Rules for Fools VIII
Rule No. 11: If you don't start smoking, you won't need to quit smoking.
Tuesday, June 04, 2002
Thought for Food II
A friend sent me cookies today. They were good.
Paul conveys: Surprise.
Edible swag at the 'Rang.
Stephan gets his nosh on.
You could send me cookies, too. My address is to the left. Actually, you probably shouldn't. I only check the P.O. Box weekly.
A friend sent me cookies today. They were good.
Paul conveys: Surprise.
Edible swag at the 'Rang.
Stephan gets his nosh on.
You could send me cookies, too. My address is to the left. Actually, you probably shouldn't. I only check the P.O. Box weekly.
Monday, June 03, 2002
From the In Box: The Movie I Watched Last Night XX
For more fun try my online-only album or the movie my wife and I star in. -- James Kochalka
Unfortunately, the movie link above doesn't work for me. This is why, courtesy of James:
That probably means you have a Mac. It's a Windows Media File. You can get Windows Media Player for Mac, but it still doesn't work. That's what I see when I click the movie link, too.
However, if you can get on a PC and you have Windows Media Player, you should be able to watch the movie.
Thanks, James!
For more fun try my online-only album or the movie my wife and I star in. -- James Kochalka
Unfortunately, the movie link above doesn't work for me. This is why, courtesy of James:
That probably means you have a Mac. It's a Windows Media File. You can get Windows Media Player for Mac, but it still doesn't work. That's what I see when I click the movie link, too.
However, if you can get on a PC and you have Windows Media Player, you should be able to watch the movie.
Thanks, James!
From the In Box: Books Worth a Look V
Thanks for the review. Glad you found it interesting.
I do disagree that it's based on est training, in that est (and the new version, Landmark) contends that you can transcend your beliefs but not permanently eliminate them.
The DM processes (which weren't developed until after I wrote Re-create Your Life) completely eliminate long-held beliefs and conditioned feelings in a matter of minutes, which virtually everyone believes is impossible.
I just completed a weekend workshop in which I was training people how to use our processes, and three of the participants were psychotherapists. At one point one of them said, "This is magic. I've 'known' for years that what we've been doing here all weekend is impossible. But it's not. This is true 'short-term therapy.'" -- Morty Lefkoe
Thanks for the review. Glad you found it interesting.
I do disagree that it's based on est training, in that est (and the new version, Landmark) contends that you can transcend your beliefs but not permanently eliminate them.
The DM processes (which weren't developed until after I wrote Re-create Your Life) completely eliminate long-held beliefs and conditioned feelings in a matter of minutes, which virtually everyone believes is impossible.
I just completed a weekend workshop in which I was training people how to use our processes, and three of the participants were psychotherapists. At one point one of them said, "This is magic. I've 'known' for years that what we've been doing here all weekend is impossible. But it's not. This is true 'short-term therapy.'" -- Morty Lefkoe
Pieces, Particles IV
The following media-related stories recently spotted in print publications -- and now online -- might be worth a look. Heads and decks, only. Heads and decks.
Comic-Book Clubs, by Don Allen, Comics & Games Retailer, June 2002
Start your own literary discourse on comics
The Girls at the Front, by Evgenia Peretz, Vanity Fair, June 2002
The handful of female war correspondents whose beat is whatever hellhole leads the news -- Christiane Amanpour, Janine di Giovanni, et al. -- are as tough as any of the guys. But there's a difference in how they work, the way they love, and the risks they run
Homer's Odyssey, by Casey Seijas and the Wizard staff, Wizard, May 2002
And the rest of the family too, as Wizard gathers the best comics references to appear on "The Simpsons"
Old Salts, by John Gould, Maine Boats & Harbors, June/July 2002
There's a lot to be learned on the obit desk of a small-town newspaper.
The People's Party, by Chris Wright, Boston Phoenix, May 31, 2002
Once simply a forum for expression, protests are more often becoming the greatest shows on earth
Romancing the C.E.O., by Suzanna Andrews, Vanity Fair, June 2002
Talented, seductive, and ambitious, Suzy Wetlaufer took the reins of the venerable Harvard Business Review a year and a half ago, at age 41. Today she's jobless -- and famous for all the wrong reasons. Her liaison with Jack Welch, G.E.'s idolized former C.E.O., is a case study in ethics and the price of passion
Six Degrees of Speculation, by Karen Wright, Discover, June 2002
Even in a small world, there's room for disagreement
U.S. Confidential, by James Wolcott, Vanity Fair, June 2002
The tabloid age began in the 50s with Generoso Pope's gore-splattered National Enquirer, and his obsession with Jackie O. touched off a celebrity hunt that would culminate in Princess Diana's death. But through mayhem and martyrdom, the scandal sheets have reflected America's gamy id, breaking news from the national gutter
The following media-related stories recently spotted in print publications -- and now online -- might be worth a look. Heads and decks, only. Heads and decks.
Comic-Book Clubs, by Don Allen, Comics & Games Retailer, June 2002
Start your own literary discourse on comics
The Girls at the Front, by Evgenia Peretz, Vanity Fair, June 2002
The handful of female war correspondents whose beat is whatever hellhole leads the news -- Christiane Amanpour, Janine di Giovanni, et al. -- are as tough as any of the guys. But there's a difference in how they work, the way they love, and the risks they run
Homer's Odyssey, by Casey Seijas and the Wizard staff, Wizard, May 2002
And the rest of the family too, as Wizard gathers the best comics references to appear on "The Simpsons"
Old Salts, by John Gould, Maine Boats & Harbors, June/July 2002
There's a lot to be learned on the obit desk of a small-town newspaper.
The People's Party, by Chris Wright, Boston Phoenix, May 31, 2002
Once simply a forum for expression, protests are more often becoming the greatest shows on earth
Romancing the C.E.O., by Suzanna Andrews, Vanity Fair, June 2002
Talented, seductive, and ambitious, Suzy Wetlaufer took the reins of the venerable Harvard Business Review a year and a half ago, at age 41. Today she's jobless -- and famous for all the wrong reasons. Her liaison with Jack Welch, G.E.'s idolized former C.E.O., is a case study in ethics and the price of passion
Six Degrees of Speculation, by Karen Wright, Discover, June 2002
Even in a small world, there's room for disagreement
U.S. Confidential, by James Wolcott, Vanity Fair, June 2002
The tabloid age began in the 50s with Generoso Pope's gore-splattered National Enquirer, and his obsession with Jackie O. touched off a celebrity hunt that would culminate in Princess Diana's death. But through mayhem and martyrdom, the scandal sheets have reflected America's gamy id, breaking news from the national gutter
Books Worth a Look V
These are the books I read in May 2002. Jim Collins tries to read 100 books a year. As of this Media Diet entry, I've read 101 books since Jan. 1. I can stop now.
The Anasazi: Why Did They Leave? Where Did They Go? ed. by Jerold Widdison (1991)
Prepared after a panel discussion at the Anasazi Heritage Center in Colorado in 1990, this edited transcript offers several perspectives on the history and fate of the Anasazi, the precursors to the Pueblo Indians of the Southwest. Panelists touch on their society; the environmental, technological, and social reasons for their migration; and the similarities between them and their modern-day counterparts, including the Hopi and the Zuni. The at-times contentious discussion also tackles the role of anthropologist and historian. Linda Cordell's contributions are particularly insightful.
Days to read: 1. Rating: Good.
A Brief History of Taos by Bob Romero and Neil Poese (1992)
There are places. And then there are places. Taos belongs to the latter category, a combination of the past and the present, the imagined and the real, the constructed and the actual. This 28-page history -- remember, the title says "brief" -- tackles all of Taos' dichotomies. Romero and Poese take on the city's Hispanic heritage, role as a trade center, Mexican affiliation, and absorption by the United States, featuring several insightful photographs and a wide-ranging look at the many faces of the small city. A good introduction.
Days to read: 1. Rating: Fair.
Bygone Bar Harbor: A Postcard Tour by Earl Brechlin (2002)
This pocket-sized collection of vintage postcards from Mount Desert Island and Acadia National Park shares snapshots of a world that was between about 1905 and 1950. Drawing on the archives of the Bar Harbor Historical Society, as well as his personal collection, Brechlin produces an extremely well-produced book -- the color reproduction is wonderful. "Bygone Bar Harbor" includes images of the people, places, and things that made the area a watering hole for the rich and famous during its golden age. Especially telling are the cards portraying the Great Fire of 1947. A stunning visual history.
Days to read: 2. Rating: Excellent.
El Santuario... a Stop on the "High Road to Taos" by Sons of the Holy Family (1994)
Having been raised among the Protestants, I missed out on a religious grounding in the saints and miracles. Plainness abounded. So I'm fascinated by shrines, pilgrimages, and experiences with healing. Located in Chimayo, New Mexico, El Santuario is a place deeply rooted in all three. And this thin booklet does much to detail its miraculous effects, history, and politics. Unfortunately, the pamphlet devotes a full third of its 30-odd pages to descriptions of the elements of its various reredos, or series of sacred paintings. That said, the writers do well to compare the sanctuary to a similar structure in Guatemala, a parallel other historians only graze.
Days to read: 1. Rating: Fair.
El Santuario de Chimayo by Stephen F. de Borhegyi and E. Boyd (1956)
Better than the Sons of the Holy Family pamphlet, this booklet takes a more serious, scholarly look at the sanctuary in Chimayo. De Borhegyi draws stronger parallels to the sanctuary in Esquipulas, Guatemala, outlining the emergenc of the black Christ, the healing power of clay and soil, and how the legend was transported and translated to America. He also details the politics of the local families involved in the construction of the sanctuary -- and how the Santo Nino de Atocha cult developed as a direct competitor.
Days to read: 1. Rating: Excellent.
It's Your Ship: Management Techniques from the Best Damn Ship in the Navy by Captain D. Michael Abrashoff (2002)
Former Navy Commander Mike Abrashoff offers 11 tactics and strategies he developed while leading the crew of the USS Benfold, an award-winning destroyer. Avoiding the gung-ho militarism that inspires so many leadership and management texts that come out of the armed forces, Mike espouses what he terms grassroots leadershp -- empowering the people you work with so innovation doesn't just trickle down the chain of command. It's a good, personal, and practical book.
Days to read: 4. Rating: Good.
Loretto and the Miraculous Staircase by Alice Bullock (1978)
This slim, 16-page booklet about the wooden circular stairway in Santa Fe, New Mexico's Loretto Chapel is an informal history of the engineering marvel. Perhaps constructed by Saint Joseph himself, the staircase has no central support and initially had no side supports. While there have been less breezy accounts of the "miracle" -- Sister M. Florian and Carl Albach's articles come to mind -- Bullock's pamphlet better fleshes out the reason for the chapel's near-completion (a jealous husband and a murder most foul) even if it doesn't try to out the original builder like some later studies.
Days to read: 1. Rating: Fair.
Love Is the Killer App: How to Win Business and Influence Friends by Tim Sanders
A surprising thesis to come from Yahoo!'s Chief Solutions Officer, but a message many executives should pay attention to. At one level, Tim contends that -- gasp -- nice guys finish first, but at a deeper level, this book is a strategic networking handbook. Built on a foundation of knowledge, networks, and compassion, the book offers tactics and tools for strategic reading, productive and constructive introductions, and management that nurtures talent. I'm proud to know Tim and am bold enough to consider myself a lovecat. Meow.
Days to read: 2. Rating: Good.
Next: The Future Just Happened by Michael Lewis (2002)
The followup to "The New New Thing," this book takes another step and reveals how the Net economy changed people's lives, the law, familial relationships, the role of experts, fandom, copyright, and the mass media. Lewis does so by setting his sights on some pretty interesting characters -- a teenage day trader, an unschooled legal advisor, the hair metal band Marillion, the TiVo TV recording service, and the Unabomber. His language is lively, and his conclusions -- contextualized by a new afterword in this edition -- the start of a serious look at how much of the Net economy was hype -- and how much was misapplied gospel.
Days to read: 1. Rating: Excellent.
Old Town Albuquerque by Peter Hertzog (1994)
When we were in Albuquerque on the last day of our trip last month, it was extremely windy and the horizon was all but obscured by a sandstorm of sorts. So I'm surprised that Albuquerque has such a long history -- it strikes me as unhospitable, much like Salt Lake City must have seemed to the settling Mormons. While Albuquerque never experienced a great boom, Hertzog describes how the coming of the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe shifted the city's center away from Old Town. Perhaps if the landowners hadn't priced their plots so high, Old Town wouldn't be the chintzy tourist trap it is today. Not that much to see -- or read about.
Days to read: 1. Rating: Fair.
The Passionists of the Southwest or the Holy Brotherhood: A Revelation of the "Penitentes" by Alex Darley (1893)
Reprinted by the Rio Grande Press in 1968 as part of their Classic series, Darley's narrative is a biased and exploitative representation of this primitive Catholic brotherhood. The "self-ordained itinerant preacher" aligned with the Presbyterians offers a supposed constitution and by-laws for the religious society, riffing off the near-fictitious literature ascribed to the Knights Templar. In so doing, Darley ties the Penitentes to Saint Francis, establishes the order as a formal Catholic organization, and decries their practices and rituals as primitive and abusive. Publisher Robert McCoy sheds more favorable light on the sect in the transcript of a 1965 talk, but the book -- while well-reasoned -- still reads sensationally and shallowly.
Days to read: 2. Rating: Good.
The Penitentes of the Southwest by Marta Weigle (1970)
As the precursor to a "fully documented book" that was in process several decades ago, Weigle's 16-page pamphlet is the strongest history of this archaic Catholic sect that practiced penance through the act of self-flagellation that I've read. Weigle analyzes the brotherhood's emergence, debts to St. Francis of Assisi, co-optation by the Catholic church, formal organization, and role in New Mexico as a mutual aid society. She also considers previous writing about the Penitentes, paying heed to the historical contexts of the portrayals.
Days to read: 1. Rating: Good.
The Power of Positive Thinking by Norman Vincent Peale (1952)
Written in a slightly self-congratulatory tone similar to that of "I'm OK -- You're OK," this classic self-help book was penned by one of the founders of Guideposts magazine. I'm not convinced that personal success can be credited to prayer and faith, much less affirmations, but Peale makes a good case. Of immediate interest and use are Peale's parallels to learned optimism, creative visualization, meditation, and problem solving. There's a lot here, hidden among the daily affirmations and Bible verses Peale thinks readers should memorize.
Days to read: 6. Rating: Good.
Re-Create Your Life: Transforming Yourself and the World with the Decision Maker Process by Morty Lefkoe (1997)
I had dinner with Morty while I was in Sonoma County at the end of last month. His book describes the benefits of and some of the process behind his Decision Maker technology, which is deeply rooted in est training -- and a slight aside to Dianetics. At its base, the DM process is oriented toward helping identify and eliminate beliefs that are holding them back. Morty described the effects of negative self-esteem and beliefs, offers the principles of DM, contends that we create our own egos, and details several case histories -- bulemics, criminals, and AIDS patients who utilized the process. He also outlines applications in parenting, business, and social change. I wish he'd gone into the process a little further, but this is a good introduction to a valuable alternative to psychotherapy.
Days to read: 1. Rating: Good.
The Sacred World of the Penitentes by Alberto Lopez Pulido (2000)
Ostensibly the most-accurate and -balanced volume on the Penitentes given its Smithsonian pedigree, this book is a disappointing analysis. Claiming to be the first book to be built on first-person accounts of Penitente participation, the tome is heavy on establishment and light on actual I-was-there narrative. Nevertheless, Pulido tried. Despite the writer's defense and positioning of "story" as a valuable historical tool, "Sacred World" relies heavily on interviews with a single Penitente leader. While Lupido's analysisof existing literature and suggestion of a third-order theory is appreciated, I expected more from the Smithsonian. Regardless, this look at practical Christianity and popular religious expression shows promise.
Days to read: 2. Rating: Fair.
Taos Walking Tour: A Self-Guided Tour of the Historic District by Char Boie Graebner (1991)
Taos, New Mexico, isn't that large a town, so you can walk most of its area of interest in about as much time as it takes to read this guide published by the Kit Carson Historic Museums. While I found Shirley Thompson's illustrations to be relatively sloppy, I enjoyed the tour guide's insights about the town's oldest wall, the Chinese wall (which dates only to the '80s), the Oakley House's past as a brothel, and the events that transpired at the Governor Bent House. More detail would have been welcome, but the book's breezy style doesn't diminish its usefulness. Get it if you go there.
Days to read: 1. Rating: Good.
Theocratic Ministry School Guidebook by Watch Tower Bible & Tract Society of Pennsylvania (1971)
This little book is a gem. As the tome used to train Jehovah's Witnesses interested in becoming door-to-door ministers, or "publishers," the slim, dense volume is one of the better public speaking and sales books I've ever read. Parallel to Tim Sanders' "Live Is the Killer App," the authors include a lot of tactics for active reading and strategic use of source material. Sections also touch on active listening, developing better questions and answers, and overcoming skepticism and rejection.
Days to read: 4. Rating: Excellent.
Unleashing the Ideavirus by Seth Godin (2001)
According to the cover lines, Seth's book will help business leaders "stop marketing at people and turn your ideas into epidemics by helping your customers do the marketing for you." Almost a combination of Malcolm Gladwell's "The Tipping Point" and Richard Dawkins' writing about memes, this quick read -- written in Seth's characteristically frenetic tone -- outlines how to unleash an ideavirus, as well as a formula that will increase the virility of your ideavirii. The fourth section, "Case Studies and Riffs" is awfully heavy on the riff side. Seth had a lot to say and didn't really know how to stop. Still, a thought-provoking if not totally groundbreaking book.
Days to read: 1. Rating: Good.
When Los Alamos Was a Ranch School by Fermor S. and Peggy Pond Church (1998)
Before Los Alamos, New Mexico, played its role in the development of the United States' nuclear weapons strategy, it was a ranch school devoted to developing young men in a "safe and scientific manner." This reminiscence covers the camp's development, grounding in the Boy Scouts as its primary organizational model, evolution as resources became more or less available, and student body -- which included Gore Vidal. Several of the school's buildings remain today, and it's interesting to see how Los Alamos as a city grew up around this once isolated educational outpost.
Days to read: 1. Rating: Good.
Work and Community in the West ed. by Edward Shorter (1973)
These six essays and excerpts go far to detail the history of work and its effects on people's family and social lives in the West. Given the publication date, it's understandable that Shorter only outlines three phases -- artisanal, industrial, and technological -- but the subsequent selections add valuable pieces to the limited puzzle. Mack Walker paints a productive picture of the role guilds played in early modern Germany. And George Sturt's portrayal of a wheelwright's shop is overly romantic. But Elinor Langer's socialist snapshot of life inside the New York Telephone Co. ably blends strict reportage and class consciousness. This dated collection is good for what it is -- and for the periods it looks at.
Days to read: 5. Rating: Good.
Why do some books get a link while other books do not? If a publishing company or author sends me review copies for consideration -- and if I review the book in Media Diet -- they get a link as well as a review. I don't review every review copy or galley I receive, and I don't always have time to track down author, publisher, and other book-related links in general.
Most of the books I review should be relatively easy to find via the Harvard Book Store and Powell's Books online ordering services. If something's out of print, check the Advanced Book Exchange first.
And if you'd like to send me a book to consider for review, Media Diet's address is P.O. Box 390205, Cambridge, MA 02139. Thank you very much.
These are the books I read in May 2002. Jim Collins tries to read 100 books a year. As of this Media Diet entry, I've read 101 books since Jan. 1. I can stop now.
The Anasazi: Why Did They Leave? Where Did They Go? ed. by Jerold Widdison (1991)
Prepared after a panel discussion at the Anasazi Heritage Center in Colorado in 1990, this edited transcript offers several perspectives on the history and fate of the Anasazi, the precursors to the Pueblo Indians of the Southwest. Panelists touch on their society; the environmental, technological, and social reasons for their migration; and the similarities between them and their modern-day counterparts, including the Hopi and the Zuni. The at-times contentious discussion also tackles the role of anthropologist and historian. Linda Cordell's contributions are particularly insightful.
Days to read: 1. Rating: Good.
A Brief History of Taos by Bob Romero and Neil Poese (1992)
There are places. And then there are places. Taos belongs to the latter category, a combination of the past and the present, the imagined and the real, the constructed and the actual. This 28-page history -- remember, the title says "brief" -- tackles all of Taos' dichotomies. Romero and Poese take on the city's Hispanic heritage, role as a trade center, Mexican affiliation, and absorption by the United States, featuring several insightful photographs and a wide-ranging look at the many faces of the small city. A good introduction.
Days to read: 1. Rating: Fair.
Bygone Bar Harbor: A Postcard Tour by Earl Brechlin (2002)
This pocket-sized collection of vintage postcards from Mount Desert Island and Acadia National Park shares snapshots of a world that was between about 1905 and 1950. Drawing on the archives of the Bar Harbor Historical Society, as well as his personal collection, Brechlin produces an extremely well-produced book -- the color reproduction is wonderful. "Bygone Bar Harbor" includes images of the people, places, and things that made the area a watering hole for the rich and famous during its golden age. Especially telling are the cards portraying the Great Fire of 1947. A stunning visual history.
Days to read: 2. Rating: Excellent.
El Santuario... a Stop on the "High Road to Taos" by Sons of the Holy Family (1994)
Having been raised among the Protestants, I missed out on a religious grounding in the saints and miracles. Plainness abounded. So I'm fascinated by shrines, pilgrimages, and experiences with healing. Located in Chimayo, New Mexico, El Santuario is a place deeply rooted in all three. And this thin booklet does much to detail its miraculous effects, history, and politics. Unfortunately, the pamphlet devotes a full third of its 30-odd pages to descriptions of the elements of its various reredos, or series of sacred paintings. That said, the writers do well to compare the sanctuary to a similar structure in Guatemala, a parallel other historians only graze.
Days to read: 1. Rating: Fair.
El Santuario de Chimayo by Stephen F. de Borhegyi and E. Boyd (1956)
Better than the Sons of the Holy Family pamphlet, this booklet takes a more serious, scholarly look at the sanctuary in Chimayo. De Borhegyi draws stronger parallels to the sanctuary in Esquipulas, Guatemala, outlining the emergenc of the black Christ, the healing power of clay and soil, and how the legend was transported and translated to America. He also details the politics of the local families involved in the construction of the sanctuary -- and how the Santo Nino de Atocha cult developed as a direct competitor.
Days to read: 1. Rating: Excellent.
It's Your Ship: Management Techniques from the Best Damn Ship in the Navy by Captain D. Michael Abrashoff (2002)
Former Navy Commander Mike Abrashoff offers 11 tactics and strategies he developed while leading the crew of the USS Benfold, an award-winning destroyer. Avoiding the gung-ho militarism that inspires so many leadership and management texts that come out of the armed forces, Mike espouses what he terms grassroots leadershp -- empowering the people you work with so innovation doesn't just trickle down the chain of command. It's a good, personal, and practical book.
Days to read: 4. Rating: Good.
Loretto and the Miraculous Staircase by Alice Bullock (1978)
This slim, 16-page booklet about the wooden circular stairway in Santa Fe, New Mexico's Loretto Chapel is an informal history of the engineering marvel. Perhaps constructed by Saint Joseph himself, the staircase has no central support and initially had no side supports. While there have been less breezy accounts of the "miracle" -- Sister M. Florian and Carl Albach's articles come to mind -- Bullock's pamphlet better fleshes out the reason for the chapel's near-completion (a jealous husband and a murder most foul) even if it doesn't try to out the original builder like some later studies.
Days to read: 1. Rating: Fair.
Love Is the Killer App: How to Win Business and Influence Friends by Tim Sanders
A surprising thesis to come from Yahoo!'s Chief Solutions Officer, but a message many executives should pay attention to. At one level, Tim contends that -- gasp -- nice guys finish first, but at a deeper level, this book is a strategic networking handbook. Built on a foundation of knowledge, networks, and compassion, the book offers tactics and tools for strategic reading, productive and constructive introductions, and management that nurtures talent. I'm proud to know Tim and am bold enough to consider myself a lovecat. Meow.
Days to read: 2. Rating: Good.
Next: The Future Just Happened by Michael Lewis (2002)
The followup to "The New New Thing," this book takes another step and reveals how the Net economy changed people's lives, the law, familial relationships, the role of experts, fandom, copyright, and the mass media. Lewis does so by setting his sights on some pretty interesting characters -- a teenage day trader, an unschooled legal advisor, the hair metal band Marillion, the TiVo TV recording service, and the Unabomber. His language is lively, and his conclusions -- contextualized by a new afterword in this edition -- the start of a serious look at how much of the Net economy was hype -- and how much was misapplied gospel.
Days to read: 1. Rating: Excellent.
Old Town Albuquerque by Peter Hertzog (1994)
When we were in Albuquerque on the last day of our trip last month, it was extremely windy and the horizon was all but obscured by a sandstorm of sorts. So I'm surprised that Albuquerque has such a long history -- it strikes me as unhospitable, much like Salt Lake City must have seemed to the settling Mormons. While Albuquerque never experienced a great boom, Hertzog describes how the coming of the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe shifted the city's center away from Old Town. Perhaps if the landowners hadn't priced their plots so high, Old Town wouldn't be the chintzy tourist trap it is today. Not that much to see -- or read about.
Days to read: 1. Rating: Fair.
The Passionists of the Southwest or the Holy Brotherhood: A Revelation of the "Penitentes" by Alex Darley (1893)
Reprinted by the Rio Grande Press in 1968 as part of their Classic series, Darley's narrative is a biased and exploitative representation of this primitive Catholic brotherhood. The "self-ordained itinerant preacher" aligned with the Presbyterians offers a supposed constitution and by-laws for the religious society, riffing off the near-fictitious literature ascribed to the Knights Templar. In so doing, Darley ties the Penitentes to Saint Francis, establishes the order as a formal Catholic organization, and decries their practices and rituals as primitive and abusive. Publisher Robert McCoy sheds more favorable light on the sect in the transcript of a 1965 talk, but the book -- while well-reasoned -- still reads sensationally and shallowly.
Days to read: 2. Rating: Good.
The Penitentes of the Southwest by Marta Weigle (1970)
As the precursor to a "fully documented book" that was in process several decades ago, Weigle's 16-page pamphlet is the strongest history of this archaic Catholic sect that practiced penance through the act of self-flagellation that I've read. Weigle analyzes the brotherhood's emergence, debts to St. Francis of Assisi, co-optation by the Catholic church, formal organization, and role in New Mexico as a mutual aid society. She also considers previous writing about the Penitentes, paying heed to the historical contexts of the portrayals.
Days to read: 1. Rating: Good.
The Power of Positive Thinking by Norman Vincent Peale (1952)
Written in a slightly self-congratulatory tone similar to that of "I'm OK -- You're OK," this classic self-help book was penned by one of the founders of Guideposts magazine. I'm not convinced that personal success can be credited to prayer and faith, much less affirmations, but Peale makes a good case. Of immediate interest and use are Peale's parallels to learned optimism, creative visualization, meditation, and problem solving. There's a lot here, hidden among the daily affirmations and Bible verses Peale thinks readers should memorize.
Days to read: 6. Rating: Good.
Re-Create Your Life: Transforming Yourself and the World with the Decision Maker Process by Morty Lefkoe (1997)
I had dinner with Morty while I was in Sonoma County at the end of last month. His book describes the benefits of and some of the process behind his Decision Maker technology, which is deeply rooted in est training -- and a slight aside to Dianetics. At its base, the DM process is oriented toward helping identify and eliminate beliefs that are holding them back. Morty described the effects of negative self-esteem and beliefs, offers the principles of DM, contends that we create our own egos, and details several case histories -- bulemics, criminals, and AIDS patients who utilized the process. He also outlines applications in parenting, business, and social change. I wish he'd gone into the process a little further, but this is a good introduction to a valuable alternative to psychotherapy.
Days to read: 1. Rating: Good.
The Sacred World of the Penitentes by Alberto Lopez Pulido (2000)
Ostensibly the most-accurate and -balanced volume on the Penitentes given its Smithsonian pedigree, this book is a disappointing analysis. Claiming to be the first book to be built on first-person accounts of Penitente participation, the tome is heavy on establishment and light on actual I-was-there narrative. Nevertheless, Pulido tried. Despite the writer's defense and positioning of "story" as a valuable historical tool, "Sacred World" relies heavily on interviews with a single Penitente leader. While Lupido's analysisof existing literature and suggestion of a third-order theory is appreciated, I expected more from the Smithsonian. Regardless, this look at practical Christianity and popular religious expression shows promise.
Days to read: 2. Rating: Fair.
Taos Walking Tour: A Self-Guided Tour of the Historic District by Char Boie Graebner (1991)
Taos, New Mexico, isn't that large a town, so you can walk most of its area of interest in about as much time as it takes to read this guide published by the Kit Carson Historic Museums. While I found Shirley Thompson's illustrations to be relatively sloppy, I enjoyed the tour guide's insights about the town's oldest wall, the Chinese wall (which dates only to the '80s), the Oakley House's past as a brothel, and the events that transpired at the Governor Bent House. More detail would have been welcome, but the book's breezy style doesn't diminish its usefulness. Get it if you go there.
Days to read: 1. Rating: Good.
Theocratic Ministry School Guidebook by Watch Tower Bible & Tract Society of Pennsylvania (1971)
This little book is a gem. As the tome used to train Jehovah's Witnesses interested in becoming door-to-door ministers, or "publishers," the slim, dense volume is one of the better public speaking and sales books I've ever read. Parallel to Tim Sanders' "Live Is the Killer App," the authors include a lot of tactics for active reading and strategic use of source material. Sections also touch on active listening, developing better questions and answers, and overcoming skepticism and rejection.
Days to read: 4. Rating: Excellent.
Unleashing the Ideavirus by Seth Godin (2001)
According to the cover lines, Seth's book will help business leaders "stop marketing at people and turn your ideas into epidemics by helping your customers do the marketing for you." Almost a combination of Malcolm Gladwell's "The Tipping Point" and Richard Dawkins' writing about memes, this quick read -- written in Seth's characteristically frenetic tone -- outlines how to unleash an ideavirus, as well as a formula that will increase the virility of your ideavirii. The fourth section, "Case Studies and Riffs" is awfully heavy on the riff side. Seth had a lot to say and didn't really know how to stop. Still, a thought-provoking if not totally groundbreaking book.
Days to read: 1. Rating: Good.
When Los Alamos Was a Ranch School by Fermor S. and Peggy Pond Church (1998)
Before Los Alamos, New Mexico, played its role in the development of the United States' nuclear weapons strategy, it was a ranch school devoted to developing young men in a "safe and scientific manner." This reminiscence covers the camp's development, grounding in the Boy Scouts as its primary organizational model, evolution as resources became more or less available, and student body -- which included Gore Vidal. Several of the school's buildings remain today, and it's interesting to see how Los Alamos as a city grew up around this once isolated educational outpost.
Days to read: 1. Rating: Good.
Work and Community in the West ed. by Edward Shorter (1973)
These six essays and excerpts go far to detail the history of work and its effects on people's family and social lives in the West. Given the publication date, it's understandable that Shorter only outlines three phases -- artisanal, industrial, and technological -- but the subsequent selections add valuable pieces to the limited puzzle. Mack Walker paints a productive picture of the role guilds played in early modern Germany. And George Sturt's portrayal of a wheelwright's shop is overly romantic. But Elinor Langer's socialist snapshot of life inside the New York Telephone Co. ably blends strict reportage and class consciousness. This dated collection is good for what it is -- and for the periods it looks at.
Days to read: 5. Rating: Good.
Why do some books get a link while other books do not? If a publishing company or author sends me review copies for consideration -- and if I review the book in Media Diet -- they get a link as well as a review. I don't review every review copy or galley I receive, and I don't always have time to track down author, publisher, and other book-related links in general.
Most of the books I review should be relatively easy to find via the Harvard Book Store and Powell's Books online ordering services. If something's out of print, check the Advanced Book Exchange first.
And if you'd like to send me a book to consider for review, Media Diet's address is P.O. Box 390205, Cambridge, MA 02139. Thank you very much.
Clothes Whore II
I want some new T-shirts. Nifty T-shirts featuring interesting, neat, and obscure designs. If you work for a company, publish a comic or zine, play in a band, run a record label, or produce a Web site -- and you have a related T-shirt -- send one to me care of the mailing address over to the left. I will not just wear your T-shirt, I will take a photograph of myself wearing said shirt and publish it in Media Diet. With a link to your company, band, or site, even. That's why they call me the Clothes Whore. I want to wear your clothes.
I wear a Large.
I want some new T-shirts. Nifty T-shirts featuring interesting, neat, and obscure designs. If you work for a company, publish a comic or zine, play in a band, run a record label, or produce a Web site -- and you have a related T-shirt -- send one to me care of the mailing address over to the left. I will not just wear your T-shirt, I will take a photograph of myself wearing said shirt and publish it in Media Diet. With a link to your company, band, or site, even. That's why they call me the Clothes Whore. I want to wear your clothes.
I wear a Large.
Clip-Art Comics IV
Dan Weaver's H4x0r Economist clip-art comics juxtapose photographs of Alan Greenspan and other world leaders with largely profane -- and pretty funny -- hacker speak. The best bit might be the Dance Dance World Economic Forum: Free Your Trade collage. Brilliant.
Thanks to BoingBoing.
Dan Weaver's H4x0r Economist clip-art comics juxtapose photographs of Alan Greenspan and other world leaders with largely profane -- and pretty funny -- hacker speak. The best bit might be the Dance Dance World Economic Forum: Free Your Trade collage. Brilliant.
Thanks to BoingBoing.
North End Moment XVIII
I just caught a co-worker restocking the office refrigerator with Heinekens and hard ciders.
Me: It's a little early, Bill.
Bill: Never too early for me.
I just caught a co-worker restocking the office refrigerator with Heinekens and hard ciders.
Me: It's a little early, Bill.
Bill: Never too early for me.
The Movie I Watched Last Night XX
Friday, May 10: Fight Club
Just as the Matrix made me want to meditate, learn a martial art, and go jogging, Fight Club is one of those surprisingly empowering and inspiring movies. I've been accused of having a thing for Chuck Palahniuk -- in a review of an Anchormen record, of all places -- but this was my first exposure to any of his work. In addition to the solid story and the impressive performances by Ed Norton, Brad Pitt, and Helena Bonham Carter (who was also excellent in Novocaine), I was especially pleased by the twists and turns the story took. I was also quite surprised by the movie's revelations, and I'm certainly not going to spoil things for you if you haven't seen this yet by saying anything further here. Let's just say: Shades of Memento.
Sunday, May 12: Spider-Man
I grew up reading Spiderman, and to this day it remains one of my favorite comic books -- and I'm no longer the panties-and-capes kind of guy that I was when I first started reading comics. The release of Spider-Man bodes well for the future of comic book-inspired movies -- particularly superhero comic book-inspired movies, given that Ghost World and From Hell were so well done. Hollywood has moved beyond the cartoony portrayals we received from DC in the Batman and Superman flicks, and Marvel's licensing folks have done well with this follow-up of sorts to X-Men. The filmmakers don't waltz all over the myth and origin of the character. They don't drastically redo the roles that the important characters in the long-running story have played for the last several decades. And they don't overly romanticize the story. The special effects were a little jarring -- when Spidey's spinning his web around the city, it is extremely clear that it's CGI animation -- but Tobey Maguire makes a convincing Peter Parker and Willem Dafoe is a deliciously evil supervillain. This could have been much, much worse. And it's pretty darn good for what it is. (Watched with my family in Santa Fe, New Mexico.)
Sunday, May 19: Star Wars: Episode II -- Attack of the Clones
In stark contrast to Spider-Man, I wasn't really looking forward to seeing the new Star Wars at all. It sort of snuck up on me, given the hype surrounding the previous installation. And having seen it? I'm not sure what the future of George Lucas' franchise will bring. As a fan of the original Star Wars movies, I admit that I have a soft spot for the characters and storyline -- and the new movies do a lot to fill in the back story. But so much of it is expected -- or disappointing. I mean, Hayden Christensen's post-adolescent-yet-surprisingly-whiny Anakin Skywalker evolves into Darth Vader? More like Lord Dark Helmet from Spaceballs. Several of my friends didn't buy Yoda's moment in the spotlight, but I thought it was pretty rad. Just as I enjoyed seeing how Boba Fett became inspired to be a bounty hunter. And Natalie Portman? Meow. One more thing. If you're going to make a movie, please don't make it totally obvious which characters were written in because they'd make cool action figures -- and which scenes were "scripted" because they'd make an exciting sequence in the video game. I expected more out of the Clone Wars, and the next movie might share more of its events and outcomes, but watching this wasn't very satisfying. (Watched with my sister in Taos, New Mexico.)
Sunday: East Is East
Focusing on a Pakistani who relocates to England and raises a mixed-race family in Manchester in the early '70s, this movie is largely a series of stories about culture clash. The head of the household clashes with his British wife. He clashes with his sons as they in turn refuse the arranged weddings he organizes within the Pakistani expatriot community. The children of the family clash as they grow up in relatively close contact -- often three to a bed. But mostly, East Is East narrates the clash between expectations, dreams, and aspirations. The movie is also about love and respect within and without a family (one son is disowned after he leaves his Pakistani bride to be at the altar). In addition, persistent undercurrents of racism and repatriotization politics run throughout the film, which has several solid comic moments despite its occasionally heady subjects. The ending itself -- quickly following the movie's peak -- is surprisingly funny and might feature the film's best punchline. That adds a nice indication of hope to the reunion of the Pakistani fish-and-chips shopkeeper and his wife -- who begin to rebuild their family's future over half a cup of tea.
Sunday: Monkey Vs. Robot: The James Kochalka Story
Almost 20 minutes long, this video offers several different videos for the James Kochalka Superstar song "Monkey Vs. Robot." The song is interesting and fun, but it might not have warranted so many different video treatments. I was slightly disappointed in the quality of the animated videos, particularly because none of them incorporated James' artwork, but I quite enjoyed Nate Pommer's Kaiju Big Battel-like costumed staging. The video is worth watching, however, because of the live interview and candid footage punctuating the videos. My favorite parts include the footage taken at the Peking Duck House, where James worked as a waiter for more than six years, and the street scene in which James burst into song amidst a couple of sidewalk cafes. That sequence -- and the pastiche of live footage near the end -- shows James the consummate performer in his natural habitat, no matter how makeshift the stage. The man's a ham, and I'm glad he doesn't taken himself more seriously.
Friday, May 10: Fight Club
Just as the Matrix made me want to meditate, learn a martial art, and go jogging, Fight Club is one of those surprisingly empowering and inspiring movies. I've been accused of having a thing for Chuck Palahniuk -- in a review of an Anchormen record, of all places -- but this was my first exposure to any of his work. In addition to the solid story and the impressive performances by Ed Norton, Brad Pitt, and Helena Bonham Carter (who was also excellent in Novocaine), I was especially pleased by the twists and turns the story took. I was also quite surprised by the movie's revelations, and I'm certainly not going to spoil things for you if you haven't seen this yet by saying anything further here. Let's just say: Shades of Memento.
Sunday, May 12: Spider-Man
I grew up reading Spiderman, and to this day it remains one of my favorite comic books -- and I'm no longer the panties-and-capes kind of guy that I was when I first started reading comics. The release of Spider-Man bodes well for the future of comic book-inspired movies -- particularly superhero comic book-inspired movies, given that Ghost World and From Hell were so well done. Hollywood has moved beyond the cartoony portrayals we received from DC in the Batman and Superman flicks, and Marvel's licensing folks have done well with this follow-up of sorts to X-Men. The filmmakers don't waltz all over the myth and origin of the character. They don't drastically redo the roles that the important characters in the long-running story have played for the last several decades. And they don't overly romanticize the story. The special effects were a little jarring -- when Spidey's spinning his web around the city, it is extremely clear that it's CGI animation -- but Tobey Maguire makes a convincing Peter Parker and Willem Dafoe is a deliciously evil supervillain. This could have been much, much worse. And it's pretty darn good for what it is. (Watched with my family in Santa Fe, New Mexico.)
Sunday, May 19: Star Wars: Episode II -- Attack of the Clones
In stark contrast to Spider-Man, I wasn't really looking forward to seeing the new Star Wars at all. It sort of snuck up on me, given the hype surrounding the previous installation. And having seen it? I'm not sure what the future of George Lucas' franchise will bring. As a fan of the original Star Wars movies, I admit that I have a soft spot for the characters and storyline -- and the new movies do a lot to fill in the back story. But so much of it is expected -- or disappointing. I mean, Hayden Christensen's post-adolescent-yet-surprisingly-whiny Anakin Skywalker evolves into Darth Vader? More like Lord Dark Helmet from Spaceballs. Several of my friends didn't buy Yoda's moment in the spotlight, but I thought it was pretty rad. Just as I enjoyed seeing how Boba Fett became inspired to be a bounty hunter. And Natalie Portman? Meow. One more thing. If you're going to make a movie, please don't make it totally obvious which characters were written in because they'd make cool action figures -- and which scenes were "scripted" because they'd make an exciting sequence in the video game. I expected more out of the Clone Wars, and the next movie might share more of its events and outcomes, but watching this wasn't very satisfying. (Watched with my sister in Taos, New Mexico.)
Sunday: East Is East
Focusing on a Pakistani who relocates to England and raises a mixed-race family in Manchester in the early '70s, this movie is largely a series of stories about culture clash. The head of the household clashes with his British wife. He clashes with his sons as they in turn refuse the arranged weddings he organizes within the Pakistani expatriot community. The children of the family clash as they grow up in relatively close contact -- often three to a bed. But mostly, East Is East narrates the clash between expectations, dreams, and aspirations. The movie is also about love and respect within and without a family (one son is disowned after he leaves his Pakistani bride to be at the altar). In addition, persistent undercurrents of racism and repatriotization politics run throughout the film, which has several solid comic moments despite its occasionally heady subjects. The ending itself -- quickly following the movie's peak -- is surprisingly funny and might feature the film's best punchline. That adds a nice indication of hope to the reunion of the Pakistani fish-and-chips shopkeeper and his wife -- who begin to rebuild their family's future over half a cup of tea.
Sunday: Monkey Vs. Robot: The James Kochalka Story
Almost 20 minutes long, this video offers several different videos for the James Kochalka Superstar song "Monkey Vs. Robot." The song is interesting and fun, but it might not have warranted so many different video treatments. I was slightly disappointed in the quality of the animated videos, particularly because none of them incorporated James' artwork, but I quite enjoyed Nate Pommer's Kaiju Big Battel-like costumed staging. The video is worth watching, however, because of the live interview and candid footage punctuating the videos. My favorite parts include the footage taken at the Peking Duck House, where James worked as a waiter for more than six years, and the street scene in which James burst into song amidst a couple of sidewalk cafes. That sequence -- and the pastiche of live footage near the end -- shows James the consummate performer in his natural habitat, no matter how makeshift the stage. The man's a ham, and I'm glad he doesn't taken himself more seriously.
Rock Shows of Note XXI
I don't think I ever commented on the May 23 Anchormen show with Choo Choo La Rouge and Tony Goddess of Papas Fritas! Before I touch on Saturday night show at the Middle East, let me sneak in some edited notes from my Little Red Notebook:
Now that that is out of the way, Saturday night. I wasn't sure I'd make it to the Brett Rosenberg Problem's CD release party at the Middle East Upstairs, given my late night out Friday with Tammy, a friend from high school -- and spending most of Saturday with an ex I haven't really seen or talked to for several months -- but I'm glad that I did. I got there just as the Nines were starting their set, and after a jarring guitar chord that woke up the entire club, the power-pop threesome launched into an infectious set of amazing garage rock. Reminding me of some of the bands affiliated with Get Hip, the Nines also represented elements of sing-along punk rock a la the Riverdales and other Ramones interpreters. I could see this band again, and I'm glad they found a bunch of old singles in their attic recently.
By the time Brett Rosenberg and his two friends took the stage, much of the Handstand Command collective and its satellites were there: Jef and Jen, Deb from Hi-Fi, and three-fourths of Spoilsport. (To be fair, Handstand Command could very well be the other folks' satellite; I don't mean to claim them as ours -- or to eclipse their projects.) Brett opened with a slow, sensitive ballad -- a surprising beginning -- and then ran through many of the best songs from his previous CD -- as well as a bunch of new numbers from his brand new disc, which I'll review in Media Diet soon. His influences are clear, but his delivery is so direct and honestly enthusiastic that there's little sense of second-generation aping. As much as I like Brett and his music, I couldn't stick around for the entire show, though. Given the events of the past two days, I was a little tired about midway through Brett's set -- so I headed home, ears ringing and heart singing.
I don't think I ever commented on the May 23 Anchormen show with Choo Choo La Rouge and Tony Goddess of Papas Fritas! Before I touch on Saturday night show at the Middle East, let me sneak in some edited notes from my Little Red Notebook:
The show went well. Tony Goddess was a little lackluster in this Storytellers-style solo singer-songrwriter setting, but he was extremely nice. I kept hearing Shivika and Keith's voices in (and imprints) on the songs -- especially the older, more popular Papas Fritas numbers. Tony says that the band's basically been broken up since recording the last record. But they are playing two shows this summer, and Tony and Shivika have recorded a couple of songs together that will be released as a Papas Fritas 7-inch. Tony'd like to be in a band again. And he's got practice and studio space in Gloucester, so if you're interested, contact the man.
Choo Choo La Rouge was, as always, quite good. Their Robyn Hitchcock by way of Bob Dylan and Neutral Milk Hotel (rare instances) song stylings are really growing on me. And having listened to their CD several times, I appreciate more songs live than I did at first blush. And the Anchormen? We were OK. We were funnier than usual -- a little dark. And kinda low energy. But we were tight, I didn't forget any words, and people really seemed to like us. Special thanks to the two groups of strangers who danced throughout our set -- and to the woman up front and center who good-naturedly took our ribbing about her watch, etc. A lot of laughter tonight. Not all of it at our expense.
Now that that is out of the way, Saturday night. I wasn't sure I'd make it to the Brett Rosenberg Problem's CD release party at the Middle East Upstairs, given my late night out Friday with Tammy, a friend from high school -- and spending most of Saturday with an ex I haven't really seen or talked to for several months -- but I'm glad that I did. I got there just as the Nines were starting their set, and after a jarring guitar chord that woke up the entire club, the power-pop threesome launched into an infectious set of amazing garage rock. Reminding me of some of the bands affiliated with Get Hip, the Nines also represented elements of sing-along punk rock a la the Riverdales and other Ramones interpreters. I could see this band again, and I'm glad they found a bunch of old singles in their attic recently.
By the time Brett Rosenberg and his two friends took the stage, much of the Handstand Command collective and its satellites were there: Jef and Jen, Deb from Hi-Fi, and three-fourths of Spoilsport. (To be fair, Handstand Command could very well be the other folks' satellite; I don't mean to claim them as ours -- or to eclipse their projects.) Brett opened with a slow, sensitive ballad -- a surprising beginning -- and then ran through many of the best songs from his previous CD -- as well as a bunch of new numbers from his brand new disc, which I'll review in Media Diet soon. His influences are clear, but his delivery is so direct and honestly enthusiastic that there's little sense of second-generation aping. As much as I like Brett and his music, I couldn't stick around for the entire show, though. Given the events of the past two days, I was a little tired about midway through Brett's set -- so I headed home, ears ringing and heart singing.
North End Moment XVII
Walking up the back alley behind the Scotch & Sirloin this morning, I saw the most wonderful reflections off of our building's windows on the old folks' home opposite the chainlink-fenced parking lot.
Nue + Art = Nature.
The relections looked like some kind of urban petroglyphs or fractal graffiti. A couple of window patterns were even pulsing or vibrating as the glass flexed in the morning sun. Not a bad wake-up welcome.
Walking up the back alley behind the Scotch & Sirloin this morning, I saw the most wonderful reflections off of our building's windows on the old folks' home opposite the chainlink-fenced parking lot.
Nue + Art = Nature.
The relections looked like some kind of urban petroglyphs or fractal graffiti. A couple of window patterns were even pulsing or vibrating as the glass flexed in the morning sun. Not a bad wake-up welcome.
Friday, May 31, 2002
Fast Fiction III
Dang, I'm enjoying the Warren Ellis Forum this afternoon in the quiet, summer-hours slowness of work. I had no idea that Richard Kadrey was publishing short, short stories in Infinite Matrix. There are 22 available so far -- and new tales appear weekly, it seems. Time to catch up with the man.
Dang, I'm enjoying the Warren Ellis Forum this afternoon in the quiet, summer-hours slowness of work. I had no idea that Richard Kadrey was publishing short, short stories in Infinite Matrix. There are 22 available so far -- and new tales appear weekly, it seems. Time to catch up with the man.
Comics and Commentary
Scott R. Kurtz's recent run of comic strips at PvPonline takes alternative comics publishers and creators to task. It's a giggle-ridden tirade about talent, production values, self-publishing motivation, intentional obscurity, comics journalism, sales, and readers. Make with the clicky click already.
Scott R. Kurtz's recent run of comic strips at PvPonline takes alternative comics publishers and creators to task. It's a giggle-ridden tirade about talent, production values, self-publishing motivation, intentional obscurity, comics journalism, sales, and readers. Make with the clicky click already.
From the In Box: The Restaurant I Ate at Last Night V
In his book "Love Is the Killer App," Tim Sanders mentions that one of his networking tactics is to take a digital photograph of him and people he meets -- and then send that person the snapshot. He recently emailed me a photo of us taken earlier this month in San Diego -- but with a little twist.
Muggin' uglies.
I think it's time I take off my pants and jacket. This is a little Improper Bostonian for me.
In his book "Love Is the Killer App," Tim Sanders mentions that one of his networking tactics is to take a digital photograph of him and people he meets -- and then send that person the snapshot. He recently emailed me a photo of us taken earlier this month in San Diego -- but with a little twist.
Muggin' uglies.
I was gonna paste on Creed or Linkin Park or something. I gave you a break -- out of respect. -- Tim Sanders
I think it's time I take off my pants and jacket. This is a little Improper Bostonian for me.
From the In Box: Blogging About Blogging XXIII
Are you familiar with the Advogato "trust-metric"? They have the theory down to extrapolate a network of trust rankings that might mechanically realize the networks you're describing without them needing a name -- in fact, they would only be nameable as "yours" because the details of whom you trust and how much would be uniquely yours. No doubt patterns would emerge (like art movements) based on natural affinities.
Apparently the SourceForge project has adapted this idea to ranking developers, but I can't find any general write-up of how it works. Not sure if anyone else has implemented anything based on the ideas. -- Joe Germuska
Are you familiar with the Advogato "trust-metric"? They have the theory down to extrapolate a network of trust rankings that might mechanically realize the networks you're describing without them needing a name -- in fact, they would only be nameable as "yours" because the details of whom you trust and how much would be uniquely yours. No doubt patterns would emerge (like art movements) based on natural affinities.
Apparently the SourceForge project has adapted this idea to ranking developers, but I can't find any general write-up of how it works. Not sure if anyone else has implemented anything based on the ideas. -- Joe Germuska
Nervy, Pervy V
I cannot believe it. I haven't laughed so hard at a spam before, so I need to share this.
These have got to be the worst idea ever.
I cannot believe it. I haven't laughed so hard at a spam before, so I need to share this.
Take a walk on the wild side... and try something a little different.
Whitey-tighties are such a bore, and boxers have lost their appeal. Manties are made for the man who wants to be unconventional and not feel that he has to do what the crowd does. He is a man who is secure in what he does and does what he wants. What woman could resist him in a pair of these. They are the softest underwear a man could get today, while getting the support he desires.
Finally, fit and comfort all rolled into one for guys who want underwear that is fun to wear.
For those nights and days, when you want to be and feel a little special, naughty, and very sexy, these Manties are made for you. They are made of nylon and have the extra room where you need it, for the most comfortable fit there is... They can even be embriodered with whatever you want on them and make the nicest gift any guy can get. Birthdays, anniversaries, retirement, stag parties, divorce celebrations, etc. They have been sold worldwide for any and all occasions. C'mon ladies, give him a little gift made just for him. You might be suprised and glad that you did.
Panties are for the gals.
Manties are for the guys.
These have got to be the worst idea ever.
Sites on the Side of the Road IV
Everyone needs a hobby, I suppose. John Winter Smith is going to visit every single Starbucks in the world. According to his site, Starbucks Everywhere, he's visited more than 2,800 Starbucks so far. That's out of about 3,300. That's also about 85% of the Starbucks currently existing.
He's even hit most of the Starbucks in the Boston area, including the one near my house. The site sports photographs of the stores he's visited, as well as occasional commentary such as, "Chenille, or perhaps corduroy, curtains cover the windows." Now that's news you can use.
Thanks to Just One Thing.
Everyone needs a hobby, I suppose. John Winter Smith is going to visit every single Starbucks in the world. According to his site, Starbucks Everywhere, he's visited more than 2,800 Starbucks so far. That's out of about 3,300. That's also about 85% of the Starbucks currently existing.
He's even hit most of the Starbucks in the Boston area, including the one near my house. The site sports photographs of the stores he's visited, as well as occasional commentary such as, "Chenille, or perhaps corduroy, curtains cover the windows." Now that's news you can use.
Thanks to Just One Thing.
Blogging About Blogging XXIII
I try not to dip into the blog memes that everyone trumpets about to avoid overlapping with other blogs and commentaries, but occasionally, Blogdex gives me a mindful that I need to share and expand on. Take Henry Copeland's recent essay, "Blogonomics: Making a Living from Blogging."
My first instinct is to reactively debunk the essay, contending that an essay entitled "Zineconomics: Making a Living from Zine Publishing" or "Tapeconomics: Making a Living from Running a Cassette Label" circa 1991 would've been the epitome of naivete, but perhaps this whole "blogonomics" thing has some weight to it. Sure, his coining of blogs as un-media rather than "nu-media" reeks of hyberbole, but Henry offers some ideas worth considering and building on. As well as questioning.
Blogs will never upend traditional, mainstream media. They will feed it. They will complement it. They will challenge it. But we will probably never have what the mainstream mass media has -- and what we so desperately need: distribution and promotion. So I question Henry's position that this is a battle between amateurs and professionals, between entrepreneurs and established media organizations. The idealist in me would like to think that this could happen, but what we have seen in zines, in comics, and in music to date -- not that the DIY media history will continue to repeat itself -- is that people in independent media circles tend to step up into the mainstream, mass media -- perhaps stepping back down at some point -- or at least straddle the two worlds persistently. This is what I think is more likely to happen. Especially because folks in the mainstream are already dipping their toes in the DIY waters.
I'm particularly intrigued and enthused by Henry's concept of "capillarity." And I'd like to up the ante on Henry's portrayal of blogs as social networks -- and people reading blogs to eventually read other blogs mentioned in the original blogs (which is just like tracing the tracks of zine reviews, not to mention book-jacket blurbs). What I think will emerge are hives of bloggers... tribes of bloggers... either collaborating to co-create collective blogs such as the recently launched Listen Up! -- or even BoingBoing, which I read every day -- or nesting in loose confederacies like the blogrolls and link lists we can already find on so many sites. This could develop into networks of like-minded, -styled, and -experienced bloggers... either under a collective name brand that folks can remember, recognize, and find easily or in the loose-knit affiliation webs that currently exist. This isn't much different than a collaborative zine or collective record label... and takes steps toward building our own parallel news and media organizations. Move over, Fox. Or whatever.
What concerns me most about Henry's statements about the potential of blogonomics, however, are the parallels I see between the current state of blog services and the Webfarms of yore -- Tripod, Geocities, etc. Even during the heyday of the Webfarms, advertising wasn't a sustainable enough model to support the organizations' business needs and operations. And the Webfarms weren't identifiable enough as consistent brand names to warrant affiliation with the network as a whole. Sure, folks know Tripod. Folks love Tripod. But not every Tripod site falls under an umbrella that's consistent in terms of content, context, etc. Perhaps this isn't necessary. But if blogs are going to compete with mainstream media, we need to begin creating sustainable networks that involve the like-styled, -minded, and -experienced creators I mention above -- as well as a reading audience that's also like-styled, -minded, and -experienced. Otherwise, our demographics are going to be a mile wide and an inch deep. And that's not going to attract advertisers.
Of course, I don't even think blogs need to attract advertisers, but that's another story altogether.
I try not to dip into the blog memes that everyone trumpets about to avoid overlapping with other blogs and commentaries, but occasionally, Blogdex gives me a mindful that I need to share and expand on. Take Henry Copeland's recent essay, "Blogonomics: Making a Living from Blogging."
My first instinct is to reactively debunk the essay, contending that an essay entitled "Zineconomics: Making a Living from Zine Publishing" or "Tapeconomics: Making a Living from Running a Cassette Label" circa 1991 would've been the epitome of naivete, but perhaps this whole "blogonomics" thing has some weight to it. Sure, his coining of blogs as un-media rather than "nu-media" reeks of hyberbole, but Henry offers some ideas worth considering and building on. As well as questioning.
Blogs will never upend traditional, mainstream media. They will feed it. They will complement it. They will challenge it. But we will probably never have what the mainstream mass media has -- and what we so desperately need: distribution and promotion. So I question Henry's position that this is a battle between amateurs and professionals, between entrepreneurs and established media organizations. The idealist in me would like to think that this could happen, but what we have seen in zines, in comics, and in music to date -- not that the DIY media history will continue to repeat itself -- is that people in independent media circles tend to step up into the mainstream, mass media -- perhaps stepping back down at some point -- or at least straddle the two worlds persistently. This is what I think is more likely to happen. Especially because folks in the mainstream are already dipping their toes in the DIY waters.
I'm particularly intrigued and enthused by Henry's concept of "capillarity." And I'd like to up the ante on Henry's portrayal of blogs as social networks -- and people reading blogs to eventually read other blogs mentioned in the original blogs (which is just like tracing the tracks of zine reviews, not to mention book-jacket blurbs). What I think will emerge are hives of bloggers... tribes of bloggers... either collaborating to co-create collective blogs such as the recently launched Listen Up! -- or even BoingBoing, which I read every day -- or nesting in loose confederacies like the blogrolls and link lists we can already find on so many sites. This could develop into networks of like-minded, -styled, and -experienced bloggers... either under a collective name brand that folks can remember, recognize, and find easily or in the loose-knit affiliation webs that currently exist. This isn't much different than a collaborative zine or collective record label... and takes steps toward building our own parallel news and media organizations. Move over, Fox. Or whatever.
What concerns me most about Henry's statements about the potential of blogonomics, however, are the parallels I see between the current state of blog services and the Webfarms of yore -- Tripod, Geocities, etc. Even during the heyday of the Webfarms, advertising wasn't a sustainable enough model to support the organizations' business needs and operations. And the Webfarms weren't identifiable enough as consistent brand names to warrant affiliation with the network as a whole. Sure, folks know Tripod. Folks love Tripod. But not every Tripod site falls under an umbrella that's consistent in terms of content, context, etc. Perhaps this isn't necessary. But if blogs are going to compete with mainstream media, we need to begin creating sustainable networks that involve the like-styled, -minded, and -experienced creators I mention above -- as well as a reading audience that's also like-styled, -minded, and -experienced. Otherwise, our demographics are going to be a mile wide and an inch deep. And that's not going to attract advertisers.
Of course, I don't even think blogs need to attract advertisers, but that's another story altogether.
Music for the Movement
Shannon Okey informs me that she, Sooz, Brad, and other Boston-area (and elsewhere, I'm sure) bloggers are collaborating to produce Listen Up!, a collective resource highlighting music recommendations, MP3's, reviews, and show notices.
Listen Up! to Tom and Jef of the Anchormen.
So far -- I believe Listen Up! launched about 10 days ago -- contributors talk up innovative radio stations, Jane Siberry, weekend soundtracks, and the "shred metal" subgenre. We'll see how the blog evolves, but there are some good people involved. I'm not sure I'll throw my hat in that ring right now, but the site is worth visiting.
Shannon Okey informs me that she, Sooz, Brad, and other Boston-area (and elsewhere, I'm sure) bloggers are collaborating to produce Listen Up!, a collective resource highlighting music recommendations, MP3's, reviews, and show notices.
Listen Up! to Tom and Jef of the Anchormen.
So far -- I believe Listen Up! launched about 10 days ago -- contributors talk up innovative radio stations, Jane Siberry, weekend soundtracks, and the "shred metal" subgenre. We'll see how the blog evolves, but there are some good people involved. I'm not sure I'll throw my hat in that ring right now, but the site is worth visiting.
Thursday, May 30, 2002
It's an Ad, Ad, Ad, Ad World X
The John W. Hartman Center for Sales, Advertising, and Marketing History at Duke University has developed a searchable online archive of more than 7,000 ads published in North American newspapers and magazines between 1911 and 1955. The collection, dubbed Ad*Access, concentrates on advertisements related to radio, television, transportation, beauty and hygiene, and World War II. Researchers can browse the collection by category and subcategory, as well as search for ads featuring specific keywords or images. The center also provides parallel histories of the categories, including a timeline of world events, to create stronger context for the collection.
Thanks to Weblogsky.
The John W. Hartman Center for Sales, Advertising, and Marketing History at Duke University has developed a searchable online archive of more than 7,000 ads published in North American newspapers and magazines between 1911 and 1955. The collection, dubbed Ad*Access, concentrates on advertisements related to radio, television, transportation, beauty and hygiene, and World War II. Researchers can browse the collection by category and subcategory, as well as search for ads featuring specific keywords or images. The center also provides parallel histories of the categories, including a timeline of world events, to create stronger context for the collection.
Thanks to Weblogsky.
A Collision of Interesting Women II
Well, as the day progresses, it improves. I'm not as sheepish or concerned as I was this morning, and it looks like there aren't as many pieces to put back together as I thought there might be given my confusion and surprise last night. That's good news. I'm not a big fan of damage control.
Why "Collision of Interesting Women," though? Just felt right. I hope it catches on as the new term for a group of women. You can help with that.
Well, as the day progresses, it improves. I'm not as sheepish or concerned as I was this morning, and it looks like there aren't as many pieces to put back together as I thought there might be given my confusion and surprise last night. That's good news. I'm not a big fan of damage control.
Why "Collision of Interesting Women," though? Just felt right. I hope it catches on as the new term for a group of women. You can help with that.
Comics Crackdown
Chicago-area cartoonist Stu Helm, also known as King VelVeeda, is being targeted by Kraft Foods because of his nickname. According to the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund:
The Comic Book Legal Defense Fund is defending Chicago cartoonist Stu Helm against Kraft Foods in a trademark dilution and infringement suit over Helm's nickname King VelVeeda. The Phillip Morris owned cheese food giant is suing Helm to stop using the name on any comics or illustration work and for punitive damages of three times the amount he has made from using the name. They are also seeking a preliminary injunction that would prevent him from using the nickname leading into and during the trial. Helm had been signing comics under the moniker for over a decade before Kraft took notice and is the author of the comics collection "Singles" and operates the website Cheesygraphics.com.
Helm had been defending himself against Kraft for over a month before he contacted the Fund for help. Within two days of taking Helm's call, he was in the office of CBLDF legal counsel Burton Joseph building a strategy for the case. Joseph agreed that Helm's long use of the nickname falls within the rights afforded him by the First Amendment and that he is being unjustly persecuted by Kraft. "This case represents a two billion dollar corporation trying to push the envelope in restricting the use of anything that resembles or ridicules a trademark," Joseph explains. "Kraft's complaint alleges that Stuart Helm's website cheesygraphics.com, which averaged about 350 hits a day by use of the designation 'King VelVeeda's Cheesygraphics' diminished or diluted the value of the Velveeta pasteurized processed cheese food that they sell. The facts seem highly dubious from Kraft's standpoint that any visitor to cheesygraphics.com would confuse King VelVeeda with Velveeta pasteurized processed cheese food."
Helm, Joseph, and the CBLDF see larger implications in Kraft's suit, and feel it's an important fight. "The law is in a state of flux with regard to trademark dilution, so it is more important than ever to protect the First Amendment rights of comic book creators who poke fun at the symbols of our popular culture," explains attorney and CBLDF Board Member Louise Nemschoff. "Claims such as the ones brought by Kraft against alternative comic book creator Stu Helm have a tendency to chill freedom of expression when it comes to such jokes, parody and commentary," Nemschoff adds.
Helm says, "Even though it seems like a small issue because it is a silly nickname, I feel that it's so far removed from the actual product that if I go down, it opens the door for a lot more action against a lot more people. It's a big issue. If it can happen to me -- and I'm so far removed from the product -- that sets a bad precedent."
Since taking the case, the Fund has spent dozens of legal hours waging Helm's defense, including the deposition of a Kraft executive and an appearance at the Preliminary Injunction hearing. "We are hoping first that the court will deny Kraft's request for a preliminary injunction and will ultimately rule that Kraft cannot prove any dilution of its trademark by the artist's nickname of King VelVeeda," Joseph says. "We're very confident, but the ultimate decision will depend on a case now pending before the U.S. Supreme Court, Mosely d.b.a. Victor's Little Secret v. Secret Catalog Inc. (Victoria's Secret), and also whether Kraft's arguments are mere speculation or grounded in some evidence or genuine concern of market confusion."
"It's cases like this where the community's support of the Fund matters the most," says CBLDF Executive Director Charles Brownstein. "Without our involvement Kraft could have steamrolled Stu into bankruptcy simply because they have more money and lawyers. We believe that Stu Helm is well within his First Amendment rights and are committed to defending them, despite the monstrous expense ahead of us. That's what the Fund was set up to do and this is what every membership and donation dollar goes into making happen."
Helm is grateful for the Fund's involvement in his case, but it's a hassle he never wanted. "I haven't tried to cut into their market by mimicking anything they do," Helm says. "I made a good name for myself doing what I do best which is my art and I just want to be left alone to do that."
Chicago-area cartoonist Stu Helm, also known as King VelVeeda, is being targeted by Kraft Foods because of his nickname. According to the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund:
The Comic Book Legal Defense Fund is defending Chicago cartoonist Stu Helm against Kraft Foods in a trademark dilution and infringement suit over Helm's nickname King VelVeeda. The Phillip Morris owned cheese food giant is suing Helm to stop using the name on any comics or illustration work and for punitive damages of three times the amount he has made from using the name. They are also seeking a preliminary injunction that would prevent him from using the nickname leading into and during the trial. Helm had been signing comics under the moniker for over a decade before Kraft took notice and is the author of the comics collection "Singles" and operates the website Cheesygraphics.com.
Helm had been defending himself against Kraft for over a month before he contacted the Fund for help. Within two days of taking Helm's call, he was in the office of CBLDF legal counsel Burton Joseph building a strategy for the case. Joseph agreed that Helm's long use of the nickname falls within the rights afforded him by the First Amendment and that he is being unjustly persecuted by Kraft. "This case represents a two billion dollar corporation trying to push the envelope in restricting the use of anything that resembles or ridicules a trademark," Joseph explains. "Kraft's complaint alleges that Stuart Helm's website cheesygraphics.com, which averaged about 350 hits a day by use of the designation 'King VelVeeda's Cheesygraphics' diminished or diluted the value of the Velveeta pasteurized processed cheese food that they sell. The facts seem highly dubious from Kraft's standpoint that any visitor to cheesygraphics.com would confuse King VelVeeda with Velveeta pasteurized processed cheese food."
Helm, Joseph, and the CBLDF see larger implications in Kraft's suit, and feel it's an important fight. "The law is in a state of flux with regard to trademark dilution, so it is more important than ever to protect the First Amendment rights of comic book creators who poke fun at the symbols of our popular culture," explains attorney and CBLDF Board Member Louise Nemschoff. "Claims such as the ones brought by Kraft against alternative comic book creator Stu Helm have a tendency to chill freedom of expression when it comes to such jokes, parody and commentary," Nemschoff adds.
Helm says, "Even though it seems like a small issue because it is a silly nickname, I feel that it's so far removed from the actual product that if I go down, it opens the door for a lot more action against a lot more people. It's a big issue. If it can happen to me -- and I'm so far removed from the product -- that sets a bad precedent."
Since taking the case, the Fund has spent dozens of legal hours waging Helm's defense, including the deposition of a Kraft executive and an appearance at the Preliminary Injunction hearing. "We are hoping first that the court will deny Kraft's request for a preliminary injunction and will ultimately rule that Kraft cannot prove any dilution of its trademark by the artist's nickname of King VelVeeda," Joseph says. "We're very confident, but the ultimate decision will depend on a case now pending before the U.S. Supreme Court, Mosely d.b.a. Victor's Little Secret v. Secret Catalog Inc. (Victoria's Secret), and also whether Kraft's arguments are mere speculation or grounded in some evidence or genuine concern of market confusion."
"It's cases like this where the community's support of the Fund matters the most," says CBLDF Executive Director Charles Brownstein. "Without our involvement Kraft could have steamrolled Stu into bankruptcy simply because they have more money and lawyers. We believe that Stu Helm is well within his First Amendment rights and are committed to defending them, despite the monstrous expense ahead of us. That's what the Fund was set up to do and this is what every membership and donation dollar goes into making happen."
Helm is grateful for the Fund's involvement in his case, but it's a hassle he never wanted. "I haven't tried to cut into their market by mimicking anything they do," Helm says. "I made a good name for myself doing what I do best which is my art and I just want to be left alone to do that."
Rock Shows of Note XX
Four bands played at the final Handstand Command anniversary show last night. I caught sets by three of them.
After parting ways with the friend I hung out with at the Media Bistro cocktail party (I'm not using people's names in order to protect the innocent.), I arrived at the Abbey just in time to catch the end of Palomar, an amazing rock foursome that reminded me of Heavenly and Pest 5000. They were a lot of fun and seemed extremely friendly, to boot.
Next up, the Operators, who were celebrating the release of their new CD on Unstoppable Records, "Citizens Band". It's been forever since the Operators have played live, and their return to the stage was excellent. There've been rumors that the band was going to, well, disband, but Steph says that isn't so. Yay! Welcome back, Operators.
Lastly, the Pee Wee Fist. They didn't really float my boat. 'Course, I was in the midst of a bit of girl trouble, so maybe I didn't give them a fair shake. Regardless, a good show -- and an amazing end to the Handstand Command residency.
Four bands played at the final Handstand Command anniversary show last night. I caught sets by three of them.
After parting ways with the friend I hung out with at the Media Bistro cocktail party (I'm not using people's names in order to protect the innocent.), I arrived at the Abbey just in time to catch the end of Palomar, an amazing rock foursome that reminded me of Heavenly and Pest 5000. They were a lot of fun and seemed extremely friendly, to boot.
Next up, the Operators, who were celebrating the release of their new CD on Unstoppable Records, "Citizens Band". It's been forever since the Operators have played live, and their return to the stage was excellent. There've been rumors that the band was going to, well, disband, but Steph says that isn't so. Yay! Welcome back, Operators.
Lastly, the Pee Wee Fist. They didn't really float my boat. 'Course, I was in the midst of a bit of girl trouble, so maybe I didn't give them a fair shake. Regardless, a good show -- and an amazing end to the Handstand Command residency.
A Collision of Interesting Women
My computer has frozen -- and my browser has crashed -- during my last two attempts to think through the events of last night. I'm going to take it as a sign from above and not try to detail the confusing experiences at such great length.
Suffice to say, I'm having girl trouble. An ex called me at work yesterday afternoon. I took a friend to the Media Bistro cocktail party, which my most recent ex also attended. That friend and I shared an awkward but interesting moment on the street corner before heading our separate ways. And at the Handstand Command anniversary show, I hung out with two other women I'm crushing on.
Too much all at once. While I didn't do anything egregious, I'm afraid I didn't handle any of it very well. Apologies to all involved.
It's wholly inappropriate that my horoscope says, "Light up your house of intimacy. Love and loyalty flourish in an atmosphere of freedom," today.
My computer has frozen -- and my browser has crashed -- during my last two attempts to think through the events of last night. I'm going to take it as a sign from above and not try to detail the confusing experiences at such great length.
Suffice to say, I'm having girl trouble. An ex called me at work yesterday afternoon. I took a friend to the Media Bistro cocktail party, which my most recent ex also attended. That friend and I shared an awkward but interesting moment on the street corner before heading our separate ways. And at the Handstand Command anniversary show, I hung out with two other women I'm crushing on.
Too much all at once. While I didn't do anything egregious, I'm afraid I didn't handle any of it very well. Apologies to all involved.
It's wholly inappropriate that my horoscope says, "Light up your house of intimacy. Love and loyalty flourish in an atmosphere of freedom," today.
Wednesday, May 29, 2002
Blogging About Blogging XXII
Perhaps because of the new Blogger Pro software, my archives are slightly dodgy, and the links aren't populating the $BlogURL$ value. I've emailed Evan to see what's what and hope to work this out soon. Thanks for your patience!
***
Evan's on the case. I've replaced the old tag with my base URL -- and the archives are now available again. Woot!
Perhaps because of the new Blogger Pro software, my archives are slightly dodgy, and the links aren't populating the $BlogURL$ value. I've emailed Evan to see what's what and hope to work this out soon. Thanks for your patience!
Evan's on the case. I've replaced the old tag with my base URL -- and the archives are now available again. Woot!
From the In Box: Mention Me! XI
Any before and after pictures? It'd be worth a couple thousand words... and you only wrote about 100. -- Rick Weller
This is Heath's head. Hair grows out of it.
It's not the best picture, but there's only so much one man can do in a day. Even if it's a banner day -- like the day I first post a photo to Media Diet. One for the history books, you betcha.
Any before and after pictures? It'd be worth a couple thousand words... and you only wrote about 100. -- Rick Weller
This is Heath's head. Hair grows out of it.
It's not the best picture, but there's only so much one man can do in a day. Even if it's a banner day -- like the day I first post a photo to Media Diet. One for the history books, you betcha.
Cover Story II
The May 10, 2002, issue of Entertainment Weekly gave a shout out to Life magazine's Cover Collection, and the props are well deserved. You can search and browse magazine covers dating between 1936 and 1972, when the magazine was a weekly. You can see past covers for today's specific date. And you can browse select sub-collections, such as the 60 "wackiest" covers, which sport images of terriers, roosters, and women kissing pillars. Wonderful stuff.
The May 10, 2002, issue of Entertainment Weekly gave a shout out to Life magazine's Cover Collection, and the props are well deserved. You can search and browse magazine covers dating between 1936 and 1972, when the magazine was a weekly. You can see past covers for today's specific date. And you can browse select sub-collections, such as the 60 "wackiest" covers, which sport images of terriers, roosters, and women kissing pillars. Wonderful stuff.
Pieces, Particles III
The following media-related stories recently spotted in print publications might be worth a look. Heads and decks, only. Heads and decks.
Alan Moore: The Wizard Q&A, by Mike Cotton, Wizard, July 2002
The writer behind WildStorm's ABC line chats about his refusal to work on a Marvel hero, why he'll never do a "Watchmen" sequel and how he might quit comics
Kicking It Up, Sports Illustrated, May 20, 2002
Female soccer players consider how far they'll go to sell their sport
Open for Business, by Adam Rapoport, GQ, June 2002
Advertisers and art directors keep telling women to spread their legs. Which is a good thing? Isn't it?
The following media-related stories recently spotted in print publications might be worth a look. Heads and decks, only. Heads and decks.
Alan Moore: The Wizard Q&A, by Mike Cotton, Wizard, July 2002
The writer behind WildStorm's ABC line chats about his refusal to work on a Marvel hero, why he'll never do a "Watchmen" sequel and how he might quit comics
Kicking It Up, Sports Illustrated, May 20, 2002
Female soccer players consider how far they'll go to sell their sport
Open for Business, by Adam Rapoport, GQ, June 2002
Advertisers and art directors keep telling women to spread their legs. Which is a good thing? Isn't it?
Mention Me! XI
My haircut yesterday has been garnering all sorts of praise and near-insult. Just now during lunch at the 'Rang, one of my bosses said, "There's a fine line between Dobie Gillis and Green Day. You walk it every day." Yesterday a co-worker said I looked like Tobey Maguire in Pleasantville. Someone else said I looked like I'd just arrived from the '30s. Rich posted, "This lunch was fun because Heath is finally getting that mop of his trimmed. I'm praying they wash it too," on Lunch Is Fun. All I know is that it was high time I got a haircut -- well, all of them, actually.
My haircut yesterday has been garnering all sorts of praise and near-insult. Just now during lunch at the 'Rang, one of my bosses said, "There's a fine line between Dobie Gillis and Green Day. You walk it every day." Yesterday a co-worker said I looked like Tobey Maguire in Pleasantville. Someone else said I looked like I'd just arrived from the '30s. Rich posted, "This lunch was fun because Heath is finally getting that mop of his trimmed. I'm praying they wash it too," on Lunch Is Fun. All I know is that it was high time I got a haircut -- well, all of them, actually.
North End Moment XVI
It never occurred to me that folks have to actually paint fire escapes occasionally, but on Prince Street just past Screen Printing USA, a man was painting a fire escape this afternoon. He had paint on his face.
It never occurred to me that folks have to actually paint fire escapes occasionally, but on Prince Street just past Screen Printing USA, a man was painting a fire escape this afternoon. He had paint on his face.
Managing Me-Mail
Phew! After 11 days vacation in New Mexico and a long weekend for Memorial Day, I had more than 3,000 emails waiting for me in my in box. Because I had guesstimated 4,000 in a conversation last week with Ryan and Simone, I was actually quite pleased that the count was so "low."
Thing is, I just now finished catching up on those 3,000 messages. Almost a week after I returned from vacation. So Mark Hurst's recent report, "Managing E-Mail: What Every User Needs to Know, hit me especially hard. I read it in my hotel room over the weekend in Sonoma County for Roy and Amy's wedding, and it's extremely useful. Mark says that email management is not about server-side filtering of spam. It's not about unsubscribing from all of the mailing lists you belong to.
It's about keeping your in box at zero messages. That's right: Zero messages.
Right now, having just caught up on my emails while away, my in box stands at just more than 600 messages, the oldest of which dates back to February. (Ashamedly, my personal in box dates back to January 2000 with 475 messages.) So I'm going to start following Mark's advice to keep my in box clean. Among his recommendations:
Concentrate on lessening overall persistent message count, not daily email volume. (Keep your in box empty.)
Delete all spam.
Handle personal emails before work-related emails.
Act immediately on work-related emails: Read, file, add to your to-do list, and delete.
Schedule when you do email.
Never reply to spam.
Filter incoming spam conservatively. (He offers several solid filtering tactics I've already begun to employ.)
Mark says all of that better than I have -- and at greater length -- and I heartily recommend that you download the report. I also encourage you to chip in with the $10 honor-system donation Mark asks for. The tool's well worth the $10. I just sent him some money via PayPal.
Phew! After 11 days vacation in New Mexico and a long weekend for Memorial Day, I had more than 3,000 emails waiting for me in my in box. Because I had guesstimated 4,000 in a conversation last week with Ryan and Simone, I was actually quite pleased that the count was so "low."
Thing is, I just now finished catching up on those 3,000 messages. Almost a week after I returned from vacation. So Mark Hurst's recent report, "Managing E-Mail: What Every User Needs to Know, hit me especially hard. I read it in my hotel room over the weekend in Sonoma County for Roy and Amy's wedding, and it's extremely useful. Mark says that email management is not about server-side filtering of spam. It's not about unsubscribing from all of the mailing lists you belong to.
It's about keeping your in box at zero messages. That's right: Zero messages.
Right now, having just caught up on my emails while away, my in box stands at just more than 600 messages, the oldest of which dates back to February. (Ashamedly, my personal in box dates back to January 2000 with 475 messages.) So I'm going to start following Mark's advice to keep my in box clean. Among his recommendations:
Mark says all of that better than I have -- and at greater length -- and I heartily recommend that you download the report. I also encourage you to chip in with the $10 honor-system donation Mark asks for. The tool's well worth the $10. I just sent him some money via PayPal.
My New Low-Key Local?
After a conversation in which my girlfriend and I redefined our relationship -- we are now "just good friends" -- we walked down River Street to River Gods, a relatively new Irish pub just steps away from Central Square. I don't know why I haven't gone there before, but I'll be sure to return soon. It's cozy, comfortable, and extremely well-designed. Our pints were reasonably priced, and we were lucky enough to check out the bar on one of their Eavesdrop listening party nights. Every Tuesday starting at around 9:30 p.m., River Gods hosts a listening party that includes the playing of a new or unreleased record. Last night, that record was the Belle & Sebastian soundtrack to Storytelling. Next week it's Chris Brokaw's new record. Then Guided by Voices.
River Gods has a full-fledged schedule of other events throughout the week, including a guest DJ night in which members of local bands spin discs and other activities. Folks in the pub last night included Arto from the band Mishima USA, a DJ from one of the area mod nights, and two friends of friends I had met at Mary Mary's All-Star Karaoke at 608 awhile ago. Seems like quite the place to see and be seen if you're into that sort of thing.
Me? I just like the pews. Woot!
After a conversation in which my girlfriend and I redefined our relationship -- we are now "just good friends" -- we walked down River Street to River Gods, a relatively new Irish pub just steps away from Central Square. I don't know why I haven't gone there before, but I'll be sure to return soon. It's cozy, comfortable, and extremely well-designed. Our pints were reasonably priced, and we were lucky enough to check out the bar on one of their Eavesdrop listening party nights. Every Tuesday starting at around 9:30 p.m., River Gods hosts a listening party that includes the playing of a new or unreleased record. Last night, that record was the Belle & Sebastian soundtrack to Storytelling. Next week it's Chris Brokaw's new record. Then Guided by Voices.
River Gods has a full-fledged schedule of other events throughout the week, including a guest DJ night in which members of local bands spin discs and other activities. Folks in the pub last night included Arto from the band Mishima USA, a DJ from one of the area mod nights, and two friends of friends I had met at Mary Mary's All-Star Karaoke at 608 awhile ago. Seems like quite the place to see and be seen if you're into that sort of thing.
Me? I just like the pews. Woot!
The Revolution Will Be... Subdivided
Thanks to Charlie Park for directing me to Douglas Rushkoff's recent thinking about revolutionary movements. Instead of thinking about revolutions and movements as linear (and usually cyclical) narratives, Rushkoff suggests that we consider these "moments" as aspects of a Renaissance. While I got a little lost in the logic of his argument -- for example, his recommendation that we begin acting as though we live in a just world now -- I think I get the gist of his riff: We need to start leading by example and living as we think people ought to live... instead of making concessions and taking stop-gap measures in the flawed present banking on the eventual emergence of an ideal future.
Thanks to Charlie Park for directing me to Douglas Rushkoff's recent thinking about revolutionary movements. Instead of thinking about revolutions and movements as linear (and usually cyclical) narratives, Rushkoff suggests that we consider these "moments" as aspects of a Renaissance. While I got a little lost in the logic of his argument -- for example, his recommendation that we begin acting as though we live in a just world now -- I think I get the gist of his riff: We need to start leading by example and living as we think people ought to live... instead of making concessions and taking stop-gap measures in the flawed present banking on the eventual emergence of an ideal future.
Blogging About Blogging XXI
Jon Udell has produced an interesting study of "social networking in Radiospace." Analyzing the list of RSS channels to which he subscribes, Jon poses some interesting questions about bloggers' willingness to reveal their regular reads, what kinds of social organizations might emerge out of such transparency, and how bloggers cluster.
Using the word "hive," Jon contends that blogspace is moving away from a unified body of like-minded people -- and is instead beginning to follow traditional social networking models that apply to affinity groups, subgroups, people connected by weak links, and so on. Interesting stuff -- particularly his thoughts on clustering.
***
On the flip mode, John Hiler's recent essay Blogosphere: The Emerging Media Ecosystem goes far to outline the connections between -- and around -- bloggers and professional journalists. He differentiates between breaking news and making sense (fixing the news?), and he looks at the value of grassroots reportage and collaborative media. Perhaps most importantly, he even paints a pretty picture. The diagram he provides titled "The Complete Blogosphere in Action" is well-reasoned and sets a solid foundation for further thinking about the relationship between amateur and professional journalists and media makers.
***
And finally, Dave Winer spent some time exploring how blogs might add to the conference, convention, and trade show experience. This is something I've been thinking about for awhile. Why hasn't anybody built a Web business around reporting on trade shows and other business- and technology-related events? "We went to Comdex so you don't have to." People could provide an online show floor of exhibitors, complete with participant, journalist, and attendee comments on their wares and information. Folks could report on the break-out sessions and keynotes. Participants could build a collective context for the event and the content offered at the gathering.
Alan Reiter builds on Winer's argument. WiFi + blogs = Might as well be there yourself?
Jon Udell has produced an interesting study of "social networking in Radiospace." Analyzing the list of RSS channels to which he subscribes, Jon poses some interesting questions about bloggers' willingness to reveal their regular reads, what kinds of social organizations might emerge out of such transparency, and how bloggers cluster.
Using the word "hive," Jon contends that blogspace is moving away from a unified body of like-minded people -- and is instead beginning to follow traditional social networking models that apply to affinity groups, subgroups, people connected by weak links, and so on. Interesting stuff -- particularly his thoughts on clustering.
On the flip mode, John Hiler's recent essay Blogosphere: The Emerging Media Ecosystem goes far to outline the connections between -- and around -- bloggers and professional journalists. He differentiates between breaking news and making sense (fixing the news?), and he looks at the value of grassroots reportage and collaborative media. Perhaps most importantly, he even paints a pretty picture. The diagram he provides titled "The Complete Blogosphere in Action" is well-reasoned and sets a solid foundation for further thinking about the relationship between amateur and professional journalists and media makers.
And finally, Dave Winer spent some time exploring how blogs might add to the conference, convention, and trade show experience. This is something I've been thinking about for awhile. Why hasn't anybody built a Web business around reporting on trade shows and other business- and technology-related events? "We went to Comdex so you don't have to." People could provide an online show floor of exhibitors, complete with participant, journalist, and attendee comments on their wares and information. Folks could report on the break-out sessions and keynotes. Participants could build a collective context for the event and the content offered at the gathering.
Alan Reiter builds on Winer's argument. WiFi + blogs = Might as well be there yourself?
Tuesday, May 28, 2002
From the In Box: Comics Commotion II
Er... Ghost World? Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles? -- Joe Germuska
Good points, both. (And duh.) Not to pick nits or split hairs about the differences between alternative comics and independent comics, but I'd still contend that the early issues of TMNT were more independent than Dan Clowes' Eightball -- at least in terms of obscurity. I'd also argue that Mephisto and the Empty Box is much lesser known than either Eightball or TMNT. Does that make it more independent or alternative? Hmm. Nits and hairs.
Er... Ghost World? Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles? -- Joe Germuska
Good points, both. (And duh.) Not to pick nits or split hairs about the differences between alternative comics and independent comics, but I'd still contend that the early issues of TMNT were more independent than Dan Clowes' Eightball -- at least in terms of obscurity. I'd also argue that Mephisto and the Empty Box is much lesser known than either Eightball or TMNT. Does that make it more independent or alternative? Hmm. Nits and hairs.
North End Moment XV
While waiting in line for my lunch order at Mangia! Mangia!:
Customer 1: He couldn't even pronounce "polio." He'd say "polo." "Measles"? "Mezzles" or "Me-ah-sles."
Customer 2: Was he on the computer?
Customer 1: No. This was on the phone.
Customer 2: Maybe he needs to see it to say it.
Customer 1: He ain't getting no freaking job. He's lucky the word "diphtheria" wasn't on the test.
While waiting in line for my lunch order at Mangia! Mangia!:
Customer 1: He couldn't even pronounce "polio." He'd say "polo." "Measles"? "Mezzles" or "Me-ah-sles."
Customer 2: Was he on the computer?
Customer 1: No. This was on the phone.
Customer 2: Maybe he needs to see it to say it.
Customer 1: He ain't getting no freaking job. He's lucky the word "diphtheria" wasn't on the test.
Comics Commotion II
Chris Staros of Top Shelf Productions recently announced that the film rights to Jason Hall and Matt Kindt's comic Mephisto and the Empty Box has been optioned for feature film development. This might very well be the first movie inspired by an independent comic. Correct me if I'm wrong.
From the news release:
"Hollywood Producer Joe Singer (Dr. Dolittle, Dante's Peak) and entrepreneur Janet Jensen's new production company, Singer/Jensen Entertainment, has optioned the rights to Top Shelf Production's critically acclaimed comic book Mephisto and the Empty Box for feature film development.
"Written by Jason Hall and illustrated by Matt Kindt, Mephisto and the Empty Box is part of the creators' well-renowned Pistolwhip series of books (included in Time Magazine's List of Top 10 Comics of 2001). While the creators are excited their work may make it to the big-screen, they really hope that the Hollywood attention will help bring the comics themselves to a wider audience.
"The screenplay for Mephisto will be written by Michael Browning (Bad Company, Six Days, Seven Nights). The story involves a couple with a troubled marriage who attend a magic show. The woman volunteers for the disappearing act but the magician (Mephisto) dies in the middle of the trick. With the wife missing, the husband embarks on a metaphysical journey to bring her back. Alva Entertainment will executive produce."
Congratulations to all involved!
Chris Staros of Top Shelf Productions recently announced that the film rights to Jason Hall and Matt Kindt's comic Mephisto and the Empty Box has been optioned for feature film development. This might very well be the first movie inspired by an independent comic. Correct me if I'm wrong.
From the news release:
"Hollywood Producer Joe Singer (Dr. Dolittle, Dante's Peak) and entrepreneur Janet Jensen's new production company, Singer/Jensen Entertainment, has optioned the rights to Top Shelf Production's critically acclaimed comic book Mephisto and the Empty Box for feature film development.
"Written by Jason Hall and illustrated by Matt Kindt, Mephisto and the Empty Box is part of the creators' well-renowned Pistolwhip series of books (included in Time Magazine's List of Top 10 Comics of 2001). While the creators are excited their work may make it to the big-screen, they really hope that the Hollywood attention will help bring the comics themselves to a wider audience.
"The screenplay for Mephisto will be written by Michael Browning (Bad Company, Six Days, Seven Nights). The story involves a couple with a troubled marriage who attend a magic show. The woman volunteers for the disappearing act but the magician (Mephisto) dies in the middle of the trick. With the wife missing, the husband embarks on a metaphysical journey to bring her back. Alva Entertainment will executive produce."
Congratulations to all involved!
Join the Comics Club III
In a recent Ninth Art column, Patrick Meaney outlines how the Net and online comics communities can put the click in clique -- and might give the cold shoulder to comics readers who aren't online. But instead of focusing on the insular nature of Web-based fandom, Patrick opts to consider the economics associated with online discussions about comics.
If we're serious about attracting newcomers to comics, ghettoizing our word-of-mouth recommendations, conversations, and advertisements on the Web isn't going to do the trick. Publishers need to consider marketing their wares in traditional, mainstream media -- as well as in other comic books. Off the top of my head, here are some ideas for things folks in the industry could do:
Move Free Comic Book Day, if it's repeated, out of direct-sales specialty shops and into book stores, newsstands, and convenience stores that sell comics along with other printed media. The tie-in with the opening of Spider-Man was an excellent opportunity to give away comics -- and for local retailers to secure display space -- in movie theater lobbies. Did anyone actually do this?
Include comics readers' mailing addresses (or email addresses and URL's, natch) in letter columns. In the early days of comics fandom, people relied on one-to-one connections for their comics news and friendships. The Web allows us to pursue many-to-many connections and conversations, but let's do all we can in the comics themselves to foster connection and communication.
Are you a comics publisher that currently produces a television cartoon? Advertise your company and related comics as part of the program if you're able. You probably advertise the cartoon in your comics.
The same goes for movies. Is there any way comics publishers such as Marvel and DC -- and soon to come Top Shelf! -- can mention and market their comics as part of a film's production?
Pursue more local promotion of specific comics. Is there an upcoming event or special issue attached to a comic you publish? Where do the creators live? How can you play up a local promotional angle to garner local and regional media coverage? More widespread regional promotion will build toward nationwide awareness. We need to move beyond "Pow! Zap! Comics Aren't Just for Kids Any More" headlines.
In a recent Ninth Art column, Patrick Meaney outlines how the Net and online comics communities can put the click in clique -- and might give the cold shoulder to comics readers who aren't online. But instead of focusing on the insular nature of Web-based fandom, Patrick opts to consider the economics associated with online discussions about comics.
If we're serious about attracting newcomers to comics, ghettoizing our word-of-mouth recommendations, conversations, and advertisements on the Web isn't going to do the trick. Publishers need to consider marketing their wares in traditional, mainstream media -- as well as in other comic books. Off the top of my head, here are some ideas for things folks in the industry could do:
Host, Not Guest
This is slightly anticlimactic, but for a few months, it looked like the tables had turned. While I usually stay with friends and members of the Company of Friends when I travel, this week I was slated to serve as a host. I met Gonzalo Bedia Diaz, a 24 year old from Spain who's moving to Boston to work at the Eliot Hotel, online through Global Freeloaders, the "worldwide free accomodation network." GF is similar to the now-defunct Crash Network; members offer to host traveling members in exchange for being able to approach others as a guest as they travel.
This was going to be my first time hosting someone through a network like this, but I received an email from Gonzalo on Sunday indicating that he didn't need to stay with me tomorrow and Thursday night as we'd previously arranged. He'd been able to book a room somewhere for a month and didn't need my assistance in the interim. Gonzalo's email brought an odd feeling of relief -- I don't have to tidy up my cluttered apartment now -- as well as disappointment -- I was really looking forward to hosting someone through GF.
We're still planning on meeting once he's in the Boston area. If you travel frequently, you should check out GF. It might be useful.
This is slightly anticlimactic, but for a few months, it looked like the tables had turned. While I usually stay with friends and members of the Company of Friends when I travel, this week I was slated to serve as a host. I met Gonzalo Bedia Diaz, a 24 year old from Spain who's moving to Boston to work at the Eliot Hotel, online through Global Freeloaders, the "worldwide free accomodation network." GF is similar to the now-defunct Crash Network; members offer to host traveling members in exchange for being able to approach others as a guest as they travel.
This was going to be my first time hosting someone through a network like this, but I received an email from Gonzalo on Sunday indicating that he didn't need to stay with me tomorrow and Thursday night as we'd previously arranged. He'd been able to book a room somewhere for a month and didn't need my assistance in the interim. Gonzalo's email brought an odd feeling of relief -- I don't have to tidy up my cluttered apartment now -- as well as disappointment -- I was really looking forward to hosting someone through GF.
We're still planning on meeting once he's in the Boston area. If you travel frequently, you should check out GF. It might be useful.
Thursday, May 23, 2002
'Tis the Season to Be... AWOL VI
Yep. I'm going away again. Tomorrow morning I head to northern California for the wedding of two friends, Amy Middelburg and Roy King III. They met back in 1999 through the London Company of Friends group, and Saturday afternoon, they tie the knot. Not bad for a business-oriented network spawned by a magazine, eh? Stuff like this makes my job worth doing -- and makes me feel extremely proud of Fast Company's readers. Yay, Amy and Roy!
While I hope to update Media Diet while traveling, if I don't, that doesn't mean that Media Diet is dead (long live Media Diet!). It just means that it's resting. See you Tuesday after Memorial Day.
Yep. I'm going away again. Tomorrow morning I head to northern California for the wedding of two friends, Amy Middelburg and Roy King III. They met back in 1999 through the London Company of Friends group, and Saturday afternoon, they tie the knot. Not bad for a business-oriented network spawned by a magazine, eh? Stuff like this makes my job worth doing -- and makes me feel extremely proud of Fast Company's readers. Yay, Amy and Roy!
While I hope to update Media Diet while traveling, if I don't, that doesn't mean that Media Diet is dead (long live Media Diet!). It just means that it's resting. See you Tuesday after Memorial Day.
Thought for Food
A little comic strip I drew in mid-May has been published in Lunch Is Fun. I think it's pretty clear why I review comics instead of drawing them.
A little comic strip I drew in mid-May has been published in Lunch Is Fun. I think it's pretty clear why I review comics instead of drawing them.
From the In Box: Calling out Cabbies
Saw your Web page with cabby references. In the '70s there was a series in National Lampoon called "Bernie X" about a fictional cabby. Not sure if they are online. -- John Carvalho
I can't find any "Bernie X" pieces on the Web, but I did find a wonderful "unauthorized guide to the golden age" of the magazine produced by Mark Simonson. Similar to my Humor Me entries in Media Diet, Mark indexes issues published 1970-1974. Wonderful stuff!
Saw your Web page with cabby references. In the '70s there was a series in National Lampoon called "Bernie X" about a fictional cabby. Not sure if they are online. -- John Carvalho
I can't find any "Bernie X" pieces on the Web, but I did find a wonderful "unauthorized guide to the golden age" of the magazine produced by Mark Simonson. Similar to my Humor Me entries in Media Diet, Mark indexes issues published 1970-1974. Wonderful stuff!
From the In Box: Calling out Cabbies
Soon to be Seattlite and Media Dietician Andi has posted a story about a decidedly creepy cab ride in the discussion forum. Maybe it's too early to nip the forum in the bud? Share your cab calamities if you have any stories to tell.
Should I nix the discussion forum? Take the Media Diet poll.
Soon to be Seattlite and Media Dietician Andi has posted a story about a decidedly creepy cab ride in the discussion forum. Maybe it's too early to nip the forum in the bud? Share your cab calamities if you have any stories to tell.
Should I nix the discussion forum? Take the Media Diet poll.
Mention Me! X
Um, Weight Loss Zone has deemed Media Diet worthy of inclusion in their directory of diet resources. Quoth Jon, "I don't think she's put much thought into this."
Also, I received a nice email from Tim Bauer today:
Great blog, with always-interesting links. I've been a fan for a while. Thought I might finally write in to ask if you'd check out my blog. Political satire and current events parody from a former contributing editor of the acclaimed SuBBrilliant News site. It might be something your readers might be interested in. At the very least, it might be something you personally might be interested in.
Consider your blog checked, Tim. Thanks for the kind words!
Um, Weight Loss Zone has deemed Media Diet worthy of inclusion in their directory of diet resources. Quoth Jon, "I don't think she's put much thought into this."
Also, I received a nice email from Tim Bauer today:
Great blog, with always-interesting links. I've been a fan for a while. Thought I might finally write in to ask if you'd check out my blog. Political satire and current events parody from a former contributing editor of the acclaimed SuBBrilliant News site. It might be something your readers might be interested in. At the very least, it might be something you personally might be interested in.
Consider your blog checked, Tim. Thanks for the kind words!
From the In Box: Blogging About Blogging XX
I meant to comment on your post about the Peer-to-Peer Review Project. I too was not reviewed. Of course, I decided that I probably wouldn't have liked a review of my site because I'm so inconsistent with what I write about. Then again, I think most of the sites were reviewed glowingly. -- Jacob Wolfsheimer
I meant to comment on your post about the Peer-to-Peer Review Project. I too was not reviewed. Of course, I decided that I probably wouldn't have liked a review of my site because I'm so inconsistent with what I write about. Then again, I think most of the sites were reviewed glowingly. -- Jacob Wolfsheimer
Rock Shows of Note XIX
Is that the Roman numeral for 19? I hope so. If I keep this up, I'll have to become more well-versed in Roman numerals. (Steven Gibbs has developed a useful Roman numeral and date conversion page to which I'm sure to return.) In any event, I'm home now after 11 days (or XI, if you're keeping track of my progress) in New Mexico with my family -- our first family vacation in years. It was awesome -- select reports on what we did and where we went to come soon -- and it's slightly weird to be back: back in Boston, back with my friends, back at work. In fact, I'm a little hung-over. From the time away, but also from last night's Handstand Command anniversary show -- as well as the prospect of wading through the 3,000 emails waiting in my in box. Yikes! But first, the show.
Last night was the residency's wild-card show. Jef's been great in terms of organizing shows highlighting similar but slightly divergent musical groups, and last night was no exception. It may have even been the rule. First up, Cathy Cathodic, a Boston-based "femcee." Cathy's a wonderfully empowering hip-hop artist whose rhymes focused on relationships, self-esteem, and respect. Most of the pieces seemed to deal with gender differences and how to avoid -- or respond to -- being mistreated by men. A powerful set -- and welcome in one of Boston's best rock venues.
Next, Scrapple. It's been awhile since I've seen the gang play live, and it was well worth catching up with their brand of "popera": a self-described "cabaret of musical vignettes rolled out with props, costumes and such stuff." They performed most of my favorites, including "Light-Up Alien Pussy," which I mention primarily to see how it affects Media Diet's search-engine results. If you haven't heard -- or seen -- Scrapple, they're worth checking out. The only band I can think of that comes even close to what they do is the now-defunct Double Dong. (Double Dong's last show was May 17 -- RIP.)
Lastly, Naughty Shirley, the rock act involving Slamber of Pelvic Circus. To be totally truthful, I was a little in my cups at this point and sequestered behind the merch table, so I didn't pay that much attention, but, yes, they're a rock band -- and Naughty Shirley's music is quite different than Pelvic Circus' virulent queercore. I'll have to see them again before I can say much more about them. Apologies extended.
Teddy, the bartender at the Abbey, says that the Handstand Command residency has been the best Wednesday night series the bar has ever scheduled. Fingers crossed that the music collective will secure more dates there in the future. Yup, definitely a little hung-over. On to those 3,000 emails.
Incidentally, some photographs of the residency are now available. Make with the clicky click.
Is that the Roman numeral for 19? I hope so. If I keep this up, I'll have to become more well-versed in Roman numerals. (Steven Gibbs has developed a useful Roman numeral and date conversion page to which I'm sure to return.) In any event, I'm home now after 11 days (or XI, if you're keeping track of my progress) in New Mexico with my family -- our first family vacation in years. It was awesome -- select reports on what we did and where we went to come soon -- and it's slightly weird to be back: back in Boston, back with my friends, back at work. In fact, I'm a little hung-over. From the time away, but also from last night's Handstand Command anniversary show -- as well as the prospect of wading through the 3,000 emails waiting in my in box. Yikes! But first, the show.
Last night was the residency's wild-card show. Jef's been great in terms of organizing shows highlighting similar but slightly divergent musical groups, and last night was no exception. It may have even been the rule. First up, Cathy Cathodic, a Boston-based "femcee." Cathy's a wonderfully empowering hip-hop artist whose rhymes focused on relationships, self-esteem, and respect. Most of the pieces seemed to deal with gender differences and how to avoid -- or respond to -- being mistreated by men. A powerful set -- and welcome in one of Boston's best rock venues.
Next, Scrapple. It's been awhile since I've seen the gang play live, and it was well worth catching up with their brand of "popera": a self-described "cabaret of musical vignettes rolled out with props, costumes and such stuff." They performed most of my favorites, including "Light-Up Alien Pussy," which I mention primarily to see how it affects Media Diet's search-engine results. If you haven't heard -- or seen -- Scrapple, they're worth checking out. The only band I can think of that comes even close to what they do is the now-defunct Double Dong. (Double Dong's last show was May 17 -- RIP.)
Lastly, Naughty Shirley, the rock act involving Slamber of Pelvic Circus. To be totally truthful, I was a little in my cups at this point and sequestered behind the merch table, so I didn't pay that much attention, but, yes, they're a rock band -- and Naughty Shirley's music is quite different than Pelvic Circus' virulent queercore. I'll have to see them again before I can say much more about them. Apologies extended.
Teddy, the bartender at the Abbey, says that the Handstand Command residency has been the best Wednesday night series the bar has ever scheduled. Fingers crossed that the music collective will secure more dates there in the future. Yup, definitely a little hung-over. On to those 3,000 emails.
Incidentally, some photographs of the residency are now available. Make with the clicky click.
Friday, May 10, 2002
Rock Shows of Note XVIII
The day after I get back from New Mexico, the Anchormen have a show at the Upstairs Lounge with Choo Choo La Rouge and Tony Goddess, formerly of Papas Fritas. That's Thursday, May 23. Always rocking, never stopping. Hope to see you there!
The day after I get back from New Mexico, the Anchormen have a show at the Upstairs Lounge with Choo Choo La Rouge and Tony Goddess, formerly of Papas Fritas. That's Thursday, May 23. Always rocking, never stopping. Hope to see you there!
'Tis the Season to Be... AWOL V
Tomorrow morning I head to New Mexico for a much-needed vacation with my family. I'll be back in Boston on Wednesday, May 22, just in time for the Handstand Command anniversary show. While I hope to update Media Diet while traveling, if I don't, that doesn't mean that Media Diet is dead (long live Media Diet!). It just means that it's resting.
Tomorrow morning I head to New Mexico for a much-needed vacation with my family. I'll be back in Boston on Wednesday, May 22, just in time for the Handstand Command anniversary show. While I hope to update Media Diet while traveling, if I don't, that doesn't mean that Media Diet is dead (long live Media Diet!). It just means that it's resting.
Calling out Cabbies
Whenever I'm in a taxi, I have the tendency to engage the driver in a conversation for the duration of the ride. I'm not sure how it happens, and I'm not sure if this is something I actively pursue or encourage, but it happens a lot. All the time, in fact. And most of the time, talking to taxi drivers is fascinating. I've had two conversations with cabbies in the past week that I think are worth sharing.
The first conversation happened Wednesday night. I'd gotten back from San Diego at 6:30 that morning and headed straight to the office, thinking I'd work a while and then head home midday. I'd totally forgotten an online event I was scheduled to facilitate, so I ended up staying until 5:45 p.m. Then I called a cab so I didn't have to lug my suitcase home on the T. I'm not sure what prompted the driver, but for some reason he told me, "If you lead an unplanned life, you have to deal with the consequences." That's what got us talking. Turned out that the driver used to have a gambling problem -- frequent trips to Foxwoods and scratch tickets every day. Said he'd probably wasted away $200,000 over the course of his gambling career. "If only I had that money today," he said. A friend of his had once lost $47,000 over the course of three days. ("You could live for a couple of years on that money," I said.) He started to question his gambling habit -- his addiction ("That's exactly what it is," he said. "An addiction.") -- when his 13-year-old son asked him for a computer and he couldn't afford it. So he stopped gambling. Started taking classes to learn how he could improve his credit rating. Started driving a taxi to earn more money on the side. It's been three years since he stopped gambling. He's still driving the cab.
The second conversation took place last night when I caught a last-minute ride to Alex's house for dinner. Mike, my driver, was a talkative one. We kept driving past buildings he'd never seen before -- "When did they put that there?" -- as well as construction sites. Weird. Mike's been driving a taxi since the '60s -- in Somerville since the '70s. His wife is in the hospital with a urinary tract infection her doctors "should have caught the last time she was in the hospital," but she's scheduled to be released early next week. She goes to the hospital a lot and seems to have a lot of medical problems. "Some of the doctors think that she's one of those people who likes being taken care of in the hospital," Mike said. "Give me a break. She's in a wheelchair!" Because her primary care physician isn't always readily available, sometimes she doesn't receive timely care because the other doctors and medical care professionals doubt she's really ill, thinking she's a hypochondriac.
Then we started talking about books for some reason. "You know what radio show I'd want to be on when I publish my book?" Mike asked me. I didn't. "Forget Oprah. It's the Art Bell show. If you work during the day you probably don't listen to it because it's on at night, but that's the show." I'm not sure whether Mike is really working on a book, but he did say that he's working on a unified theory about everything, "which I'm constantly adapting," he said. Anyway, Mike says that the Art Bell show is the show to go on because book sales skyrocket after authors appear on it. Two examples:
A paranoid woman ("She was a total nut case.") who moves every two months so people can't track her down -- and stores her book in friends' garages -- appeared on the show. Her book hit No. 800 on the Amazon.com sales rankings.
A former private investigator who penned a tome on how to drop out of society ("He used to track people down for the FBI, so he wrote a book about what he did in reverse.") also appeared on the show. Then, according to Mike, his book hit No. 1 on the New York Times' best-seller list.
I have no idea whether that is true, but it got me thinking about books written by and about taxi drivers. There's Risa Mickenberg and Joanne Dugan's "Taxi Driver Wisdom." There's David Bradford's "Drive by Shootings: Photographs by a New York Taxi Driver." Ansara Ali's "Sacred Adventures of a Taxi Driver." C.E. Patterson's "Memoirs of a Taxi Driver." Mike even told me that a driver for Town Taxi in Boston has written a book about little-known history in the area. "Tourists kept asking him questions, and he was frustrated that he didn't know all the answers," Mike said. "So he started to do research and realized that a lot of the history he'd learned and stories he'd heard wasn't correct. Like Paul Revere's ride. Didn't happen."
What I want to know is whether that Town Taxi driver sells the book out of the back of his cab. He'd certainly have a captive audience.
Whenever I'm in a taxi, I have the tendency to engage the driver in a conversation for the duration of the ride. I'm not sure how it happens, and I'm not sure if this is something I actively pursue or encourage, but it happens a lot. All the time, in fact. And most of the time, talking to taxi drivers is fascinating. I've had two conversations with cabbies in the past week that I think are worth sharing.
The first conversation happened Wednesday night. I'd gotten back from San Diego at 6:30 that morning and headed straight to the office, thinking I'd work a while and then head home midday. I'd totally forgotten an online event I was scheduled to facilitate, so I ended up staying until 5:45 p.m. Then I called a cab so I didn't have to lug my suitcase home on the T. I'm not sure what prompted the driver, but for some reason he told me, "If you lead an unplanned life, you have to deal with the consequences." That's what got us talking. Turned out that the driver used to have a gambling problem -- frequent trips to Foxwoods and scratch tickets every day. Said he'd probably wasted away $200,000 over the course of his gambling career. "If only I had that money today," he said. A friend of his had once lost $47,000 over the course of three days. ("You could live for a couple of years on that money," I said.) He started to question his gambling habit -- his addiction ("That's exactly what it is," he said. "An addiction.") -- when his 13-year-old son asked him for a computer and he couldn't afford it. So he stopped gambling. Started taking classes to learn how he could improve his credit rating. Started driving a taxi to earn more money on the side. It's been three years since he stopped gambling. He's still driving the cab.
The second conversation took place last night when I caught a last-minute ride to Alex's house for dinner. Mike, my driver, was a talkative one. We kept driving past buildings he'd never seen before -- "When did they put that there?" -- as well as construction sites. Weird. Mike's been driving a taxi since the '60s -- in Somerville since the '70s. His wife is in the hospital with a urinary tract infection her doctors "should have caught the last time she was in the hospital," but she's scheduled to be released early next week. She goes to the hospital a lot and seems to have a lot of medical problems. "Some of the doctors think that she's one of those people who likes being taken care of in the hospital," Mike said. "Give me a break. She's in a wheelchair!" Because her primary care physician isn't always readily available, sometimes she doesn't receive timely care because the other doctors and medical care professionals doubt she's really ill, thinking she's a hypochondriac.
Then we started talking about books for some reason. "You know what radio show I'd want to be on when I publish my book?" Mike asked me. I didn't. "Forget Oprah. It's the Art Bell show. If you work during the day you probably don't listen to it because it's on at night, but that's the show." I'm not sure whether Mike is really working on a book, but he did say that he's working on a unified theory about everything, "which I'm constantly adapting," he said. Anyway, Mike says that the Art Bell show is the show to go on because book sales skyrocket after authors appear on it. Two examples:
I have no idea whether that is true, but it got me thinking about books written by and about taxi drivers. There's Risa Mickenberg and Joanne Dugan's "Taxi Driver Wisdom." There's David Bradford's "Drive by Shootings: Photographs by a New York Taxi Driver." Ansara Ali's "Sacred Adventures of a Taxi Driver." C.E. Patterson's "Memoirs of a Taxi Driver." Mike even told me that a driver for Town Taxi in Boston has written a book about little-known history in the area. "Tourists kept asking him questions, and he was frustrated that he didn't know all the answers," Mike said. "So he started to do research and realized that a lot of the history he'd learned and stories he'd heard wasn't correct. Like Paul Revere's ride. Didn't happen."
What I want to know is whether that Town Taxi driver sells the book out of the back of his cab. He'd certainly have a captive audience.
From the In Box: Comics and Correspondence
Thanks for your glowing review of Letter Show on Media Diet. You summed it up perfectly, with just the proper tone of "You better go see it," that I wouldn't have added myself. -- Leslie Kleinberg
I just wanted to say thanks for the excellent review of Letter Show that you wrote on your Web site. I actually didn't even notice or remember that envelope from '95 with the first mention of the whole show idea, so I'm glad you pointed it out! I went back and checked it out. -- Dan Moynihan
Thanks for your glowing review of Letter Show on Media Diet. You summed it up perfectly, with just the proper tone of "You better go see it," that I wouldn't have added myself. -- Leslie Kleinberg
I just wanted to say thanks for the excellent review of Letter Show that you wrote on your Web site. I actually didn't even notice or remember that envelope from '95 with the first mention of the whole show idea, so I'm glad you pointed it out! I went back and checked it out. -- Dan Moynihan
Thursday, May 09, 2002
Blogging About Blogging XX
It's like the Superbowl! And that's rather appropriate given that the Peer-to-Peer Review Project seems to have finally run its course. You can now access the blog reviews -- which might be slightly challenging because the scripts seem somewhat buggy, attributing blogs and reviews to the wrong people. But everything's there.
What doesn't seem to be there, however, is a review of Media Diet. Maybe I can't find it because the scripts are weird, but, sigh. What if nobody reviewed Media Diet? I hope that whomever was slated to review Media Diet didn't get reviewed either, although that would probably create a vicious circle in which no sites were reviewed at all. If a tree falls and all that. Sigh. Darn free-rider problem! Oh, well, I'll get over it -- and myself. Sigh.
It's like the Superbowl! And that's rather appropriate given that the Peer-to-Peer Review Project seems to have finally run its course. You can now access the blog reviews -- which might be slightly challenging because the scripts seem somewhat buggy, attributing blogs and reviews to the wrong people. But everything's there.
What doesn't seem to be there, however, is a review of Media Diet. Maybe I can't find it because the scripts are weird, but, sigh. What if nobody reviewed Media Diet? I hope that whomever was slated to review Media Diet didn't get reviewed either, although that would probably create a vicious circle in which no sites were reviewed at all. If a tree falls and all that. Sigh. Darn free-rider problem! Oh, well, I'll get over it -- and myself. Sigh.
Blogging About Blogging XIX
So I'm thinking about ditching the discussion forum associated with Media Diet. My plan is to add a commenting tool such as Yaccs so folks can discuss specific Media Diet entries instead of broader topics -- and then I'll move over some of the forum-specific content that's worthy of adding to Media Diet. What do you think? Sound like a good idea? Is there a better comment tool than Yaccs? Let me know.
So I'm thinking about ditching the discussion forum associated with Media Diet. My plan is to add a commenting tool such as Yaccs so folks can discuss specific Media Diet entries instead of broader topics -- and then I'll move over some of the forum-specific content that's worthy of adding to Media Diet. What do you think? Sound like a good idea? Is there a better comment tool than Yaccs? Let me know.
The Restaurant I Ate at Last Night VII
Hi-Fi Pizza
After all of the bands were done and everything was loaded out, Jef gave me a lift home. And I was staaarving. All I had eaten yesterday was some of the small, snacky food they give you on planes, and I was feeling pretty empty. So before going home, I walked over to Hi-Fi Pizza to see if it was still open. It was 1:30 a.m., and it was! The place was packed. Sociologically, it was pretty interesting. The late-night crowd mostly comprised a bunch of indie-rock kids -- all sitting on one side of the joint -- and a scattering of other people, who mostly kept to the other side. I ordered two slices and sat down in my suit, scarfing down the food like it was nothing. Hi-Fi doesn't make the best pizza, but it does make good pizza. Cheesy, greasy. Good. And it's not far from my house at all. Before I got up to leave, I noticed that everyone was kind of checking me out. I guess I must have stuck out because I was wearing a suit and carrying a backpack -- no one else in the place was wearing a suit -- and I imagine that I must have looked like some sort of hungry night-owl Mormon. That's me: Elder Row. It was so good to eat. It was also good to sleep. A good ending to a good day.
Hi-Fi Pizza
After all of the bands were done and everything was loaded out, Jef gave me a lift home. And I was staaarving. All I had eaten yesterday was some of the small, snacky food they give you on planes, and I was feeling pretty empty. So before going home, I walked over to Hi-Fi Pizza to see if it was still open. It was 1:30 a.m., and it was! The place was packed. Sociologically, it was pretty interesting. The late-night crowd mostly comprised a bunch of indie-rock kids -- all sitting on one side of the joint -- and a scattering of other people, who mostly kept to the other side. I ordered two slices and sat down in my suit, scarfing down the food like it was nothing. Hi-Fi doesn't make the best pizza, but it does make good pizza. Cheesy, greasy. Good. And it's not far from my house at all. Before I got up to leave, I noticed that everyone was kind of checking me out. I guess I must have stuck out because I was wearing a suit and carrying a backpack -- no one else in the place was wearing a suit -- and I imagine that I must have looked like some sort of hungry night-owl Mormon. That's me: Elder Row. It was so good to eat. It was also good to sleep. A good ending to a good day.
Rock Shows of Note XVII
Another fine installment in the Handstand Command anniversary residency at the Abbey last night. Thanks to everyone who came -- especially all the people we didn't know, the people who danced and cheered us on, and the people who stuck around to see who the super-secret special guest was.
We had to rejigger the lineup a little because the super-secret special guest had to work last night and couldn't get to the Abbey in time for their scheduled slot. But it all worked out well. Asian Babe Alert, a wonderful garagey duo comprising Tom from the Anchormen and Leslie, celebrated Asian-American and Asian-Pacific-American History months, as well as Mother's Day with a raucous set full of aggressive guitar, Tom's charmingly hoarse singing, and Leslie's unbridled enthusiasm slamming on the drums and singing. They surprised me with a solid cover of the Anchormen song "Moon Face."
Next up, the Anchormen. Oh, did we have fun. In our announcement for the show, we said that we'd spend 30 minutes insulting each other, and we basically did. Chris wasn't as acerbic as he normally is, but he took a lot of pokes at me (like when I wanted to play a song we'd already played again because I like it so much), and the rest of us ganged up on Tom at one point. I think we played a more assertive set than we usually do, erring on the side of our rockier numbers and playing only one of what Emily calls our "girl songs." My glasses kept flying off of my face, people were bopping along up in front, and one girl was even kind of singing along or cheering. Awesome to see so many people we don't know in the audience. Thanks again to everyone who came, especially the girl who said hello right after the set and the guy who'd just moved here and was into socialism and anarchism. The audience rocked.
I'd never heard the Count Me Outs before, but I was familiar with Hilken because of her work with Punk Rock Aerobics. They're fun and garagey, and they wear home and away T-shirts for their shows. The home shirt, which is reserved for Boston-area shows, sports dark blue (or black) sleeves, and the away shirts have orange sleeves. I particularly appreciated Mark's singing and Hilken's guitar playing and hair flipping. Fun!
Last up, the super-special secret guest: Mr. Airplane Man, which we couldn't promote because they're playing tonight as part of the WBCN Rumble. I'd also never heard them play live before other than one of their street busking performances on Harvard or Central square. And you know what? I wasn't that psyched about their set. I like the general idea, two women playing energetic, authentic blues rock, but I didn't really get into them last night. Maybe they were saving themselves for the stage tonight. Maybe I was finally fading, given that I'd only slept a little bit flying back on the red eye from San Diego.
Our friend Roland Ouellette was there shooting photos, so perhaps some images will be available in the near future. Happy birthday, Handstand Command. Happy birthday to you.
Meanwhile, across town, our friends' band Spoilsport played at the Midway in JP. "We had a very sparse crowd, but we were told the sound/mix was the best we ever had," Craig reports. "We had fun, so I guess that's the important thing."
Indeed. Fun is an important thing.
Another fine installment in the Handstand Command anniversary residency at the Abbey last night. Thanks to everyone who came -- especially all the people we didn't know, the people who danced and cheered us on, and the people who stuck around to see who the super-secret special guest was.
We had to rejigger the lineup a little because the super-secret special guest had to work last night and couldn't get to the Abbey in time for their scheduled slot. But it all worked out well. Asian Babe Alert, a wonderful garagey duo comprising Tom from the Anchormen and Leslie, celebrated Asian-American and Asian-Pacific-American History months, as well as Mother's Day with a raucous set full of aggressive guitar, Tom's charmingly hoarse singing, and Leslie's unbridled enthusiasm slamming on the drums and singing. They surprised me with a solid cover of the Anchormen song "Moon Face."
Next up, the Anchormen. Oh, did we have fun. In our announcement for the show, we said that we'd spend 30 minutes insulting each other, and we basically did. Chris wasn't as acerbic as he normally is, but he took a lot of pokes at me (like when I wanted to play a song we'd already played again because I like it so much), and the rest of us ganged up on Tom at one point. I think we played a more assertive set than we usually do, erring on the side of our rockier numbers and playing only one of what Emily calls our "girl songs." My glasses kept flying off of my face, people were bopping along up in front, and one girl was even kind of singing along or cheering. Awesome to see so many people we don't know in the audience. Thanks again to everyone who came, especially the girl who said hello right after the set and the guy who'd just moved here and was into socialism and anarchism. The audience rocked.
I'd never heard the Count Me Outs before, but I was familiar with Hilken because of her work with Punk Rock Aerobics. They're fun and garagey, and they wear home and away T-shirts for their shows. The home shirt, which is reserved for Boston-area shows, sports dark blue (or black) sleeves, and the away shirts have orange sleeves. I particularly appreciated Mark's singing and Hilken's guitar playing and hair flipping. Fun!
Last up, the super-special secret guest: Mr. Airplane Man, which we couldn't promote because they're playing tonight as part of the WBCN Rumble. I'd also never heard them play live before other than one of their street busking performances on Harvard or Central square. And you know what? I wasn't that psyched about their set. I like the general idea, two women playing energetic, authentic blues rock, but I didn't really get into them last night. Maybe they were saving themselves for the stage tonight. Maybe I was finally fading, given that I'd only slept a little bit flying back on the red eye from San Diego.
Our friend Roland Ouellette was there shooting photos, so perhaps some images will be available in the near future. Happy birthday, Handstand Command. Happy birthday to you.
Meanwhile, across town, our friends' band Spoilsport played at the Midway in JP. "We had a very sparse crowd, but we were told the sound/mix was the best we ever had," Craig reports. "We had fun, so I guess that's the important thing."
Indeed. Fun is an important thing.
From the In Box: It's a Small World
I looked at your Web site today and noticed that my name was on it. It was a funny bit, and I was glad to see that you didn't call me a stalker, which is a nice change of pace. Those restraining orders become costly. Good thing I get a bulk discount. -- Tammy Reasoner
I looked at your Web site today and noticed that my name was on it. It was a funny bit, and I was glad to see that you didn't call me a stalker, which is a nice change of pace. Those restraining orders become costly. Good thing I get a bulk discount. -- Tammy Reasoner
Wednesday, May 08, 2002
Rules for Fools VI
Rule No. 8: The key to your apartment is not a fine substitute for a corkscrew.
Rule No. 9: Thou shalt not covet your co-worker's strawberries.
Rule No. 8: The key to your apartment is not a fine substitute for a corkscrew.
Rule No. 9: Thou shalt not covet your co-worker's strawberries.
Mention Me! IX
Halley's at it again, suggesting that I'm going to perform in a band while at BlogCon this August. This BlogCon thing frightens me more every day. Huh.
Halley's at it again, suggesting that I'm going to perform in a band while at BlogCon this August. This BlogCon thing frightens me more every day. Huh.
The Restaurant I Ate at Last Night VI
Friday: Bombay Club
Let's go back in time to before I left for RealTime in San Diego. After Leslie and Dan's Letter Show reception, Alex and I caught the bus to the Bombay Club on Harvard Square for dinner. It's one of my favorite Indian restaurants in the area, with a wonderful view of the small park by Grendel's Den and the Marketplace Theater -- and, of course, wonderful food. We shared a vegetarian thali and a chicken dish -- the most tender chicken I've ever eaten -- as well as some garlic naan. Yummy on my tummy. You should go there.
Friday: Bombay Club
Let's go back in time to before I left for RealTime in San Diego. After Leslie and Dan's Letter Show reception, Alex and I caught the bus to the Bombay Club on Harvard Square for dinner. It's one of my favorite Indian restaurants in the area, with a wonderful view of the small park by Grendel's Den and the Marketplace Theater -- and, of course, wonderful food. We shared a vegetarian thali and a chicken dish -- the most tender chicken I've ever eaten -- as well as some garlic naan. Yummy on my tummy. You should go there.
Comics and Correspondence
Last Friday before sharing time and table with Alex -- and packing to go to RealTime, I took in the opening reception for Leslie Kleinberg and Dan Moynihan's Letter Show installation at MassArt's Tower Gallery. The show features about 220 envelopes and postcards that Leslie and Dan exchanged through the mail between 1991 and 2002. It's a wonderful exhibit -- multiple rows of envelopes clipped to strands of wire running across the gallery space -- and lots of solid examples of mail art, illustration, comics, and artist's stamps.
Leslie and Dan met in 1991 through a pen-pal ad placed in the Cure fanzine, Other Voices. They later met face to face while they were both studying in Providence, but their correspondence started sight unseen -- and represents a wide-ranging creative exchange over the course of more than 10 years and straying coast to coast several times. While many of the envelopes are interesting pieces of art in and of themselves, the backs of the envelopes are even more interesting, featuring ephemeral marginalia such as song quotes, cartoons, and last-minute questions or ideas. In fact, Leslie and Dan first had the idea for this exhibit in 1995. The envelope sporting that brief note -- suggesting that they exhibit the four years of envelopes and correspondence to date -- is included in the installation.
During the reception, Leslie and Dan even played some of the mix tapes that they have exchanged since 1991, adding an interesting musical accompaniment to the browsing and conversations -- and again highlighting the value of trading networks, zine friends, and correspondence. Brilliant. The exhibit runs through May 10, so you can still catch it. I suggest you do.
Last Friday before sharing time and table with Alex -- and packing to go to RealTime, I took in the opening reception for Leslie Kleinberg and Dan Moynihan's Letter Show installation at MassArt's Tower Gallery. The show features about 220 envelopes and postcards that Leslie and Dan exchanged through the mail between 1991 and 2002. It's a wonderful exhibit -- multiple rows of envelopes clipped to strands of wire running across the gallery space -- and lots of solid examples of mail art, illustration, comics, and artist's stamps.
Leslie and Dan met in 1991 through a pen-pal ad placed in the Cure fanzine, Other Voices. They later met face to face while they were both studying in Providence, but their correspondence started sight unseen -- and represents a wide-ranging creative exchange over the course of more than 10 years and straying coast to coast several times. While many of the envelopes are interesting pieces of art in and of themselves, the backs of the envelopes are even more interesting, featuring ephemeral marginalia such as song quotes, cartoons, and last-minute questions or ideas. In fact, Leslie and Dan first had the idea for this exhibit in 1995. The envelope sporting that brief note -- suggesting that they exhibit the four years of envelopes and correspondence to date -- is included in the installation.
During the reception, Leslie and Dan even played some of the mix tapes that they have exchanged since 1991, adding an interesting musical accompaniment to the browsing and conversations -- and again highlighting the value of trading networks, zine friends, and correspondence. Brilliant. The exhibit runs through May 10, so you can still catch it. I suggest you do.
Other People's Reading Piles IV
In his new book, "Love Is the Killer App," Tim Sanders includes an appendix of what he considers to be the Ten Must-Read Books for Lovecats. It's a good mix of titles, but Tim also mentions and cites -- and thereby recommends -- 28 other books over the course of the read. They didn't make the appendix, but they make Media Diet. Here are the books that didn't make Tim's top-10 cut, in the order in which they were mentioned:
Milton Mayeroff, "On Caring"
Harry Beckwith, "The Invisible Touch: The Four Keys to Modern Marketing"
Kevin Kelly, "New Rules for the New Economy: 10 Radical Strategies for a Connected World"
Larry Downes and Chunka Mui, "Unleashing the Killer App: Digital Strategies for Market Dominance"
John Hagel and Arthur Armstrong, "Net Gain: Expanding Markets Through Virtual Communities"
Adam Brandenburger, Barry Nalebuff, and Ada Brandenburger, "Co-Opetition"
John McKean, "Information Masters: Secrets of the Customer Race"
Duane Knapp and Christopher Hart, "The Brand Mindset: Five Essential Strategies for Building Brand Advantage Throughout Your Company"
Seth Godin, "Permission Marketing: Turning Strangers Into Friends, and Friends into Customers"
Patricia Seybold, "Customers.com: How to Create A Profitable Business Strategy for the Internet & Beyond"
Sandra Vandermerwe, "Customer Capitalism: The New Business Model of Increasing Returns in New Market Spaces"
Phil Carpenter, "eBrands: Building an Internet Business at Breakneck Speed"
Emanuel Rosen, "The Anatomy of Buzz: How to Create Word-of-Mouth Marketing"
Kevin Davis and Kenneth Blanchard, "Getting into Your Customer's Head: The Eight Roles of Customer-Focused Selling"
Abraham Maslow, "Toward a Psychology of Being"
Sergio Zyman and Scott Miller, "Building Brandwidth: Closing the Sale Online"
Lowell Bryan, Jeremy Oppenheim, Wilhelm Rall, Jane Fraser, "Race for the World: Strategies to Build a Great Global Firm"
Spencer Johnson, "Who Moved My Cheese?"
Dale Carnegie, "How to Win Friends and Influence People"
Jim Collins, "Built to Last: Successful Habits of Visionary Companies"
Paco Underhill, "Why People Buy"
Ray Kurzweil, "The Age of Spiritual Machines: When Computers Exceed Human Intelligence"
Gail Evans, "Play Like a Man, Win Like a Woman: What Men Know About Success That Women Need to Learn"
Jack Trout, "Differentiate or Die: Survival in Our Era of Killer Competition"
Adrian Slywotzky, "Profit Zone: How Strategic Business Design Will Lead You to Tomorrow's Profits"
Mackenzie Kyle, "Making It Happen: A Non-Technical Guide to Project Management"
Stanley Marcus, "Minding the Store: A Memoir"
Philip Kotler, "Kotler on Marketing: How to Create, Win, and Dominate Markets"
Most of the books listed should be relatively easy to find via the Harvard Book Store and Powell's Books online ordering services.
In his new book, "Love Is the Killer App," Tim Sanders includes an appendix of what he considers to be the Ten Must-Read Books for Lovecats. It's a good mix of titles, but Tim also mentions and cites -- and thereby recommends -- 28 other books over the course of the read. They didn't make the appendix, but they make Media Diet. Here are the books that didn't make Tim's top-10 cut, in the order in which they were mentioned:
Most of the books listed should be relatively easy to find via the Harvard Book Store and Powell's Books online ordering services.
Rock Shows of Note XVI
Tonight is the second night of the Handstand Command anniversary residency at the Abbey.
Kicking off at 9 p.m., we've got a stellar lineup, if I do say so myself: Asian Babe Alert, a super-secret special guest, the Anchormen, and the Count Me Outs. Hope to see you there! I'll be a little jet lagged, but, hey, always rocking, never stopping.
Tonight is the second night of the Handstand Command anniversary residency at the Abbey.
Kicking off at 9 p.m., we've got a stellar lineup, if I do say so myself: Asian Babe Alert, a super-secret special guest, the Anchormen, and the Count Me Outs. Hope to see you there! I'll be a little jet lagged, but, hey, always rocking, never stopping.
Monday, May 06, 2002
It's a Small World
Yesterday at 9:30 p.m., I received a phone call while I was in my hotel room. Turns out that while I was at RealTime, staying at the Del Coronado in San Diego, a high-school friend of mine, Tammy Reasoner, who works for Allen Press Inc. in Kansas, was staying at a Hyatt across town while exhibiting at a conference organized by the Council of Science Editors.
I haven't seen Tammy since an August 2001 reunion of Fort Atkinson High School alumni, and we don't touch base with each other that often even though she's probably one of the people I've talked to more often since graduating from high school.
Anyhoo, some colleagues of Tammy's visited the Coronado during their conference because it's supposedly haunted -- and when they returned to the Hyatt, Tammy made the connection between their visit, the signs they saw for RealTime and Fast Company, and me... and called the hotel on the off chance that I was in fact here. I was. So we met for lunch today. And it was fun. We caught up on post-reunion gossip and life changes, discussed the differences between our two conferences (and, ahem, hotels), and enjoyed the San Diego sun.
Just goes to show: The best way to make your world smaller is to make your world bigger. The more people you know around the world -- regardless of how often you communicate or collaborate with them -- the better the chances that you'll encounter people you know randomly. That's pretty rad.
Yesterday at 9:30 p.m., I received a phone call while I was in my hotel room. Turns out that while I was at RealTime, staying at the Del Coronado in San Diego, a high-school friend of mine, Tammy Reasoner, who works for Allen Press Inc. in Kansas, was staying at a Hyatt across town while exhibiting at a conference organized by the Council of Science Editors.
I haven't seen Tammy since an August 2001 reunion of Fort Atkinson High School alumni, and we don't touch base with each other that often even though she's probably one of the people I've talked to more often since graduating from high school.
Anyhoo, some colleagues of Tammy's visited the Coronado during their conference because it's supposedly haunted -- and when they returned to the Hyatt, Tammy made the connection between their visit, the signs they saw for RealTime and Fast Company, and me... and called the hotel on the off chance that I was in fact here. I was. So we met for lunch today. And it was fun. We caught up on post-reunion gossip and life changes, discussed the differences between our two conferences (and, ahem, hotels), and enjoyed the San Diego sun.
Just goes to show: The best way to make your world smaller is to make your world bigger. The more people you know around the world -- regardless of how often you communicate or collaborate with them -- the better the chances that you'll encounter people you know randomly. That's pretty rad.
Sunday, May 05, 2002
The Movie I Watched Last Night XIX
Saturday: Not Another Teen Movie
After arriving in San Diego and getting settled at the hotel, I had some open time, so I spent some time reading on the deck in the sun -- and then almost-napping while watching this extremely silly but well-done pastiche of teen-movie cliches on pay-per-view. The movie's original working title, Ten Things I Hate About Clueless Road Trips When I Can't Hardly Wait to Be Kissed, gives viewers some idea of the screenplay's source material, but there are some curveballs in there -- such as the "American Beauty" references (I wouldn't really peg it as a teen movie) and the Molly Ringwald cameo at the very end. There's also a wonderful Breakfast Club scene spoof -- almost verbatim. All in all, while I occasionally enjoy teen movies, I particularly enjoyed this extremely goofy self-conscious spoof. All of your favorite teen movie character archetypes are here. All of the run-of-the-mill plot elements are trucked out. And it's all done with a solid sense of harmless fun. Worth seeing solely for its meta-movie nature.
Saturday: Not Another Teen Movie
After arriving in San Diego and getting settled at the hotel, I had some open time, so I spent some time reading on the deck in the sun -- and then almost-napping while watching this extremely silly but well-done pastiche of teen-movie cliches on pay-per-view. The movie's original working title, Ten Things I Hate About Clueless Road Trips When I Can't Hardly Wait to Be Kissed, gives viewers some idea of the screenplay's source material, but there are some curveballs in there -- such as the "American Beauty" references (I wouldn't really peg it as a teen movie) and the Molly Ringwald cameo at the very end. There's also a wonderful Breakfast Club scene spoof -- almost verbatim. All in all, while I occasionally enjoy teen movies, I particularly enjoyed this extremely goofy self-conscious spoof. All of your favorite teen movie character archetypes are here. All of the run-of-the-mill plot elements are trucked out. And it's all done with a solid sense of harmless fun. Worth seeing solely for its meta-movie nature.
The Restaurant I Ate at Last Night V
Cafe Sevilla
Members of the San Diego Company of Friends, Tim Sanders, and about 15 other CoF coordinators and members from around the country joined me for dinner last night in the basement tapas bar of this wonderful restaurant in the Gaslamp District. Spread out over two long tables next to the performance area -- which was livened up by several talented flamenco musicians and dancers -- we shared several courses of tapas and paella, as well as a couple of pitchers of sangria. The food was tasty, the music was energetic and authentic, and the conversation was interesting. I think the Sevilla is probably better suited to smaller, more intimate dining situations -- they were hard pressed to accomodate 20-plus people, and I can see it being quite cozy and romantic -- but I'd recommend it for the music and dancing alone. Supposedly, the place turns into a disco after hours. Just as we were leaving, they started to clear the tables away to make a dance floor. We didn't stick around.
Cafe Sevilla
Members of the San Diego Company of Friends, Tim Sanders, and about 15 other CoF coordinators and members from around the country joined me for dinner last night in the basement tapas bar of this wonderful restaurant in the Gaslamp District. Spread out over two long tables next to the performance area -- which was livened up by several talented flamenco musicians and dancers -- we shared several courses of tapas and paella, as well as a couple of pitchers of sangria. The food was tasty, the music was energetic and authentic, and the conversation was interesting. I think the Sevilla is probably better suited to smaller, more intimate dining situations -- they were hard pressed to accomodate 20-plus people, and I can see it being quite cozy and romantic -- but I'd recommend it for the music and dancing alone. Supposedly, the place turns into a disco after hours. Just as we were leaving, they started to clear the tables away to make a dance floor. We didn't stick around.
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