Pretty accurate actually.
Former NPR Morning Edition host Bob Edwards will host his own show on XM Satellite Radio every morning at 8 AM. Though I'm waiting a few years for the next generation of XM (where you can download from it to your Ipod), this is a big step for XM, a reach towards traditional radio and NPR listeners and not simply music wonks looking for, say, an all-klezmer station and Buddy Guy basement tapes.
Writer par excellance (and Gen. Text contributor) Meghan Daum just launched her website and wrote a very funny article about it (via The Elegant Variation).
Did you hear that sound? It was Barak Obama knocking it out of the park at the Democratic National Convention.
Full text of his speech.
Jessamyn West of Librarian.net was one of the 33 bloggers invited to the Democratic National Convention. A library blog! How cool is that? Her postings will show up here.
The Virtual Book Tour has hit the open road again for a one day invasion of several distinguished blogs. See here for a complete list. The touring author is MJ Rose, novelist, thinker and friend. Her book is The Halo Effect.
I'm happy to be at the controls for today. Please let me know if any of ya'll have questions.
I've been waiting patiently for an eternity in web time (maybe a year) for a mac version of Launch.com, Yahoo's customizable radio station that not only streams your favorite music but suggests songs based on your favorites as well. Plain old streaming radio doesn't do this because you usually have to choose a station by genre (who only listens to one genre?). iTunes only lets you stream what you already own (where's the discovery in that?). Rhapsody and Launch both do this but are Windows only, a not-so-subtle line in the sand to the galloping hordes of iPod users.
Via the Mp3Blogs aggregator, I found Last FM, which might be the answer to my prayers. It works through iTunes, it lets you create your station and will suggest based on how closely your stations matches other like you.
I haven't quite figured out how it works yet. Like I tried to play my friend James's station and my friend Josh's and all I got was a one minute sample track and nothing telling me what I was listening to. (*loud hint*) Perhaps these two can help me out.
Interesting article in Online Journalism Review about how alternative weekly newspapers have been asleep at the online switch while ceeding their market share in localized content and funky personal ads to online properties like Craigslist and local music blogs.
Though it devotes the majority of the piece to papers who are getting with the times, I was drawn more to its opening paragraphs which surmise that maybe alternative weekly, born in the revolutionary crucible of the 1960s are one or two information revolutions removed from now. This doesn't explain Mother Jones and Alternet, founded by the same kinds of 60s revolutionaries as most alt-weekies, but who embraced the web immediately. The article doesn't mention them either.
I've had the same curiosity about zines, arguably an alternative weekly of one. Zines are the ancestors of weblogs, undoubtedly, the most important difference being some degree of permanence. Weblogs have archives you can peruse, usually the entire history of the site. Back issues of zines go out of print the minute the box from Kinkos is empty. Zinesters move and often have, at best, a Hotmail or AOL email address. Zines almost never have websites, which is fine for a self-published journal but torture for a zine reader and suicide for the art's history. Thanks god there are some zine libraries and a few responsible distributors. Otherwise, the whole zine explosion of the 1990s would hold roughly the same cultural significance as the Pet Rock.
I'm reminded of what someone in 12-step once told me.
"We must take change by the hand or it will take us by the throat."
Indeed.
What's been on my mind this week
Margaret Cho has been uninvited from performing at the Democratic National Convention. Here's her take on it (via Min Jung).
In response to me asking my friend Wendy to "Name some lesbian comics!" she said "Dykes to Watch out For".
I really like bands with lots of people in them.
The Democratic National Convention is coming up.
Reader's Circle.org is a nationwide directory of book clubs and reader's circles.
The world needs a better documentary film blog.
Cheers to the Toronto Star for this article about the recent crest of interest in documentary filmmaking, thanks to the success of (short list), Fahrenheit 9/11, Supersize Me and Metallica: Some Kind of Monster. Way way too many stories about this boom ask the same dumb question of "is it a documentary or is it propaganda?" (which is as tired as "is it a blog or is it journalism?") and "all all documentaries left wing? (Answer? Yes. Now move on.) and avoid an obvious point that needs making. Michael Moore and Morgan Sperlock have tranformed documentary going because they've made it fun. They done for docs what spoken word did for the term "poetry." Ten years ago, no high school kid would have caught dead getting excited by poetry. Now we have the National Teen Poetry Slam. Ten years ago, the average moviegoer thought "documentary" met some ponderous nature program narrated by Lorne Greene. Now it's entertainment, where you learn something too.
The article also lists some indispensable documentaries. See any of these and you're in for a fine night of cinema. Bet yet, see them all (via Arts Journal).
Because I really really had to find out first thing this morning when Tic Tac Dough went off the air, I stumbled across, this site, which contains the rules to every game show you can possibly imagine and Wink Martindale's Official Site.
I'm going back to bed.
This article about the slow death of New York City's diner culture just makes me sad. But the line I absolutely do not understand is this one...
"A guy who’s eating a filet mignon doesn’t want to sit next to a toothless grandmother nibbling on a toasted corn muffin,”
What? First of all, who pays attention to what someone else is the same restaurant as you is eating other than to say to your waiter "Oh, what's that?" Second, if both the filet mignon and the corn muffin are delicious who the hell cares?
In context, this line is supposed to show the ill effects of gentrification on a diner culture, always loveably 40 years passe. But in also illustrates something dumber at work. People try to gain fashionability points based on where they eat out, often going tso far as to patronize a restaurant with C+ food, B+ atmosphere and A+ prices.
I'm as fond of a interesting dining atmosphere as the next person. But 99% of the time I go out to eat, it's to feed craving with a sublime dish. That could be a corn muffin or it culd be filet mignon because is about taste, not packaging and certainly not price. I can't get over that some people are willing to pay good money for bad food just to sit in a nice room while eating it (via megnut).
How much do you think about these things when you go out to eat?
Anil's goodbye letter to New York City reminds me of how much I love my adopted home, San Francisco, and how I feel an obligation to it, the same way he does. It's probably a difficult concept to understand if you are nomadic by nature and never like to stay in one place for too long, or else just see home as bed where you sleep at night and the rest is just work, commuting and the nearest supermarket.
I wonder if there's a name for this, a name for being so in love with where you live that you feel almost married to it. Doesn't mean you're happy there all the time. Like any relationship, sometimes you're estatic with love and others you're barely speaking. But you feel bound to each other in some way that is larger than you both, in some way that says, for better or worse, that this is where you belong.
I don't think you need to live in a huge, expensive metropolis to feel this way about where you live. But you do need to be aware, to appreciate that cities and towns and suburbs and hamlet's are living things, have their own personalities that hopefully meld with yours. And that cities aren't simply the neighborhood where you don't feel to tred but rather the amalgam of all the experiences and lives that dwell there, and despite that swirl of activity, still make you breathe easy and say I'm home.
The Agronomist (2004): "The truth makes the devil's face blush" --William Shaespeare, as quoted by Jean Dominique, assassinated April 3, 2000.
See this movie.
Suzan was kind enough to accompnay me to Slim's last night to see The Polyphonic Spree in concert. She thinks they are big and stupid and happy and I can't enough of them. So she spent the better part of the show coming up with ways to describe this 28-member musicial happening, which we both decided is half the fun of the Spree anyway.
1. Music for everyone who misses Fraggle Rock.
2. A Generation X reminder that someone still loves you.
3. The ABBA Tabernacle Choir.
4. Pink Floyd meets The Muppets.
5. The Flaming Lips do Jesus Christ Superstar.
6. Your high school band and choir after 10 years in a commune.
The Portland edition. Sunday morning actually. I was too pooped to post yesterday.
WebVisions2004. Where I was and had a fabulous time. See ya in '05.
Nick Finck at Digital Web magazine who invited me.
The fine folks at Hot Pepper Studios who took care of me while I was in town.
When in Portland, the staff of Smokler Enterprises recommends staying at the Hotel Lucia, a restored Art Deco treasure downtown walking distance from...
Powells Books, the largest indepedent bookstore in the world and a Portland landmark.
Reading Frenzy, around the corner from Powells, is a locker-sized zine shop dedicated to independent publishing, graphic novels and comix. Just celebrated its 10th anniversary, which in this business makes it a legend.
Le Happy, a spectacular crepe shack where I had dinner in the fine company of Michael Buffington
Spectacular graphic design by Matt Owens at Volume One and DL Byron at Textura Design. The influence Portland has had on The Simpsons, hometown of the show's creator Matt Groening.
Suzan on the bizarre appeal of the Bravo reality show "Blowout".
"They think opening a salon is the same as rebuilding a nation."
Fresh Yarn: The Online Salon for Personal Essays features 6 real-life stories by writers, performers and filmmkaers. My friend Pamela Holm is in this new one. Looks neat.
At last count I've got 78 rss feeds (say what?) in my reader. It's the only way I keep track of my favorite blogs and online publications without losing my head. Even then I still do sometimes.
However, because I view idiocy as a virtue, I still get angry when I discover my favorite web sites don't have feeds. I usually then forget they exist for many months at a time 1) because there are too many of them and 2) I have the attention span of a firefly.
Feedapalooza is a new service that may be the answer. It creates custom rss feeds for any site you want for the very reasonable price of $2. $16-$20 seems a small price to avoid waiting for my favorite sites to come into the 21st century, year five, month 7. For me, when it comes to information consumption, the future is now. Now count to ten.
The future is now past. Hurry! Catch up!
UPDATE: How's this for fast? Eric Rice reports that the New York Times does have rss feeds. Hot damn!
Bugmenot allows you to avoid registering at any free registration web site by aggregating a list of account names and passwords. I like their explanation why.
*"Killing is my Business"
*"God Hates us All"
And about 10,000 male ponytails, backward baseball caps and a surprising number of women.
Realize that if you go to a Rush concert (and my cohorts Merlin, Greg, Albert, Jish and Leslie agree), you are attending a gathering of the misfits. Few of us have friends or family that share our appreciation for the pretentious Canadian rockers. They say Geddy Lee's voice is shrieky and thin, Neil Peart is an amazing drummer who writes ponderous, soupy lyrics and the guitaring of Alex Liefson, while virtuouso, is in the service of pointless musicial wankering.
Merlin put it best. Rush will not get you laid. It will not give you hipster cred or a reason to storm the barriciades of the establishment. It might only make you think, which is not a very sexy reason to hitch your wagon to three middleaged prog-ers from Toronto.
Maybe. It's the only explanation I have for why I've loved this band for nearly 20 years, because they make me, make me imagine things I wouldn't otherwise. They inspire me.
So yesterday I decided to grab a carpool to Concord at the last minute and go. It was my 4th concert and nothing all that different from previous shows. What made it unique was driving to Concord, listening to Rush, and giggling and babbling incessantly about the band no one gets and we haven't really since we were 15. But we stay on anyway, having a great time and wondering why.
What's been on my mind this week...
John Sayles has got a new movie out in September called Silver City.
A gloriously dorky fun pop band called Mystic Chrods of Memory. Many, many more bands need to name themselves after lines from famous presidential speeches.
Box Office Prophets: A rediculously thorough site about how much green movies make.
Nicholson Baker will have a new novel out next month called Checkpoint. The plot: Two men in a hotel room plot to assassinate President Bush.
I guess Anne Lamott isn't doing her Salon column anymore. This is her last one "for a while."
The legend of Curly Oxide, the Hasidic glam rock star (look under the 2004 archive under the show "My expirimental phase).
Books By the Bay is next week!
I'm all for feats of prolonged lunacity but visiting every Starbucks in the world (via Consolation Champs)?
My friend Tim'm West has a new solo album out called "Songs From Red Dirt" which is sitting on my desk as I write this. Since I've got a deadline this afternoon, listening will commence this evening.
Since 1994, I've ended every 4th of July by listening to the song "Wahington's Day" by the Hooters. The tradition began that year in Los Angeles where I concluded the holiday by watching fireworks from the base of the "D" in the Hollywood Sign.
I got the idea from the song's first verse...
Did you think I could ever forget
The night by the arlington flame
In the silence I heard it
Through streets so deserted
You whispered and called me by name
Did you think I could ever forget
That powerful look in your eye
Where Lincoln stood strong there
You held me so long there that night
On the fourth of July
I wasn't a typical 4th. Our friends came over for a BBQ then declined to watch the fireworks through the fog. We played board games instead. I also didn't read Jefferson's letters, didn't listen to Aaron Copland's "The Lincoln Portrait", didn't feel any of the benign patriotism that normally marks the holiday for me. It's a different time, darker, sober, filled with foreboding and regret.
Which is why, at 1:30 AM when everyone had gone home, when it wasn't even July 4th anymore, I went up the roof of our building and, in fog so thick I could dive into it, I listened to Washington's Day.
When the wars that men wage are all through
And their monuments put on display
Tell the hungry and stranded
The poor empty handed
We'll meet them on Washington's day
I hope and I pray that you'll be here with me
When the mountains that rise tumble into the sea
And the visions that come are the visions that stay
Hope you'll be here with me
Home on Washington's day
My absolute favorite holiday. Take yourself flag counting today.
UPDATE: Final tally was 224 flags, aided by an zealous realtor in Daly City who staked about 50 houses with plastic American flags in their front lawns. I called my dad in Israel, just to let him know.
Note: I don't have a link blog where I can dump all the odds and ends I've collected over the week and most aren't large enough for full entry. Thus, I present Saturday Morning Shards, for your short-attention spam browsing pleasure.
My buddy Josh of the classic new yorker experience of waiting in line for Shakespeare in the Park Tickets.
The Polyphonic Spree as performed by a gang of 8-year olds.
An incredibly foul newspaper comic anti-hero named Bosko.
Uru: The next chapter in the legendary Myst saga.
Next up on VH1: I love the 90s.
A growing interest in visiting The Winchester Mystery House (via Dave).
Newly in love with the music of The Lovemakers.
I've been reading this book on the toilet for the last few months and one of the entries was a filmmaker named Sarah Jacobson, a mid-90s pioneer of DIY and feminist cinema. Her two films I Was a Teenage Serial Killer and Mary Jane's Not a Virgin Anymore were self-financed and distributed and the later received a spot at Sundance in 1997 and a glowing review from Roger Ebert.
I was curious. I went over the Sarah Jacobson.com to see what she had going on lately. Turns out, she's dead. Had a long battle with cancer and lost. She was 33.
I was writing an email to someone this morning and instead of signing it "Kevin", I signed it "Levon." Huh?
Bookmark Now: Writing in Unreaderly Times edited by Kevin Smokler
