Dec 30 2005
See you in 2006:
Suzan and I are going away for the weekend. Happy New Year and see you in 2006 everyboby!
Kevin's Mailing List
Where, When, How Much, What Flavor.
Kevin's Mailing List
Where, When, How Much, What Flavor.
Suzan and I are going away for the weekend. Happy New Year and see you in 2006 everyboby!
Actor Michael Vale who turned the phrase, "Time to make the donuts" into part of our shared lexicon as the sheepish baker of many commercials, has died. He was 83.
Did the President call the Constitution "a godamn piece of paper?" (via Powazek)
Java Log may be the answer to my prayers. I've got this phat phireplace in my house but I stink at making fires. There's no easy source of wood and kindling nearby (unless you count fallen branches in Golden Gate Park, which I don't) and I, though I don't know for sure, I gotta believe that most artifical logs are about good for the environment as an open air torching of a sofa.
Java Log is a log make from spent coffee beans. Burns clean, smells like Sunday morning and moves waste (in this case residue from instant coffee companies) back into public use.
Winnings all around. I got one this afternoon.
Hannukah officially began at sun up yesterday with this article on Jewish hipsterism. It's never been kooler to be kosher (via my friend Leslie).
Perhaps a slow trickle of links isn't enough for you. Perhaps you need a firehose in your right ear of URLy wet goodness. If so try Diggdot which combines Slashdot, Digg, and del.icio.us into one continuous stream of information. Then spend 9 days detoxing in a darkened meat locker (via Laughing Squid).
Magazine: New York Times Magazine
Issue Date: Unkown ( I threw it away before I could record it)
Cover Story: Long piece about Bono and his African relief work.
What I learned:
1) The difference between "bilateral debt" and "multilateral debt."
2) That Bono is still married to his high school sweetheart.
3) Dr. Abraham Verghese is still writing. His book My Own Country is one of my favorites.
The San Francisco Local Merchants Alliance, an organization I support and have done some work for, has a nice write up in SFGate.
Because I was gone so much of this summer book touring, there's a pile of unread magazines on my bedroom chair about 18 inches high. Some are from a Journalists Day Out I did with my friend Leslie last month but most are simply collecting dust from a few months ago. They arrived home. I wasn't here.
So now that I'm taking the month off, I'm going to dive into this pile of unready goodness. Since I've never accumulated like this before, I'm going to be blogging what I learn right here.
The Inventory: 48 Periodicals (40 magazines, 4 literary journals, 2 newsletters, 1 comic book and 1 xeroxed article).
Contents:
1 copied article from The Nation.
Nov. 21 issue of said magazine.
Issue #10 of Optic Nerve.
Issue #1 of the Nextbook newsletter.
Summer/Fall issue of the Folk Art Messenger.
Issue #3 of 3rd Floor.
2 Utne.
Issue #70 of Punk Planet.
April 2005 issue of San Francisco Magazine.
2 Harper's.
2 Mother Jones.
1 GQ.
5 issues of American Craft magazine.
4 issues of Raw Vision.
1 Fortune.
1 issue of Bust.
5 issues of the New Yorker.
2 Columbia Journalism Reviews.
1 Fast Company.
1 issue of Heeb.
1 issue of Wired.
1 issue of Juxtapoz.
1 Esquire.
1 Forbes.
Issue #5 of Hobart: a literary journal.
3 issues of Topic.
Issues #19 and #24 of The Believer.
1 issue of Cineaste.
Here we go...
Brokeback Mountain (2005): "If you can't fix it, you gotta stand it." --Heath Ledger
Bookmark Now has been named one of the San Francisco Chronicle's Best Books of 2005. It's the perfect topper on an absolutely nutty year.
Wow oh Wow.
A little late as del.icio.us was down. All seems well now.
*The New York Times weighs in on the most blogged books of 2005. Freakonomics topped the list (via micropersuasion).
*The NYTs Public Editor had few things to say about how the paper's Book Review also (via Readerville).
*According to Business Week, Women now account for 50% of all technology purchases (via Misbehaving.net).
*The Bible goes Boondocks (via JewSchool).
*Dozens of rock star tour riders, the document that says that, say, Van Halen won't eat brown M&Ms. Addictive as hell (via Artful Manager).
*Howard Stern has left terrestrial radio. What will the impact of his move to satellite be?
Still vacationing. Or trying to.
Syriana (2005): "Intricacy does not equal interest."
The other night I attended a "craft night" with my friends Lucia and Kristin. Since I'm about as artistically inclined as a sleeping penguin, I decided to learn how to fold paper cranes.
Some samples of my work (photos by Kristin).
Fascinating discussion happening over at Misbehaving.net about the implied meanings of colleagues of the opposite sex having a business dinner together. If you're asking me, the guy whose wife won't let him have dinner with a female colleague is a spineless toad. His wife needs to wake up and spell the century.
What do you think?
So says the NY Times, Google has decided to acquire 5% of America Online. As of last night, I acquired 5% holiday indigestion. Because everyone's getting acquired these days and I didn't want to feel left out (via Susan Mernit).
If curious about where it all began, the very first issue of Boing Boing (back when it was a print zine) is now available online (via Laughing Squid).
The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe (2005). "I'll take the cartoon version."
The little vlog that could has been profiled in The New York Times and they just signed a deal with TiVo to be listed on the service's directory.
Hopefully the folks from Rocketboom will be at SXSW again this year. Way to go (via New Media Musings)!
Community Voice Mail is a free service where low-income people can have a constant phone number that connects to a voicemail box where they receive message from perspective employers, social services, and also maintain their communication ties to the rest of the world. They claim to have distributed 38,850 free phone numbers to survivors of Hurricane Katrina (via Evhead).
The LA Times reports (with some glee), that my hometown paper, the San Francisco Chronicle's circulation is plummeting, 16% in the first half of 2005, the largest amongst any of the nation's biggest 20 newspapers. The usual row of factors (the Interweb, Craigslist, the generational divide in how folks get their news) is exacerbated by the unique character of the Bay Area--a cosmopolitan, tech savvy readership that gets much of their news online and from out of town papers. Oh and Craig lives here.
I applaud the efforts of the Chron to modernize because A) I think ragging on one's hometown paper holds about as much wait as calling Hollywood shallow and B) SF Gate, the paper's web presence, is one of the most popular newspaper websites in the country and has rapidly grown and diversified over the last year, adding blogs, podcasts, and rss feeds.
Question I have then: Is it too little, too late? SFGate got rss feeds only after months of complaining from readers (I had to have one designed for Beth Lisick's column). Podcasts are broken down by category but there's no way to get them all and then pick and choose like you would when, say, reading sections of a newspaper. I haven't really checked out the blogs yet but doesn't SFist and Laughing Squid already do what the Gate's Culture Blog does?
"Forum" did a pretty good show about The Future of Newspapers not long ago. I also liked this Slashdot article about the topic.
How is your hometown paper grappling with change?
You've probably heard that Viacom (home of Paramount Pictures) has bought the DreamWorks studio, ending the 11-year old dream of the three founders to create a different kind of movie studio. In the end, Steven Spielberg was still a director for hire, Jeffrey Katzenberg still ran a hot animation studio, just as he had done before at Disney, and David Geffen still marches to the beat of his own drummer. Dreamworks Records never got its footing at was sold to Universal Music Group in 2003.
The Dream, it seems, was a Pipe Dream. Actually, I stole this line from The Business, a fine NPR show about the business of entertainment. They did a whole episode on the failure of Dreamworks.
Governor Schwarzenegger has decided not grant Stanley "Tookie" Williams clemency which means Williams will die by lethal injection tomorrow night.
I have no idea whether Mr. Williams is guilty or innocent. But I don't believe in the death penalty because A) it doesn't work and B) I think society should be more civil than its criminals. And revenge, no matter how justified it seems, is no way to run a democracy.
Help us all.
UPDATE: San Francisco Chronicle coverage of the execution which happened at 12:01 this morning. It's pretty clear where they stand. I did learn though that there is a pro-death penalty advocacy group, The Criminal Justice Legal Foundation, which calls itself "the only public interest organization in America working full time to assure that our courts respect the rights of crime victims and law-abiding society," in addition to groups like The National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty.
Yes, I know nobody trusts Wikipedia anymore. But I had a super time this morning checking out the entries of every place I've ever lived and learning a thing or two...
Ann Arbor, Michigan (1973-1991): President Lyndon Johnson announced the "Great Society" in Ann Arbor in 1964.
Baltimore, Maryland (1991-1997): Baltimore is home to the world's tallest five-sided equilateral building, the Baltimore World Trade Center.
Los Angeles, California (Summers of 1991, 1992): Los Angeles and its suburbs have 13 area codes.
Austin, Texas (1997-2000): Austin is situated on the Balcones Fault, a non-active earthquake zone.
San Francisco, California (2000-Present): San Francisco's city flag is a rising pheonix, adopted after the devastating 1906 earthquake. The motto beneath it reads "Gold in Peace, Iron in War."
Try it with your hometowns. It's fun.
In the Cocoalicious queue this week, to be read at the gym or in the bathtub since I'm on vacation.
*Richard Pryor has died at 65. So has Eugene McCarthy. He was 89. My mom worked on his '68 campaign. McCarthy's not Pryor's.
*The Diane Rehm Show (which I listened to when I lived in Baltimore) has a podcast of its Friday news roundup which I've been using to make sure I'm up to date on current events. Very effective.
*The California Supreme Court has denied Stanley "Tookie" Williams's appeal. It's up to the Governor now.
*Transom.org has a neat feature called The Transom Review where well known radio and media personalities talk nuts and bolts about gathering audio and reporting. Guesta have included Ira Glass, Errol Morris and Brooke Gladstone.
*Slashdot essay on the future of newspapers. Editor & Publisher weighed in with a case for a non-profit newspaper (via Arts Journal).
*The publishing business is in a slump (and Wilt Chamberlain was very tall). Are MFA programs to blame (via Arts Journal).
*Pandora now lets you keep a running tally of your favorite songs for future downloading (here's mine). Great feature.
*The Free Sound Project is a directory of Creative Commons-licensed sounds. Might be useful for my podcast (working on episode #3 right now. Promise!) (via Julie Shapiro).
*The other members of U2 are just fine with African children starving. Hilarious! (via Dave Thomas).
Title: Pledged: The Secret Life of Sororities
Author: Alexandra Robbins
Backstory: Saw a copy at Clean Well Lighted a few months ago and was mildly curious. Still trying to read investigative books but liked the idea of one that didn't involve a war or international tade policy. Got it from the library.
Notes: Robbins followed four newly-minted sorority members at a university she couldn't reveal (the only way the members would agree to talk to her) for the length of a school year. In between chapters are essays on the more controversial aspects of sorority life--alcohol, comformity, sexuality, and that MTV show.
Verdict:
Robbins is thorough, dogged, and admits her story's limitations, a refreshing shift from the macho exhautive air that hangs over too much investigative journalism. Her structural choices, dashing from her subjects to larger analysis of issues, aren't ones I would have made and too often feel like she wrote two books and stitched then together. I prefer the more interwoven style of a Malcolm Gladwell or a Ted Conover. And while her prose can seem workmanlike, its a smart decision given she's chosen an subject prone to hysteria, melodrama and titilation.
What I learned: Sororities are just plain scary. I had a brief flirtation with fraternity rush in college and at least there, you know what awaits you. You'll get the crap thrown at you for several weeks but once you're in, all is forgiven and everyone acts stupid together and with equanimity. At least that's what I heard.
Sororities, not so much. There's power struggles with the other members (right out of Queen Bees and Wannabees), maintaining the right "image" for the sorority by associating with the right fraternities, not acting too slutty or being too ugly in the face of the national organization. It reaffirms the worst stereotypes we have about women and female bonding rituals. And though it seems to be a great networking tool in the deep south or if you're African-American (Black greeks are a whole different animal which thankfully Robbins does not ignore), for most young women, within 5 years of graduation their sorority means almost nothing to them.
It sounds like a hoot to you, I can see why you'd join. Otherwise, sororities sound like the military or a cult. They grab you when you at the most vulnerable age and station in life, promising you belonging, loyalty and community. It's only after you're in that you're clobbered other baggage comes with it.
Followup:
Admirers and Greeks react at Amazon.
When did Yahoo buy del.icio.us? With Flickr, Upcoming and Konfabulator in their back pocket, something is up down in Santa Clara. Anyone want to take bets on who is next to go (via Kottke)?
UPDATE: Consumating, Ben Brown's geek dating site has been bought by CNET. Ben is moving to San Francisco. The geeks are back in town.
Lest you were tired of sudoku, USA Today warns us that kakuro awaits (via the Powell's Blog).
Control Room(2004): "What we think we know is rarely what we should know."
Ghost Word has named Bookmark Now one of its favorite books of 2005. How cool is that?
Salon reports that CBGBs has reached an agreement with their landlord and will stay open until October of next year. Their rent will go up to market rate and they must move by next fall. Owner Hilly Kristal is already looking for another location in lower Manhattan.
Seems fair to me.
I know Evan Williams's Ten Rules for Web Startups has been linked to to death but I seem to remember a few more "10 Rules" floating around. Anybody know who else has done it?
From the Balcony is a podcast of movie reviews by Statler and Waldorf, the obnoxious critics from the Muppet Show. Brilliant (via Micropersuasion).
Title: The Bullfighter Checks Her Makeup
Author: Susan Orlean
Backstory: After reading The New New Journalism and meeting its author at the Texas Book Festival, I made a list of books by the journalists featured (Little did I know it had been done already) and decided to devote my library checkouts to "New Journalism" books as I saw my career branching out this way. Bullfighter was my first pick.
Notes: Collection of pieces Orlean did for her first 15 years as a staff writer at The New Yorker. Mostly glimpses of the unconventionally famous (The best female bullfighter in Spain, The "Lemon Ice King" of New York), the seemingly workaday (her hairdresser, a star high school basketball player) and the once-were (The Shaggs, considered the greatest 60s pop group no one's heard of).
Verdict:
Orlean is quite possibilty the Joseph Mitchell of the 21st century. She's a master at marathon listening tucked neatly into a Chinese box of one sharply observed character nugget after another. But where Mitchell's profiles hung on exhaustive detail and vertical depth (Read a few pieces from Up in the Old Hotel, his collected works, to see what I mean), Orlean's have a smoother surface. She doesn't brag beneath her sentences about how much work she's done for her quotes and her character sketches are a bright flash of insight quickly extinguished as the story barrels forward. When you're done then with an Orlean piece, you've learned a lot about but she rarely claims to be the last word on the subject. She leaves a few questions on the table for you to either digest, puzzle and forget about or follow up on yourself.
The may be a product of magazine economics (she probably can't rattle on for 15,000 words the way Mitchell could 50 years ago) or simply her personality, but what I love about Orlean is not just her subject choice but her honesty about how she came to those choices. When she includes the word "I" in an article, it's to show how she found the subject not it reveals about her in choosing it. She leaves that to her selectivity. By not including everything in her notebook, she's saying "Look, this is what I found interesting. If you've got questions, the answers are out there. Go find them." Since she isn't writing about political corruption, perhaps she has that luxury. It's still refreshing to read a journalist who knows they're not the only ones capable of telling a good story, even if they get to it first.
Highly recommended.
Followup:
...Or wrap up from the week's link collectiing (link rss feed if that's all you want).
*2006 Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductees have been announced. Perhaps you'd like to vote for who you think should get the nod?
*Mom and Pop businesses may not feel growth is necessary to earn money and be happy (via Kottke).
*As if there's something more to be said about Clap Your Hands and Say Yeah.
*A bunch of improvements on the Amazon Wish List feature (via Matt Haughy).
*Camille Paglia is back writing a column for Salon. This time she rips into Madonna.
Thanks to my friend Scott Andrew, I discovered Frappr!, a piece of mapping software where you can create a "group" based on geographic location, or simply as tacks on a map.
So tell ya what: I want to know where all the Friends of Kevin and Readers of Where There's Smoke are. Where ya at?
Go the Friends of Kevin map and add yourself. Only takes a sec. I'll post the results soon. Then we'll have a worldwide FOK party in the words of that old Madonna song...
"All across the world
In ev-ary nay-shan!"
So the flu is receeding but still hanging around. Last night, instead of throwing up, I watched The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants, which I've been eager to see and Suzan's been razzing me about ("You're such a girl" she said, which is true).
Let me say this: Chick flicks get a bad rap. Yes, this is a movie about 4 girlfriends, their summer apart and the mythical pair of jeans that fit them all and bring about good fortune when worn. There is a love interest or two, mostly forgetable. At heart, this is really a movie about friendship and loyalty, about the fear of growing up and the safety your friends provide, even more than your family. These are gender neutral values last time I looked. Just because it stars 4 young women doesn't mean it's got to be all prom dresses and mall walking anymore than a movie starring 4 young men has to be all sandlot football and morning erections.
I know movies, like everything, need to be marketed, need to reach for the most obvious audience first and then hope ancilliary ones catch on. It's a shame though when a movie like this--sweat, natural, and quite enjoyable to a 32 year old man with no sisters--gets billed as a purseful of fluff for a teenage girl, 120 minutes of makeovers and slumber parties. In Sisterhood, even when one girl wants to squeal about the hottie she hooked up with that summer, her friends groan and change the subject.
Beneath the fluff, there's room for all of us, I hope.
For the second year in a row, I'm sick on World AIDS Day. This tim, instead of snot and sinuses, it's nausea and exhaustion. I took 3 naps today, which I haven't done since nursery school.
So bleh. Here's hoping for a speedy recovery.
It only took about 10 years but, JDate, the Wal-Mart of Jewish dating, has finally opened their doors to gay folks seeking love (full story). Since gay members of the Jewish community are no secret to anyone, I'd say this qualifies as About Time and Overdue (via JewSchool).
The American President (1995): "The ideal mate for a American president is someone who is as geeky about politics as he is."
P.S. This movie, written by Aaron Sorkin, predicts, almost down to the character, the television show The West Wing, which he created. Example: Both have Chiefs of Staff with thick Irish last names and Martin Sheen.
Bookmark Now: Writing in Unreaderly Times edited by Kevin Smokler
